RATIO ET FIDES
A Preliminary Intro-duction to Philosophy for Theology
Robert E. Wood
foreword by Jude P. Dougherty
RATIO ET FIDES
A Preliminary Intro-duction to Philosophy for Theology
Copyright © 2018 Robert E. Wood. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Pickwick Publications
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199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
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paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-1957-1
hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-4593-7
ebook isbn: 978-1-4982-4592-0
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Names: Wood, Robert E., 1934–, author. | Dougherty, Jude P., 1930–, foreword.
Title: Ratio et fides : a preliminary intro-duction to philosophy for theology / Robert E. Wood ; foreword by Jude P. Dougherty.
Description: Eugene, OR : Pickwick Publications, 2018 | Includes bibliographical references and index(es).
Identifiers: isbn 978-1-5326-1957-1 (paperback) | isbn 978-1-4982-4593-7 (hardcover) | isbn 978-1-4982-4592-0 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Philosophy—History. | Philosophy, European. | Philosophy and religion. | Religion.
Classification: b72 .w66 2018 (print) | b72 .w66 (ebook)
The chapter on Hegel is reprinted with permission from the Ohio State University Press.
Manufactured in the U.S.A. 06/07/18
To my seminary students, past, present, and to come
FOREWORD
John Henry Newman, in a letter to his friend John Delgarins (dated October 1846), recounts a conversation he had with a Jesuit priest (whose name is not disclosed) at the Collegio di Propaganda. Newman asked the Jesuit about the status of Greek studies at the college, specifically whether the students read Aristotle. The Jesuit tells Newman that neither Aristotle nor St. Thomas is in favor in Rome, or for that matter in Italy. “I asked him,” writes Newman, “what Philosophy they did adopt?” The Jesuit said. “None, odds and ends, whatever seems best, like St. Clement’s Stromata. They have no Philosophy, facts are the great things, and nothing else, exegesis but not doctrine.” He went on to say that many Jesuits privately were very sorry for this, but no one dared oppose the fashion.
That conversation took place one year after Newman had been received into the Catholic Church. In the same year we find Archbishop Gioacchino Pecci in Rome, and that may account for Newman’s remark, “There is a latent power in Rome which would put a stop to the evil.” The Jesuit may have misunderstood the remark for he shrugged his shoulders and said, “The Pope can do nothing if the people do not obey him.” Decades latter, Pecci would become Leo XIII. Within a year after being elected in 1878, Leo had named Newman a cardinal and the same year published his encyclical Aeterni Patris, promoting the study of St. Thomas. The encyclical endorsed a fledgling Thomistic movement and was to exercise considerable influence on Catholic higher education through most of the twentieth century. Both Newman and Leo recognized that the effectiveness of the Church, supernatural aids apart, depended on an enlightened and superior clergy, and both devoted considerable effort to the education of future priests.
Newman, for his part, was steeped in the Fathers of the Church, both Greek and Latin, and he knew the role that classical philosophy had played in their understanding of the Gospels. He wanted as much for the clergy of his day, even before he entered the Church. Leo, no less than Newman, venerated the Fathers whose assimilation of pagan philosophy he found “prepared and smoothed the way to the faith.” But Leo was confronted with the agnosticism and materialism that followed the Enlightenment repudiation of classical philosophy. Recognizing that philosophy can only be fought by philosophy, he turned to the doctors of the Middle Ages for assistance, and in the encyclical Aeterni Patris, wrote, “The Faith can expect no more reliable assistance than it has already received from St. Thomas.” Aeterni Patris, subsequently endorsed by Pius X in his motu proprio Doctoris Angelici, and by Pius XI in his encyclical Studiorum Ducem, stimulated an interest in classical and medieval philosophy and, in fact, produced a scholastic revival that enlisted scholars of the rank of Gilson, Mercier, Noel, Maritain, Pegis, Fabro, Garrigou-Lagrange, DeKoninck, Van Steenberghen, and Yves Simon, to name only a few. Thomas became the Doctor Communis of North American seminaries and colleges alike. “Midwestern Thomism” became a euphemism for programs of study that could be found in Toronto, Milwaukee, South Bend, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and points south. Not only Thomas but Bonaventure and Scotus were given a place in the curriculum of most Catholic institutions of higher learning. For many, to study Thomas also entailed some acquaintance with the Arab philosophers Avicenna and Averroes.
Benedict XVI, following the lead of his predecessors, has similarly stressed the importance of classical learning for an understanding of the Apostolic Fathers, who represent the faith as received in the first and second generation after the death of the apostles. The Fathers, as he presents them in his book, simply entitled The Fathers, are a lively bunch of intellectuals as they grapple with the truths presented in the “Memories of the Apostles,” as the Gospels were first called. To Benedict, it is clear that Athens prepared the way for the intellectual reception of the teachings of Christ. As the story unfolds in Benedict’s telling, the names flow by: Ignatius of Antioch, Justin, Philosopher and Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, Eusebius, Athanasius, Cyril, Basil, the two Gregories, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine. Their extant writings are of major importance not only for the history of the Church but for an understanding of Western culture. Many of those writings have been amazingly preserved. The “Fathers of the Church” series, published in English translation by the Catholic University of America Press, numbers 117 volumes. Apart from the two great works of Augustine that have entered the Western literary canon, The Confessions and The City of God, we have more than three hundred letters of Augustine and almost six hundred of his homilies that through the centuries have served as models for other bishops and priests.
It is easy to detect in Benedict a great love for the Bishop of Hippo. The Holy Father speaks of his personal devotion and gratitude for “the role he has played in my life as a theologian, priest and pastor.” One can surmise that Benedict himself is following the example of Augustine. At one point in his career, Augustine informed his colleague, Bishop Evadius, of his decision to suspend his dictation of his books on De Trinitate “because they are too demanding and I think few can understand them; it is therefore urgent to have more texts which I hope will be useful to the many.” Since the beginning of his pontificate, Benedict has published, one may say, delightful books accessible to the layman, on the Fathers, on Jesus of Nazareth, and on the Doctors of the Church, with more to come.
That brings me to the merits of the present volume by Robert E. Wood. Although prepared for a specific audience, namely, candidates for the diaconate in two Texas dioceses, it can be used as an introductory course in philosophy in any program of priestly formation. Clearly it partakes of the effort of Leo XIII and his successors to elucidate the rational nature of the Faith. The Catholic Faith is not a Kierkegaardian leap into the dark. As many of the Fathers believed it to be, it is both a continuation and fulfillment of the classical learning inherited from the Greeks and the Stoics. Wood speaks of the “Wisdom of the Church” and the need to explore the sources of that wisdom. He recognizes that it is the task of every generation to appropriate that wisdom while acknowledging its source. Wood, like John Paul II, believes that there can be multiple