:: The Lidless Eye Inquisition ::

:: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 ::

The Rerum Novarum Miscellaneous BLOG has been updated. As the subject matter pertains to the kind of subject matter covered on this weblog, I note the link HERE for those who are interested.

:: Shawn 5:19 PM [+] | ::

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Mario Derksen's Errors on Man

Apolonio,

Have you read Mario Derksen’s Daily Catholic articles? Can you respond his article “The Humanism of John Paul II: A Plethora of Phenomenological Personalism. Part 15”? (http://www.dailycatholic.org/issue/2002Oct/oct18mdi.htm). Also, do you still interact with him?

Response:
No, I do not interact with Mario anymore. Would I like to? Sure. However, his Rad-Trad mentality, it seems to me, gave him a cold heart. I remember emailing him about Gabriel Marcel, asking what he thinks of him. I was hoping I can have a dialogue, not debate, with him on Marcel’s philosophy and what he thought about other philosophies in light of Thomas Aquinas. However, he answered something like, “Why are you emailing me?” So I guess he does not want to talk to me anymore. Also, you must know something about Mario. It seems that Mario has become a sedevacantist. I knew this was going to happen and so did Phil Porvaznik and Shawn McElhinney. This is his “little secret” which he does not want to expose. Personally, I think he is a coward. He defends the sedevacantist position, but he does not want to publicize it. Is it because of prudence? I don’t think so. From what I have heard, and I have a couple of sources, he has made up his mind about his position. If he truly believes that sedevacantism is true, then why doesn’t he say so? He is a “public figure” in the Rad-Trad community (his website and Daily Catholic) and for him not to tell us his true position is to me, cowardice. Of course, I will retract those statements if it is not true that he is actually a sedevacantist. But anyway, we are getting distracted. I will now respond to some points in his article.

Mario says:

Just why humanism? Why not orthodox Catholicism? Why is John Paul such a humanist?

But this is a false dichotomy. Humanism and Orthodox Catholicism are not contradictory. As John Paul II said in his writings, a true humanism is Theo-centric. In fact, I believe that Aquinas’ Prima Secundae is humanistic. More on this later. He says:

Why is John Paul such a humanist? I suppose only God and perhaps John Paul II can answer this question satisfactorily. However, we can at least make an attempt at understanding the possible motivation that lies behind his strange theology. As always, a messed-up theology originates in messed-up philosophy. When we look at John Paul II's philosophical interests and upbringing, we see that he admired and/or was influenced by Edmund Husserl, Max Scheler, Jacques Maritain, Henri de Lubac, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

Well, those are not the only people he was influenced in. Professor Kenneth Schmidt says:

“The broader influences upon him include of Aristotle and St. Thomas, St. Augustine and St. Bonaventure, and, to be sure, that of St. John of the Cross, about whom he wrote his doctoral dissertation at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. He is also conversant with the various versions of Thomism: the structured, traditional Thomism of Garrigou-Lagrange at Angelicum; the transcendental Thomism of Joseph Marechal at Louvain; the existential-historical Thomism of Etienne Gilson; the existential Thomism of Jacques Maritain; the “act” Thomism of Josef de Finance; the participatory Thomism of Cornelio Fabro; and of course, with various Polish Thomists, including his own teachers and colleagues.” (At the Center of the Human Drama: The Philosophical Anthropology of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, pgs. 34-35)

Mario goes on:
The way Husserl defined his phenomenology and the way he wanted it to work, it is not acceptable for a Catholic, because, among other things, it sets aside issues of reality and truth and falsehood. However, some people, even Catholics, have attempted to modify Husserl's phenomenology such that it could be used fruitfully in philosophical and theological investigations. Having studied the issue for quite a while, I must say that I find it to be, at best, nothing other than utterly verbose sophistry with little substance.

This is the same kind of things I see Rad-Trads say. They reject John Paul II’s use of phenomenology. However, Dietrich von Hildebrand was also a big fan of Husserl. Why don’t they condemn his writings? In fact, I would say that John Paul is more scholastic than von Hildebrand. John Paul tried to use phenomenology as a tool to express his Thomistic thought.

He then says:
For his Ph.D. dissertation in philosophy (1953), John Paul II (as Karol Wojtyla) wrote on the ethics of Max Scheler. While critical of Scheler's conclusion, Fr. Wojtyla was intrigued by Scheler's use of the phenomenological method to reflect on and "penetrate" Christian ethics. Now, John Paul II certainly loved Scheler's phenomenology, and this left a lasting impression on John Paul's thought. But John Paul did not only have a love of phenomenology, but also of anthropology, the study of man. Now, put the two together and you get phenomenological anthropology - and, I think, this is what we've been seeing in the encyclicals and homilies and other writings of this Pope. Fancy words and highly complicated expressions, spanning lots of pages, while saying very little, and constant references and allusions to man. I don't know about you, but that's how I experience John Paul II's writings.

Of course John Paul makes constant references and allusions to man. Why shouldn’t he? In the 20th century, man has turn against man. Communism took man’s identity away from him. John Paul brings this back. As far as “Fr. Wojtyla was intrigued by Scheler’s use of the phenomenological method to reflect on and ‘penetrate’ Christian ethics”, of course he was. But he did this with his Thomistic/scholastic background. I’ll give you one example. John Paul, then Karol Wojtyla said:

“Although I have arrived at the concept of the “human act” within the framework of a phenomenological inquiry of Husserlian orientation, it has to be pointed out that it coincides with the notion of “actus humanus” as elaborated by Thomas Aquinas. “Actus humanus” follows from the nature of the acting person, from man understood as subject and author of his action. Indubitably the most valuable element in Thomas’s concept of “actus humanus” is that it expresses the dynamism of a concrete being, man in its specific complete determination drawn from the total man. That specific dynamism finds further elaboration in Thomas’s studies on “voluntarium,” for dynamism proper to the activity of man (agree humanum) and to the human act finds its roots in the will. St. Thomas analyzes the nature, structure, and actualization of the will very much in detail.” (“The Intentional Act and the Human Act, that is, Act and Experience,” Analecta Husserliana 5 (1976): 279, n. 2.)

Here, you can see how he depends on Aquinas’s metaphysics to build a solid ethical analysis.

Mario says:
Last time I checked, Christ didn't come to reveal truth about man but only truth about Himself and about God and about salvation. That Christ's teaching has implications for what is true about man, that's no doubt true. But John Paul treats it as though we would somehow have to discover something about man, as if man were the focal point. No pre-Vatican II Pope to my knowledge ever talked about there being some "big truth about man" that Christ came to reveal or that we have to glimpse. This is utterly novel, and wasn't made possible until Vatican II, the council of man!

Notice the contradiction in Mario’s words. He says “Christ didn’t come to reveal truth about man” and then says “but only truth about Himself…and about salvation”. But isn’t salvation about man? Salvation is the communion of God and man. So there *is* something about man in there. Christianity tells us that “God became man so that man might become a god”. This is a Patristic teaching, especially of the Eastern Churches. The East emphasized man’s role in salvation very explicitly and you can read this from any Eastern Church Father. So this isn’t “utterly novel”. It is just that Mario has a one-sided theological mentality which is limited to neo-scholastic manualists.

He says:
The Pope admits as much when he says that it was Vatican II that taught that "it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man is seen in its true light" (Gaudium Et Spes #22). Isn't that sickening? I mean, what the heck is this talking about! "Mystery of man"? Why is everything after Pius XII, and especially since John Paul II, a "mystery"? It is unbelievable. I think this is the phenomenological spirit that the Pope has picked up, which ends up mystifying everything. In the end, there is no more reality but only "profound mystery" to be "penetrated" and some "richness" in it all that ought to be "reflected on." Hello? Are we on the same planet here? Don't get me wrong. I don't mean to banalize Sacred Doctrine. St. Thomas Aquinas affirmed that our minds could never even grasp - really grasp - the essence of a fly! However, at the same time, St. Thomas taught clearly, with authority, and with God's and the Church's approval, that we can have real knowledge of real things, not just earthly things but also things in the spiritual and metaphysical realms. While having a healthy respect for man's limited knowledge, St. Thomas nevertheless was an epistemological optimist.

Why is everything a “mystery”? Because everything *is* a mystery, especially the human person. The Eastern Churches’ theology is that of a mystery. Mario’s lack of understanding of the universal apostolic Church is a pity. He limits his theology to neo-scholasticism and forgets that there are riches in other traditions. Also, notice how he said, “St. Thomas Aquinas affirmed that our minds could never even grasp-really grasp-the essence of a fly! However…we can have real knowledge of real things, not just earthly things but also things in the spiritual and metaphysical realms.” Great. But no where in John Paul’s teachings does he say that we cannot grasp metaphysical or spiritual truths. In fact, he would not write encyclicals if he believed this were so. Mario fails to remember what he learned in theology 101: mystery is not that we cannot know anything, but that we cannot know everything. We cannot know everything about man and hence, it is a “mystery”. And how can we? Man is not an object, but a subject.

Mario in that article criticizes of how “Christ fully reveals the truth about man” is somehow blasphemy. He said, “He suggests that by God's revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ, He has revealed man to himself; that by showing us who He is, He shows us who we are - what utter nonsense, and utter blasphemy.” But by saying his, Mario has departed from the Tradition of the Church. For example, as Etienne Gilson said, “The miniature world of man will never be known unless we know something of the greater” (The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy, 219). Gilson then says:

“Hard as it is to know one’s own state of conscience, and to grasp man’s relation to his surroundings, it is nothing like so hard as what it still remains to discover. What a man finds circa se or sub se is overwhelming in amount, what he finds in se is embarrassing in its obscurity, but when from his own being he would obtain light as to what is supra se, then indeed he finds himself face to face with a dark and somewhat terrifying mystery. The trouble is that he is himself involved in the mystery. If, in any true sense, man is an image of God, how should he know himself without knowing God? But if it is really of God that he is an image, how should he know himself?” (The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy, 219)

In that passage, Gilson tells us how man is a mystery. He also says that “man will never be known unless we know something of the greater”. And what is the “greater”? Is it not Jesus Christ? And if Jesus Christ is the “greater” then do we not know more about ourselves if we know Christ? So why is it a blasphemy to say that Christ reveals man to himself? In Bousset’s words, “Wisdom lies in knowing God and knowing oneself. From knowledge of self we rise to knowledge of God” (ibid, 228). St. Bernard says:

“He is not wise who is not wise for himself; let everyone be the first to drink at his own well. Begin by considering thyself and, better still, end with that. When thy consideration wanders elsewhere recall it to thyself: and this will not be without fruit of salvation. Thou for thyself art the first, and also the last.” (De consideratione, lib. II, Cap. III, n.6)

To end, I will quote Pascal:
“Know, proud man, what a paradox thou art to thyself. Down then feeble reason; and let this foolish nature keep silence! Know how much more than merely man is man, and learn from your Master your true condition of which you are wholly ignorant. Listen to God.”

And:

“To know God, and yet nothing of our wretched state, breeds pride: to realize our misery and know nothing of God is mere despair: bit if we come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ we find our true equilibrium, for there we find both misery and God.”

JMJ
A.L. III

:: Ap 9:20 AM [+] | ::

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On Tony Blair and Receiving Communion:

Last year, I read on many blogs and discussion groups (and even some message boards) that the pope gave Tony Blair communion in his visit to the Vatican last year. I remember well the stink this caused amongst so-called "traditionalists" who claimed that the pope had undercut the authority of the local ordinary in Mr. Blair's dioceses who had refused him communion. Now, in doing a word search for articles with different subject matters in them, I find this article from The Guardian which makes it clear that Tony Blair -an Anglican whose wife and children are practicing Catholics- did *not* receive communion from the Holy Father. Instead, he came forward for a blessing which he was given. I am wondering how many of those who misreported on this subject -including not a few who identify themselves as "traditionalists"{1}- will weigh in now and say "I misrepresented the facts" and will do so as prominantly as they announced their errors to begin with. My guess is that the answer is if not zero than darn near zero of them will.

Note:

{1} Including unfortunately some who have my respect. I hope that those individuals will rectify their previously enunciated errors on this situation.

:: Shawn 2:06 PM [+] | ::

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