‘Objection’ Response to ‘A Sinful Church’ and the Indigenous Questions
Hugh Williams, Debec, NB
Volume 35 Issue 10, 11 & 12 | Posted: December 23, 2021
The Editor:
In what is an excellent piece, Jim Morin’s piece (“A Sinful Church and the Healing Grace of God” (ICN Autumn 2021) says two things I’d like to comment further on; 1) “truth is subjective” quoting Kierkegaard; and, 2) “…the metaphysical assumptions of classical and medieval philosophy should be subjected to critical analysis to overcome limitations and correct errors”.
On #1 it is not clear that Jim, who is a careful theologian, is saying. He, without qualification, adheres to this position, but he is saying that he grasps what Kierkegaard meant. Jim then quotes the famous Bernard Lonergan phrase from Method in Theology that “genuine objectivity is the fruit of subjective authenticity”. I can agree that there is an important aspect of knowledge and truth that is subjective, but this cannot be the whole ‘story’ without raising the specter of relativism. And so Lonergan’s statement, as an epistemological claim, has merit but as a metaphysical claim is at best incomplete and in need of supplementation.
On #2 which to some degree follows from #1, there is the suggestion that the absolutism often associated with medieval philosophy ‘led to imposing baptism … and the sentencing to torture those who resisted’. I expect it is true that some or even many used certain philosophical viewpoints regarding knowledge and truth to justify such actions, but also I know that there were within the Church, for example, several Dominican scholars at the time who fervently spoke against such treatment, and did so on the basis of ‘medieval philosophy and theology’, and that some of this reasoning was incorporated in Pope Paul III’s papal bull Sublimus Deus (1537) in which was written (my gloss):
… Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians, are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside the faith of Jesus Christ; and they should freely and legitimately, enjoy their liberty and the possession of their property; nor should they be in any way enslaved …
So, yes, there is need for critical analysis to overcome limitations and correct errors, but there also remains great riches in this tradition of thought, especially in St. Thomas Aquinas and many of his followers, that can help balance or moderate some of the excesses of modern and contemporary critique …
Hugh Williams, Debec, NB