Catholics, Evangelicals and Philosophy

One of the most attractive things about the Roman Catholic Church is its openness to reason and its long-standing resistance to anti-intellectualism, obscurantism, relativism and shallow thinking. The Enlightenment movement tried to portray itself as the voice of reason over against the superstition and ignorance of Christianity, but the Church was battling sophists and irrational mystics long before anybody ever thought of the Enlightenment and now continues to champion reason as Enlightenment-inspired scientism spirals down into nihilistic solipsism.

Here is an encouraging little note from Rome about adjustments to the curriculum for priestly formation. Evangelical colleges, seminaries and universities should take note.

"With the human ability to think under fire from relativism, priests and theologians need to study more philosophy, the Vatican says.This was one of the main points of the "Decree on the Reform of Ecclesiastical Studies of Philosophy," which Benedict XVI approved Jan. 28 (the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas), and Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, presented Tuesday.

The cardinal explained that the Church is always adapting to respond to the needs of changing historical-cultural circumstances, and that many ecclesial institutions today are lacking in philosophical formation.

This absence is particularly noteworthy at a time "in which reason itself is menaced by utilitarianism, skepticism, relativism and distrust of reason's ability to know the truth regarding the fundamental problems of life," he reflected.

New guidelines are in accordance with Pope John Paul II's "Fides et Ratio," the cardinal added, which notes that "theology has always had and continues to have need of a philosophical contribution."

Cardinal Grocholewski said the Church intends to recover metaphysics, namely a philosophy that will again pose the most profound questions of the human being.

The Vatican official stressed that technology and science cannot "satiate man's thirst in regard to the ultimate questions: What does happiness consist of? Who am I? Is the world the fruit of chance? What is my destiny? etc. Today, more than ever, the sciences are in need of wisdom."

He said that the "original vocation" of philosophy needs to be recovered: "the search for truth and its sapiential and metaphysical dimension."

The cardinal also emphasized the importance of logic, calling it a discipline that structures reason and that has disappeared because of the present crisis of Christian culture.

The rector of the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum), Dominican Father Charles Morerod, added that there is no contradiction between philosophy and faith.

"Christianity presupposes a harmony between God and human reason," he said.

"The importance of philosophy is linked directly with the human desire to know the truth and to organize it," the rector explained. "Experience shows that knowledge of philosophy helps us to better organize, in cooperation with other disciplines, the study of any science."

"Metaphysics seeks to know the whole of reality -- culminating in knowledge of the First Cause of everything -- and to show the mutual relationship between the different fields of learning, avoiding any closing in on themselves of the individual sciences," he added.

Ecclesiastical philosophy degrees will thus increase to 180 credits, going from two-year programs to three-year. There will also be more stringent requirements for professors, with greater demands for doctors in philosophy, preferably with degrees earned from an ecclesiastical institution. Theology degree programs will not be longer, but will have more philosophy credits during the first years."

A couple of statements in particular stood out to me as important. First, "With the human ability to think under fire from relativism, priests and theologians need to study more philosophy." This statement, it seems to me, goes deep down toward the heart of our cultural crisis. The problems with relativism go far beyond ethics to matters of epistemology, logic and truth.

A second statement, from Cardinal Grocholewski, that stood out was: "the 'original vocation' of philosophy needs to be recovered: 'the search for truth and its sapiential and metaphysical dimension.'" Our culture is in dire need of philosophy, but most of the philosophy done in universities has made itself irrelevant and uninteresting because it has abandoned its "big picture" search for truth about reality and how the different aspects of will, passions, and intellect relate to each other. Theology could pursue this task but it is almost entirely marginalized. Philosophy is desperately needed, but is apparently not up to the task. This leads me to think that the most important philosophy in the decades ahead will be done outside the secularized universities of the West.

Evangelicals need to recover philosophy if they are to bear a witness to Christianity as a worldview with culture-renewing power and inspirational vision. The Roman Catholic Church is resisting the spirit of age. Why can't we?

United Church College Begins Muslim Studies Program

Emmanuel College, a member college of the Toronto School of Theology established for the purpose of training clergy for the United Church of Canada, has approved the beginning of a Muslim clergy training program.

Christian Week reports:

"The Christian Church has always existed in a context filled with a wide diversity of religious expressions."

So declares the vision statement explaining why Emmanuel College has begun training leaders for the Muslim faith.

Emmanuel, whose main role has been to train clergy for the United Church of Canada, is one of the schools that make up the Toronto School of Theology at the University of Toronto.

At the end of March, it began offering its first two Islamic courses: 'Islamic Spirituality in a Health Care Setting' and 'The Qur'an in the Canadian Context.' These are continuing education courses, which confer no academic credit. However, students who complete all nine planned continuing education courses will be given a Canadian Certificate in Muslim Studies.

The courses are geared to four groups of people: imams (Muslim clergy) and other leaders in the Muslim community; community workers and Islamic school teachers; people engaged in interfaith dialogue; and people who just want to learn more about Islam.

The courses will help students understand "what it means to be a committed Muslim in the Canadian context," says Emmanuel principal Mark Toulouse. The majority of Muslims in Canada are immigrants—and they struggle with how to relate to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, for instance.

Toronto is the most logical place for such a program because it is "the most Muslim city in North America," Toulouse says. Muslims make up more than two per cent of the Canadian population, but five per cent of the population of Toronto. There are 60 mosques in the city.

Read it all here.

In addition to the non-credit certificate in Canadian Muslim Studies, there will be a two-year Masters degree in Pastoral Studies. In the first year, Christian students will study Bible, Theology, Ethics and Church History while Muslim students study the Qur'an, Islamic history, law and theology. Then, in the second year they would take pastoral studies together.

There are plans for Emmanuel to hire a full-time Muslim professor and to raise funds for the establishment of a chair in Muslim Studies. The story also reports the following contradictory position:

Like Emmanuel's other programs, the Islamic studies programs will stress understanding and professional training. The courses will "embrace university values," Toulouse said, and "no class will set out what you must believe."

He stressed: "We are not out to make Muslims into Christians." He added that this approach is in keeping with the United Church position that "God is at work in Islam just as God is at work in Christianity" and that "Muslims don't need to become Christians to be faithful to God."

The first paragraph claims "value neutrality" and a commitment to "university values." But the second paragraph reveals the operative theology presupposed by the college, namely, that "Muslims don't need to become Christians to be faithful to God." This theological position is the real bedrock faith foundation of the program, which must be believed by those who participate in order for the whole program to work. So it is only correct to claim that "no class will set out what you must believe" in the sense that every class presupposes that you believe the "right" way.

It seems to me that when you give up Scriptural authority and then proceed to making Trinitarian and Christological orthodoxy optional, the Unitarianism that results leads to being unable to distinguish adequately between Christian doctrine and Muslim doctrine. But where is this heading? We may recall the maxim of Richard John Neuhaus that: "Where orthodoxy becomes optional, it eventually will be proscribed."

It is very difficult to see this as anything other than a slow motion capitulation of liberal Protestantism to Islam. Emmanuel College apparently believes that they can make liberals out of Muslims. They had better be right because some of us are thinking that it is more likely that Muslims may end up making Muslims out of liberal Protestants.

Help Wanted: Christian Polemicist

Further to my recent post about whether Christians should become more strident, I call to the stand Dr. Thomas Oden, former liberal and great classical theologian.

In his book, After Modernity: What? Agenda for Theology (1990), Thomas Oden says that in a discussion with colleagues on curriculum he "testily suggested that what today's seminary most needs is a polemicist, trained in the rough and tumble give and take of old-fashioned scholastic Protestant polemics." (p. 171) After they challenged him to write an ad for the Chronicle of Higher Education to attract a good polemicist, he did. Here is it is:

"HELP WANTED: Christian polemicist, Ph.D. Must be courageous, honest, and thoroughly schooled in the exacting logic of orthodoxy and the sciences of modernity; intelligent, witty, committed, tough; hard as nails in public debate, but with a warm heart and human touch; must be able to sharpen with precision the fine theological distinctions that modern audiences often find irritating and difficult to grasp, yet make them clear and as interesting to us as they have been for the ancients. Must be morally incorruptible and willing to die for the cause. We are an equal opportunity employer." (pp. 171-2)

I haven't seen an ad like that in the Chronicle lately, but if I did I might be tempted to apply. How about you? Anybody want to apply for that job?