International Catholic University

Philosophy for Theologians

Benedict M. Ashley, O.P.

OUTLINE OF THE COURSE

Part I: Introduction

• Lesson 1: Theology Needs Reasoned Reflection on Human Experience
• Lesson 2: Choosing an Epistemological Approach to Human Experience
• Lesson 3: The Intellectual Ambiguities of Contemporary Culture

Part II: The Theoretical Disciplines

• Lesson 4: The Liberal, Hermeneutic Arts of Learning and Communication
• Lesson 5: Critique of the Foundations of Contemporary Natural Science
• Lesson 6: Critique of Contemporary Understanding of the Human Person

Part III: The Practical Disciplines and the Unity of Human Knowledge

• Lesson 7: Critique of Contemporary Ethics and Politics
• Lesson 8: Critique of Contemporary Technology and Economy
• Lesson 9: The Historical and Ontological Unification of Modern Knowledge

Part IV: Examples of Philosophical Theology

• Lesson 10: Monistic and Creational World Views
• Lesson 11: Personhood and Incarnation
• Lesson 12: Christian Community and Organized Religion

PHILOSOPHY SERVES THEOLOGY

Students of theology often wonder why they are required to take courses in philosophy that seem to be a history of a welter of obscure opinions that lead nowhere. Yet as John Paul II has pointed out in his encyclical Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason) theology is "faith seeking understanding." God has spoken to us in the language of our own way of understanding derived from our own human experience. Consequently if we are to understand what God is telling us about the divine reality we must compare that revelation with what is told us through God's creation as we know it through our natural senses, imagination, and reason. Formerly the term "philosophy" was often understood to be a "metaphysics" or "science of being as being." Today the term is often taken in a very narrow sense to be the clarification of the languages of the various sciences. Originally, however, "philosophy" included all kinds of knowledge of which human beings are naturally capable and was thus contrasted only to theology in that the latter was the study of the revealed Word of God received not by reason but by the gift of faith. This course will deal with "philosophy" in this original broad sense as the whole scope of purely human knowledge as it is used by theologians in precise, critical ways to understand revealed truth. The aim of the course, therefore, is to help students of theology understand the ways the Scriptures, the documents of the Church, and the writings of theologians use purely human knowledge to express, explain, and communicate God's revealed Word to different cultures especially to our contemporary culture dominated by modern natural science and technology.

1) Do you as a student of theology resent philosophy requirements? If so, why?

2) What is your conception of "philosophy?

3) What do you think is the relation between "revealed truth" and "human truth?."

4) Is philosophy absolutely necessary for theology or only very helpful?

5) What does it mean to say that theology "interprets the Gospel to our culture?"

TEXTS FOR THIS COURSE

1) John Paul II, Encyclical Fides et Ratio (Reason and Faith), 1998 and Gaudium et Spes (The Church in the Modern World).

2) Avery Dulles, S.J., The Craft of Theology: From Symbol to System, (New York: Crossroad, 1992).

3) Jack A. Bonsor, Athens and Jerusalem: The Role of Philosophy in Theology (NewYork: Paulist, 1993).

4) Stanley L. Jaki, The Savior of Science, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000).

Additional and Reference Reading:

Robert Sokolowski, The God of Faith and Reason (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995).

Aidan Nichols, The Shape of Catholic History of Theology: An Introduction to it Sources, Principles, and History (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991).

William C. Placher, A History of Christian Theology: An Introduction (Philadelphia: Westminister Press, 1983) A Protestant perspective.

Jean-Pierre Torrell, O. P., Saint Thomas Aquinas; Vol. I The Person and His Work (Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996).