Council Fathers Research Articles

Book Review: The Council Fathers and Atheism: Interventions at the Fourth Session of Vatican Council II. Translated and Introduced by Peter Hebblethwaite, SJ. Paulist Press, 1967. 110 pp. 95C. The Declaration on Religious Freedom of Vatican Council II: The text and a Commentary. ByEnda McDonagh. Darton, Longman and Todd, 1967. 15S pp. 9S. 6d. Consequences, Truth and ... By Daniel

Book Review: The Council Fathers and Atheism: Interventions at the Fourth Session of Vatican Council II. Translated and Introduced by Peter Hebblethwaite, SJ. Paulist Press, 1967. 110 pp. 95C. The Declaration on Religious Freedom of Vatican Council II: The text and a Commentary. ByEnda McDonagh. Darton, Longman and Todd, 1967. 15S pp. 9S. 6d. Consequences, Truth and ... By Daniel

Thomism and Modern Science: Relationships Past, Present, and Future

THOMISM AND MODERN SCIENCE: RELATIONSHIPS PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE T HE IMPORTANCE of science and technology in the modern world is generally recognized by the Christian community. The Second Vatican Council, in fact, singled them out as dominant factors in our civilization, factors that are most responsible for the changing thought patterns of the twentieth century. The Council Fathers pointed to " the mathematical and natural sciences " as having a profound impact " in the cultural sphere and on modes of thought." 1 The life sciences and the social sciences, they acknowledged, are contributing also to the intellectual revolution that characterizes our age. Just as the Council of Trent over four centuries ago warned Catholics of theological innovations that could undermine their faith, so, in a more positive spirit, the Second Vatican Council directs attention to secular transformations to which the Church must adjust if she is to carry out her mission in the modern world. As a consequence of the Council's teaching, those charged with fostering the intellectual life within the Church are encouraged to take a positive attitude toward scientific disciplines . And, since so much of the Church's intellectual life is associated with scholasticism, and with Thomism in particular, the opportunity is thereby provided to examine anew the relationships between Thomism and modern science. The aim of such an examination, of course, is to chart a program for the future. Such a charting presupposes a knowledge of the present situation, but even more it presupposes a correct understanding of what has happened in the past. Thomism has existed for close to seven hundred years, and modern science has a history of about half that span. If it is difficult to back 1 The Pastoral Constitution, Gaudium et Spes, on the Church in the Modern World, Preface, No. 5. 67 68 WILLIAM A. WALLACE off and study the present situation, it is relatively simple to view the past, to see there what has been good and what bad in the relationships between Thomism and science, and from this to make plans for the future. THE MEDIEVAL PAST The early history of this relationship, that before the rise of modern science in the early seventeenth century, does not require lengthy exposition. Because of the Aristotelian thought context in which medieval science was located, both St. Thomas and his teacher, St. Albert the Great, took an active interest in, and wrote competently on, topics that were to interest the precursors of modern science. For example, they discussed motion and the conceptual foundations of what was later to become the science of mechanics; 2 they evaluated the astronomical theories of their time; 3 they had distinctive views on the structure of matter that went far beyond those of their contemporaries .4 Thomistic science, as practiced by St. Thomas and 2 St. Albert, for example, is usually cited for his use of th~ terms f!uxus formae and forma f!uens to characterize the diverse ways of viewing the entitative status of motion in general, and of local motion in particular. This distinction, taken up in the fourteenth century by nominalists and realists, became a fruitful source of discussion from which the new science of mechanics, in both its kinematical and dynamical aspects, was to emerge. See Anneliese Maier, Die Vorliiufer Galileis im 14. Jahrhundert (Roma: 1949), pp. 11-16. Similarly, St. Thomas is singled out for attention, because of his teaching, contrary to Aristotle and Averroes, that motion through a void would not be instantaneous, thus indirectly influencing the development of a concept of inertial resistance to motion among later thinkers such as Nicole Oresme. See A. Maier, Zwischen Philosophie und Mechanik (Roma: 1958)' pp. 226, 246, 257, 266-279. 3 For St. Thomas's critical evaluation of medieval astronomical theories, see Thomas Litt, O.C.S.O., Les Corps Celestes dans l'univers de saint Thomas d'Aquin. Philosophes Medievaux, Tome VII (Louvain/Paris: 1963); also W. A. Wallace, 0. P., Cosmogony. Vol. X of St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (New York/ London: 1967), English translation, with notes and appendices on Thomas's science. • St. Albert, with unusual foresight, endorsed the atoms of Democritus as providing an insight into the structure...

Atheism and the Area of Spiritual Culture

One of the most important facts in the contemporary intellectual life of mankind is its increasing liberation from the shackles of religion and the church. This is admitted even by bourgeois ideologists. Gabriel Marcel speaks of desacralization and the loss of the sense of the holy (see his paper at the 13th International Philosophical Congress, Mexico, 1963). Martin Heidegger speaks of atheization (see Holzwege, 1957), and at the Second Session of the 21st Ecumenical Council the Council fathers noted with alarm the de-Christianization of society.

Dialogue: A Moral Imperative

There can be little doubt that the omission on the part of John XXIII to speak of communism in either of the two greatest encyclicals of our time, Mater et Magistra and Pacem in Terris, has caused grave consternation in various Catholic circles.This consternation has gone as far as Vatican II. The Council from the beginning was born on a note of positive confrontation with the modern world in the open spirit of John XXIII. It was taken for granted that from the opening words of John to the Council Fathers, there would be no anathemas and condemnations.

VINCENZO RUFFO AND MUSICAL REFORM AFTER THE COUNCIL OF TRENT

T HE sources of the demand for reform in sacred music during the Counter-Reformation have been traced well back into the 15th century, and its widening course charted through the era of the Protestant secession. The pronouncements of local church councils throughout Europe on the subject of abuses in music were but reflections of a general dissatisfaction with the condition of liturgical affairs.1 And by 1563, when the Council of Trent finally adopted its official position on the matter, the Council fathers could look back upon decades of complaint against the state of sacred polyphony. Nor had individual voices of protest been confined to articulate spokesmen from within the clerical ranks, such as Cardinal Guglielmo Sirleto 2 and Bishop Cirillo Franco.3 Humanists of various persuasions, with or without musical backgrounds, and progressive musical theorists concerned with current stylistic trends found themselves united against a prevailing practice that failed to make intelligibility of the text its primary objective and mixed the sacred with the secular as a matter of course.