>Romish traditionalist philosophy (which
is
> Thomistic) is based in Aristotelian
philosophy, which is essentially rationalistic.
> Rationalism downplays the effects of the
Fall, or denies the Fall
> altogether, so arguing human reason
unaided by special revelation can
> attain great knowledge. I think that is why the Jesuit educated
> Descartes, and many others like him,
were rationalists. All
> rationalists deny the doctrine of total
depravity.
>
> On the issue of tolerationism, Jesuits
even in the 17th century (and
> after) played a shrewd game, as far as I
can tell. They discouraged
> tolerationism in the Roman Catholic
countries, while encouraging
> tolerationism and pluralism in the
Protestant countries. eg, King
> James II's Toleration Act in England;
Maryland colony's Toleration
> Act; the Jesuits promoted secularism,
tolerationism, and pluralism in
> the USA, etc. Yet during the same years the Jesuits were encouraging
> suppression of dissent in Romanist
nations like Spain, France, etc.
>
> I think you are right that Jesuits
started to move away from Thomism
> in the 19th century. They have substituted one form of
rationalism
> for various other forms of rationalism
to some extent, which are even
> more un-Biblical than Thomism.
Trent itself condemned total depravity, and
affirmed freedom of the will.
And so, yes, the Jesuits place a very proud
confidence in scholastical reasoning.
And I think that yes, the Jesuits started to
think, esp by the dawn of the 20th century, that they had to "help the
Pope out," because the forces of evolution, which always progress up (in
the evolutionists' thinking), were causing mankind "to make scientific
strides" that were going to overthrow Aristotleianism.
I know that historically, the Jesuits did
exactly as you have said, in encouraging toleration in Protestant countries,
while suppressing it in papist countries.
However, I think that the Jesuits now are campaigning for toleration
within the Romish Church itself--to allow for their modernist views.
The leading Jesuit theologian at Trent was
Lainez. He became the Father-General of
the Jesuits after Ignatius' death.
Suarez was a later Father-General and
powerful apologist for the Jesuits.
John Owen spends considerable time refuting him. (He was a horrible Scholastic.
Thousands of propositions built upon man-made
terms.)
For a long time, the Jesuits were the
champions of Trent. The last Tridentine
Father-General of the SJ was Janssens, during the papal reign of the Nazi
Pope--Pius XII.
After that: Pedro Arrupe. And then, the modernist genii that had long
been pent up within the society came springing out. A French and German genii, it
appears.
French Age of Englightenment rationalism (Rosseau was a powerful
influence on them,
says Martin), and German higher critics--like Hans Kung.
> We were discussing the Jesuits and
"free thinking" last week.
Thought
> you might be interested in this section
from my book Thy Kingdom Come
> II:
My understanding has been that, up to the
early 1800's, the Jesuits were the hard-core Trent order within the Church of
Rome. Yes, they resorted to treachery,
trickery, and fraud to perpetrate Trent--but they were Trent all the way. In fact, the leading theologian at
Trent--his name is escaping me at the moment--but he was one of Ignatius'
original followers, and decidedly, a member of Ignatius original society and
leading professori. (Was it
Suarez?) This Jesuit almost formulated
word-for-word many of Trent's statements, including the heavily persecuting
ones with their anathemas. He also set
forth several articles that were not accepted, like, the Assumption of Mary and
the Infallibility of the Pope. (Of
course, they have been accepted since.)
However, what Malachi Martin says--and he has
considerable evidence to support this--is that, in the early 1800's, a dramatic
change began to occur that caused the leading intellectuals in the Jesuits to
drift away from Trent. Why?
Well, you see, the whole theology of Trent is
based on "Thomism." That is:
the doctrinal system of Thomas Aquinas.
The classical Thomists equated the philosophy
of Aristotle with Scripture itself.
Equally authoritative, that is.
But the problem was this: Aristotle, Parnell,
believed in geocentrism--that the sun goes around the earth. I'm not sure that Aristotle even believed
that the earth was a globe. He may have
believed in a flat earth.
Now: by the time of the early 1800's, the
Jesuits had begun their infiltration into the sciences. Particularly in France. And it was in France that the Jesuit
scholars began to see that the teachings of Aristotle, many of them, were
hopelessly in error. That science had
indeed clearly proven them false. They
all became Copernicans.
It was particularly then, by the late 1800's,
that the Jesuits began to swerve toward rationalism. Some of them, like George Tyrell, became avowed higher
critics. Explaining away all the
miracles of the Bible as "Babylonish myths,"
or with "scientific explanations."
Teilhard de Chardin was a higher critic of
the first order. In fact, he rejected
the idea of theistic evolution that an ape was suddenly implanted with a soul,
constituting him a man. He believed in
something of a "world soul" which gradually evolved into a human
soul--that the creatures have some sort of rational souls.
Also: a leading theologian at Vatican
II--Hans Kung--openly questions, not only the Genesis Account, and the
historicity of the Flood--but also, the resurrection of Christ! For that he was censured by John Paul
II. But he for years was a leading
Jesuit theologian in the Church of Rome, and a leading drafter of statements at
Vatican II.
And so--whatever "free-thinker"
meant in the 1600's, back in the days when the Jesuits were the prime exponents
of Trent--today, it means just what we think--infidel.
According to Martin, up to WW I, the Jesuits
in the majority were still Trent, but a very influential intelligentsia were
totally skeptics--even deniers of the divinity of Christ.
But since Pedro Arrupe, the majority of the S
J has been decidedly left-wing higher critics--advocates of an extremist social
gospel.
These Jesuits actually do believe--and I have
seen their quotes, since George Tyrell--that the Pope must not be an absolute
autocrat in the Church, but rather, a "spokesman for the mind of the Holy
Spirit in the Church"--i e, a spokesman for the "people's Church." The "Base Community" as George
Tyrell termed it. And so: they look
over time to change the very nature of the Papacy itself. Paul VI and even John Paul I (the murdered
Pope) were more Popes in this mindset.
They were quite liberal in accepting deviant opinions, and considerably
more democratic in drafting their bulls.
(John Paul I, for example, believed in birth control, and was about to
make a promulgation in that
regard.)
The modernists are actually staying, Parnell,
in the Church of Rome, to "wait it out" until they are in the
ascendancy. This explains why men like
Chirac and Schroeder are in no way Tridentine or traditionalist in their
doctrines. They are Jesuit-trained, and
the Jesuits have led them right down the road of skepticism.
What they envision, Parnell, is a liberal,
rationalist Romish Church that will be much like the liberal Protestant
mainline churches, only with a single leader at the helm who will be a great
symbol for unity and social justice.
That, plus having great pageantry in their "celebrations" of
the Mass, and huge amounts of money to control the geopolitical scene on behalf
of the "socialistic interests of the people."
I'll try to garner some quotes for you. I totally believe that the Jesuits harbored
atheists in the 1600's, but nothing like the late 1800's, and esp now.
They are biding
their time. Father Drinan is one of
theirs, there is no doubt about it.
I'm reading away through Malachi Martin's
"The Jesuits and the Betrayal of the Roman Catholic Church." Martin cites as the beginnings of the seeds
for modern Jesuitism's swerve into Modernism as being "The French Liberal
Catholic Tradition."
He says that the French Liberal Catholic
Tradition was "quasi-respectable"--many in the hierarchy have
respected it. However, modern Jesuits,
particularly, a Jacques Maritain of the 1930's began to apply some of the
doctrines of the French Liberal Catholics toward "Marxist renewal for the
masses."
Interesting.
It is a movement strongly counterpoised against the absolute authority
of the Pope. Tridentine Traditional
Catholicism says, "The roots of our faith are in the Trinity, the
Scriptures (as interpreted by us!), Christ's Redeeming Work, and His
establishment of the Pope as Christ's Vicar on Earth."
Of course, part of Christ's Redeeming work,
to the Tridentine Traditionalists, is "giving power to issue the redeeming
sacraments to the Pope, the bishops, and the priests." To them: "Christ's redeeming benefits
are ineffectual, without the continual administration of the
sacraments." This makes the
hierarchy and the priests redeemers, as well as Christ. They become the people's saviours. To defy the Pope is to defy Christ the
Redeemer. It is to incur damnation upon
oneself.
The Liberal Catholics, however, began to say
that "...The Catholic religion, he maintained, is not evidenced chiefly by
miracles and fulfilled prophecies but by its capacity to perpetuate those
beliefs which mankind has found essential to an ordered social life:
monotheism, the difference between good and evil, the immortality of the soul,
and reward or punishment in a future life. Testifying to these beliefs is the
sensus communis or general reason, the collective judgments derived from
custom, tradition, and education..."
In other words, the "Catholic
tradition" had led society as a whole to acknowledge monotheism, the
difference between good and evil, the immortality of the soul, and reward or
punishment in the future life. This
makes the people themselves who acknowledge these truths "the people of
God." The importance of the Church
is in "perpetuating these beliefs."
But the "people of God" are as important in perpetuating them
as are the clergy. And this led to a lessening
of the importance of the sacraments, and primary emphasis being placed upon
"deeds of social justice by the priests and hierarchy, on behalf of the
social needs of the people of God."
This began the arising of the doctrine of
"the people's Church." And
the idea that the clergy were best serving the "Kingdom of God" by
"bettering the plight of the people," and so, evincing the love of
Christ to them by improving their social condition.
It was at this time that the very popular
theme "social justice" began to be heard amongst the Jesuits.
Now: Martin says that when Teilhard de
Chardin came along, he entrenched the Jesuits in the doctrines of Darwinian
evolution--and Chardin felt that evolution was an infallible progress
upward. (I think we can see here the
"social Gospel" tendencies of liberal Protestantism that began in the
latter half of the 19th century.)
Martin says that Chardin, along with George Tyrell, S J, began to
incculcate, through their writings, in the minds of Jesuits, the notions that,
because Darwinianism is a given fact--the Scriptures must be reinterpreted in
the light of modern science--which of course, leads directly into "higher
criticism." No wonder, then, that
the famed papist theologian, Hans Kung, is a higher critic.
The French liberal tradition, coupled with
this propensity toward modernistic, higher critical opinions of the Scriptures,
led the Jesuits to conclude that dogma is not so important--what is truly
important is, "the condition of the people of God"--and of course,
their take on "who the people of God are" was, "the whole of a
Christian society"--all who merely profess that there is one God, that
there is good and evil, and that there are rewards and punishments in the next
life.
These notions then changed the
"redeeming work of Christ" to be "the social mission of Christ's
Body the Church, to improve the conditions of the masses."
And this theology is that which Hans von
Kolvenach (and Pedro Arrupe before him) are totally committed to. The Council of Trent, according to
Martin--and I am inclined to agree with him--is "antiquated." All this emphasis on dogma, and with it, the
infallibility of Peter's Chair, is antiquated.
Now: believe it or not, I think this was the
mindset of John Paul I. He was a
liberal Socialist. He, and Paul VI
before him, and John XXIII. Now: they
did impose LIMITS on how far dogma still had to be enforced--they did see
*some* need for Peter's Chair to hold the line on doctrine--but their chief
emphasis was more on "social justice." And this present Pope's emphasis is plainly influenced in that
direction.
Martin says that Montini--Pope Paul VI--was
highly influenced by the Marxist Jacques Maritain, whom I mentioned above. He even write a forward to one of Maritain's
more famous works. However, the extreme
degree to which the Jesuits later carried Maritain, in their Marxist revolutions
in Latin America--coupled with their blatantly secular humanist rejections of
tradition papist dogma--ended up causing Montini endless griefs.
Now: one of the leaders, Parnell, in the
"social justice" movement amongst the Jesuits in the 1970's was.....Father
Drinan.