This article reconsiders Sartre's seminal 1945 talk, “Existentialism is a Humanism,” and the stakes of the humanism debate in France by looking at the immediate political context that has been overlooked in previous discussions of the text. It analyses the political discussion of the term “humanism” during the French national elections of 1945 and the rumbling debate over Sartre's philosophy that culminated in his presentation to the Club Maintenant, just one week after France went to the polls. A consideration of (...) this context helps explain both the rise, and later the decline, of existentialism in France, when, in the changing political climate, humanism lost its centrality, setting the stage for new antihumanist criticisms of Sartre's work. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 695 Salvation Outside the Church? Tracing the History of the Catholic Response. By FRANCIS A. SULLIVAN. New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1992. Pp. i + 224. $12.95 (paper). The subtitle of the volume describes well its purpose and content. The author surveys in chronological order, beginning with the earliest ecclesiastical writers and ending with John Paul II, the various interpretations of the axiom extra ecclesiam nulla salus. (...) What prompted Sullivan to undertake a historical rather than systematic approach in his volume is the conviction that without taking into account the historical and cultural factors that conditioned the formulation of this axiom it is impossible to make sense of the shift from the exclusivism of the pre-Vatican II Church to the inclusiveness of Vatican II and post-Vatican II theology with regard to the salvation of those who are not members of,the Roman Catholic Church. The principle that guides Sullivan's attempt to disclose the meaning embodied in the manifold formulations of the axiom " there is no salvation outside the Church" is Pope John XXHI's distinction between " the substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith " and " the way in which it is presented," and the more recent emphasis of the Declaration Mysterium Ecclesiae (1973) on the historical condition affecting the expression of divine revelation. As a historical study, Salvation Outside the Church? is an excellent continuation of Louis Caperan's two-volume work Le probleme du salut des infideles, which is still unavailable in English. Obviously an over· view of almost two thousand years of theological discussion of this problem has to be highly selective if one is not to miss the forest for the trees, and Sullivan's choice of authors as well as of historical periods for discussion is judiciously made. If a complaint is to be made in this regard, it is that he has focused too much attention on magisterial documents, and Roman documents at that, and not enough on contemporary theology. True, he devotes a chapter to the theory of " anonymous Christians," espoused mainly by Karl Rahner (chapter 10), and defends it against criticisms by Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Hans Kiing, and Max Seckler. He is well aware that Rahner's theory has become the position of mainstream Catholic theology and cites authors who support it in one way or another (p. 181). However, a book that claims to present " the Catholic response " to the problem posed by the axiom extra ecclesiam nulla salus should, one would expect, have discussed in greater detail the various positions of contemporary Catholic theologians on this issue. It is to be fervently hoped that Sullivan will take up this task in his next book. 696 BOOK REVIEWS Sullivan's basic thesis is that the substance underlying the various negative formulations of the axiom extra ecclesiam nulla salus is the positive belief ithat " God has assigned to the church a necessary role in the accomplishment of his plan for the salvation of humanity " (p. 12). Such a thesis is, of course, neither new nor startling. Hans Kling had already said that much in his 1967 Die Kirche (English translation, p. 318). What is helpful in Sullivan's account is his explanation of both the intent of those who affirmed this axiom with its apparent exclusiveness and the limitations that prevented them from perceiving the universality of God's saving grace. With regard to intent, Sullivan shows con· vincingly that the patristic usage of the axiom is intended as a warning for those Christians who had separated themselves from the catholica either by schism or by heresy that they must remain within it in order to be saved, whereas ithe medieval usage is intended to warn pagans and Jews that they should accept the message of the Gospel now that it had been announced to them. With regard to limitations, Sullivan singles out two: the geographical and the psychological. On the one hand, there was before the discovery of America the conviction that the world was identical with Christian Europe. This belief led theologians to postulate that the Gospel had been spread throughout the world. On the other hand, their ignorance... (shrink)

1) What should be understood by "liberal Catholicism "? Lord Acton is not easy to define as a historical figure. This is not only due to the rich variety of ...

The cardinal question in Christian moral theory and bioethics is whether the knowledge that Christians have (1) by grace and (2) by revelation (e.g., regarding the character of human and cosmic history as reaching from creation through the Incarnation and the Redemption to the Second Coming and the restoration of all things) makes a crucial contribution to understanding morality, as for example issues such as the good death and the morality of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. This article argues that (...) such a contribution is made by grace and revelation. The reduction of Roman Catholic moral theology and bioethics to secular bioethics is explored, as well as the necessity of the unique knowledge possessed by Christians for adequate end-of-life decision-making. (shrink)

Background -- The moral manualists -- Initiating reform : Odon Lottin -- Retrieving Scripture and charity : Fritz Tillman and Gérard Gilleman -- Synthesis : Bernard Häring -- The neo-manualists -- New foundations for moral reasoning, 1970-89 -- New foundations for a theological anthropology, 1980-2000 -- Toward a global discourse on suffering and solidarity -- Afterword: The encyclicals of Pope Benedict XVI.

The Catholic philosophy of history, by Joseph Schrembs.- The "Two cities" of Otto of Freising and its influence on the Catholic philosophy of history, by Felix Fellner.- Aquinas and the missing link in the philosophy of history, by M.F.X.Millar.- Dante's philosophy of history, by G.G.Walsh.- Bossuet's "Discourse in universal history," by P.J.Barry.- Giambattista Vico, philosopher-historian, by P.C.Perrotta.- Christian thought and economic policy, by C.E.McGuire.

The ArgumentThis paper argues that the development of the history of science as a discipline should be seen in the context of the bitter nineteenth-century conflict between religion and secular culture in Catholic countries. In this context, neo-Thomist theologians were interested in formulating a Catholic strategy of accommodation to modern science and to modern social systems that would also permit rejection of both modern social theory and the positivist theory of science. While theologians such as Cornoldi and Mercier worked (...) with the positivist image of science common in their day, Duhem opted to reformulate the conception of scientific theory. His religiously motivated assignment of a central place to the history of science – as the only way of hinting at the prospective rapprochement between the conventionalist sphere of scientific theory and the metaphysics of the real world – played a formative role in its development. Duhem's conception of the function of the history of science directed the attention of scholars in the field to medieval science as a point of origin for modern science. (shrink)

An introduction to Catholic theological ethics through the lens of its historical development from the beginning of the church until today.

The study of the historical path of the development of Christianity from the time of its occurrence and to this day makes it possible to conclude that at all stages of the existence of this religion for her was characterized by the division into separate directions and branches, which led to a struggle between them. The whole history of Christianity is a multitude of divisions, conflicts and heresies. But there is no doubt that the evolutionary process of the development (...) of Christianity is followed by the reverse flow - the desire to unite into a single Christ's church. Representative of this trend was the Roman Catholic Church. In the XI-XIII centuries. it reached the peak of its power and began its unifying activity in the East. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:570 BOOK REVIEWS like reasonable rule for economic life. This effort is worthy of more attention than is possible here, but let it be noted that it must inevitably suffer the same fate as any ethical calculus: someone must decide for others what is their due and what is not. How much wealth, for example, makes for a concentration [of wealth] that would be " demonstrably detrimental to some (...) people's exercise of their generic rights "? His is ultimately an entitlement or rights ethic, rather than an aitial ethic of goal-purposive fulfillment for the individual, projected outwards for a common good scenario. While his rejection of goal ethics's inability to detail principles for distribution of goods is noteworthy, it does not appear that a tightened version of generic rights theory will come closer to either of Phillips's desiderata: a justification of moral reasoning apart from any theory of nature or a calculus for its application. Desan and Phillips wish to think against the limits of the human situation. For Desan, rising above limitation is a moral task and obligation facing us each, if there is to be a common future. His call is to be World Citizen in a Polis of Nations. Phillips's vision is more concrete, a distribution of benefits to benefit all with well-being and freedom. But this mundane task is no less difficult than Desan's transcendent one. Indeed, according to Augustine, even the Divine Mind must utilize an artifice in dealing with human creation: "He loves each of us as though there were only one of us." Both ethicists have striven to show us how we might think this vision for ourselves, i.e., for each other of us. ]OIIN B. DAVIS, O.P. ' Detroit, Michigan Catholics, Anglicans, and Puritans: Seventeenth-Century Essays. By HUGH TREVOR-ROPER. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988. Pp. xiii + 317. $27.50 (hardbound). Even to list the changes and events which occurred in seventeenth century England is a difficult task: the century spans the period from the death of Queen Elizabeth to the Glorious Revolution and beyond, through the Civil War, the accession and exile (twice) of the Stuarts, the rise of science, the transformation of the theological and religious issues of the English Reformation, to name only the most obvious. To conceive a book, in the form of occasional essays, which not only addresses these changes and events but does so by establishing the connections which were present with European currents at the same time surely tempts fate, even when it does not tempt reviewers. BOOK REVIEWS 571 But Hugh Trevor-Roper is a master, both of the period under survey and of the form of the essay. With one exception, each of these essays began as a lecture or seminar paper, and the pleasantly legible style in which they are written must bear some trace of that origin. The occasional flashes of wit, mixed with rthe fairly non-technical style, make the book a joy to read and a welcome escape from the usually constipated style of scholarly prose. In his Introduction, the essayist clearly sets forth his thesis that English intellectual history does not exist apart from the currents of European intellectual history (a thesis for which Trevor-Roper has already staked a claim). That leads to what may very well be the major problem with these essays: its end is in its beginning. The list of names cited in these essays only partially coincides with the list of names in the index; the former is much longer than the latter. And while the style of the essay welcomes the reader to the period, it also throws up more names and places and events than can be explained or even annotated adequately. This occurs both on a large and on a small scale. The first essay, on "Nicholas Hill, the English Atomist" contains such a vast array of names that at times it becomes the prosopo· graphical equivalent of a telephone book. On a large scale, there is the problem with a definition of Arminianism. No definition, at least no formal definition, is attempted-and this is probably wise. But, particularly in... (shrink)

In the socio-economic, social and political life of the Right-Bank Ukraine, Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Greek-Catholic denominations were involved in one or another way.

Time and Transcendence provides a new theory of secularization in the Catholic context, a new interpretation of the origins of modern historical science, and a new reading of Heidegger's theories of time and history. The author shows how a secular sense of the past evolved in early modern French memoirs. Memoirs uncovered a level of personal experience that was then applied as an intuitive framework for the study of history. Modern history's scientific study of sources is embedded (...) in the imaginative sense of a personal past. (shrink)

This article contrasts St. Thomas More's theoretical work on the role of faith and history in biblical exegesis with that of Fr. Richard Simon. I argue that, although Simon's work appears to be a critique of his more skeptical contemporaries like Hobbes and Spinoza, in reality he is carrying their work forward. I argue that More's union of faith and reason, theology and history, is more promising than Simon's for Catholic theological biblical exegesis.

This article continues an historical overview of Australian Catholic youth ministry begun in the previous issue of the 'Australasian Catholic Record'.

Alasdair MacIntyre has written a selective history of the Catholic philosophical tradition, designed to show how belief in God informed and informs philosophical enquiry in different historical and social settings.

This work examines the relationship between the endings chosen for musical works based on the biblical story of Jephtah's daughter and broader currents of European thought. Because the biblical story leaves the fate of Jephtah's daughter unclear, commentators have offered two interpretations: Jephtah's daughter is either sacrificed or consecrated to God. The examination of these two interpretations in the various commentaries and artistic works throughout the ages suggest a possible correlation between a given artist's religious affiliation and the type of (...) ending he composed for the story. Although Catholics would appear more likely to choose consecration as promoting the ideal of women's celibacy, no such correlation is seen in practice. Rather, the determining factor in the choice of the musical ending of the story is the dominant artistic convention of the time. This finding is in line with Curt Sachs's cultural theory of a universal pendulum of styles in Western civilization. Thus, the specific choice of the ending of the story of Jephtah's daughter in various artistic media may serve as a paradigm for broader trends of European thought. (shrink)

It is readily apparent to anyone ministering to Australian adolescents in the early twenty-first century that their efforts take place against the backdrop of a general decline in belief and practice among Catholics, and among young Catholics in particular. Rather than simply join the chorus of lament at the decline of young people's belief and participation in the life of the church, this article seeks to understand better the present 'face' or 'faces' of youth ministry by considering the (...) historical relationship between secularity and the church's pastoral activity with young Australians. (shrink)

Traditional accounts of the Scottish Enlightenment present the half-century or so before 1750 as, at best, a not-yet fully realised precursor to the era of Hume and Smith, at worst, a period of superstition and religious bigotry. This is the first book-length study to systematically challenge that notion. Instead, it argues that the era between approximately 1680 and 1745 was a 'First' Scottish Enlightenment, part of the continent-wide phenomenon of early Enlightenment and led by the Jacobites, Episcopalians, and Catholics (...) of north-eastern Scotland. It makes this argument through an intensive study of the dramatic changes in historiographical practice which took place in Scotland during this era, showing how the documentary scholarship of Jean Mabillon and the Maurists was eagerly received and rapidly developed in Scottish historical circles, resulting in the wholesale demolition of the older, Humanist myths of Scottish origins and their replacement with the foundations of our modern understanding of early Scottish history. This volume accordingly challenges many of the truisms surrounding seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Scottish history, pushing back against notions of pre-Enlightenment Scotland as backward, insular, and intellectually impoverished and mapping a richly polymathic, erudite, and transnational web of scholars, readers, and polemicists. It highlights the enduring cultural links with France and argues for the central importance of Scotland's two principal religious minorities--Episcopalians and Catholics--in the growth of Enlightenment thinking. As such, it makes a major intervention in the intellectual and cultural histories of Scotland, early modern Europe, and the Enlightenment itself. (shrink)

Dengan umur hampir dua ribu tahun Gereja Katolik merupakan lembaga paling tua yang mempertahankan diri melalui sejarah. Bagi Gereja Katolik sejarah itu penuh makna. Karena dalam perjalanannya melalui 20 abad eksisten-sinya Gereja Katolik mendapat bentuk serta pengertian diri yang sekarang. Maka sudah tepatlah kalau Norman Tanner, seorang imam Yesuit dan guru besar sejarah Gereja pada Universitas Gregoriana di Roma, dengan mendasarkan diri pada hasil penelitian sejarah Gereja yang berlimpah dalam 40 tahun terakhir, menulis sebuah “Sejarah Pendek Baru Gereja Katolik.” Hanya (...) dengan 260 halaman pembaca diantar secara kompeten menapaki 2000 tahun perjalanan Gereja Katolik. Gereja Katolik selalu menegaskan bahwa Kitab Suci hanya dapat dimengerti dalam ketertanaman dalam sebuah tradisi. Sebagaimana ditegaskan Tanner, “tradisi memegang peran normatif.” Pengertian tentang hakikat Kekristenan berkembang melalui sejarah. Gereja Katolik yakin “bahwa Kitab Suci harus disertai oleh suatu kesadaran tentang bagaimana pesannya dihayati dan dimengerti melalui berabad-abad lamanya, oleh suatu rasa bagaimana isi Kitab Suci dijernihkan oleh ajaran pihak-pihak berwenang dalam Gereja maupun melalui hidup, sembahyang, studi dan perjuangan umat Kristiani.” Karena itu, Gereja Katolik sekarang tidak dapat dimengerti kalau sejarahnya tidak dimengerti. Tanner membagi sejarah Gereja ke dalam lima tahap. Tahap pertama mencakup 300 tahun pertama di mana Gereja keluar dari dua setengah abad usaha penindasan dan penganiayaan oleh pemerintah kekaisaran Romawi, dan akhirnya menjadi agama resmi. Tahap kedua mulai dengan berakhirnya kekaisaran Romawi bagian Barat pada abad ke-5 dan sampai pada 1054 di mana perpecahan tragis antara Gereja Timur, Gereja-gereja Ortodoks, dan Gereja Barat—Gereja Katolik-Roma—menjadi resmi dan definitif. Perpecahan tersebut masih berlangsung sampai hari ini......................................... Yang khas dari buku Tanner adalah bahwa uraian tidak dibatasi pada kejadian-kejadian sekitar Gereja resmi: Konsili-konsili, Paus-paus yang penting, peristiwa-peristiwa dengan dampak historis seperti perpecahan antara Gereja Barat dan Gereja Timur atau Reformasi Protestan. Dalam buku ini juga dibicarakan ordo-ordo dan gerakan-gerakan religius, teolog-teolog penting, keagamaan rakyat, perkembangan-perkembangan intelektual, perkembangan dalam liturgi, doa dan mistik. Juga dibahas mengenai senirupa, arsitektur dan musik, bahkan sikap Thomas Aquinas terhadap liburan, olah raga dan entertainment. Kehidupan Katolik di basis pun ikut diceriterakan. Buku ini memberikan suatu tinjauan yang kaya dan berbobot tentang 2000 tahun kehidupan Gereja Katolik; bisa juga dikatakan, tentang perkembangan dari Kristianitas ke Gereja Katolik sekarang, dalam bahasa yang mudah diikuti dan dengan gaya naratif yang enak dibaca. Sebuah buku yang dapat sangat direkomendasikan bagi siapa saja yang ingin mendapat pengertian ringkas, tetapi cukup mendalam, tentang bagaimana Gereja Katolik menjadi Gereja Katolik. (Franz Magnis-Suseno, Program Pascasarjana, Sekolah Tinggi Filsafat Driyarkara, Jakarta). (shrink)

Some competition was associated with all European voyages of discovery, whether considered in an intellectual or a nautical sense, but the character of the competition became confessional as the contest between states over resources to be exploited gave way to disputation between denominations over how souls might best be saved. This happened when, in the late sixteenth century, Protestant publicists began to disparage the colonial endeavours that the Spanish and Portuguese authorities had been engaged upon for more than a century, (...) and when they resolved to start the colonial process all over again, with a view to making the Atlantic World a Protestant rather than a Catholic space. This was to be achieved both by releasing what remained of the Native American population in Central and South America from Spanish tyranny, and by establishing Protestant colonies to evangelise the native populations in extensive areas of America to which the Iberians had no more than titular claims. A comparison between French and English colonial undertakings in the West Indies, and between the literatures associated with these endeavours over the course of the seventeenth century, establishes that these Protestant ambitions proved as elusive in practice as they had been myopic in theory. The conclusion seeks to explain why colonial efforts in which Catholic religious orders were involved proved more capable of linking scientific investigations with missionary concerns than was possible in colonies that were self consciously Protestant. (shrink)