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Here is an interesting article, one which may have been posted before, entitled, THE SCHISM: GROUNDS FOR DIVISION, GROUNDS FOR UNITY "A LATIN'S LAMENTATION OVER GENNADIOS SCHOLARIOS" Fr. Hugh Barbour, O. Praem. http://www.balkanstudies.org/1998/barber.htm The article is particularly interesting in light of the Pope's lecture at Regensburg. Consider the following portion of the Pope's lecture: The liberal theology of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries ushered in a second stage in the process of dehellenization...Behind this thinking lies the modern self-limitation of reason, classically expressed in Kant�s "Critiques", but in the meantime further radicalized by the impact of the natural sciences. This modern concept of reason is based, to put it briefly, on a synthesis between Platonism (Cartesianism) and empiricism, a synthesis confirmed by the success of technology. On the one hand it presupposes the mathematical structure of matter, its intrinsic rationality, which makes it possible to understand how matter works and use it efficiently: this basic premise is, so to speak, the Platonic element in the modern understanding of nature. On the other hand, there is nature�s capacity to be exploited for our purposes, and here only the possibility of verification or falsification through experimentation can yield ultimate certainty. The weight between the two poles can, depending on the circumstances, shift from one side to the other. As strongly positivistic a thinker as J. Monod has declared himself a convinced Platonist/Cartesian. Fr. Barbour in the article above states this: So why is it that the difference between the Latin scholastic tradition and the Eastern Orthodox tradition are seen today to be so irreducible, and precisely on account of their Latin-ness or Eastern-ness? Why is it that contemporary Orthodox thinkers as diverse as Meyendorff and Cavarnos insist that the best of Orthodox tradition is inherently unscholastic and Platonic? I will offer only one of the several possible reasons, but the one which is the most dangerous to the faith and practice of Catholics and Orthodox alike, and it is nothing less than the adoption of an anti-scholasticism inspired not by Platonism, but by modern ideologies, which imprison the faith in their categories. This will lead us to an appreciation of just what will serve us best to overcome the schism in a way which is truly Orthodox and Catholic and so endowed with the supernatural power of the true faith, which is the victory which the apostle tells us overcomes the world.[8]
The world, whether working in the church or outside it, inspired by the "philosophies of suspicion" as Pope John Paul II calls them, with the esoteric gnosis of dialectical historicism, wants to reduce the faith to some contingent fact of history determined by irreducible elements of race, language, political or economic forces, in other words to one ideology among others, not capable of fulfilling the doctrinal standard of St. Vincent of Lerins quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab ominibus, or of the First Vatican Council that the dogmas of the faith are held in every age in eodem sensu et significatu. For if there is a Byzantine outlook or a Latin one which determines dogma itself, if there is any human criterion which is the most formal explanation of the faith and practice of the Church , and not the fact of God revealing the faith "once for all delivered to the saints," and the human mind able to give its reasonable assent, then the faith is simply one stage in a dialectical progress which leaves it outmoded, and doctrinal differences are simply irreducible antitheses ready to be resolved into a higher synthesis which makes their truth or falsehood irrelevant. If you read the article by Fr. Barbour, it is interesting to note that Orthodox theologians quoted St. Thomas verbatim in defense of the faith against Islam.
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I'm curious as to what modernist philosophical presuppositions Fr. Barbour thinks hold sway over modern Orthodox theologians? Also, I would just add that the task for scholastic philosophy, seems to me, to be to prove itself as still being viable. I, myself, deeply admire Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, however, there are a number of scholastic theses that I think are dubious.
Peace in Christ,
Joe
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Originally posted by JSMelkiteOrthodoxy:
I'm curious as to what modernist philosophical presuppositions Fr. Barbour thinks hold sway over modern Orthodox theologians? Also, I would just add that the task for scholastic philosophy, seems to me, to be to prove itself as still being viable. I, myself, deeply admire Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, however, there are a number of scholastic theses that I think are dubious.
Peace in Christ,
Joe What aspects of Scholastic theology, insofar as methods and presumptions are concerned, do you think are no longer viable? I've had the exact opposite experience, finding myself more and more drawn to the wider Thomistic theological tradition as I've studied both theology and philosophy. While certain conclusions are dubious (and some have even been defined against in the Catholic Church), I've not found any gaping holes in the theological method or system. On the contrary, I've found it to be uncannily useful and intuitive, so long as the conclusions of individual teachers such as St. Thomas Aquinas don't become dogmatic assumptions. I'm very interested in your thoughts on the matter  As to your question, I didn't get the impression that Fr. Barbour was speaking of modern philosophical presumptions, but rather just modern presumptions in general, such as a kind of theological "tribalism". This is present in both the East and West, though in my personal experience I've found it more predominant in the East in modern times. Peace and God bless!
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Originally posted by Ghosty: Originally posted by JSMelkiteOrthodoxy:
[b] I'm curious as to what modernist philosophical presuppositions Fr. Barbour thinks hold sway over modern Orthodox theologians? Also, I would just add that the task for scholastic philosophy, seems to me, to be to prove itself as still being viable. I, myself, deeply admire Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, however, there are a number of scholastic theses that I think are dubious.
Peace in Christ,
Joe
I've had the exact opposite experience, finding myself more and more drawn to the wider Thomistic theological tradition as I've studied both theology and philosophy. While certain conclusions are dubious (and some have even been defined against in the Catholic Church), I've not found any gaping holes in the theological method or system. On the contrary, I've found it to be uncannily useful and intuitive, so long as the conclusions of individual teachers such as St. Thomas Aquinas don't become dogmatic assumptions.
I'm very interested in your thoughts on the matter
As to your question, I didn't get the impression that Fr. Barbour was speaking of modern philosophical presumptions, but rather just modern presumptions in general, such as a kind of theological "tribalism". This is present in both the East and West, though in my personal experience I've found it more predominant in the East in modern times.
Peace and God bless! [/b]Well, what I find to be most valuable in scholastic philosophy is its rigor in method. But, this is something scholastic philosophy shares with phenomenology (good phenomenology anyway)and analytic philosophy. What I find problemmatic are certain Aristotelian ideas that do not seem, to me at least, to be necessarily true. For example, while I would concur with Aristotle and St. Thomas that there is nothing in the mind that was not first in the senses, it is not at all clear to me that their explanation for how it is that we obtain universals and classes for things is adequate. How does St. Thomas know that the "intelligible species" is abstracted from the thing and made the universal in the mind? It is not clear to me that this question is ever satisfied. Also, I think that Aristotle and St. Thomas fail to give an adequate account of inviduation. In the grand scheme of things, I realize that these are relatively minor philosophical issues. Still, I find that certain assumptions must be accepted dogmatically in order to proceed in scholastic philosophy. I think that the Kantian critique of experience and phenomenology show that certain things, such as the mind's correspondence with reality, cannot be taken for granted but must be proven. In Christ, Joe
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Joe,
According to Kant, the correspondence of mind and world cannot be proven!
As St. Edith Stein tellingly remarks, Kant's absolute distinction between phenomena and noumena is neither obviously true nor necessarily true.
For Aristotle, the existence of the universal in the mind is a _fact_, a bit of experience so primal that it doesn't need to be proved, only explained, which he then tries to do. The universal in the mind is not the result of a deduction, but is a first principle.
It's analogous, for me, to those who argue as a result of mechanistic suppositions that there is no such thing as free will. Free will is not something to deduce or prove, it is a fact to be explained, a starting point of human experience.
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Originally posted by Pseudo-Athanasius:
Joe,
According to Kant, the correspondence of mind and world cannot be proven!
As St. Edith Stein tellingly remarks, Kant's absolute distinction between phenomena and noumena is neither obviously true nor necessarily true.
For Aristotle, the existence of the universal in the mind is a _fact_, a bit of experience so primal that it doesn't need to be proved, only explained, which he then tries to do. The universal in the mind is not the result of a deduction, but is a first principle.
It's analogous, for me, to those who argue as a result of mechanistic suppositions that there is no such thing as free will. Free will is not something to deduce or prove, it is a fact to be explained, a starting point of human experience. Karl, that is certainly one way of approaching these things. The problem for me is that I don't see the universal in the mind as a first principle. Also, I don't see how one can just assert that free will is a basic fact. Don't misunderstand me, I believe in free will. But, simply postulating free will as a fact does not resolve the manner questions surrounding the concept. For example, what do you mean by "free?" Are our free actions caused or uncaused? If they are caused, then how do we explain that fact and reconcile it with freedom? Of course, these are precisely the questions that great philosophers, like St. Thomas, ask. In Christ, Joe
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Dear Joe,
There is no more basic fact of human experience than that I am freely typing this now. All other concepts that we use to explain human experience arise out of our experience of the free choice of some action and the non-choice of others. Now, I admit I'm already using the word "free," but let that pass. Just say that choice is the primal human experience.
I'm going to take another bit from St. Edith: our understanding of causality itself comes from our experience of the causality within our own soul. I can cause my arm to rise. From this, I decide that there are similar things happening in the world, that somehow the rain causes the flowers to grow. But I don't _experience_ that causality in anywhere near the same way that I experience causing my fingers to type this.
If I'm right about this (or if Stein is right), then think what would it be like if I take a concept (causality) derived from choice, from the experience of the I making something happen, and then conclude by means of this concept that the I really doesn't make things happen. The conclusion would destroy the concept by which we got the conclusion.
I don't know if I'm making any sense, so I'm going to stop my fingers from typing.
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Originally posted by Pseudo-Athanasius:
Dear Joe,
There is no more basic fact of human experience than that I am freely typing this now. Er, make that, "There is no more basic fact of human experience than that one chooses and does actions, such as my typing this now." I didn't mean to universalize my own experience so much.
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