Catholic Theology in the Nineteenth Century: The Quest for a Unitary Method by Gerald A. McCool (review)

BOOK··nEVIEWS 151 Catholic Theology in the Nineteenth Century: The Quest for a Unitary Method. By GERALD A. McCooL. New York: The Seabury Press, 1977. Pp. 300. $14.95. The centennial of the encyclical Aeterni Patris provides the occasion to rethink the significance of this important document in light of presentday challenges, questions, and crises facing Catholic theology and philosophy . Fr. McCool's book is an appropriate starting-point since it retraces the developments, achievements, and painful conflicts of Catholic theology during the years between Aeterni Patris and the Second Vatican Council. Such an historical exercise is necessary in order for the modern theologian to place himself in the continuing debate which constitutes the evolution of Catholic theology in its response to the challenge of post-Enlightenment thought. As a major part of this evolution McCool suggests, early in the book, that the result of the current historical interest may be an authentic pluralism, the possibility of a genuine option between a developed Thomism and a restored pre-Thomistic nineteenth century system. McCool's study necessarily begins with the drafting of Dei Filius and Aeterni Patris. Among the important matters in Dei Filius (April !i!!i!, 1870) were the Council's affirmation of the existence of an eternal, free, omnipotent, and personal God and the affirmation that God's existence and a number of divine attributes could be known with certainty by natural reason. Against the "blind leap" approach to faith favored by the Protestant pietist tradition, Dei Filius defended the reasonableness of the assent of faith, a reasonableness that would be challenged by many philosophers, most notably the ontologists and the Kantians. Moreover, Aeterni Patris (August 4, 1879) mapped the three functions philosophy must serve in the Church. First, as an apologetic, philosophy could establish important truths and arguments by natural reason. Second, it could invest sacred theology with the nature, habit, and character of a genuine science. Finally, it could provide sound arguments which the Church would employ in its controversies with opponents. The encyclical asserts: "Those therefore are the best philosophers who combine the pursuit of philosophy with dutiful obedience to the Catholic faith, for the splendor of the divine truths irradiating the soul is a help to the intelligence; it does not deprive it of the least degree of its dignity, but even brings it an increase of nobility, acuteness and strength" (italics added) . The " best " philosophers, then, join their mature scholarly work with the possession of truth founded on faith. Nevertheless, the encyclical includes an important qualification to its advocacy of the wisdom of St. Thomas. " If there is any proposition too subtly investigated or too inconsiderately taught by the Doctors of the School, any tenet of theirs not strictly in conformity with subsequent dis- 152 BOOK REVIEWS coveries or in any way improbable in itself, it is no part of our intention to propose that for the imitation of our time. " Joseph Kleutgen, who was the most original, profound, and influential of the Jesuit neo-Thomists, was instrumental in the formulation of a putative perennial Thomism. McCool recounts the Thomistic revival through Liberatore and Kleutgen, marking the key points in the debate. The debate within Catholic theology was threefold, among Georg Hermes's semirationalism, Tubingen traditionalism, and the scholasticism of the Roman College. Along with the ontologism of Rosmini and Gioberti, the dualism of Gunther served to upset the promoters of the neo-Thomist movement. Matteo Liberatore attacked the ontologists and Kleutgen took up arms against Gunther as well as the Tubingen theologians and Hermes's semirationalism. McCool records the fact that the problem with many of the contending theological schools of thought was their inability to meet the demands of Catholic theology. One of the more important demands is that the assent of faith must be supernatural, and the act of faith must transcend the limits of natural knowledge and the philosophical order. Subsequently, the major issue in the debate between the neo-Thomists and the postKantians was the ability of their respective methods to handle adequately the Catholic teaching on faith and reason, on grace and nature. Leo XIII's support of neo-Thomism in priestly formation, writes McCool, rested on the...