Comments on: Henri de Lubac “On Christian Philosophy”, part 2

By: Henri de Lubac “On Christian Philosophy”, part 3 at The Land of Unlikeness

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 12:21:33 +0000

In this last post on Henri de Lubac’s article “On Christian Philosophy,” we will examine Lubac’s conclusion that for such a thing as Christian philosophy to exist, it must necessarily renounce its hitherto held dogma of closed rationalism, broaden the scope of reason by accepting desire, and open itself finally to the mystery of the incarnation as its ontological impetus and telos. First, let’s recap the argument thus far explored in the previous two posts (which can be found here and here). …

By: DWM

DWM — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 18:16:02 +0000

Scott, don’t jump too hastily to conclusions about Lubac’s commitments in epistemology, as so far he has mostly been summarizing Blondel (within the context of the Maritain/Gilson conversation). That said, I would also want to stay away from the anglo-analytic vocab of justification here as it’s not a term Blondel-Lubac employ - here or anywhere else for Lubac, if I’m not mistaken. I think you’d have to develop a stronger connection between epistemic justification as employed by Peirce and “faith” as Lubac articulates it, which as a member of the “New Theology” is strongly influenced by, among others, Patristic theology as read in a catholic and continental light.

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 12:57:52 +0000

Re-reading this now, after just reading a review of an anthology by a Peircean pragmatist, Lubac does seem to certain common takes on how belief and ‘justification’ are connected. Namely, that belief does not require justification for itself; on this Peircean scheme, justification only comes into play when we wish to change a belief we have. A belief is understood as a ‘certainty’ (what is called ‘infallible’ in this context), that in a given circumstance is maximally certain, but not incorrigible (i.e. it is not unchangeable). Circumstance/context will shape the intensity of certainty, in one context we might loudly proclaim X, but in another context we may not proclaim X as loudly b/c of the different context. In other words, context-shaped belief is ‘relative belief’ and incorrigible belief is ‘absolute belief’. I generally tend to think of ‘the gospel’ as something like the latter for a Christian, and metaphysical explications of the gospel as the former. I don’t think these are strictly identical, b/c I do think that proclamation of the gospel may use certain explications, but such a distinction is viable to my mind b/c there are levels of details of explication which the latter discusses and the former does not.

In any case, this is all good food for thought.

I recall a certain Professor, referring to Gilson, say that you could conceive the work of philosophy or theology as ‘content-based’ or ‘agent-based’. The former would seem to isolate the content of belief, w/o immediate regard for who is doing the rationlizing of the content, e.g. you could have a Methodist, an Roman Catholic, etc. all doing research on the Trinity; or you could think of the work as ‘agent-based’ and so include the passions, biases of the one doing the work in the very formal content itself. The Prof. indicated that Gilson opted for the latter, and this Prof. for the former. It seems that the ‘content based’ acct. allows for a certain lowest common denominator approach to the work, i.e. willingness to do the work as rigorously as possible, and the latter may also appeal to a lowest common denominator, e.g. personal satisfaction in doing the work. They are similar, though I think distinct. You could cast the former as ‘analytical’ and the latter as ‘continental’, though I don’t think this is necessarily the case. What I would be worried about is the ‘agent-based’ approach might overlook certain possibilities in the work b/c of a certain context (e.g. personal piety toward God) giving a certain high intensity of certainty. I think overlooking such possibilities might overlook possibilities for other enablements for the personal piety toward God (e.g. one’s love of God).

An example, I might dare to put forward is one where e.g. Duns Scotus’s work is a positive metaphysical explication for the believer, rather than one to be avoided. The ‘Aquinas translation regime’ is a context which to my mind elicits certain people’s ‘incorrigibility’ of belief, rather than just ‘infallibility’ of belief (i.e. certainty).

By: DWM

DWM — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 00:57:29 +0000

Cynthia, as always, thanks for mentioning our humble little project on your blog. You’re too kind!

By: Cynthia R. Nielsen

Cynthia R. Nielsen — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 22:37:36 +0000

Hi Dan,

I’ve listed this series on my blog under a recent post entitled,
“Recommended recent blog posts” (or something like that).

Cheers,
Cynthia

By: Per Caritatem

Per Caritatem — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

On the Church visible. Andy continues his series on some of Jamie Smith’s works: Part I and Part II. Daniel has two posts discussing Henri de Lubac: “On Christian Philosophy”: Part I andPart II. Bret blogs on Catholic Apologetics at the Threshold of Modernity. Jonathan has a number of posts discussing Reformed Orthodoxy. In this post he discusses Richard Muller’s scholarly contributions.