The Nouvelle Theologie and the Patristic Revival: Sources, Symbols and the Science of Theology

Abstract

: A historical survey of the various controversies between thinkers associated with the nouvelle theologie and the Roman Catholic hierarchy suggests that three matters were particularly at stake. First was an ecclesiology, whether the church was to be understood primarily as a historically-continuing structure of authority and obedience, or in more sacramental and spiritual ways. Second, the nature of theological language was at stake: is theology merely a set of logical deductions from divinely revealed, but universally accessible, propositions, or is faith and commitment necessary to any serious grasp of the import of theological claims? Finally, and undergirding these two issues, is a disagreement about the reception of the biblical witness, and so the recovery within the nouvelle theologie of patristic and medieval modes of figurative, typological or spiritual exegesis can be seen to be central to the movement.