Can somebody give me a succinct definition of Thomism? Specifically what it means (I do understand it's related to St. Thomas Aquinas) ? I've tried to read explanations online but they're inevitably far too complex for me to truly understand the concept.
Thomism is both the systematic methodology Thomas Aquinas used to explore complex theological and philosophical questions, and the body of work he developed utilizing that method, especially involving his incorporation of Aristotle into Catholic theological thinking.
I wonder if there's a Thomism for Dummies equivalent out there! I think you mentioned Thomism during your recent Sunday School podcast in relation to Romans 5:20 so clearly this methodology throws some clear distinctions that effect how we understand our faith.
Newman should rightly one day be made a Doctor of the Church. Newman was not a systematic theologian, rather he was a controversialist. Much of what he wrote was a response to the controversies of his time. IMO, the most important work that people will continue to read 1,000 years from now is The Grammar of Assent. It is perhaps his most inaccessible work but it is the one that gets to the heart of what it means to believe.
For those who are not theologians but who want to understand Newman, I would suggest downloading his Parochial and Plain Sermons and then have them read out loud with an audio reader (using a British voice would be a plus).
I would also add that Cardinal Newman was one of the precursors of postmodern theology, which is another reason why he is so important for our times. While the older generation continues to debate the modern theological controversies, the thought of Newman (and Ratzinger too) will continue to aid us in the decades ahead.
"The designation is the Church saying this person is trustworthy. But that doesn't mean that they're infallible in every one of their opinions or theological positions, but this person is trustworthy, and the Church is invited to enter more deeply into what their teaching is."
One of the clearest articulations I've seen that you don't have to agree with every doctrine of every canonized theologian comes from Newman himself, in the eighth part of the appendix to the Apologia pro vita sua (the only work of his that I've read, unfortunately).
Perhaps it’s safe to say, though, that one contribution Newman made and can continue to make is exemplified by the fact that his Anglican background and his erudition as a scholar at Oxford of the 1830s provided him with a grounding in patristics that had long been thin-on-the-ground among Catholic theologians and seminaries (and can still be so, alas). In the broadest of terms, yes, Newman was a Protestant convert. But identifying him as such risks pigeonholing him in a way that might ignore Anglicanism’s uniqueness, how that brought Newman to Catholicism, and how that uniqueness (through Newman and others) can help the Catholic Church reclaim its fuller both/and approach to theology. Anglicanism's uniqueness vis-à-vis both the continental Protestant movements and many Catholic theologians: Anglican divines retained a strong sense that patristic sources matter. This appreciation has been weaker in Anglicanism’s Low Church/Evangelical wing (Cranmer himself acknowledged it but played fast and loose with the original sources) than in the High Church wing. John Keble, whose family had been part of the CofE’s old High Church wing, influenced the young Newman—who had been raised in the CofE’s Evangelical wing—when Newman went up to Oxford. Newman (and many of us who have become Catholic by variations on this evangelical-to-Old High Church trajectory) thus grew in his understanding of Catholic theology precisely because of his grounding in Anglicanism’s patristic emphasis.
Among the difficulties Newman had to bear as a Catholic was the fact that he was not primarily a scholastic or manualist kind of theologian, though his thinking was too broad and deep to have thought of dismissing those theological approaches. His preeminence as an authority on patristic sources incurred suspicion from those who did things in the pervasively Roman way (including Cardinal Manning in England, who had little time for Newman’s “old Anglican, patristic, literary, Oxford tone transplanted into the Church.”) The Church needs to breathe with both her lungs--St. John Paul II’s metaphor for East and West living in fuller accord. Another anatomical metaphor is the benefit of both left-brain and right-brain thinking, so to speak. The former representing the more logical/discursive approach of the scholastics and manualists; the latter, the more poetic, reflective approach of the Church Fathers.
O doctor optime,
Ecclesiae sanctae lumen,
beate Ioanni, divinae legis amator,
deprecare pro nobis Filium Dei.
Good interview, but I wish the bishop hadn't sidestepped the question about Pastor aeternus
Can somebody give me a succinct definition of Thomism? Specifically what it means (I do understand it's related to St. Thomas Aquinas) ? I've tried to read explanations online but they're inevitably far too complex for me to truly understand the concept.
Thomism is both the systematic methodology Thomas Aquinas used to explore complex theological and philosophical questions, and the body of work he developed utilizing that method, especially involving his incorporation of Aristotle into Catholic theological thinking.
I'm sure Thomists will have a bunch of qualifiers, corrections, caveats, and disputes with that definition. ;-)
I wonder if there's a Thomism for Dummies equivalent out there! I think you mentioned Thomism during your recent Sunday School podcast in relation to Romans 5:20 so clearly this methodology throws some clear distinctions that effect how we understand our faith.
I think Kreeft has a Summa of the Summa, but maybe that's not what you're looking for...
You could look up the videos called “Aquinas 101” on YouTube.
Actually, if St. John Henry Newman was named a Doctor of the Church, then he'd be the first Protestant convert named as such, wouldn't he?
Newman should rightly one day be made a Doctor of the Church. Newman was not a systematic theologian, rather he was a controversialist. Much of what he wrote was a response to the controversies of his time. IMO, the most important work that people will continue to read 1,000 years from now is The Grammar of Assent. It is perhaps his most inaccessible work but it is the one that gets to the heart of what it means to believe.
For those who are not theologians but who want to understand Newman, I would suggest downloading his Parochial and Plain Sermons and then have them read out loud with an audio reader (using a British voice would be a plus).
I would also add that Cardinal Newman was one of the precursors of postmodern theology, which is another reason why he is so important for our times. While the older generation continues to debate the modern theological controversies, the thought of Newman (and Ratzinger too) will continue to aid us in the decades ahead.
"The designation is the Church saying this person is trustworthy. But that doesn't mean that they're infallible in every one of their opinions or theological positions, but this person is trustworthy, and the Church is invited to enter more deeply into what their teaching is."
One of the clearest articulations I've seen that you don't have to agree with every doctrine of every canonized theologian comes from Newman himself, in the eighth part of the appendix to the Apologia pro vita sua (the only work of his that I've read, unfortunately).
Newman’s “not easily pigeonholed.” Hear hear!
Perhaps it’s safe to say, though, that one contribution Newman made and can continue to make is exemplified by the fact that his Anglican background and his erudition as a scholar at Oxford of the 1830s provided him with a grounding in patristics that had long been thin-on-the-ground among Catholic theologians and seminaries (and can still be so, alas). In the broadest of terms, yes, Newman was a Protestant convert. But identifying him as such risks pigeonholing him in a way that might ignore Anglicanism’s uniqueness, how that brought Newman to Catholicism, and how that uniqueness (through Newman and others) can help the Catholic Church reclaim its fuller both/and approach to theology. Anglicanism's uniqueness vis-à-vis both the continental Protestant movements and many Catholic theologians: Anglican divines retained a strong sense that patristic sources matter. This appreciation has been weaker in Anglicanism’s Low Church/Evangelical wing (Cranmer himself acknowledged it but played fast and loose with the original sources) than in the High Church wing. John Keble, whose family had been part of the CofE’s old High Church wing, influenced the young Newman—who had been raised in the CofE’s Evangelical wing—when Newman went up to Oxford. Newman (and many of us who have become Catholic by variations on this evangelical-to-Old High Church trajectory) thus grew in his understanding of Catholic theology precisely because of his grounding in Anglicanism’s patristic emphasis.
Among the difficulties Newman had to bear as a Catholic was the fact that he was not primarily a scholastic or manualist kind of theologian, though his thinking was too broad and deep to have thought of dismissing those theological approaches. His preeminence as an authority on patristic sources incurred suspicion from those who did things in the pervasively Roman way (including Cardinal Manning in England, who had little time for Newman’s “old Anglican, patristic, literary, Oxford tone transplanted into the Church.”) The Church needs to breathe with both her lungs--St. John Paul II’s metaphor for East and West living in fuller accord. Another anatomical metaphor is the benefit of both left-brain and right-brain thinking, so to speak. The former representing the more logical/discursive approach of the scholastics and manualists; the latter, the more poetic, reflective approach of the Church Fathers.
I would love to know who the 2 were that voted "no" (or, maybe they abstained?).