Monday, November 22, 2004
WHAT DOES THE CHURCH SAY ?
Before blogging comments about Guenon's _The Reign of Quantity_, I'd like to look briefly at the Church's position on Perennialism.
Guenon joined Catholic circles at the Catholic Institute in Paris in 1916, where he gave lectures on Hinduism. He was viewed as a scholar of what today would be called comparative religions. The Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain promoted his book, _A General Introduction to the Study of Hindu Doctrines_. This book consisted of the material Guenon had assembled for a doctoral dissertation that was rejected by French Indologist Sylvain Levi. One Pertinent reason for Levi's rejection was Guenon's belief that a mystical transmission of a primal truth that appeared to humanity in the first ages of the world, a belief Levi found ridiculous according to Mark Sedgwick, but which appealed to Maritain. (_Against the Modern World_, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 22-23).
Even prior to his tenure at the Catholic Institute, Guenon's articles in "Christian France," a publication that specialized in attacks against Freemasonry and occultism, earned points with the Catholics. (ibid. p. 29)
Ultimately, however, Guenon lost the support of Maritain who came to the conclusion that "Guenon's metaphysics are radically irreconcilable with [Catholic] faith. The remedy [for contemporary problems] proposed by Mr. Guenon - which is frankly, a Hinduist restoration of ancient Gnosis, mother of heresies - would only make things worse." His later publication of _Orient and Occident_ accelerated his break with Catholic support at the Institute.
A Dominican whom Sedgwick does not identify:
...went further, warning against taking Guenon for an ally of Catholicism on the strength of his "brilliant execution of Theosophy..., his horror of Protestantism, and of secular and scientist morality". The Dominican concluded, "Our naivete does...have some limits": Guenon was clearly on the other, Oriental side. (ibid., p. 30)
After this his work with the Catholic Institute came to an end though his on-again, off-again relationship with Catholics continued.
Turning to the Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris, an encyclical which praises the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas, I found comments that seem to address the specific philosophy at issue:
For, the teachings of St. Thomas...have very great and invincible force to overturn those principles of the new order which are well known to be dangerous to the peaceful order of things and to public safety. (No. 29)
While in this encyclical Pope Leo refers to "ancient Philosophy," it is clear from the context that this ancient philosophy is the truth of the Catholic faith, and not a philosophy patchworked together out of the combined teachings of numerous religions of the world. He says further: "be careful to guard the minds of youth from those [sources] which are said to flow [from St. Thomas], but in reality are gathered from strange and unwholesome streams." (No. 31)
Since the Perennial Philosophy is often referred to as an "underground stream," the passage is pertinent.
Turning to the Encyclical of Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, I found what appears to be a specific condemnation of Traditionalism:
There are many who, deploring disagreement among men and intellectual confusion, through an imprudent zeal for souls, are urged by a great and ardent desire to do away with the barrier that divides good and honest men; these advocate an "eirenism" according to which, by setting aside the questions which divide men, they aim not only at joining forces to repel the attacks of atheism, but also at reconciling things opposed to one another in the field of dogma. (No. 11)
He makes an even stronger condemnation of Traditionalism, describing the procedure he rejects in this way:
In theology some want to reduce to a minimum the meaning of dogmas; and to free dogma itself from terminology long established in the Church and from philosophical concepts held by Catholic teachers, to bring about a return in the explanation of Catholic doctrine to the way of speaking used in Holy Scripture and by the Fathers of the Church. They cherish the hope that when dogma is stripped of the elements which they hold to be extrinsic to divine revelation, it will compare advantageously with the dogmatic opinions of those who are separated from the unity of the Church and that in this way they will gradually arrive at a mutual assimilation of Catholic dogma with the tenets of the dissidents. (No. 14)
And further:
...still the duty that is incumbent on the faithful to flee also those errors which more or less approach heresy, and accordingly "to keep also the constitutions and decrees by which such evil opinions are proscribed and forbidden by the Holy See," is sometimes as little known as if it did not exist. What is expounded in the Encyclical Letters of the Roman Pontiffs concerning the nature and constitution of the Church, is deliberately and habitually neglected by some with the idea of giving force to a certain vague notion which they profess to have found in the ancient Fathers, especially the Greeks. (No. 18)
In passage 32 he speaks of "traditional philosophy" and "perennial philosophy." Yet again, the philosophy in question is that of the Angelic Doctor Thomas Aquinas as he explains in passage 31. Pius describes Guenonian Traditionalism rather accurately with this passage:
While scorning our philosophy, they extoll other philosophies of all kinds, ancient and modern, oriental and occidental, by which they seem to imply that any kind of philosophy or theory, with a few additions and corrections if need be, can be reconciled with Catholic dogma. No Catholic can doubt how false this is
Turning to recent work of Cardinal Ratzinger who has written a book to address this trend, I found in a review of _Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief in World Religions_ at Ignatius Insights, sent in by a reader:
Yes, Christianity has a European element. But above all it has a perennial message that comes from God, not from any human culture, argues Ratzinger. While Christians have sometimes pushed their cultures on other peoples, as have non-Christians, Christianity itself is alien to no authentically human culture. Its very nature as a free response to God's gift of himself in Jesus Christ, means that Christianity must propose itself to culture, not impose itself.
This could be taken to be approval of Traditionalism were it not for the reference to Christ. As the article further says:
At the heart of the discussion about the diversity of religions, contends Ratzinger, is the identity of Jesus Christ. ...The divinity of Jesus is "the real dividing line in the history of religions"...
Ratzinger further adds:
...there is a kind of mysticism in which one seeks to merge into or become identical with everything in an all-embracing, impersonal unity. Many Eastern religions and the New Age movement are religions of that sort.
Lastly, a paper online by Stratford Caldecott, titled "The Deep Horizon" addresses Traditionalism. Caldecott, too, finds that this belief runs aground on the unique person of Jesus Christ who cannot be equated to spiritual leaders in other faiths.
