Eloquentia vol 3, no. 1

Eloquentia

Volume III, no. 1 February 2017

e journal of the Chavagnes Studium

is issue: Truth and why we need it

A

rE you A younG mAn

21-30, with a university degree and a desire to serve others and Almighty God, through His Church?

AGED

Looking for a way to commit to an apostolic work for a short time, as a way of “doing your bit” for the Church before life gets too complicated?

Looking for a way to serve the Church, in a community of scholarship ? ...

Perhaps you are looking for a place to discern your future vocation.

Here at the Company of St Gregory we offer young men with a university education the chance to serve God intensely through work in education for a limited period: usually for two years. But it is sometimes possible to help out just for a year, or even for a term, perhaps combining teaching with some academic study through the Chavagnes Studium.

In exchange for your commitment, we offer full bed and board, travel costs and a small monthly stipend.

Daily mass, community life, cultural activities (including visits around Europe) and we’ll train you as a Catholic teacher.

Members of the Company of St Gregory are like the Fellows of a late medieval College in Oxford, Cambridge or Eton.

We eat together, pray together, and fulfil a mission of teaching and learning at the heart of Chavagnes International College, a Catholic school for boys.

More information:

www.chavagnes.org/gregorians

Eloquentia Volume III, no. 1.

FEBRUARY 2017

In this issue Spring poetry Ferdi McDermott Editorial : Ferdi McDermott Meet the students: Alexis Jabouley In the steps of Ulysses and the Caesars : Studium study trip ‘Universities at the service of truth’ by Agneska Lekka-Kowalik ‘Man’s mind is made for truth’ by Jason Jurotitch ‘A free science, bound only by truth’ by St John Paul II All photos are in the public domain or the copyright of Chavagnes Studium 2017, except for “Adobe Stock”: p. 2, p. 24. Articles may be free freely photocopied for academic purposes.

Please give due ackwowledgement in the event of any republication.

4 5 9 10 12 16 19

Eloquentia is published by Chavagnes Studium, a non-profit association which operates a Liberal Arts study centre in the west of France.

Chavagnes Studium 96 rue du Calvaire 85250 Chavagnes en Paillers France www.chavagnes.org/studium

A new Catholic Liberal Arts degree at the heart of Catholic Europe

BA Hons in the Liberal Arts with French : A 2-year intensive programme of Literature, History, Latin and French, Philosophy and Theology, Mathematics and Science. Based in the heart of the Vendée, with classes in our historic fomer seminary at a local French university college, plus special sessions throughout Europe, including Italy, England and Spain.

Applications are being accepted for enrolment from September 2017 for young men; women’s accommodation available from 2019.

Institut Catholique d’Etudes Supérieures

A fully accredited Bachelors degree in two years (eight 10-week terms) for less than $60,000 total cost. Bursaries are also available.

In partnership with ICES, the Catholic university of the Vendée. www.chavagnes.org/studium

Eloquentia Vol III, no. 1 - February 2017

3

Spring poetry Ferdi McDermott

On seeing the Peaceful face of God and the Sleep of the Just In the Tapestry of the Apocalypse at the Castle of Angers Was weighed down, Weary, with worldly woe When wondrous Warp and weft Won me.

Oh to sleep so, Sweetest, sainted Sleep!

Spring birds

Silent no more in yet naked boughs Perch pigeons, courting; while starlings, swifts Rival rooks and crows In skilful springtime song: Not stinting in their lilting, warbling, chirping.

Gone the cold cruelty of dark days, The silent brooding, Interminable rain, thick clouds that Mar sight of future joys.

But now, at last, Those xantheous jonquils Sweetly trumpet like A hallowed halcyon’s lay To hail eternal summer.

î “en to awake in Soaring, searing sunlight Of pure, perfected love.

Golden Jerusalem!

With the love of friends All around, And beautiful, Beloved Lord Christ Woven into Everything, And forever Before my eyes, Blessing me In bliss.

Ferdi McDermott is the Principal of Chavagnes Studium.

Editorial

Ferdi McDermott

“W

hat is truth?” It is the question Pontius Pilate asks of Christ, and it is a question men had in any case been asking each other for generations, perhaps since Adam. Our Lord’s short but mysterious answer in fact poses more questions: “Truth is what is real.”

As a student at Edinburgh, under the tutelage of the Domincans, I was inspired by the tale of their founder who 900 years ago founded one of the Church’s most inspiring and enduring orders in the surprising setting of a pub. He and a brother Augustinan canon had been arguing with a the inn-keeper, an Albigensian heretic, trying to persuade him of the truth of the Catholic faith. At dawn, after a night of debate, the inn-keeper repented his heresy, convinced by Dominic’s defence of Catholic doctrine. As Christ promised, Truth had set the man free ... free from a heresy that enslaved people by making them think that this life was not really worth living, that the flesh was evil, that suicide was perhaps the best way out, that a relationship with an incarnate and loving God was not a possibility; as untruths go, the Cathars’ ideas were objectively rather bleak.

In this issue, focused on the service of, search for and defence of the truth, we are beginning an important mission: to bring to the English speaking world, some of the light which is shining in university contexts that are unfamiliar to most of us. We begin with the great Catholic university of Lublin. Dr Lekka-Kowalik, whom I met at a conference in Castel Gandolfo a couple of years ago, tells the inspiring story of how her university has fought for the cause of truth for over a century. We also pay tribute to a great Australian omist, John Ziegler: a Catholic businessman who had a gift for sharing the wisdom of St omas with ordinary Catholics. He went to his reward ten years ago this year. e true freedom of the intellectual is set forth in this issue with the authoritative and beautiful voice of our beloved St John Paul II, whose words will be like a breath of crisp, fresh Polish air, received now with a hint of nostalgia for that great man and his mission to the world.

We hope that, issue by issue, Eloquentia will play its role in establishing the tone and ethos of our work at Chavagnes. So keep you back copies safe; they will always be something to come back to and savour.

Chesterton once observed that “Truth, of course, must of necessity be stranger than fiction, for we have made fiction to suit ourselves.” His e Ball and the Cross is a novel about how terrible the modern world is, or perhaps how terrible it looked set to become, almost an hundred years ago when Chesterton wrote it.

Has it come true? You tell me ...

It begins in an UFO, captained by a crazy scientist called Professor Lucifer. Like most devils in western literature, he is urbane and charming. He is accompanied by "an exceedingly holy man, almost entirely covered with white hair", by the name of Michael.

Michael and Lucifer then crash their flying machine into the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, and so begins a discussion of the ‘ball and the cross’, the former symbolising the smoothe, round world, and its worldliness, and the latter standing for the angular, difficult and painful road to spiritual wholeness.

Well, those of us who have lived patiently through 2000 are perhaps disappointed that we will probably never get to live in a beautiful and leafy space station, clothed in shiny boiler suits, as

our primary school teachers cheerily promised us. Now we dread the future, which looks distincly Orwellian. e 2000 of our space-age dreams is not happening; it is all rolling back to 1984.

Even Stephen Hawking is now predicting that we will be be overrun by malicious robots within twenty years. Watch out for the next issue of Eloquentia, where such gloomy scenarios will be faced head on, as we discuss the destruction of man ‘from Teilhard to Transhumanism’.

And now, something else to think about, especially if you are a flat earth believer, or belong to that group of people who like to belittle the Popes for allegedly backing the theory that the Earth is a giant pancake rather than a giant ball. ere is a very widespread, but mistaken belief that medievals thought the Earth was flat, and that Christopher Columbus and Galileo had an exceedingly difficult job updating our idea of the universe. In fact, the notion that the earth is round is older than Christianity and was promoted by Aristotle (384 – 322 BC) and Pythagoras (560 - 480 BC). Most interestingly, Eratosthenes of Cyrene (276 - 194 BC) made a very creditable calculation of the circumference of the earth.

In the Egyptian town of Aswan, then known as Syene, 500 miles southeast of Alexandria, the Sun's rays at noon fall vertically at the summer solstice (the longest day of the year: 21st June in the northern hemisphere). Eratosthenes knew this not because he had been to Syene, but because he had read – in the great library of Alexandria - of a well in Syene that was completely lit up by the sun at noon on this day.Eratosthenes observed that at Alexandria, at the same date and time, the light of the sun fell at an angle of just over 7° from the vertical. (Or in his terms, 1/50 of a circle).

He measured this by planting a stick in the ground and measuring the angle made by the shadow.

Presuming, as Eratosthenes did, that the sun was very far away, its rays would be practically parallel on reaching the Earth. Not only does the difference of angle between the two cities reassure us that the Earth is not flat; it also enabled our Greek friend to calculate the circumference of the Earth. He did this simply by multiplying the distance of 5,000 stadia (the distance between Syene and Alexandria) by 50 (the difference of angle between Syene and Alexandria being 1/50th of a circle, and the world, as we know, being a sphere.) e answer – 250,000 stadia, or about 25,000 miles – is very close to what modern scientists reckon: 24,901.55 miles.

By the early Middle Ages all the West accepted the theory of a round earth. e story that Christopher Columbus persuaded Europe that the Earth was round by sailing ‘over the edge of it’ is a fable created by the writer Washington Irving and has no basis in fact at all, especially given that Columbus never circumnavigated the globe. He only sailed from Spain to the Amercias, which is something the Vikings, and probably the Irish had done centuries before.

And so, back to the ball and the cross. Remember all those medieval representations of Christ as sovereign, often seated in his mother’s lap, carrying the orb, that symbol of the round world, surmounted, governed and protected by the trophy of our salvation.

It is one of those beautiful and felicitous coincidences that the man who first measured the globe, Eratosthenes of Cyrene, came from the same town in modern-day Libya as the man picked from the crowd, centuries later, to carry the Cross of our Redeemer.

Stat crux dum volvitur orbis ... “while the world turns, the Cross stands fast.” A blessed Easter to you all.

Eloquentia Vol III, no. 1 - February 2017

5

The Background to Question 11 of Aquinas’ De Veritate Question Eleven: The Teacher

John Ziegler

Primo utrum homo possit docere et dici magister vel solus Deus.

Secundo utrum aliquis possit dici magister sui ipsius.

Tertio utrum homo ab Angelo doceri possit.

Quarto utrum docere sit actus vitae activae vel contemplativae.

1. Can a man or only God teach and be called teacher?

2. Can one be called his own teacher?

3.Can a man be taught by an angel?

4. Is teaching an activity of the contemplative or the active life?

ow the question on The Teacher in St Thomas’s ‘Quaestiones Disputate de Veritate’ came to be written, and how it was not the end of the story, is a study in itself. It is, in miniature, the story of how the philosophical thought of Aristotle might have failed ever to be understood in Christendom, and it is the story of innovation, of novelty, in the service of orthodoxy.

The reason for stability came to be called form, a common word used for shape, and shape is one of the stabilities. The word was used by those who developed philosophy to mean the reason for any stability: so, not only is the shape of this rock stable over time, which is one thing, but moreover while it is a rock it remains what it is, and is not simultaneously a cat or a tree or a whole botanical garden. So Greek philosophy came to speak of the form of shape, of heat, of cat. Form, then, meant any determinacy, any reality by reason of which there was stability.

H

The Greeks were the first we know of to wonder about reality as they found it, not as to how they might make use of it, but simply to know. Their bent of mind gave us philosophy, a Greek term meaning love of wisdom.

If you wonder as they did, two things strike you: things change, and yet they are stable. I mean that they are stable from instant to instant, in spite of change. If there were no reason whatever for such stability as things have, then neither would there be any stability from instant to instant. There would be pure change, pure chaos. Change and stability are opposites, and since opposites cannot have the same reason (they’re opposites), then not only must there be a reason for the stability of things, but there must be another reason for change.

6

Eloquentia Vol III, no. 1 - February 2017

Plato, the teacher of Aristotle, had a stunning insight into this fundamental notion of form. Indeed, the insight so struck him that he thought that forms were something separate from things - things changed; so, he thought, forms, those reasons opposite to change, must be separate from things. He proposed a world of forms not only distinct from but separate from the world our senses know. These are the famous Platonic Forms. For Plato, this was the genuine, the real, world; and the world our senses know merely a pale and insubstantial imitation of it.

Question Eleven of the De Veritate is in four parts, all pertaining to the nature of teaching.

The four were no doubt separate disputations. The first problem of this Question is: “Can a man or only God teach and be called teacher?” Before going on to give his reply, Aquinas writes the following preface to his answer: “There is the same sort of difference of opinion on three issues: on the bringing of forms into existence, on the acquiring of virtues, and on the acquiring of scientific knowledge:

Some have said that all sensible forms come from an external agent, a separated substance or form, which they call the giver of forms or agent intellect, and that all that lower agents do is to prepare the matter to receive the form.

Similarly, Avicenna says that our activity is not the cause of a good habit, but only keeps out its opposite and prepares us for the habit so that it may come from the substance which perfects the souls of men, the ‘agent intellect’ or some such [separate] substance.

B

They also hold that knowledge is caused in us solely by an agent free of matter. For this reason Avicenna holds that the intelligible forms flow into our mind from the [separated] agent intellect.”

ut Aristotle saw that it was unreasonable to think that.

Things are stable in themselves, and are changeable in themselves, so these reasons must be, not merely mental explanations, or realities separate from things, but realities in things. For Aristotle, the reason of stability, form, and the reason for change, which he called matter, are the very realities which actually constitute things: things are, after all, both stable and changeable.

Very well. Now, in his reflections on sense knowledge and on understanding, Aristotle saw something that philosophers of recent times, many of them, miss: that sense knowledge, including that of imagination, is of things with all their array of individual characteristics - the cat I see has one white foot, this triangle I imagine is made of wood and is painted blue; but that we have a knowledge which is of just forms, of just what is relevant - my idea of what cat consists of ignores white-footedness, the definition of triangle which I understand leaves out anything to do with wood or blueness. That is, whilst sense knows things complete in their materiality, understanding knows their forms apart from that materiality, apart from their matter. Plato was not totally wrong: there is a world of forms, but it is in intellect.

What Aristotle saw was that it must be a function of intellect to separate forms from matter, from the way they are known in sense, so that they might then inhabit the intellect. He used these terms: the intellect in its function of separating the forms he called the intellect acting, or agent intellect; and the intellect in its function of being determined (in order to understand) he called the intellect determinable, or possible intellect.

The scene changes. The Greek civilisation slowly declines.

What we call Christendom is established in the west of the Asian and in the European continents. The Roman sovereignty wanes. In Syria, however, there are still Greek institutions of learning (why did the Romans never contribute significantly to philosophy?) about the first half of the seventh century AD when Islam begins.

Islam drove the nations called Arab to flower as one of the brilliant civilisations of the world. At a time when what history calls the Dark Ages had overtaken Christendom, the Arab world flowered in sciences, arts, politically and intellectually. This civilisation far outshone Christendom, in the achievements for which civilisations are praised, for hundreds of years. Medicine, mathematics (algebra is Arabic; and our arithmetic is done in Arabic numerals, not Roman) and all the arts. And philosophy. And then, suddenly, it lost its impetus and faded. Why? It would be fascinating to know.

The Arabs began to philosophise. They had, in this, the benefit of a more or less unbroken line of Greek learning in the schools of western Asia. But those schools had no notable philosophers and in a mediocre way had preserved without much discrimination what had been the corpus of Greek philosophy. The Arabs, without a philosophical tradition of their own simply took ‘Greek philosophy’, rather compounded as they found it of eclectic elements of both Plato and Aristotle, as being synonymous with philosophy. So Algazel, one of the first, adopted, as Philosophy, something inconsistent.

Through him the two greatest, Avicenna and Averroes, obtained the doctrine which is at the root of our question.

Somehow, and strangely, we find in Avicenna the doctrine that the agent intellect is not, as Aristotle meant, an aspect of the intellect in each man, but that it is a Platonic Form, unique, separated from the world, one only for all men. The successor of Avicenna, Averroes, goes further. For him, the possible intellect, allowed by Avicenna to be in each man, is also unique, separated, a Platonic Form.

The scene changes again. A hundred or so years before the time of St Thomas, some in Christendom, emerging from the recession of the Dark Ages, in what we can call a backwater of civilisation, see in this brilliant Arab world a sort of mentor. It is akin to, say, the citizens of a bush town looking to the amenities, ideas, and benefits to be had in a large city.

Eloquentia Vol III, no. 1 - February 2017

7

It is not that philosophy had been lost altogether to the West in the intervening centuries. Rather, Aristotle had been lost to the West, but Plato and the opinions of those who followed him had not. Learning had not been utterly extinguished during those ages. But what there was, was Platonic. Augustine is Platonic, purged indeed of what is distinctly at odds with revelation.

Here, then, for some, was ‘Aristotle’; Aristotle, but as interpreted, or misinterpreted, by these brilliant Arab philosophers.

But those who began to study this ‘Aristotle’ did not know the Arabs did not know - that it was a distorted Aristotle.

There began to be a strain, particularly an Averroist strain, of philosophy that believed itself to be Aristotelian, which emerged in the emerging universities of Europe.

But what did this ‘Aristotle’ teach? That there was but one intellect for all men? Then, what becomes of the economy of the New Testament, of the system of reward and punishment in the future life, pertaining, as they do, to individuals? (For both Plato and Aristotle saw that the soul is immortal. But it is immortal in its powers of intellect and will.) Faced with this charge, those holding this doctrine - and because they were teaching in the universities, which were religious more than secular schools, they were mostly theologians - began to take refuge in the contention that something could be true in philosophy but false in theology; the doctrine that came to be called the doctrine of the Two Truths.

8

As this situation came to be, the Dominican Albert, whom history calls the Great, the teacher of Thomas, saw that it was an urgent task to consult the texts of Aristotle themselves to exorcise them of the misinterpretation of the Arabs (which was originally the misinterpretation of those Greek schools).

And so it is no surprise to see his pupil (some great masters are overshadowed by their own pupils) embark on a life-long project, with much more besides, to meditate and to teach a genuine Aristotle, but not only to teach him (there has been no better interpreter) but to go beyond him, to complete him, to teach a doctrine that, while it includes Aristotle, and an Aristotle occasionally purged of an error, is his own. We justly call that doctrine Thomism.

Thomas was appointed professor of theology at the University of Paris in 1256. He taught there for three years before undertaking, among other things, a large project, with Greek scholar William of Moerbeke and other Dominicans, on the translation of and commentary upon most of the works of Aristotle, in Italy. He returned, as we shall see, to Paris as professor in 1268. At that time a professor of theology considered it his business also to be a philosopher, so that, for instance, a major work on theology would also be a work on philosophy: we look to Aquinas’s encyclopaedia of theology, his Summa Theologiae, also as a major source of his philosophical doctrine. A master (professor) was expected to hold public disputations several times a year as part of his teaching programme. A disputation would be essentially public, would invite objections to the main thesis, would deliver that thesis, and answer the objections. The De Veritate is the record of the larger part of the disputations conducted by Thomas at Paris over those three years, and he certainly carried out his obligations since it is the record of some two hundred and

Eloquentia Vol III, no. 1 - February 2017

fifty ‘articles’, most of which would have been separate disputations. Now the relevance to what we have seen is that the doctrine that produced the Two Truths had begun to be in evidence at Paris. We find clear evidence of that in the reply of Thomas in the first article of the question.

Thomas, as has been said, returned to Paris in 1268; in fact, he was recalled there from Italy by his Order because the situation at Paris with regard to the Two Truths had become intolerable. A professor in the faculty of Arts, Siger of Brabant, held that ‘Aristotelian’ doctrine that had come through Averroes, and the doctrine of the Two Truths, and there were others who held the same. It is not clear whether in response to something written by Siger, or by another, Thomas wrote, about 1270, his “On the Unity of the Intellect Against the Averroists”, in which he proves that the Agent Intellect, which must exist to extract what is understandable from things, and the Possible Intellect, which understands them, are each really powers of the intelligence of the individual human soul. The work was evidently written as an instrument not only of controversy, but also of rebuke. In it he uses the words of Aristotle, well known to him since that project in Italy, to refute the contentions of those who claimed the authority of Aristotle for their position; and he gives also proofs from reason. Having concluded his proofs, we find this: “If there be anyone boasting of his knowledge, falsely so-called, who wishes to say something against what we have written here, let him not speak in corners, nor in the presence of boys who do not know how to judge about such difficult matters, but let him write against this treatise if he dares, and he will find not only me who am the least of others, but many other lovers of truth, by whom his error will be opposed or his ignorance remedied.” In 1270 the Bishop of Paris condemned those propositions being taught that came from the interpretation of Aristotle by Averroes. But this did not stop the further spread of those ideas. In 1277 (Thomas had died in 1274) the same Bishop again condemned those propositions, plus others; and these others included some propositions of Aquinas. There is some evidence that the Bishop acted in haste.

This is what the historian Gilson says about it: “The case of Thomas Aquinas is...striking. He [Aquinas] seems to have realized that, with respect to the rise of Aristotelianism and its problems, two attitudes were possible: either to adopt the language of Aristotle without conceding his fundamental principles, as Bonaventure was doing, or else to adopt both his language and his principles, but to transfigure their philosophical interpretation. This is what he himself undertook to do, or rather this is what he spontaneously did. The result was that, when the Averroists began to make trouble, he was mistaken by some for one of them. And indeed, in the sight of those who could not understand the deeper meaning of his philosophical innovations, Thomas Aquinas was bound to appear, if not as an Averroist, at least as a fellow traveller.” In 1278 the Dominicans decided to defend the doctrine of Aquinas, and it became soon the official teaching of their order.

For the rest, Thomas was canonized so early as 1323. In 1324 the Parisian condemnation of his propositions was withdrawn as a dead letter.

This article first appeared in Universitas, Vol 2 (1998), No. 1. and is repiublished with the mermission of the Centre for Thomistic Studies, Sydney, Australia. Dr John Ziegler died in 2007. May he rest in peace.

Meet the students at Chavagnes Studium Alexis Jabouley talks to Eloquentia Alexis. Tell us how you heard about Chavagnes.

For as long as I can remember I had heard good things about Chavagnes from various people whose friends and relations had sent their sons to the school. After finishing my high school studies, I was looking for a way of deepening my knowledge of English language and culture, as well as my knowledge and appreciation of culture in general.

And so when I heard about the opening of the Studium, I was immediately attracted to the idea. I was used to living in a boarding environment, and I come from a solid Catholic family, so Chavagnes seemed just right for me.

Do you find it difficult to cope with the study of literature, philosophy and such subjects in a language which is not your first language?

Well ... As long as we are able to discuss freely in class, and then I am also able to catch up with private reading, at my own pace, there is not really a problem; after all, that is why I am here. I want to become fluent in written and spoken English. To be honest, so far the real challenge has been getting to grips with Euclid ... not in the orginal Greek, but in the Engish translation; I had thought I was very good at Maths, but this has been a new approach for me. And funnily, it is not really a new approach, but the very basis of all the mathematics we know.. that's very Chavagnes. at's what we do: going back to the basics.

Alexis Jabouley, 18, has recently joined the Studium. He is a keen scout and rugby player, whose team were national under-18 champions last year. As well as following the Studium programme, he is voluntarily tutoring boys at the school, and helping with school rugby.

impressed by the richness of what they have to offer. ey are all people who share freely and happily what they know.

And they know a lot.

What about the experience of living under the same roof as your teachers and other students, eating at the same table, praying in the same chapel?

It's great. I've never seen that before. It doesn't really exist elsewhere in France; although perhaps it existed in the middle ages, in the Sorbonne, and places like that. It creates, certainly, a very particular educational environment; in a way, a 24/7 environment. It makes you think a lot; but it also makes you tired!! But we have good coffee, so that's OK.

What is it like, being in such a small study group?

It is both reassuring and challenging. We are always talking with each other about the things we are studying, and in fact sometimes we discover as much from discussions outside the class as in the class itself; the knowledge imparted in the tutorial setting, and from reading, sort of grows afterwards, like a tree!

What about your teachers? Do you have favourites?

Difficult question. For me, as a Frenchman, I am privileged to have an Northern Irish teacher, an American teacher, a Scottish teacher (and priest), and various English teachers with their Oxford accents. And the other students all have different accents too. From a linguistic point of view, I am not sure whose English is better! I suppose I will have to adopt a mixture of their accents and ways of speaking ...

On a personal level too, they all have different, eccentric and interesting personalities; it is difficult to choose between them because they are all friends. ey are different, but in a way, part of the same thing, the same idea ... I guess that is community. It is interesting, and I like it. I am

How important is your faith to you? How does it relate to your experience at Chavagnes?

My faith is the dearest thing to me, in my life. And the fact of having daily Mass here is wonderful. e encounter with the living Christ in the Chapel, at the very heart of this little educational community, is like the sunshine lighting up the whole day of work .. and indeed our whole lives. at is how it should be. In France we say that a day without sunshine is like a meal without wine ...

Is there anything else you would wish to add about your experiences at Chavagnes? e chance to help with certain things in the boarding school, such as Scouts and some tutoring, has been an enriching experience for me. But also, the healthy balance between intellectual and physical acitvity is really an important aspect; we have a body as well as mind, and indeed a soul.

And it's good to keep all of these in good shape. anks for sharing your thoughts with us, Alexis.

Eloquentia Vol III, no. 1 - February 2017

9

Rome and Sicily Report

James Battye and Jake Belanger

T

he ten-day Studium study trip to Rome and Sicily in early February was a beautiful way of consolidating and celebrating what we have been learning about ancient Greece and Rome. e two of us were accompanied by Mr McDermott, Zachary omas (who is currently working in he Vatican archives but will be joining Chavagnes in the autumn), plus Charles and Lauren Yost and their well-behaved little baby, William. Charles is a professor at Notre Dame.

Apart from consuming plenty of delicious and varied Roman and Sicilian cuisine, and seeing some of the monuments we had read of in ancient historical and literary texts, we also had some real - ausually impromptu - moments of intellectual and even spiritual communion with our cultural ancestors.

We quote just a few examples, to give you the idea: as we walked perchance down the Via Sacra (the Sacred Way) in the middle of the Roman forum, thiking about nothing in particular, Mr McDermott broke into a Latin recital of Horace’s ibam forte via sacra, which means, more or less, “as I walked perchance down the Sacred Way, thinking about nothing in particular ...”

As we explored the dusty catacomb that was once St Paul’s rented home in Rome, before his incarceration, we imagi-

ned him sitting there dictating to St Luke, and read from the Epistles he composed there.

And in Sicily, amid beautiful hills, olive groves and unfamiliar spring flowers, we strolled around Doric temples and spent half an hour in an amphitheatre from the 5th century BC, each reciting his party piece. ere was the Oddysey in Greek, then the opening lines of the Aeneid in Latin, followed by chunks of Shakespeare and Chaucer. We tried sitting on the top steps, and were able to hear and enjoy every line. e Vatican museums were overwhelming by dint of the sheer weight of marble statuary they contained. Definitely worth another visit.

We should mention also the moments of prayerful participation in the Masses at Sant Maria Maggiore and St Peter’s and the Angelus message in St Peter’s Square. It was good to be close to the eternal and beating heart of Rome, somehow feeling, deep down, that loving touch of God that Adam feels on Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling.

Zachary kept going up to Sicilans and asking them, in Italian, difficult religious and cultural questions, such as “Have you seen any Cyclopes?” (It is believed that Ulysses landed where we were visiting in Trapani and Erice.) ere was also the discovery of Limoncello, but that’s another story.

We returned to Chavagnes, by interminable overnight bus; we felt like Joachim du Bellay who returned from Rome and wrote: “Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage ..” It was good to be back at Chavagnes.

Universities at the

service of the Truth Professor Ewa Agnieszka Lekka-Kowalik

I

n my talk I will defend three theses:

Professor Ewa Agnieszka Lekka-Kowalik

KUL: The Catholic University of Lublin was founded in 1918. It is the oldest university in Lublin and one of the oldest in Poland. It was founded by the Polish Episcopate and entrusted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. with the motto " Deo et Patriae" - "For God and Fatherland".

On 16th October 2005 during a ceremonial inauguration of academic year 2005-2006, KUL adopted the name of The John Paul Catholic University of Lublin.

The talk reproduced here is an edited version of a paper delivered to a Vatican-sponsored international Catholic education conference at which KUL and the Chavagnes Studium were represented, among hundreds of other Catholic university instituions, in November 2015.

Dr. Ewa Agnieszka Lekka-Kowalik is Director of the John Paul II Institute at KUL 12

Eloquentia Vol III, no. 1 - February 2017

the understanding of the human being as a person constitutes a foundation for the understanding of what a university is; the nature and mission of a university do not change with changes of historical contexts in which it functions. The university is able to find new ways of fulfilling its mission and thereby to transform contexts; the experience of the Catholic University of Lublin since 2005 the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin - provides evidence supporting the above theses.

Let us develop these theses, although - due to the shortage of time - in my talk there will be more claims than elaborated arguments.

The understanding of the human being relevant for the understanding of what a university is includes three crucial claims: the human being is a person, i.e. a being equipped with intellect and free will, capable of comprehending, deciding/acting and loving. As such the human being possesses the ontic1 dignity that must be respected; the human being is a contingent but potentialized being , i.e. a being which is capable of actualizing its potentialities through cognition, acting and loving; the goal of cognition and the foundation of acting and loving is truth understood as the adequatio intellectus et rei.

The university, born ex corde Ecclesiae in the eleventh century is - to use a metaphor - an institutional response to this kind of understanding of the human being, for its basic mission is searching for the truth and transmitting what is discovered as true to its students and to society; by fulfilling this mission it assists in creating conditions in which the human person can flourish and in which her dignity is protected and advanced; in so doing it serves the common good.

Some important consequences follow from that fact: the university searches for the truth, not just some particular kinds of truth - the university is governed by the ideal of the full truth, and therefore is engaged in an open-ended inquiry and must transmit truths (and methods of inquiry) through teaching, even if in order to continue that inquiry; nothing is a priori excluded as a subject-matter of inquiry - research includes God, the human being, and the world; research should result in an understanding of beings knowledge not only of their properties, but also of their place in the order of things and relations to other beings as well as an understanding of particular domains of knowledge, their mutual relationships and the contribution that each of

them brings to the understanding of reality. Here we begin to see why theology and philosophy (with logic and methodology) are indispensable disciplines in a university, disciplines which cannot be replaced by any other disciplines, even if those other disciplines generate more patents or attract more students; truth constitutes a basis for developing a community. Searching for the truth and transmitting the truth require cooperation, for we are all contingent beings, equal in the face of truth - it is reality, not one’s social status, wealth, or power, that determines what is true or false. research and teaching both require and result in the development not only of intellect but also of will and emotions.

University people must possess personal virtues such as honesty, perseverance, humility, responsibility, eagerness, respect for interlocutors, openness, courage to defend what is perceived to be true, and much else besides. Thus, the integral formation of creative personalities is a third and indispensable task of a university.

We can then describe the essence of a university by means of three Latin expressions: universitas litterarum, universitas scholarum et magistrorum, and officina humanitatis. Any institution that dispenses with any of the three tasks is an institution different than a university, regardless of the official name it bears.

The university thus understood might be seen as a model of social life, of interpersonal relations, of honest dialogues and rational debates, of peaceful resolution of conflicts; and people thus educated work in a society, thereby transforming it into a society in which the truth is sought and respected this is the fundamental service of the university in relation to society. “For a true education aims at the formation of the human person in the pursuit of his ultimate end and of the good of the societies” (Gravissimum educationis, 1.) Thus, what ultimately justifies the development and support of a university as a social institution is the flourishing of the human person and therefore the common good.

If we agree that the university is an institutional response to human nature, we should also agree that the mission of the university does not change with changes of contexts. This is why Saint John Paul could say - after nine hundred years - in Lublin on 9th June 1987: “University. Alma Mater!

Serve the Truth! If you serve the Truth - you serve Freedom.

And [if you serve] the liberation of man and the Nation …

You serve Life!” But of course in different social and cultural contexts different ways of serving the Truth might be needed. For different contexts create different challenges to the fulfillment of the university’s mission, and any university should be prepared to face those challenges. What, however, does it mean to “face the challenges” of a context? It is not just about searching for truths that are important to solve the burning problems of the day, or educating the professionals needed in a given society. It also means analyzing problems from the point of view of the human person’s ultimate good and ultimate end as well as evaluating proposed solutions from that point of view.

It means having the courage to stand up for the results of those analyses and evaluations, even if they are unwelcome; when the truth is maintained, defended and disseminated,

even if sometimes various powers try to silence or distort it.

In society a university becomes a guardian and custodian of truth and through educated people who are ready to work and suffer for the sake of the truth, it is able to transform a context in accordance with the truth about the human person and common good. Thus, the university does not acquire a new mission in new social and cultural contexts but rather it is able to answer challenges of a new context and to transform any context so that it responds better to the human person and her dignity.

In short, the goal that emerges from the university’s aim of serving the truth by research, teaching and formation of creative personalities is to assist in the protection and advancement of human dignity in any and every context. Here again the indispensability of philosophy in the academic curriculum reveals itself: for philosophy — to follow Rev. Stanislaw Kamifisid, an outstanding thinker from KUL — is a selfawareness of culture, capable of showing how culture can be suitable for the human person, allowing her to develop integrally and harmoniously (S. Kamifiski, Jak filozofowaa, s.

52).

The experience of my university — the Catholic University of Lublin, and since 2005 the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin — provides evidence supporting the above understanding of the nature and mission of a university in various contexts. I will now illustrate it by sketching three different historical periods in almost a hundred years of KUL’s history and ways in which KUL has fulfilled its mission.

1918-1939: In 1918 Poland — after 123 years of being divided between three neighboring countries: Russia, Prussia and the Austrian Empire, and of the struggle for freedom - regains the independence; in the same year the Polish Episcopate on the initiative of Rev. Idzi Radziszewski founds in Lublin the Catholic university. KUL has been entrusted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Its maxim is “Deo et Patriae” - “For God and Fatherland”.

The following explicit aims were established: (a) to undertake objective scientific research in the spirit of the harmony between reason and faith, for reason and faith support each other in discovering the truth; (b) to educate a Catholic intelligentsia which would serve to rebuild the state and nation. (The term “Catholic intelligentsia” meant here that students, apart from mastering a scientific discipline, must thoroughly rethink the truths of the faith and Catholic worldview, as when accepted, the faith must be a personal conviction, not just a tradition;) (c) to elevate the nation to a higher level of religious and intellectual life by disseminating the results and ideas developed in academia. John Paul II, addressing the Senate and professors of KUL on June 17, 1983 said that “there must be an organic connection between independence and the university”.

1939-1944: The Second World War. Poland is attacked first

by Hitler’s Germany (1.09.1939) and then the Soviet Union (17.09.1939). The University is shut down, the rector imprisoned; many of the professors and

Eloquentia Vol III, no. 1 - February 2017

13

students executed. In spite of danger, the University is involved in secret, underground education.

1944-1989 (with a short period of “Solidarity” 1980-1981) On August 21, 1944 KUL reopens its doors as the first university in post-war Poland. The task of educating the Catholic intelligentsia, decimated by the occupying forces, comes initially to the fore. Yet, Poland falls under the influence of the Soviet Union, the socialist system is imposed on the Polish society, and very soon KUL becomes the only independent university in the Soviet-controlled Eastern Bloc.

It then becomes a guardian of objective research and free teaching as well as a custodian and witness of the truth, especially the truth about the human person. It becomes a place, where truth prevails and distorted interpretations of reality rejected (for example, Marxist philosophy and socialistic economy were analyzed and criticized on such a high scientific level, that even the party officials attended lectures in secret; public debates with the proponents of a new system were organized).

So very soon KUL is seen one of the main “enemies” of a socialistic atheistic system. The socialist government attempts to minimize KUL’s influence on a society and starts repressions: some faculties are taken away the right to grant scientific degrees, the number of students limited, academic publications censored, various faculties closed, KUL’s graduates have difficulties to be employed, financial duties are imposed, and the like. But Polish society defends and supports KUL (also financially) and its professors, students and staff openly profess their Catholic faith. This is an indication that KUL has fulfilled the mission set for it by the Founder.

From 1989 to the present

14

In 1989 a radical transformation begins - the socialist system collapses, processes of democratization begin. KUL’s members and graduates take an active part in the various processes of transformation, and the results of research carried out in KUL are used in those processes. In 2004 Poland joins the European Union. KUL continues carrying on objective research in the spirit of harmony between reason and faith, as well as teaching and integral formation of creative personalities. It also maintains a curriculum in which the unity of knowledge and the ideal of the whole truth are still presupposed (all BA students must learn logic, ethics and elements of the history of philosophy).

But certain new ways of serving the Truth arise. In the pluralistic world, with metaphysical and ethical relativism, KUL - precisely as a Catholic university - must defend the truth against distortions and ideologies. It must anew ask what is truly good for the human person in a contemporary civilizational context and search for a rigorous answer to that question.

It must evaluate other answers given and “measure” proposed solutions to burning social problems with the criterion of the dignity of the human person and her good.

It must profess those answers and evaluations, even if they are unwelcome: “if need be, a Catholic University

Eloquentia Vol III, no. 1 - February 2017

must have the courage to speak uncomfortable truths which do not please public opinion, but which are necessary to safeguard the authentic good of society” (Ex corde Ecclesiae, 32). Moreover, in the world in which the value of truth is questioned or the possibility of attaining truth by humans is doubted, it must defend both truth and human reason — in the world of a growing number of fortune-tellers, astrologers and the like, the university must become a guardian of rationality, ensuring at the same time that reason remains open to considerations of ultimate fundamental truths. „The present age is in urgent need of this kind of disinterested service, namely of proclaiming the meaning of truth, that fundamental value without which freedom, justice and human dignity are extinguished” (Ex corde Ecclesiae, 4). And recently it must also protect and defend the very idea of a university, as we seem to have lost the understanding what universities are for, even if the name “university” is very ubiquitous and is used by a growing number of totally discordant institutions.

To sum up: The university as an educational institution, born ex corde Ecclesiae, corresponds to the nature of the human being understood as a contingent potentialized person. Its goal is to serve the truth and by serving the truth to serve the good of the human person. Thus, the good of the human person and her dignity is an ultimate measure of all university activities. Is such a conception of a university not a relic of the past?

My answer is: no. On the contrary, such a university is a guardian and custodian of culturally fruitful values and ideas, as well as a “source” of well-educated and integrally formed professionals who are able to respond to challenges of current contexts and transform those contexts into ones more adequate to human dignity.

“Set against personal struggles, moral confusion and fragmentation of knowledge, the noble goals of scholarship and education, founded on the unity of truth and in service of the person and the community, become an especially powerful instrument of hope” (Benedict XVI, to the Catholic University of America, April 17, 2008).

The history of my university provides evidence for this claim. The remaining question is: will we be able to maintain such universities ? _________________________________________ 1

Ontic : In philosophy, ontic (from the Greek meaning “of that which is”) is physical, real, or factual existence.

“Ontic” describes what is there, as opposed to the nature or properties of that being. Perhaps not so far from ‘innate’ or ‘intrinsic’ in this context. [Ed.]

2017 Chavagnes Studium Conference Monday 31st July to Friday 4th August 2017

Mary and Martyrdom with optional stay until Sunday 6th August

“A sword shall pierce your heart so that the secret thoughts of many may be revealed.”

An inter-disciplinary conference under the patronage of Mary as ‘Mater Dolorosa’, linked with reflections on Christian martyrdom through the ages.

Provisional paper titles include: Devotion to the sufferings of Mary in the early Church Mary as Co-Redemptrix: perspectives from literature and theology e civil war of the Vendée, 1793 to 1800 e Church as a “sign of contradiction” in post-Revolution France Christians under communism Christians in the Middle East today Liturgical perspectives on the sufferings of Mary e Mater Dolorosa in Art and Music Mary in English Literature e Virgin Mary and challenges for modern families Daily Mass and devotions, Catholic conviviliaty with French food and wine.

Visits to a vineyard, to historic sites linked to the Vendée uprising, to the Puy du Fou historic theme park, to local shrines and châteaux.

For full details: email studium@chavagnes.org

Special pre-publication price

Order your copy of the proceedings of the 2016 Chavagnes Studium Conference for a special price of 20 euros, including shipping.

is attractive paperback volume of about 150 pages includes all the papers delivered at the Chavagnes Summer Conference 2016, together with a selection of otherwise unavailable essays on related Marian themes by key Catholic scholars.

To reserve your copy, simply email studium@chavagnes.org

Publication: Easter 2017

Eloquentia Vol III, no. 1 - February 2017

15

Man’s mind is made for Truth No matter how hard man tries, he cannot deny objective truth.

Jason Jurotitch

T

ruth, which is the alignment of our intelligence with what is outside of us and points to the fact that reality (that which is external to the person, exists independently of him, and is the same for everyone) is the foundation of knowledge, presents itself to man as certain or absolute in relation to its existence, and in trying to deny it, man contradicts himself because he eventually ends up admitting exactly what he wants to deny. For example, when someone says “there is no truth,” he presupposes precisely the opposite, that what he said (“there is no truth”) is true, i.e., corresponds to the fact that there is a “common ground” (reality) between him and the other, independent of the two, and for that reason the other understands him, underlying that what he says is objective and not based on the subject.

16

When a person affirms something, he presupposes that what is actually said is that way because reality is this “common” or “third” element which is independent, autonomous, and shared between the speaker and the listener.

In saying something to someone, it is assumed that the other person understands what is being said, precisely because the thing affirmed does not depend on the person that says it. For example, if someone says, “this tree is green” he presupposes that the other person already understands what is “a tree” and what is “green”, and that the ens (being) in front of him exists in that way. This is because these elements are independent of individual perception. If you pretend that everything is subjective and

Eloquentia Vol III, no. 1 - February 2017

that knowledge depends on the perception or opinion of each person, there would be no hope that other people would understand you. “Green” for one could be “purple” or “light green” to another, and they would never come to understand each other.

There would then be no certainty about anything if everything depended on how you look at something and not how things are in themselves. A separation between the subject and everything that surrounded him would be the byproduct of such a theory. He would be like an island with no possibility of “touching” or “connecting” with others because personal or private perception would manipulate everything. Without reference to something real, something objective or common, all human interaction would be insecure, empty, and meaningless, given that there would be no way of knowing if what someone says is real or true.

Thus, when one says that “truth does not exist”, it is as absurd as saying “red is not a color”. But even if someone said this, it is assumed that the other person knows what “color” is and what “red” is, otherwise, the words would have no meaning for the other person. It would be like saying “ggxxdd is not a bbxxddd” because if “red” were not a “color” both words would remain empty of any essence and no one would understand. Conversely, if I did say something like that, I would presuppose that the other person understands, by the idea behind the word “red”, that it is a color, and so I end up presuming what I was trying to deny: that “red is a color”.

To say that there is no truth is as absurd as saying “I do not exist” because to say “I” presuppose a subject that exists, otherwise it would not even be possible to be aware of an “I” if it did not exist previously, given that awareness has to exist in a subject (which must also exist) if it is to exist at all; similar to saying that “words do not exist” when they are precisely what I’m using to express this. So, to think you cannot know reality as it is in itself, but only perceptions, but at the same time pretend that there is something objective or common to be able to understand the other, will always be contradictory, which indicates in itself that there is no way to reduce everything to the subjective.

To say that I cannot know things as they really are and that everything is just subjective perception presupposes, at least to some point, that there is certain knowledge of reality, which is precisely to recognize that it exists and has a particular way of existing — that of being “unknown and manipulated by the subject “ — i.e., something one would presuppose as objective. Therefore, prior to this knowledge that reality is supposedly “subjective”, it is necessary to have contact with that which is outside of me, with the reality around me, through an experience which provides such presupposed particular knowledge; otherwise, I would not know if it were even possible to know or not, or if what I knew was mere perception or not.

Ultimately, to assert that “we are ignorant of the way things are in themselves”, I should have previously presupposed that there are really “things in themselves”, and that they are “independent of me”, regardless of my perception, which indicates that I did indeed obtain concrete and objective knowledge of reality which ultimately denies my ignorance of it.

If we ultimately decide to deny all this, we would have to conclude that everything is just mental concoction and mere illusion. If there is no coherent connection with reality, then the only things I would know are just mere “perceptions”, as some like to call them, which are actually just self-pronounced premises that the subject declares as “valid” but have absolutely no basis in anything.

O

ne of the many conclusions that arise from this is that I could not even be certain of my own existence, and on a more global scale, everything that I would categorize as “existing” would only be “that which I can think about” (including my own existence). In this case, former categories like “error” or “incorrect” would no longer be valid, because the subject’s mind would mediate all things and eliminate anything that would try and contradict it.

If we further clarify this point we see that “what the subject knows” would be “what the subject creates” and “perception” is really just “creation”. In this scenario, even though the subject might pretend, out of some fabricated psychological dependencies, to act as if there were others with whom to relate and even to argue with, having already presupposed that the subject’s mind is “creator, judge, and jury” of all things, he would ultimately be alone.

We could then ask, pausing from these rather extreme conclusions, whether it is better to be wrong, or to be completely alone. Is it worth being king of this “universe of illusion” or to be part of something real and accept the sometimes harsh consequences that this entails?

Yet, if we continue to the extreme, we still find other inconsistencies within this system. If the subject were really able to remain independent of reality, he appears to be a rather masochistic being, given that he seems to enjoy perceiving (creating) suffering on a constant basis. If the subject were really “in charge” and could dictate what was “true” and “false”, why continue inventing something that he seems to aggressively reject?

If the subject responds by saying that “it is necessary for the system” as if it were part of some transcendental “yin and yang” he would end up affirming once again that which he previously tried to deny, because if this “perception” were dependent on a “system” this system would then be somehow independent of the subject, and thus not all things would be dependent on his mind or what he desires to perceive. In other words, even the idealist, without realizing it, would fall into contradiction and deny his mental all-encompassing universe.

Either reality is first, or I must deny it completely. There is no way to have it in second place. If my mind is first, then it is also second, third, and every other possible place, because if my mind is first, then there is nothing else.

Only if reality is first can we have “truth” and “other” and certainty of anything, and without it, we are but the king of nothing.

Jason Jurotitch, a Rome-educated American, holds a Masters in Philosophy and teaches in several Mexican higher education institutes including the Instituto Superior de Estudios para la Familia in Guadalajara You can follow his publications and other activitites at www.themobilephilosopher.com

Eloquentia Vol III, no. 1 - February 2017

17

St Albert the Great.

Hans Holbein the Elder, 1501.

A free science,

T

bound only to truth

St JOHN PAUL II

oday’s meeting must be understood as a sign of readiness for dialogue between science and the Church. The day itself, as well as the place, give this meeting special importance. Seven hundred years ago today, there died in a Dominican convent not far from this cathedral, at whose foundation he was probably present, Albert the German, as his contemporaries called him, and on whom, alone among the Doctors of the Church, posterity conferred the title “the Great.”

Albert carried out a multiple activity in his time as a religious and a preacher, as religious superior, as bishop and mediator of peace in his own city, Cologne. But his claim to fame in world history is as a researcher and scholar who mastered the knowledge of his time and made it his lifework to reorganize it. His contemporaries already recognized in him the auctor, the initiator and promoter of science. Posterity defined him as doctor universalis. The Church, which counts him among her saints, refers to him as one of her ‘doctors’ and honors him in the liturgy under this title. Our memory of Albert the Great, however, must not be just an act of due piety. It is more important to actualize again the essential meaning of his lifework, to which we must attribute a fundamental and abiding importance.

Let us cast a brief glance at the historic-cultural situation of Albert’s time. It is marked by the growing rediscovery of Aristotelian literature and of Arabic science. Up to then the Christian West had kept alive and scientifically developed the tradition of Christian antiquity. Now it is met by a comprehensive non-Christian view of the world, based only on a profane rationality. Many Christian thinkers, including some very important ones, saw above all a danger in this claim. They thought they had to defend the historical identity of Christian tradition against it; for there were also radical individuals and groups who saw an unsolvable conflict between scientific rationality and the truth of faith, and made their choice in favor of this ‘scientific precedence.’

Between these two extremes Albert takes the middle way: the claim to truth of a science based on rationality is recognized; in fact it is accepted in its contents, completed, corrected and developed in its independent rationality. And precisely in this way it becomes the property of the Christian world. In this way the latter sees its own understanding of the world enormously enriched without having to give up any essential element of its tradition, far less the foundation of its faith. For there can be no fundamental conflict between a reason which, in conformity with its own nature which comes from God, is geared to truth and is qualified

to know truth and a faith which refers to the same divine source of all truth. Faith confirms, in fact, the specific rights of natural reason. It presupposes them. In fact, its acceptance presupposes that freedom which is characteristic only of a rational being. This shows at the same time that faith and science belong to different orders of knowledge, which cannot be transferred from one to the other.

It is seen furthermore that reason cannot do everything alone; it is finite. It must proceed through a multiplicity of separate branches of knowledge; it is composed of a plurality of individual sciences. It can grasp the unity which binds the world and truth with their origin only within partial ways of knowledge. Also philosophy and theology are, as sciences, limited attempts which can represent the complex unity of truth only in diversity, that is, within an open system of complementary items of knowledge.

Let us repeat: Albert recognizes the articulation of rational science in a system of different branches of knowledge in which it finds confirmation of its own peculiarity, and at the same time remains geared to the goals of faith.

In this way Albert realizes the statue of a Christian intellectuality, whose fundamental principles are still to be considered valid today. We do not diminish the importance of this achievement if we affirm at the same time: Albert’s work is from the point of view of content bound to his own time and therefore belongs to history. The ‘synthesis’ he made retains an exemplary character, and we would do well to call to mind its fundamental principles when we turn to the present-day questions about science, faith and the Church.

Many people see the core of these questions in the relationship between the Church and modern natural sciences, and they still feel the weight of those notorious conflicts which arose from the interference of religious authorities in the process of the development of scientific knowledge. The Church remembers this with regret, for today we realize the errors and shortcomings of these ways of proceeding. We can say today that they have been overcome: thanks to the power of persuasion of science, and thanks above all to the work of a scientific theology, which has deepened understanding of faith and freed it from the conditions of time. The ecclesiastical Magisterium has, since the First Vatican Council, recalled those principles several times, most recently and explicitly in the Second Vatican Council (see Gaudium et Spes, no. 36) principles, which are already recognized in the work of Albert the Great. It has explicitly affirmed the distinction of orders of knowledge between faith and reason; it has recognized the autonomy and independence of science, and has taken up a position in favor of freedom of research. We do not fear, in fact we deny, that a science which is based on rational motives and proceeds with methodological seriousness, can arrive at knowledge which is in conflict with the

Eloquentia Vol III, no. 1 - February 2017

19

the use of scientific thought regarding man. The so-called human sciences have supplied extremely important information concerning human activity and behavior. They run the risk, however, in a culture determined by technology, to be misused in order to manipulate man, for purposes of economic and political domination.

If science is understood essentially as ‘a technical fact,’ then it can be conceived as the pursuit of those processes that lead to technical success. What leads to success, therefore, is considered ‘knowledge.’ The world, at the level of a scientific datum, becomes a mere complex of phenomena that can be manipulated, and the object of science a functional connection, which is examined only with reference to its functionality. Such a science may conceive itself as a mere function. The concept of truth, therefore, becomes superfluous, and sometimes, in fact, it is explicitly renounced. Reason itself seems, when all is said and done, a mere function or an instrument of a being who fi nds the meaning of his existence outside knowledge and science, if possible in mere life.

truth of faith. This can happen only when the distinction of the orders of knowledge is neglected or denied.

This view, which should be ratified by scientists, could help to overcome the historical weight of the relationship between Church and science and facilitate a dialogue on equal footing, as already often happens in practice. It is not just a question of overcoming the past, but of new problems, which derive from the role of sciences in universal culture today.

Scientific knowledge has led to a radical transformation of human technology. Consequently, the conditions of human life on this earth have changed enormously and have also considerably improved. The progress of scientific knowledge has become the driving power of general cultural progress. The transformation of the world at the technical level seemed to many people to be the meaning and purpose of science, in the meantime, it has been seen that the progress of civilization does not always improve living conditions. There are involuntary and unexpected consequences which may become dangerous and harmful. I will recall only the ecological problem, which arose as a result of the progress of technico-scientific industrialization. In this way serious doubts arise as to whether progress on the whole serves man. These doubts have repercussions on science, understood in the technical sense. Its meaning, its aim, its human significance are questioned.

20

This question takes on particular weight with regard to

Eloquentia Vol III, no. 1 - February 2017

Our culture, in all its areas, is imbued with a science which proceeds in a way that is largely functionalistic. This applies also to the area of values and norms, of spiritual orientation in general. Precisely here science comes up against its own limits. There is talk of a crisis of legitimation of science, nay more, of a crisis of orientation of our whole scientific culture. What is its essence? Science alone is not able to give a complete answer to the question of meanings, which is raised in the crisis. Scientific affirmations are always particular. They are justified only in consideration of a given starting point, they are set in a process of development, and they can be corrected and left behind in this process. But above all: how could something constitute the result of a scientific starting point and therefore already be presupposed by it?

Science alone is not capable of answering the question of meanings, in fact it cannot even set it in the framework of its starting point. And yet this question of meanings cannot tolerate indefinite postponement of its answer. If widespread confidence in science is destroyed, then the state of mind easily changes into hostility to science. In this space that has remained empty, ideologies suddenly break in. They sometimes behave as if they were ‘scientific,’ but they owe their power of persuasion to the urgent need for an answer to the question of meanings and to interest in social and political change. Science that is purely functional, without values and alienated from truth, can enter the service of these ideologies; reason that is only instrumental runs the risk of losing its freedom. Finally there are new manifestations of superstition, sectarianism, and the socalled ‘new religions’ whose appearance is closely connected to the crisis of orientation of culture.

“The pursuit of a new humanism ... will be successful only on condition that scientific knowledge again enters upon a living relationship with the truth revealed to man as God’s gift.

Man’s reason is a grand instrument for knowledge and structuring the world. It needs, however ... to open to the Word of eternal Truth, which became man in Christ.”

T

hese wrong ways can be detected and avoided by faith. But the common crisis concerns also the believing scientist. He will have to ask himself in what spirit, in what direction, he is pursuing his studies. He must assume the task, directly or indirectly, of examining, in a constantly renewed form, the procedure and aim of science from the standpoint of the question of meanings.

We are jointly responsible for this culture an we are called upon to cooperate in overcoming the crisis. In this situation the Church does not advocate prudence and restraint, but courage and decision. There is no reason not to take up a position in favor of truth or to be afraid of it. The truth and everything that is true represents a great good to which we must turn with love and joy. Science too is a way to truth; for God’s gift of reason, which according to its nature is destined not for error, but for the truth of knowledge, is developed in it.

This must apply also to science orientated in a technicofunctional direction. It is reductive to understand knowledge only as a ‘method for success,’ while on the contrary it is legitimate to judge as a proof of knowledge the outcome it obtains. We cannot consider the technical world, the work of man, as a kingdom completely estranged from truth. Then, too, this world is anything but meaningless: it is true that it has decisively improved living conditions, and the difficulties caused by the harmful effects of the development of technical civilization do not justify forgetting the goods that this same progress has brought.

There is no reason to consider technico-scientific culture as opposed to the world of God’s creation. It is clear beyond all doubt that technical knowledge can be used for good as well as for evil. Anyone who studies the effects of poisons, can use this knowledge to cure as well as to kill.

But there can be no doubt in what direction we must look to distinguish good from evil. Technical science, aimed at the transformation of the world, is justified on the basis of the service it renders man and humanity.

It cannot be said that progress has gone too far as long as many people, in fact whole peoples, still live in distressing conditions, unworthy of man, which could be improved with the help of technico-scientific knowledge.

Enormous tasks still lie before us, which we cannot shirk.

To carry them out represents a brotherly service for our neighbor, to whom we owe it as we owe the man in need the work of charity which helps his necessity.

We render our neighbor a brotherly service because we recognize in him that dignity characteristic of a moral being; we are speaking of a personal dignity. Faith teaches us that man’s fundamental prerogative consists in being the image of God. Christian tradition adds that man is of value for his own sake, and is not a means for any other end.

Therefore man’s personal dignity represents the criterion by which all cultural application of technico-scientific knowledge must be judged.

This is of particular importance at a time when man is becoming more and more the object of research and of human technologies. It is not yet a question of an unlawful way of proceeding, because man is also ‘nature.’ Certainly, dangers and problems arise here, which, due to the worldwide effects of technical civilization, raise completely new tasks for most people today. These dangers and problems have been for a long time subject of discussion at the international level. It is a proof of the high sense of responsibility of modern science that it takes charge of these fundamental problems and endeavors to solve them with scientific means. The human and social sciences, but also the sciences of culture, not least of all philosophy and theology, have stimulated in multiple ways the reflection of modern man about himself and his existence in a world dominated by science and technology. The spirit of modern consciousness, which accelerates the development of the modern natural sciences, has also set for itself as its purpose the scientific analysis of man and of the world in which he lives, at the social and cultural level. An absolutely

Eloquentia Vol III, no. 1 - February 2017

21

Faith and Reason in the service of God: In this altarpiece which we discovered on the recent Studium trip to Sicily (Museum of Trapani), the Lord and His mother are served by piety (on the right) and learning (on the left). Notice that the liberal arts here are listed as St Albert the Great apparently construed them: Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, Music, Arthitmetic, Geometry and Astrology. On the same theme of the liberal arts, the photo on the facing page is from the Vatican museums.

incalculable mass of knowledge has thereby come to light, which has repercussions on both public and private spheres of life. The social system of modern states, the health and educational system, economic processes and cultural activities are all marked in many ways by the influence of these sciences. But it is important that science should not keep man under its thumb. Also in the culture of technology, man, in conformity with his dignity, must remain free; in fact, the meaning of this culture must give him greater freedom.

It is not only faith that offers the perception of man’s personal dignity and of its decisive importance. Natural reason, too, can have access to it, since it is able to distinguish truth from falsehood, good from evil, and recognizes freedom as the fundamental condition of human existence.

It is an encouraging sign, which is spreading all over the world. The concept of human rights does not mean anything else, and not even those who, in actual fact, oppose it with their actions, can escape it. There is hope, and we want to encourage this hope.

22

More and more voices are raised that refuse to be content with immanent limitation of sciences and ask about a

Eloquentia Vol III, no. 1 - February 2017

complete truth in which human life is fulfilled. It is as if knowledge and scientific research stretched out towards the infinite, only to snap back to their origins: the old problem of the connection between science and faith has not become outdated with the development of modern sciences; on the contrary, in a world more and more imbued with science, it manifests its full vital importance.

We have spoken so far mainly of the science that is in the service of culture and consequently of man. It would be too little, however, to limit ourselves to this aspect. Precisely with regard to the crisis, we must remember that science is not only service for other purposes. Knowledge of truth has its meaning in itself. It is an accomplishment of human and personal character, an outstanding human good. Pure ‘theory’ is itself a kind of human ‘praxis,’ and the believer is waiting for a supreme ‘praxis,’ which will unite him forever with God: that ‘praxis’ which is vision, and therefore also ‘theory.’

We have spoken of the ‘crisis of the legitimation of science.’ Certainly, science has a meaning of its own and a justification when it is recognized as being capable of knowing truth, and when truth is recognized as a human

good. Then also the demand for the freedom of science is justified; in what way, in fact, could a human good be realized if not through freedom? Science must be free also in the sense that its implementation must not be determined by direct purposes of social utility or economic interest.

That does not mean, however, that in principle it must be separated from ‘praxis.’ But to be able to influence praxis, it must first be determined by truth, and therefore be free for truth.

A free science, bound only to truth, does not let itself be reduced to the model of functionalism or any other, which limits understanding of scientific rationality. Science must be open, in fact it must also be multiform, and we need not fear the loss of a unified approach. This is given by the trinomial of personal reason, freedom and truth, in which the multiplicity of concrete realizations is founded and confirmed.

I do not hesitate at all to see also the science of faith on the horizon of rationality understood in this way. The Church wants independent theological research, which is not identified with the ecclesiastical Magisterium, but which knows it is committed with regard to it in common service of the truth of faith and the people of God. It cannot be ignored that tensions and even conflicts may arise.

But this cannot be ignored either as regards the relationship between Church and science. The reason is to be sought in the finiteness of our reason, limited in its extension and therefore exposed to error. Nevertheless we can always hope for a solution of reconciliation, if we take our stand on the ability of this same reason to attain truth.

In the past advocates of modern science fought against the Church with the slogans: reason, freedom and progress.

Today, in view of the crisis with regard to the meaning of science, the multiple threats to its freedom and the doubt about progress, the battle fronts have been inverted. Today it is the Church that takes up the defense:

– for reason and science, which she recognizes as having the ability to attain truth, which legitimizes it as a human realization; – for the freedom of science, through which the latter possesses its dignity as a human and personal good;

manism on which the future of the third millennium can be based will be successful only on condition that scientific knowledge again enters upon a living relationship with the truth revealed to man as God’s gift. Man’s reason is a grand instrument for knowledge and structuring the world. It needs, however, in order to realize the whole wealth of human possibilities, to open to the Word of eternal Truth, which became man in Christ.

I said at the beginning that our meeting today was to be a sign of the readiness for dialogue between science and the Church. Has it not emerged clearly from these reflections how urgent this dialogue is? Both parties must continue it objectively, listening to each other, and perseveringly. We need each other. In this Cathedral there have been kept and venerated for centuries the bones of the Wise Men, who at the beginning of the new age which dawned with the Incarnation of God, set out to pay homage to the truth Lord of the world. These men, in whom the knowledge of their time was summed up, become, therefore, the model of every man in search of truth. The knowledge which reason attains finds its completion in the adoration of divine Truth. The man who sets out towards this truth, does not suffer any loss of his freedom: on the contrary, in trusting dedication to the Spirit whom we have been promised through Jesus Christ’s redeeming work, he is led to complete freedom and to the fullness of a truly human existence.

I appeal to the scientists, students, and all of you gathered here today, and ask you always to keep before your eyes, in your striving for scientific knowledge, the ultimate aim of your work and of your whole life. For this purpose I recommend to you particularly the virtues of courage, which defends science in a world marked by doubt, alienated from truth, and in need of meaning; and humility, through which we recognize the finiteness of reason before Truth which transcends it. These are the virtues of Albert the Great.

For the complete text of the address in English see L’Osservatore Romano, Weekly Edition, 24 November 1980: 6, 7, 12. © 1980 by the Libreria Editrice Vaticana

– for progress in the service of a humanity which needs it to safeguard its life and dignity.

With this task, the Church and all Christians are at the center of the debate of these times of ours. An adequate solution of the pressing questions about the meaning of human existence, norms of action, and the prospects of a more far-reaching hope, is possible only in the renewed connection between scientific thought and the power of faith in man in search of truth. The pursuit of a new hu-

Eloquentia Vol III, no. 1 - February 2017

23

g{|Ç~ tuÉâà |à AAA Chavagnes ... for 21st century Renaissance men.

Chavagnes International College & Chavagnes Studium www.chavagnes.org

96 rue du Calvaire, 85250 Chavagnes en Paillers, France.