Glory to Jesus Christ!
Dear Hieromonk Gregory,
For some reason, your remark is not visible right now. I saw it last night. This very point in your text is the thing that left me thinking, "Have I totally collapsed the school together in my interpretation." Now that you say this, I do recall your citation of Fr. Donneaud. I suppose, I just immediately thought, "Oh, alas, here we go; there is this narrative that would have, for example, M-R Gagnebet on the doorstep of Charlier and Chenu's own critique of conclusion theology without knowing it / admitting it." (I'm referring to a recent RT article. In the end, I read a clear lineage intellectually that runs thus, with continuous development: Gardeil-Garrigou [NOT Chenu, no matter what all the Chenu supporters say]-Gagnebet-Labourdette-Nicolas. Upon reading that article, I at once felt profound intellectual sympathy with Fr. Donneaud, for I too am a critic of an overly-scientia understanding of theology. However, I felt that he was trying to do something else historically here, and to attach Fr. Gagnebet to a current of thought that was not his own. Perhaps I need to go back and read that article, though.) In any event, the use of _revelabilia_ has always been a bit forced to me, always feeling a bit like that annoying way that Thomists slip into worrying about words and hyper-commentary rather than laying out the argument as such. (I even sometimes feel like everyone just starts with Charlier-Bonnefoy-Gilson without thinking about the fact that few later Thomists make a big and central deal out of this language. This is, in my opinion, the danger of the Gilson-esque textual-historicist Thomism, though....)
This topic was presented to me indirectly by Maritain, who deploys the distinction of the _ratio formale obiecti ut res_ and _ut obiectum_ for his own particular views on modern science. (I personally think Maritain is right, but this is not the place to enter that separate argument.) I would caution against drawing an equivalence between the _rfo ut res_ and _material object_. The language that Maritain uses (and I believe he is spot on - too often ignored by scholars today, due to prejudices still in the air) is "intelligibility appeal" to capture the notion that something that is "objected" can be considered: (a) on the side of the object as disclosing itself (rfo ut res); (b) on the side of the knower and the power / habitus to which it is related (precisely ut obiectum). This distinction is most often used for distinguishing these matters of faith-theology-mystical experience, but the same thing could be applied to the theological virtues as well, which share the same object ut res est (Deitas ut sic), but not precisely ut obiectum est (different for faith, hope, and charity). Oh well, that's really an aside. What is more important to my mind is that the Thomists, at least bigger names among their ranks, including Capreolus, pretty early on began speaking of theology as primarily being about conclusions. (And this is distortive in my opinion, above all if it is viewed as being concerned with objectively illative conclusions. But see note * below.) For instance (caps only for emphasis), Defensiones, prol., concl. 5: "Ex quibus omnibus patet quod articuli fidei se habent sicut principia theologiae et non sicut conclusiones; et CONSEQUENTER THEOLOGIA NON EST DE HIS SICUT DE CONCLUSIONIBUS SCITIS PER EAM, SICUT NECT ALIQUA SCIENTIA EST DE SUIS PRINCIPIIS SICUT DE SCITIS SED SOLUM DE CONCLUSIONIBUS QUAE EX PRINCIPIIS CONSEQUUNTUR." That alone is enough to push back on the desire to say "get behind John of St. Thomas, go back before him." In my opinion, Congar, despite his great intelligence and desire to work for the Church, was also a partisan - someone who explicitly wished to do away with Baroque scholasticism. (See Jon Kirwan's citation concerning his conversation with Chenu about this.) Also, Congar himself noted similar texts in Cajetan. This has distorted the outlooks even many OPs who were influenced by Y. Congar and feel a kind of filial obligation to Congar, and the kind of "Year Zero" mentality concerning scholastics like Garrigou, who truth be told, are in continuity with a great tradition of articulation, which then extends down even through JH Nicolas (despite the fact that the latter seems unwilling to be too positive about his own dependence upon the vein that passes through Garrigou-Lagrange). In Cajetan, see nos. 1 and 12 of his comments on ST I , q. 1, a. 2. Also, the very use of the term "virtual" for the containment of theological conclusions in the de fide principles of sacred theology means something quite important: they don't share the same formal status and hence represent a form of objective inference. Whence, in the end, JoST is just developing what is implicit in Cajetan. It is dangerous (for all the reasons I decried in Nova et Vetera) and needs to be balanced by the sapiential tasks of theology. However, that will get us down that rabbit hole....
Now, to be in the "genus" of revealed knowledge surely is an important thing to bear in mind, so as to avoid the idea that theology somehow departs from faith, into its own wholly dependent domain full of lovely virtually revealed conclusions. That's a real danger, I know. But, nonetheless, already in Cajetan, there is a discussion of the distinction of formal objects (ut res obiectum est), and this would need to give rise to the notion of virtual revelation, which is already implied therein. The Church herself has implicitly recognized this distinction in her various types of censure. The formal motive of assent is quite different in theological knowledge than it is in formally-revealed truths—and this is even the case when it comes to arguments from suitability on behalf of the principles themselves. The real danger is to reduce this to a mere scientific assent concerning conclusions precisely as conclusions. However, pace Fr. Donneaud (as I remember in the article, which on the whole is good, if enraging because of how it neglects to do the necessary genealogy back further), who seems to think that perhaps only Fr. Gagnebet sort of saw this, I have utterly clear evidence (in publication) concerning how even Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange saw this, as did Maritain and Fr. Muñiz. In fact, Gagnebet was definitely getting this from Garrigou. I'm going abroad a bit here, so I apologize. I think, in the end, one could say that Cajetan's position is ultimately reconcilable with John of St. Thomas, especially when one reads the latter in light of folks like Labourdette (e.g., see "Théologie: l'intelligence de la foi").
(The following remark is not directed at you but at the many thinkers who still think that everything not in line with Chenu-Charlier-Congar-Gilson et al. is just backward and out-of-date Thomism.) I have become quite embittered at the notion that some teacher today is able to jump the centuries to tell us about how all things were distorted up until the most recent interpretation of things. This attitude, vaunted to the heights by the generation most active from 1940 to 1970, has done great damage. I would much rather have had men like Fr. Michel Labourdette and Doronzo win the day in the 40s and the 60s respectively, for their account of these matters, based upon the centuries of Thomist (and broader inter scholae) disputes, seems far more durable to my eyes than the latest synthesis garnered at the hands of a generally historicist method.
Ultimately, as regards the distinction between the formal motive for faith and theology: the misunderstanding of this was related to the problems leading to Charlier's text being placed on the Index (cf. Parente, Boyer, and Gagnebet for more on that). I do wish you had noted quite clearly the fact of this indexing and had engaged in the discussion. I'm not trying to rip open wounds of old, but the concerns raised by the Roman theologians at that time were merited. If your volume was based upon your dissertation at the Angelicum, I would almost venture to say that I'm scandalized that the OPs directing you didn't think it even of use to cite the articles by Gagnebet. This would bespeak a grand partisanship that basically is ready to allow Congar's reading of the entire history of the crisis of the 1930s and 1940s continue to reign without any nuance or challenge.
Again, allow me to say again that I am very glad to have someone else out there engaging these topics. If I'm a bit passionate, I do not mean to be dismissive, etc.!
I must be off. Apologies to ramble. Again, all the best! Fraternally,
Matthew
* As regards the notion of "conclusions" and virtual revelation. I do think that one can say that still there are "conclusions" in the case of the defense of principles. These are not objectively inferential but, rather, make use of extrinsic middle terms. They are topical or rhetorical - and truth be told, they are the most important of "arguments" in theology. (Insofar as they are seeking to set for the intelligibility of the mysteries of faith, they are theological.) Thus, while most Thomist have spoken of virtual revelation in terms that would lend themselves purely to objectively-inferred scientific conclusions, I would just broaden the term to include all sorts of conclusions. On this, though, see my recent work in Nova et Vetera.