This comes from another Facebook feed… When you write this much, you find that you want to post it.
It is to a remark from a very kind person on Facebook. But my dander got up…
Glory to Jesus Christ!
First of all I do hear what you're saying. Both the inductive base of theological science, inductive methodologies thereof, and the importance of a kind of appreciation for "the economy" are atrophied in scholastics. But, there were important strides being made in positive theology and quite conservative scholastics like Michel Labourdette were open to all this.
Of course, the remark however, is aimed precisely at the fact that the Thomists hold that the primary subject of theological science (distinguishing that here from the "object" both meaning the formal object as well as to refer to all the conclusions that can be drawn in a given discipline) is the Triune God in His Supernatural Deity. They undergo a temptation to treat Him in a kind of abstract manner I admit. But the better scholastics, and it does include Garrigou if you read his various works, are at least aware of the fact.
I'm not saying that it goes without its weaknesses. But, I'm not convinced that it's all 100% ahistoricity. I don't have a lot of hills that I'm willing to publicly die on. I don't think that online fights and complaining do much good—even though, profoundly and deeply I am angry at the state of the Church. Indeed, I have been since the day when, as a 17-year-old, I was "red-pilled" at St. John the Evangelist in Connellsville, PA, when an old lady said to me, while looking at a picture of the Church from the 50s, "Yes, they claimed that the raredos was in bad condition." She made some comment that made blindingly clear to me that she thought it was utterly a lie. Almost all at once my eyes were opened and I thought, "Oh geeze, you've basically been fed a bunch of lies about the Church before the 1960s." My vexation at those who have been and are in positions of power in the Church has remained in force since. I do see the good of many holy pastors. I also, however, have immense (cataclysmic) disappointment at those in power who seem to be bean counters and lawers, not men of God on the whole....
But, I try to keep that immense sludge of rage somewhat under control. (It's like the slime under NY in Ghostbusters II....) However, on the topic of characterizations of the Thomists, I am prickly and impatient with those who are ready to say: "Ahistorical." Tout court.... It makes me want to say, even of the good guys after the Council: a bunch of incredibly educated and brilliant public intellectuals who, however, don't bother to think scientifically but instead piece together bits of traditional Latin theology into their own personal syntheses but without a care for continuity with seven-hundred years of their tradition, acting all the while as though they sprung out of the head of the inspired authors and Fathers when, in fact, they too are men of their era and, inheritors of the approach, questions, and methods of the post-Tridentine West. Or even worse, I am tempted to think, as a dear friend has said in lectures more than once: it's all theologianology anymore, the study of theologians, not the study of God.
Now, these latter characterizations (which do in fact hit a kind of truth) are nonetheless crass simplifications. But, it seems quite acceptable in "respectable" circles—and here, you are not the one in the cross hairs but, if I must be honest, Bishop Barron*—to throw the accusation of "ahistorical Thomism" out there as a very damning accusation. But, if one dares to mention, for instance, that in the 1940s, at a period when their thought obviously was still ripening and working through its necessary development, a number of SJs like De Lubac, Daniélou, von Balthasar (SJ at the time), and others did not adequately respond to the critiques registered against the end of a book by Henri Bouillard and against a kind of general anti-Scholastic tone in some writings and footnotes—well, then, one is told that they risk putting Vatican II in the crosshairs and are doing damage to the Church. (This has been said to me. No, not by Larry Chapp, with whom I also have differences here, but they are in slightly different directions.) But, Bishop Barron* can dismiss the pre-conciliar "ahistorical" Thomism to applause.
Thus.... you have my reaction to the use of ahistorical. Setting aside what Taylor Marshall et al. might happen to (foolishly, dangerously, perniciously) say about such matters, the many collaborators with whom I have worked have not, at least publicly, been as dismissive of the post-conciliar Communio consensus as the Communio folks are dismissive of the pre-Conciliar Thomists. There are some Thomists who act up about this more, yes. But, I personally think that a kind of slumber would happen in my camp, commenting on the comments of commentators who commented on comments. And, truth be told, historical Thomists too (e.g., Torrell's line or the line of Wippel or the line of Gilson) would also remain quite somnolent and historically stuck if it weren't for the enzyme of engagement from other sources. And yet.... My masters are allowed to just be called "ahistorical"—again, it is not your comment that is in the crosshairs but, rather, Bishop Barron*—and thereby dismissed. Yet, at least for my part, I'm willing to admit my weaknesses. I wish, however, that the Communio folks would admit, perhaps, that their methods too need the ballast of those whose particular charism is to retain the scientific mode of theologizing with rigor and explicit connection to the post-Tridentine Church. (This is all a very weird thing to be said by a Byzantine Catholic, whose liturgical life is so utterly detached from this world!)
*Regarding Bishop Barron
Note well that my vexation is not the normal re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-hash by online Traditionalists: Balthasar's book and a conversation with Shapiro. I find all that boring. Yes, I wish that more Roman Catholics, including the Bishop, would admit quite openly that the Novus Ordo represented a deep breach of continuity on _many, many, many_ heads. It's not as insignificant as some make it out to be. But, as I jokingly say (and as I've heard some other Byzantine's say): Not my (sui iuris) Church, not my problem. (_Obviously,_ it is somewhat "our problem," in that the pain of another Sui-iuris Church affects us. And, also, we don't want to see our own liturgy dismantled the way that the Roman Rite was. Blessedly, however, our experience of Vatican II has been a _return_ to our full liturgical form, not a regression from it.) So, yes, I wish someone like Bishop Barron and his folks wouldn't act like the "liturgy war" stuff is just minor ("oh, you don't know how bad it was when I was young") and that the substantive claims about immense and damaging discontinuity are valid and deserve hearing and acceptance. But, in the end, I don't have really any spiritual devotion to the TLM (and this is based on a number of years of attendance, singing in scholas, etc.). It's not my vocation to right that wrong.
Moreover, I won't even say that I "personally" think that Word on Fire does a great deal of good. Its not a question of personal opinion. I think it is a fact. Res ipsa loquitur. And on all accounts that I have ever heard, he is a zealous man for the Gospel. Granted, I personally don't like his style of presentation when it slips into a kind of intellectual name dropping—"You know, as X says in Y....". But, fine, I'm sure I annoy people too. So, "big deal"!
But, that being said, when the Bishop does speak, on his platform, as though Vatican II issued in the Millenium of Communio rule, and the vanquishing of "ahistorical Thomism", without ANY nuance concerning this matter, he makes me so angry that just the very thought of it has led to this 1000 word post! The substantive critiques seem to go one direction...
