, the Peterhead weekly. Morag Kuc, the editor, is quoted as follows: 'Obviously with the Trump In... more , the Peterhead weekly. Morag Kuc, the editor, is quoted as follows: 'Obviously with the Trump International Golf Course on our doorstep we had to do something and, being the local paper, we always try our best to find the local angle-hence the headline'. (Kuc is the Polish surname of her husband, which should be pronounced 'koots': the editor herself is a native of Peterhead.) Balgownie, Murcar, Cruden Bay, are legendary links golf courses stretching from the city of Aberdeen up the North Sea coast, interrupted now with Trump International at Balmedie, just beyond Murcar, and by all accounts a beautiful course, as the owner says. Donald John Trump is half Scottish. His roots, however, are not in Aberdeenshire. His maternal origins could not be more remote, culturally as well as geographically. His mother, Mary Anne MacLeod (1912-2000), the youngest of ten, was born in a crofter-fisherman's household at Tong, a township (population 570 at 2001 census) just north of Stornoway, on the island of Lewis. Buchan folk, who are farmers and fishermen also, though on a larger scale, speak a dialect of Scottish English, unintelligible in the Gaelic-speaking Outer Hebrides, and vice versa. In 1930, Mary emigrated to New York, intending to work as a domestic servant. All but one of her siblings moved to North America. In 1936 she married Fred Trump: the previous year she is listed as living in the house. Born in the Bronx to German immigrants, Fred was by then already a successful real-estate developer, though it was by building and selling homes to American servicemen near their camps during World War II that he became seriously rich. Mary Anne revisited Tong quite often, speaking Gaelic with family and friends. On one occasion she took Donald with her, when he was three or four years old. In 2008 he stopped off, and was pictured with cousins, en route to Aberdeenshire.
Book reviewed:Brian McGuinness, Approaches to Wittgenstein: Collected Papers, Routledge, 2002, xv... more Book reviewed:Brian McGuinness, Approaches to Wittgenstein: Collected Papers, Routledge, 2002, xv + 299 pp, £55.00
International Journal of Systematic Theology, 2004
Reason, as it is proper to the task of theology, has two uses: critical and contemplative. This t... more Reason, as it is proper to the task of theology, has two uses: critical and contemplative. This twofold appropriation of reason sets the stage for this article, a stage occupied in turn by Newman and by Aquinas. The critical function of theological work is expressed via the 1877 preface which Newman wrote for his Lectures on the Prophetic Office of the Church. The critical office of theology is vital not only to the practice of theology itself but to the liturgical and spiritual life of the church, and to the exercise of church leadership if that leadership is not to descend into tyranny. For the theologian, reason is not antithetical to contemplation; rather, contemplation includes a form of reasoning. Theology is 'a schooling in the discipline of contemplating the selfrevealing God', a discipline of 'metaphysical ascesis' which compels both intellectual conversion and moral practice. Such an ascesis was practised well by Aquinas, and Kerr reflects on the Summa Theologiae as 'a training in a form of metaphysical reasoning', being schooled in the knowledge of God which strips away our 'idolatorous inclinations'. I 'Metaphysics exercises an important mediating role in theological research'-so Pope John Paul II in the encyclical Fides et ratio §83. 1 That would once have been a platitude. Since the proclamation of 'the end of metaphysics' (§55), however, many Roman Catholic theologians no longer take it for granted. 'Theology, destitute of a metaphysical outlook', the encyclical goes on, 'will be incapable of going beyond the investigation of religious experience, nor would it allow the understanding of faith to give appropriate expression to the universal and transcendent force of revealed truth' (§83).
International Journal of Systematic Theology, 2006
The anti-Modernist Oath (1910) sets the background for this historical account of the tension in ... more The anti-Modernist Oath (1910) sets the background for this historical account of the tension in twentieth-century Roman Catholic theology between those suspected of 'Modernism' and the exponents of Aristotelian Thomism. The article discusses the modernist crisis by tracing the thought of Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange (a strict observer of Thomism) and his student Marie-Dominique Chenu (a dissenter of the neoscholastic view). Chenu established the historical-contextualist reading of Thomas Aquinas which was regarded as a threat to the standard neoscholastic exposition of Thomism, which he felt was heavily influenced by Wolffian rationalism. As a result, Vatican II finally rejects the neoscholastic conception of reason. The article concludes by recognizing the need for a historical-contextualist reading of Thomas but fears that the new philosophical system is not sufficiently scrutinized. By neoscholasticism I mean the way of doing theology that prevailed and indeed was mandatory for clergy, seminary professors and suchlike, from the late nineteenth to the mid twentieth centuries, from the First to the Second Vatican Councils, throughout the Roman Catholic Church (the only significant alternative being in some of the German universities, at Munich and in the so called Catholic Tübingen School). No theology without the right philosophy As Pope John Paul II writes, happily without the bombastic rhetoric of his predecessor, the encyclical Aeterni Patris, issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1879, renewed interest in the thought of St Thomas Aquinas, particularly in his 'philosophy'. Historical study of medieval philosophers began to flourish; critical editions were undertaken, etc., and 'new Thomistic schools arose' (Fides et Ratio 1998, §57). What the encyclical seems to recommend is what we who inhabit this world know as Gilsonian existentialist Thomism-which needs to be distinguished from
International Journal of Systematic Theology, 2006
The anti-Modernist Oath (1910) sets the background for this historical account of the tension in ... more The anti-Modernist Oath (1910) sets the background for this historical account of the tension in twentieth-century Roman Catholic theology between those suspected of 'Modernism' and the exponents of Aristotelian Thomism. The article discusses the modernist crisis by tracing the thought of Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange (a strict observer of Thomism) and his student Marie-Dominique Chenu (a dissenter of the neoscholastic view). Chenu established the historical-contextualist reading of Thomas Aquinas which was regarded as a threat to the standard neoscholastic exposition of Thomism, which he felt was heavily influenced by Wolffian rationalism. As a result, Vatican II finally rejects the neoscholastic conception of reason. The article concludes by recognizing the need for a historical-contextualist reading of Thomas but fears that the new philosophical system is not sufficiently scrutinized. By neoscholasticism I mean the way of doing theology that prevailed and indeed was mandatory for clergy, seminary professors and suchlike, from the late nineteenth to the mid twentieth centuries, from the First to the Second Vatican Councils, throughout the Roman Catholic Church (the only significant alternative being in some of the German universities, at Munich and in the so called Catholic Tübingen School). No theology without the right philosophy As Pope John Paul II writes, happily without the bombastic rhetoric of his predecessor, the encyclical Aeterni Patris, issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1879, renewed interest in the thought of St Thomas Aquinas, particularly in his 'philosophy'. Historical study of medieval philosophers began to flourish; critical editions were undertaken, etc., and 'new Thomistic schools arose' (Fides et Ratio 1998, §57). What the encyclical seems to recommend is what we who inhabit this world know as Gilsonian existentialist Thomism-which needs to be distinguished from
I could not possibly bring myself to believe all the things that they believe", Wittgenstein once... more I could not possibly bring myself to believe all the things that they believe", Wittgenstein once remarked to Norman Malcolm, referring to his Roman Catholic friends Elizabeth Anscombe and Yorick Smythies. 1 No specific doctrine is mentioned. In saying this, Malcolm thought, Wittgenstein was "not disparaging their belief" but simply making "an observation about his own capacity". He regarded religious belief, Malcolm suspected, as "based on qualities of character and will that he himself did not possess". In On Certainty, in the context of considering the possibility of perhaps having to put up with someone's contradicting one's fundamental attitudes, Wittgenstein notes, in his only published reference to the doctrine of transubstantiation, that "Catholics believe … that in certain circumstances a wafer completely changes its nature, and at the same time that all evidence proves the contrary." 2 Here as elsewhere, he is concerned to bring out the difference between contradicting what someone believes and finding someone's view of the world so incommensurable with one's own that contradiction would not be in order. 3 No doubt, as Malcolm says, Wittgenstein connected the possibility of religious belief with qualities of character and will rather than with being intellectually open to persuasion by theistic arguments and the like. Religious belief, he once noted, "could only be (something like) passionately committing oneself to a system of co-ordinates"-which means that "although it's belief, it is really a way of living, or a way of judging life". Instruction in religious belief, then, "would have to be portraying, describing that system of reference and at the same time appealing to the conscience". 4 What is required, in effect, rather than metaphysical arguments for the general plausibility of theism, is the story of how the world looks from within the new coordinates ,
Page 1. Edited by David Nicholls and Fergus Kerr, OP Page 2. Page 3. 8 Page 4. Page 5. John Henry... more Page 1. Edited by David Nicholls and Fergus Kerr, OP Page 2. Page 3. 8 Page 4. Page 5. John Henry Newman Reason, Rhetoric and Romanticism Edited by David Nicholls and Fergus Kerr, OP Southern Illinois University Press ...
... Fergus Kerr OP' ... She plays his belief in the need for a 'form of corporeity'... more ... Fergus Kerr OP' ... She plays his belief in the need for a 'form of corporeity' to dispose the body for a higher form (the soul) against Aquinas's thesis that, though the consecration of the bread and wine does not have as its term Christ's soul, his soul is included by 'real concomitance ...
... Bultmann's major theological reconstructions of the New Testament were not to appear unt... more ... Bultmann's major theological reconstructions of the New Testament were not to appear until after the Second World War, but his ... of religious man with its independent interest there stands the Ecclesiam habemus of General Superintendents Dibelius and Schian, the common ...
The philosophy of religion, as commonly understood by Christians in both the Catholic and Reforme... more The philosophy of religion, as commonly understood by Christians in both the Catholic and Reformed traditions, whether they think it a worthwhile enterprise or not, begins with arguments for the existence of a deity, proceeds to show that this deity is necessarily unique, eternal, and suchlike, and leaves it to reflection on divine revelation to consider whether this deity might be properly designated as ‘three persons in one nature’. Much later, after discussing the metaphysical implications of the incarnation of the second person of the triune godhead, one would arrive at theories about the death of Jesus Christ as putatively redemptive, and describable as sacrificial, atoning and the like.
1 Outline of the Book Six of the seven chapters in this book give us the texts,`thoroughly revise... more 1 Outline of the Book Six of the seven chapters in this book give us the texts,`thoroughly revised and supplemented', of a series of lectures Peter Geach delivered in Liechtenstein, at the International Academy for Philosophy, one each on heaven, human nature, consistency, truth telling, God as truth and nally God and goodness. In his customary beautiful prose these chapters, replete with detailed argument as one would expect gradually build up, or slowly reveal, what I hope it is not pretentious to call a whole world view: distinctively and unapologetically Christian, typically with more polemics against his co-religionists than against anyone else. They comprise a splendid distillation of the thought of a ne philosopher. 2 Prophecy The other chapter, placed as Chapter 6, seems to me problematic. It was not one of the lectures. Rather, it was composed in response to a request for a paper from the senior boys of Shrewsbury School. It evidently mysti ed the audience: its content turned out to have so many dif cult sides to it that no boy ventured upon a quick response', Geach tells us, though he notes that, as he was informed, it provoked discussion afterwards'. It deals with`the truth of prophecy', which is why he decided it would t in after the two chapters on truth. It is certainly fun to read, at least if you know something about the mostly unnamed enemies, but frankly it covers far too much material and is often disjointed. One is not surprised that the school boys were perplexed. Even an audience of professional philosophers might have had some dif culty in seeing what might pro tably be discussed. Prophecies are often ful lled, Geach says, whatever sceptical people these days say, citing with characteristic panache examples from the Bible, Byron, and Savonarola, on the way to attacking as`irrational' and`frivolous' the not uncommon view among modern Christian theologians that the predictions ascribed to Jesus Christ in the gospels were put in his mouth by the evangelists, after the events. These (as he thinks) deeply misguided theologians are Geach's principal target. He rst considers instances of mistaken inferences from alleged allusions in other, non-biblical texts. He quotes the famous lines from Alexander Pope's
... extends much further, into a positive characterization of what is still, after more than ... ... more ... extends much further, into a positive characterization of what is still, after more than ... it in a nutshell, the shepherd of Being can never practise scientistic rationalism; learning to ... Self, Phillips strove to establish the distinction between speaking for oneself about moral or religious ...
, the Peterhead weekly. Morag Kuc, the editor, is quoted as follows: 'Obviously with the Trump In... more , the Peterhead weekly. Morag Kuc, the editor, is quoted as follows: 'Obviously with the Trump International Golf Course on our doorstep we had to do something and, being the local paper, we always try our best to find the local angle-hence the headline'. (Kuc is the Polish surname of her husband, which should be pronounced 'koots': the editor herself is a native of Peterhead.) Balgownie, Murcar, Cruden Bay, are legendary links golf courses stretching from the city of Aberdeen up the North Sea coast, interrupted now with Trump International at Balmedie, just beyond Murcar, and by all accounts a beautiful course, as the owner says. Donald John Trump is half Scottish. His roots, however, are not in Aberdeenshire. His maternal origins could not be more remote, culturally as well as geographically. His mother, Mary Anne MacLeod (1912-2000), the youngest of ten, was born in a crofter-fisherman's household at Tong, a township (population 570 at 2001 census) just north of Stornoway, on the island of Lewis. Buchan folk, who are farmers and fishermen also, though on a larger scale, speak a dialect of Scottish English, unintelligible in the Gaelic-speaking Outer Hebrides, and vice versa. In 1930, Mary emigrated to New York, intending to work as a domestic servant. All but one of her siblings moved to North America. In 1936 she married Fred Trump: the previous year she is listed as living in the house. Born in the Bronx to German immigrants, Fred was by then already a successful real-estate developer, though it was by building and selling homes to American servicemen near their camps during World War II that he became seriously rich. Mary Anne revisited Tong quite often, speaking Gaelic with family and friends. On one occasion she took Donald with her, when he was three or four years old. In 2008 he stopped off, and was pictured with cousins, en route to Aberdeenshire.
Book reviewed:Brian McGuinness, Approaches to Wittgenstein: Collected Papers, Routledge, 2002, xv... more Book reviewed:Brian McGuinness, Approaches to Wittgenstein: Collected Papers, Routledge, 2002, xv + 299 pp, £55.00
International Journal of Systematic Theology, 2004
Reason, as it is proper to the task of theology, has two uses: critical and contemplative. This t... more Reason, as it is proper to the task of theology, has two uses: critical and contemplative. This twofold appropriation of reason sets the stage for this article, a stage occupied in turn by Newman and by Aquinas. The critical function of theological work is expressed via the 1877 preface which Newman wrote for his Lectures on the Prophetic Office of the Church. The critical office of theology is vital not only to the practice of theology itself but to the liturgical and spiritual life of the church, and to the exercise of church leadership if that leadership is not to descend into tyranny. For the theologian, reason is not antithetical to contemplation; rather, contemplation includes a form of reasoning. Theology is 'a schooling in the discipline of contemplating the selfrevealing God', a discipline of 'metaphysical ascesis' which compels both intellectual conversion and moral practice. Such an ascesis was practised well by Aquinas, and Kerr reflects on the Summa Theologiae as 'a training in a form of metaphysical reasoning', being schooled in the knowledge of God which strips away our 'idolatorous inclinations'. I 'Metaphysics exercises an important mediating role in theological research'-so Pope John Paul II in the encyclical Fides et ratio §83. 1 That would once have been a platitude. Since the proclamation of 'the end of metaphysics' (§55), however, many Roman Catholic theologians no longer take it for granted. 'Theology, destitute of a metaphysical outlook', the encyclical goes on, 'will be incapable of going beyond the investigation of religious experience, nor would it allow the understanding of faith to give appropriate expression to the universal and transcendent force of revealed truth' (§83).
International Journal of Systematic Theology, 2006
The anti-Modernist Oath (1910) sets the background for this historical account of the tension in ... more The anti-Modernist Oath (1910) sets the background for this historical account of the tension in twentieth-century Roman Catholic theology between those suspected of 'Modernism' and the exponents of Aristotelian Thomism. The article discusses the modernist crisis by tracing the thought of Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange (a strict observer of Thomism) and his student Marie-Dominique Chenu (a dissenter of the neoscholastic view). Chenu established the historical-contextualist reading of Thomas Aquinas which was regarded as a threat to the standard neoscholastic exposition of Thomism, which he felt was heavily influenced by Wolffian rationalism. As a result, Vatican II finally rejects the neoscholastic conception of reason. The article concludes by recognizing the need for a historical-contextualist reading of Thomas but fears that the new philosophical system is not sufficiently scrutinized. By neoscholasticism I mean the way of doing theology that prevailed and indeed was mandatory for clergy, seminary professors and suchlike, from the late nineteenth to the mid twentieth centuries, from the First to the Second Vatican Councils, throughout the Roman Catholic Church (the only significant alternative being in some of the German universities, at Munich and in the so called Catholic Tübingen School). No theology without the right philosophy As Pope John Paul II writes, happily without the bombastic rhetoric of his predecessor, the encyclical Aeterni Patris, issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1879, renewed interest in the thought of St Thomas Aquinas, particularly in his 'philosophy'. Historical study of medieval philosophers began to flourish; critical editions were undertaken, etc., and 'new Thomistic schools arose' (Fides et Ratio 1998, §57). What the encyclical seems to recommend is what we who inhabit this world know as Gilsonian existentialist Thomism-which needs to be distinguished from
International Journal of Systematic Theology, 2006
The anti-Modernist Oath (1910) sets the background for this historical account of the tension in ... more The anti-Modernist Oath (1910) sets the background for this historical account of the tension in twentieth-century Roman Catholic theology between those suspected of 'Modernism' and the exponents of Aristotelian Thomism. The article discusses the modernist crisis by tracing the thought of Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange (a strict observer of Thomism) and his student Marie-Dominique Chenu (a dissenter of the neoscholastic view). Chenu established the historical-contextualist reading of Thomas Aquinas which was regarded as a threat to the standard neoscholastic exposition of Thomism, which he felt was heavily influenced by Wolffian rationalism. As a result, Vatican II finally rejects the neoscholastic conception of reason. The article concludes by recognizing the need for a historical-contextualist reading of Thomas but fears that the new philosophical system is not sufficiently scrutinized. By neoscholasticism I mean the way of doing theology that prevailed and indeed was mandatory for clergy, seminary professors and suchlike, from the late nineteenth to the mid twentieth centuries, from the First to the Second Vatican Councils, throughout the Roman Catholic Church (the only significant alternative being in some of the German universities, at Munich and in the so called Catholic Tübingen School). No theology without the right philosophy As Pope John Paul II writes, happily without the bombastic rhetoric of his predecessor, the encyclical Aeterni Patris, issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1879, renewed interest in the thought of St Thomas Aquinas, particularly in his 'philosophy'. Historical study of medieval philosophers began to flourish; critical editions were undertaken, etc., and 'new Thomistic schools arose' (Fides et Ratio 1998, §57). What the encyclical seems to recommend is what we who inhabit this world know as Gilsonian existentialist Thomism-which needs to be distinguished from
I could not possibly bring myself to believe all the things that they believe", Wittgenstein once... more I could not possibly bring myself to believe all the things that they believe", Wittgenstein once remarked to Norman Malcolm, referring to his Roman Catholic friends Elizabeth Anscombe and Yorick Smythies. 1 No specific doctrine is mentioned. In saying this, Malcolm thought, Wittgenstein was "not disparaging their belief" but simply making "an observation about his own capacity". He regarded religious belief, Malcolm suspected, as "based on qualities of character and will that he himself did not possess". In On Certainty, in the context of considering the possibility of perhaps having to put up with someone's contradicting one's fundamental attitudes, Wittgenstein notes, in his only published reference to the doctrine of transubstantiation, that "Catholics believe … that in certain circumstances a wafer completely changes its nature, and at the same time that all evidence proves the contrary." 2 Here as elsewhere, he is concerned to bring out the difference between contradicting what someone believes and finding someone's view of the world so incommensurable with one's own that contradiction would not be in order. 3 No doubt, as Malcolm says, Wittgenstein connected the possibility of religious belief with qualities of character and will rather than with being intellectually open to persuasion by theistic arguments and the like. Religious belief, he once noted, "could only be (something like) passionately committing oneself to a system of co-ordinates"-which means that "although it's belief, it is really a way of living, or a way of judging life". Instruction in religious belief, then, "would have to be portraying, describing that system of reference and at the same time appealing to the conscience". 4 What is required, in effect, rather than metaphysical arguments for the general plausibility of theism, is the story of how the world looks from within the new coordinates ,
Page 1. Edited by David Nicholls and Fergus Kerr, OP Page 2. Page 3. 8 Page 4. Page 5. John Henry... more Page 1. Edited by David Nicholls and Fergus Kerr, OP Page 2. Page 3. 8 Page 4. Page 5. John Henry Newman Reason, Rhetoric and Romanticism Edited by David Nicholls and Fergus Kerr, OP Southern Illinois University Press ...
... Fergus Kerr OP' ... She plays his belief in the need for a 'form of corporeity'... more ... Fergus Kerr OP' ... She plays his belief in the need for a 'form of corporeity' to dispose the body for a higher form (the soul) against Aquinas's thesis that, though the consecration of the bread and wine does not have as its term Christ's soul, his soul is included by 'real concomitance ...
... Bultmann's major theological reconstructions of the New Testament were not to appear unt... more ... Bultmann's major theological reconstructions of the New Testament were not to appear until after the Second World War, but his ... of religious man with its independent interest there stands the Ecclesiam habemus of General Superintendents Dibelius and Schian, the common ...
The philosophy of religion, as commonly understood by Christians in both the Catholic and Reforme... more The philosophy of religion, as commonly understood by Christians in both the Catholic and Reformed traditions, whether they think it a worthwhile enterprise or not, begins with arguments for the existence of a deity, proceeds to show that this deity is necessarily unique, eternal, and suchlike, and leaves it to reflection on divine revelation to consider whether this deity might be properly designated as ‘three persons in one nature’. Much later, after discussing the metaphysical implications of the incarnation of the second person of the triune godhead, one would arrive at theories about the death of Jesus Christ as putatively redemptive, and describable as sacrificial, atoning and the like.
1 Outline of the Book Six of the seven chapters in this book give us the texts,`thoroughly revise... more 1 Outline of the Book Six of the seven chapters in this book give us the texts,`thoroughly revised and supplemented', of a series of lectures Peter Geach delivered in Liechtenstein, at the International Academy for Philosophy, one each on heaven, human nature, consistency, truth telling, God as truth and nally God and goodness. In his customary beautiful prose these chapters, replete with detailed argument as one would expect gradually build up, or slowly reveal, what I hope it is not pretentious to call a whole world view: distinctively and unapologetically Christian, typically with more polemics against his co-religionists than against anyone else. They comprise a splendid distillation of the thought of a ne philosopher. 2 Prophecy The other chapter, placed as Chapter 6, seems to me problematic. It was not one of the lectures. Rather, it was composed in response to a request for a paper from the senior boys of Shrewsbury School. It evidently mysti ed the audience: its content turned out to have so many dif cult sides to it that no boy ventured upon a quick response', Geach tells us, though he notes that, as he was informed, it provoked discussion afterwards'. It deals with`the truth of prophecy', which is why he decided it would t in after the two chapters on truth. It is certainly fun to read, at least if you know something about the mostly unnamed enemies, but frankly it covers far too much material and is often disjointed. One is not surprised that the school boys were perplexed. Even an audience of professional philosophers might have had some dif culty in seeing what might pro tably be discussed. Prophecies are often ful lled, Geach says, whatever sceptical people these days say, citing with characteristic panache examples from the Bible, Byron, and Savonarola, on the way to attacking as`irrational' and`frivolous' the not uncommon view among modern Christian theologians that the predictions ascribed to Jesus Christ in the gospels were put in his mouth by the evangelists, after the events. These (as he thinks) deeply misguided theologians are Geach's principal target. He rst considers instances of mistaken inferences from alleged allusions in other, non-biblical texts. He quotes the famous lines from Alexander Pope's
... extends much further, into a positive characterization of what is still, after more than ... ... more ... extends much further, into a positive characterization of what is still, after more than ... it in a nutshell, the shepherd of Being can never practise scientistic rationalism; learning to ... Self, Phillips strove to establish the distinction between speaking for oneself about moral or religious ...
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