NEW THEMES BR 100 IN R56 CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY Ralph M. McInerny Editor UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS NOTRE DAME & LONDON Copyright © 1968 UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS NOTRE DAME, INDIANA Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 68-20439 Manufactured in the United States of America To LEO R. WARD, C.S.G In recognition of a long career as Priest, Professor, and Author from His Colleagues in the Department of Philosophy This book Is Affectionately Dedicated CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ix 1. RESTORATION OF A LOST INTELLIGIBILITY 1 Thomas Langan, Indiana University 2. KIERKEGAARD AND PHILOSOPHY 13 Paul L. Holmer, Yale University 3. HEIDEGGER AND THE QUEST FOR FREEDOM 37 William J. Richardson, S.J., Fordham University Comment: Nicholas Lobkowicz, University of Munich 4. GOD IN THE METAPHYSICS OF WHITEHEAD 64 Leonard J. Eslick, St. Louis University 5. THE COMMUNITY OF EXPERIENCE AND RELIGIOUS METAPHORS 82 John J. McDermott, Queens College Comment: Richard J. Blackwell, St. Louis University 6. RENEWAL AND HISTORY 110 A. Robert Caponigri, University of Notre Dame 7. PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY 129 Gerard Verbeke, Louvain University 8. THE RELEVANCE OF PHILOSOPHY FOR THE NEW THEOLOGY 152 Bernard Cooke, S.J., Marquette University Comment: David B. Burrell, C.S.C., University of Notre Dame 9. THE REVIVAL OF THOMISM AS A CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY 164 James A. Weisheipl, O.P., University of Toronto THE FUTURE OF THOMISM 187 W. Norris Clarke, S.J., Fordham University Comment: Edward D. Simmons, Marquette University vii 10. RADICAL THEOLOGY AND THE THEOLOGICAL ENTERPRISE 214 John E. Smith, Yale University 11. COSMIC MEANING WITH FREE INDIVIDUALITY 233 Francis H. Parker, Purdue University Comment: Sister M. Patricia Rief, Immaculate Heart College 12. INTUITION AND GOD AND SOME NEW METAPHYSICIANS 254 Joseph Bobik, University of Notre Dame Comment: Gareth B. Matthews, University of Minnesota 13. PSYCHE AND PERSONA 279 Fred Crosson, University of Notre Dame Comment: John A. Mourant, Pennsylvania State University 14. CAN METAETHICS ADVANCE ETHICS? 304 Robert L. Cunningham, University of San Francisco Comment: Brian J. Cudahy, Boston College 15. THE CONCEPT OF SIN CONSCIOUSNESS 334 Harry A. Nielsen, University of Notre Dame Comment: Calvin O. Schrag, Purdue University 16. MODERN ATHEISM 348 Robert O. Johann, S.J., Fordham University Comment: Louis Mackey, University of Texas 17. PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNITED STATES CATHOLIC 370 COLLEGE Ernan McMullin, University of Notre Dame INDEX OF NAMES 411 viii Introduction RALPH M. McINERNY THE PAPERS BROUGHT TOGETHER HERE WERE PRESENTED AND dis- cussed at a conference held at the University of Notre Dame in September, 1966. Inevitably, perhaps, the conference was called “Philosophy in an Age of Christian Renewal.” However tired we may be of that word, ours is an age of renewal, thanks to the wisdom of Pope John XXIII. By renewal, or aggiorna- mento, the late Pope meant that the Church should open win¬ dows to the world and rethink and re-present the Christian message in terms of the time in which we live. This is not a new task for the Church, of course, but it is one that has con¬ stantly to be renewed. In every period during which this task has been seriously undertaken particular attention has been paid to what philosophers are doing. It was the thought of those of us in the Department of Philosophy at Notre Dame that we might do something toward presenting the flavor of current philosophy by bringing together a number of outstanding men of different philosophical, and indeed of different religious, persuasions for several days of exchange and discussion. Our aim was to provide a living and lively tableau of present-day philosophizing, some sense of what the Church sees through those reopened windows. So much for the ultimate objective of the studies included in this volume. In the middle distance we had in view a specifi¬ cally philosophical value. To paraphrase a famous title, one might sum up the present situation in philosophy as the scan¬ dal of disagreement and the virtue of variety, but, as Psmith might have said, it is ever so. There is a recurrent dream in the history of philosophy that the diversity of philosophical posi¬ tions can be overcome by devising some foolproof decision pro¬ cedure, a method of calculation whose employment will swiftly make dissent dissolve and bring all philosophers—kicking and screaming, perhaps—under one commodious and rational roof. IX NEW THEMES IN CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY Sometimes the dream takes the form of a substantive doctrine, supple and open-ended, which will be able to reconcile differ¬ ences in terms of a higher unity. In its undreamt of condition, nevertheless, philosophy continues to be a label attached to new skins and old, of incorrigibly irreducible pigmentations. Philosophers speak to one another, sometimes in unexcited tones—and in rare cases they learn from one another—but such interchange usually results, not in irenic hand-holding and dith- yrambic unanimity, but in a subtle alteration of what each man thinks so that the resultant viewpoints, while still opposed, are opposed differently from the way they were before. What becomes clear is that philosophers are seldom opposed in their assessment of a single argument or of one tenet; rather the dif¬ ferences are in the total climate, the vision of the whole into which a particular discussion fits. Thus philosophers who hold a lot in common can feel they have nothing in common, since what is lacking is a shared sense of the purpose of the whole enterprise of philosophizing. It is relatively easy to change one’s mind, but it is difficult, if not morally impossible, to alter fun¬ damentally one’s basic angle of vision. One thing that influ¬ ences a philosopher’s angle of vision is the gift of faith, al¬ though it is clear to the student of medieval thought that this influence manifests itself in a variety and diversity of philo¬ sophical positions. The essays of Professor Langan and of Pro¬ fessor Verbeke deal with aspects of this influence, and many of the other papers cast oblique light on it. One might think of the Langan and Verbeke essays as addressing themselves in a special way to the task of the Christian philosopher. The essay closest to theirs in theme is probably that of Professor Parker; Parker offers a view of the dialectical progression of the history of philosophy and makes some interesting remarks on the com¬ plementarity of the Catholic and Protestant mentalities. Because Thomism has come to be a privileged locus of the influence of Christian faith on philosophizing, has become in some sense the official philosophy of the Church, we solicited two essays on it. Father Wiesheipl has written a brief and im¬ portant history of Thomism; Father Clarke examines its future in a very personal, yet undeniably public, vein. It has become increasingly clear that if Thomism is to survive as a philosophi- x Ralph M. Mclnerny Introduction cal viewpoint, it will have to do so on philosophical terms. This survival (as indeed its past history shows) means diver¬ sity; there will be different styles of Thomism, and this will reflect the situation on the wider scene. A number of the essays are devoted to displaying or discuss¬ ing current styles of philosophizing. Professor Holmer’s essay on Kierkegaard, Father Richardson’s on Heidegger, that of Professor Eslick on Whitehead and of Professor McDermott on American philosophy, as well as Professor Caponigri’s on his¬ tory, form a cluster, and the philosophical viewpoints they in¬ dividually discuss or represent give only an inkling of the vari¬ ous ways in which men are nowadays philosophizing. Many of the essays deal not so much with men or movements as with perennial philosophical issues. Professor Bobik dis¬ cusses the status of proofs for the existence of God, Professor Crosson discusses a point in philosophical psychology with defi¬ nite theological overtones, and Professor Cunningham assesses the ethical implications of metaethics. The essay of Professor Nielsen is in many ways sui generis—like its author: it cuts across any categories one might devise to group these essays and gains from doing so. Father Johann’s paper deals with a perennial problem, atheism, that has recently come in for much analysis. Two papers, Father Cooke’s and Professor Smith’s, discuss from different angles the relationship between philosophy and theology; Canon Verbeke’s paper is another contribution to this discussion. Since the purpose of the conference for which these papers were solicited was to map the present philosophical terrain, it occurred to us that much could be learned by polling the phi¬ losophy departments in the Catholic colleges of the land to find out what they are doing. The results are most interesting. Father McMullin undertook the task of preparing the question¬ naire, programming the results, and shepherding them through the computer; unwearied, he wrote a narrative report on his findings. It does not seem too much to say that his report will be a mandatory point of reference for anyone who wishes to speak of the situation of philosophy in Catholic higher educa¬ tion today. xi NEW THEMES IN CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY It is our hope that the reader will find these essays as inter¬ esting as did the more than two hundred philosophers who came to Notre Dame to hear them and to join in the discussion of them. At our sessions, papers were followed by prepared commentaries, some of which are included here. The reader is warned not to look for anything which binds these essays to¬ gether apart from what has already been said about the pur¬ poses of the conference. We at Notre Dame have no grand vi¬ sion of what philosophy in all its generality ought to be; we were not looking for essays to corroborate some a priori con¬ ception of our own. It is easy, all too easy, to elicit opinions on what is going on in philosophy today, what is being taught in philosophy departments in Catholic colleges, and so on. Our idea, in all its simplicity, was: let's find out. This collection is the result of that effort. If the effort is at all successful, this book should show, at least in part, something of the present scenery of the philosophical enterprise. It is intended to be informative, not normative. Philosophical disagreements, we have suggested, are seldom about particular points; philosophi¬ cal variety seems to be a persistent phenomenon when many men philosophize. It is pointless to lament what is perennial and pervasive, particularly when, by attending to the diversity, we can learn from it. No man can or should want to be every- man, but each must look to many quarters before offering his own two bits worth, so to speak. It is a pleasant task to thank those responsible for this col¬ lection: the authors of the essays, their commentators, those who attended the conference and joined in the discussion. My colleagues, especially Professors Lobkowicz, Oesterle, Fitzger¬ ald, and Nielsen, were helpful in formulating the program and selecting symposiasts. I should like to pay special tribute to Father Ernan McMullin. His fine Hibernian hand was felt everywhere in the conference, from its inception, through the hectic months of preparation, to the smooth flow of the sessions themselves. Finally, I must as always thank my wife, Connie; not only did she survive my infrequency before and during the conference but she also granted me a brief recuperative fur¬ lough abroad when the doings were done. xii 1 Restoration of a Lost Intelligibility THOMAS LANGAN SOME CONTEND THAT THE NOTION “CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER” IS itself an Unsinn. The search for truth, they point out, is above all confessional separations. Of course, there are philosophers who happen to be Christians, just as there are philosophers who happen to be Moslems and many, at least these days, who are atheists. But qua philosopher each is seeking the one truth, and the measure of their respective merits as philosophers is their success in unveiling being. THE FAITH OF THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER But while I concede that the goal and ultimate criteria are the same for all, still, the actual situation of the individual phi¬ losopher—his finitude—obliges us to find a provisional measure of the adequacy of his developing thought. His conception of the unattained goal (call it an hypothesis if you like) and the attitude which guides him as he goes about seeking it are here of crucial importance. In the provisional conceptions of the goal and in the attitudes governing the search for it we find expressed each philosopher’s faith. While philosophizing is un¬ derway, the sought-for sophia is an object, not yet of demon¬ stration, but of faith. And the pkilein is not perfect unity with the all-real object of the sophia, but an expectant attitude gov¬ erned by the vision of that faith. In this way the philosophia of the various philosophers will be peculiarly animated by the soul of each of their faiths. I would like to take the measure of the Christian philoso¬ pher’s faith and of his situation, both as they affect his attitude (the philein) and his object (the projected, faith-grounded con¬ cept of the sophia). I intend to speak of the latter in terms of some perennial problems in their contemporary form and in terms of some new problems to which it is particularly urgent 1