Seminar

http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/33-1/blondel-remembered-his-philosophical-analysis-of-the-quest-for-the-historical-jesus

http://www.iep.utm.edu/b/blondel.htm

http://books.google.com/books?id=OtIDgiehibkC&printsec=toc&dq=maurice+blondel&output=html&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0

The subject of the seminar for the academic year 2008-2009 is:
Histoire et dogme by Maurice Blondel (1904): a crucial discussion at the beginning of the modernist crisis
The first session of the seminar will take place on 30 September.

http://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/library_article/53/Henri_de_Lubac_and_the_Critique_of_Scientific_Exegesis.html
A. The influence of Blondel

At this juncture it is important to note that Maurice Blondel, one of de Lubac's mentors,{28} had undertaken just such a two-pronged critique of scientific exegesis at the turn of the twentieth century. In L'Action, his doctoral dissertation, Blondel laid the groundwork of this critique by reflecting upon the nature and limitation of scientific knowledge. In this work he points out that, since each of the various sciences views reality from a different angle, none can provide a comprehensive and total view of reality in isolation from the others.{29} Making a case for the "radical insufficiency" of either the empirical, inductive sciences or the exact, deductive sciences to provide a complete picture of human reality, Blondel goes on to reprimand "positivism" for thinking it can completely unlock the unique secrets of reality solely by means of a scientific examination of phenomena. Against such positivist pretensions, Blondel asserts that phenomena, in other words, scientific and historical facts, are only outer images of the real, inner reality of human life.{30}

In "History and Dogma," Blondel applies L'Action's general critique of positive science to the more specific issue of biblical exegesis. His comments hinge on an important distinction he makes between "technical and critical history" on the one hand and "real history" on the other. Technical and critical history deals not with the inner reality of life itself but rather with phenomena, i.e., the outer manifestations of life's inner, spiritual reality. Real history, on the other hand, is "the substitute for the life of humanity, the totality of historical truths." It includes the vital spiritual reality of human life which is never wholly represented or exhausted by the historical phenomena. "Between these two histories, of which one is a science and the other a life, one resulting from a phenomenological method and the other tending to represent genuine reality, there is an abyss."{31}

For Blondel, "tradition" plays an indispensable hermeneutical role in the interpretation of historical persons, events, and texts because it has as its content precisely what technical/critical history fails to reach, viz, that "real history" which includes the inner, spiritual character of the persons and events under study. Tradition, then, "preserves not so much the intellectual aspect of the past as its living reality."{32} If interpretation is to yield life and not just abstractions, in Blondel's view, tradition must not be excluded from the hermeneutical process.

There is an additional hermeneutical principle that Blondel identifies which goes beyond the bounds of critical history. In a chapter of L'Action entitled "The Value of Literal Practice and the Conditions of Religious Action,"{33} Blondel insists that active performance of religious practices is essential for real entrance into the conceptual knowledge of a religious idea in all its fullness and profundity. Thus, a believer cannot attain the "spirit" of religion, i.e., its sublime and inner meaning, without first observing the "letter," i.e., the very ordinary and mundane practices it counsels, since, according to Blondel, "the letter is the spirit in action."{34} "The thought that follows upon the act," declares Blondel, "is infinitely richer than the thought that precedes it."{35} This is so because action, more than mere thoughts or sentiments, penetrates into the very depths of a person, causing the truth of which it is a vehicle to become immanent in him or her. Hence, the truth that is practiced is known from within and is therefore grasped more completely and accurately than one which is known and held "exteriorly" through intellectual assent alone. The thinker who fails to do the truth will never really be able to understand it.

This methodological principle surely carries over to "History and Dogma." In order to know and adequately explain the reality to which the data of Scripture points, the exegete must not only be operating from within the tradition, but also must be engaged in the concrete practices which it counsels. Christian asceticism and obedience, then, constitute for Blondel a sort of hermeneutical principle: "Nothing is more reliable than the light shed by the orderly and repeated performance of Christian practices."{36}

Blondel's view of the proper role of scientific exegesis, then, can be summarized as follows: while technical-critical history possesses a "relative autonomy"{37} as a distinct scientific discipline, it is nonetheless only one element in a much more comprehensive hermeneutical process involving both Christian tradition and Christian life. While the view of the past it provides is valuable, it is nonetheless incomplete. Its specific and limited role is to reconstruct as intelligible a representation of the past as possible from the facts uncovered in research. In addition, it must do its best to explain the determinism of causality linking the past's successive moments. While critical historians ought to make this determinist explanation as complete as possible, they are also bound "to leave the issue open or even to open it as widely as possible to the realist explanation which lies always beneath."{38}

'Historicism,' for Blondel, is that positivist exercise of critical history which refuses to leave the issue open in this way. Forgetting that scientific history is a mere abstraction, it identifies the whole subject matter of history with what it can uncover of the naturalist evolution produced under the pres sure of external events and forces.{39} By narrowly equating history's meaning with the determinism of observable events in this absolute way, historicism would reduce the Bible's inexhaustibly rich subject matter to a series of hollow abstractions. Critical history which forgets its own limitations in this egregious fashion oversteps the boundaries of its competence and thus violates an important canon of truly scientific method.

Morevover, in its naive confidence that it can successfully prescind from all traditonal presuppositions in order to cling to the facts alone, historicism also violates another important canon of scientific method, namely, objectivity. Ironically, it is those historians who believe they are engaged in presuppositionless interpretation who, notes Blondel, compromise their objectivity most severely since they are influenced by prejudices on the pretext of attaining to an impossible neutralityóprejudices such as everyone inevitably has so long as he has not attained a conscious view of his own attitude of mind and subjected the postulates on which his researches are based to a methodical criticism. In default of an explicit philosophy, a man ordinarily has an unconscious one. And what one takes for simple observations of fact are often simply constructions. The observer, the narrator, is always more or less of a poet; for behind what he sees the witness puts an action and a soul so as to give the fact a meaning; behind the witness and his testimony, if they are really to enter history, the cnhc puts an interpretation, a relation, a synthesis; behind these critical data the historian inserts a general view and wider human preoccupations; which is to say that man with his beliefs, his metaphysical ideas, and his religious solutions conditions all the subordinate researches of science as much as he is conditioned by them.{40}

Ward De Pril -

General Introduction - Blondel wrote on the crisis of Modernism. One of the most painful controversies in the recent history of the Church. Culminated in Pascendi Dominici Gregis - Loisy was condemned - major protagonist - french biblical scholar. PDG sketched a particular monolythic group by the anti-modernists and integralists. The McCarthists of the church. The group didn't exist. In this way it is like jansenism - which didn't really exist but was invented by the Jesuits to clobber their enemies. Instead this was a network of theologians who were individually working on the same issues. Even within the group there were controversies. Blondel / Loisy is one such controversy. L'evangel et l'eglise by Loisy sparked the modernist conflict. This reacted to the essense of christianity by German Protestant theologian. Blondel then responded to Loisy. How can dogma have history? Friedrich von Hugel will also be included.
Text was a series of articles and a series of correspondence with Loisy.

Extrinsicism - neo-scholasticism - tradition is his solution to the problem raised by historical critical method.

put presentation to ward by monday noon. Other students email one question each on the subject of the seminar. Paper on the presentation topic 10-20 pages with 2 pages of reflection on the seminar in general.

Roger Aubert in Handbuch der Kerchengeschichte Hubert Jedin (ed.) - also in english. A27 in english translation. Best general survey (1979).

Background

Arises in end of 19th century, especially in France. General climate in the church of increasing reaction against modernity - new ideological currents in society that are increasingly opposed in the Church. E.g. church and state polemics. Leo XIII had created some openings, even open to french republic. But Pius 10th is more inclined to a politics of confrontation. Those trying to renew catholic thought to adapt to present ideas are looked at with suspicion. One of the most violent condemnations ever pronounced by the Catholic Church. Crisis starts in the 1870s with education legislation and Catholics can establish their universities. For this reason there is more free thinking - flourishing of Catholic thought, including theology. Renewal later sparks controversy.

Louis Duchesne

Develops new theology at Institute Catholique - professor of ancient church history - and provoked negative reaction by some.

Pierre Batiffot

Dismissed from Toulouse in 1908 after his book on the Eucharist is placed on the index. Resourcement. Neo-scholastism was made mandatory - abstract theology and philosophy as answer or perhaps reaction against modernity. Return to medieval period was not the answer to contemporary problems.
"Modernism is a term employed by Pius X and his curial advisers and their attempt to describe and condemn certain liberal, anti-scholastic and historico-critical forms of thought occuring in the Roman Catholic Church between 1890 and 1914." Daly. It is more clear from examining the reaction against it than trying to identify the conspiracy by its protagonists.

Condemned

France. Loisy who wrote L'Evangile et l'Eglise, Lagrange OP Old testament scholar Founder of Ecole biblique de Jerusalem and Revue biblique, Blondel wrote L'Action, Le Roy Qu'est-ce qu'un dogme - relativized dogma, Laberthonniere oratorian edited Annales de philosophie chretienne, Bremond Former jesuit specialist in spirituality - Literary history of spirituality in France - he questions certain traditions regarding saints, Turmel published history of Christian doctrine - more radical, Houtin was a radical biblical scholar. Progressists - advocated some renewal; Modernists wanted a complete revision; others were rationalists who were even more extreme. In England: Tyrrell former jesuit turned to the importance of experience Through Scylla and Charybdis, von Hugel. In Italy Buonaiuti a historian, Semeria - biblical scholar, Fogazzaro - Il Santo. Reform catholicism in Germany: Schell.

Reaction

Measures taken by the Church:

Lamentabili sane 1907 Holy Office condemned 65 propositions - 53 propositions are quoted directly from Loisy. Like syllabus of errors 1864 - this was quite porblematic.


Pascendi dominici gregis 1907. Developed a system in the group of people who are condemned. Daly 176 says that the encyclical created a position that it proceeded to refute. It created a heresy - omnium heresion collectum. Suspects Kantian position underlies modernism. A system of thought including 1) agnosticism; 2) vital immanentism stating that the source of religion is found inside the human person - it is a movement of the heart; 3) evolution. Gives a portrait of a modernist who are quite heterogeneous. They were characterized by curiosity for the new, pride, ignorance; are condemned it - harsh disciplinary measures. Suspects Kantian position underlies modernism. Strikes at the heart of human rights - exclude suspects from government and teaching, and forbid writings that 'smack' of modernist strains. Council of vigilance should be established in every diocese: reign of terror. Paralyzes catholic theology. Anti-modernist oath - in positions in church and seminary dependent on oath. Suspended in 1976. Now there is the new oath.


Sacrorum Antistitum 1910.

Integralism

witch hunt against modernists - Catholic Fundamentalism. Total unconditional adherence to the entire teaching of the Catholic Church. Opposition to the restriction of rights of the church. Rejection of modernity. Intransigence.
Loome 1977: Diachronic approach - polemics of the two catholicisms - one is consonant with society, the other rejects society.

Ultramontanism	liberal catholicism	Quanta cura / Syllabus	1864
Integralism	Modernism	Pascendi/Lamentabili	1907
Neo-Integralism	Nouvelle Theologie	Humani generis	1950
Traditionalism (LaFevre)	Neo-Modernism	atican II	1962-65

Contextual or synchronic approach - look at a theology in its own context. Systematists are more interest in the diachronic approach.

Historical context of Histoire et Dogma
A. Methodological Crisis - relation between hisorical and theological method.

Extrincism

Traditional Classic Neo-scholastics - dealing with Rationalists and Protestants. Apologetics have to debate with historical arguments. Supernatural revelation can be demonstrated by historical research. Miracles and prophesies are seen as evidence of the transcendent in history. Vatican I has this notion in Dei Filius. Pascendi says arguments based on prophesies are considered rational arguments. Dei Filius: We can know God by natural light of reason. Pascendi: we can know God by the light of historical reason. Kant: we can't reach through to the reality behind phenomena. Credibility of miracles and prophesies is independent of time.
Theologians collected statements of current theological dogma and underpinned them with scripture and fathers - but only to support - the conclusion is presumed. The apologetic use of history is critiqued by modernist: torturing the texts, arranging and confusing them after its own fashion (from Loisy).
1875 - working against the old extrinsic use of history: 1878 Leo XIII inaugurated renewal of Catholic Thought. At the same time was a rise of neo-scholastic and neo-thomism. Study 24 theses before theology. These two clash in the modernist crisis, it was only a matter of time. Historical critical method was seen to be required by intellectual honesty. What if the results don't agree? How do you reconcile facts and texts? Modernists do this by giving a new meaning to revelation (human intuition of the sacred), Dogma (intellectual expression of religious consciousness).

Loisy	Institute Catholique	Right to be free in historical research distinguishes facts from interpretation of facts by faith - Church is sovereign in interpretation, but not in history
Batiffol	Toulouse	Complete independent historical research first. Then inquire about the relation to doctrine
De la Barre, Bainvel, Lagrange, (Blondel)	Institute Catholique	purely histrical method - historical theological method instead. Can't disregard position of witness in the doctrinal history of the church. HCM isn't sufficient or independent. Autonomy of the historian is limited; Sources of knowledge to be reconciled - humble with regard to knowledge from other sciences.
Lemonnyer, Gardiel, Gacquin, Schwalm	Dominican Le Sosoir	Two types of historical study: 1) Recognize purely historical research: HCM as correct but partial. Auxiliary science of theology, e.g. history of Dogma which works from a regressive method - start with the present and move backward. Positive theology has a theological reading of history

B. Theological - Doctrinal Crisis: History uncovered evidence that apologetics could prove revelation. But there must be a connection: 1) neo scholastic solution - revelation is a set of propositional principles from which all dogma is developed. 2) Transformism - there is no homogeneous connection between successive concepts of dogma. c) deepening of fundamental notions of history and theology. Blondel helps here. Revelation is the primordial concepts beyond the human capacity to know. A spontaneous knowledge that is difficult to express. Tradition transforms what is lived as implicit knowledge into explicit expressions. Tradition formulates truths that the past has lived. Tradition has dynamic and stable elements.
Conclusion at the time of the modernist crisis there is a need to integrate. Method / history / tradition. Historical tradition and dogmatic tradition (positive theology discerns the implicit element in tradition).

Döllinger

- There should be one eye on history and one eye on theology. - Scholasticism was an old building that needed to be torn down.- Ultramontanist - all from Rome is infallible. He said not good enough to engage modern world. 1848 - violent italian revolt. 1864 - condemned modern democracy. Papal states collapse 1878. Prisoner of vatican till Pius XI.

Early Life

Education: Scripture was an oasis in the midst of Scholastic education - 4 years of intellectual and moral torture. After ordination 1879 called back to further studies. Learned from Renan.

Broadschool Theology

on the biblical question. 1875 French parliment allowed Catholic universities which sprang up quickly. 1880 this was revearsed - can't be universities - anti-clericalism. D’Hulst rector of Institute Catholique introduced the Broad School – The Biblical Question. Tried to balance theological truths and scientific truths. D'Hulst fought to keep Institute Catholique open balancing Orthodoxy/money vs. scientific/critical work. Called Christian Science. Promoted catholic theology that was orthodox and academically rigorous. Tried to defend this from attacks from both sides. Three orthodox answers: 1) Conservatives denied historical basis of bible - this doesn't adequately answer. 2) Biblical errors admitted, but argued for inspiration. 3) Loisy becomes a scapegoat for D'Hulst. Providentissimus Deus (November 18, 1893) Leo XIII (anti d’Hulst). It is wrong and forbidden to narrow inspiration to only certain parts of the Bible and to say that divine inspiration has erred. So Leo hits d’Hulst and d’Hulst gets defensive. http://people.bu.edu/wwildman/bce/loisy.htm

Publication

1890-1891 Fermin documents. “A. Firmin” and the livre inédit - Modern science makes some theological tenants appear untenible. 1. Newman and Loisy’s three “postulates”; 2. Conforming to the “laws of historical development”; L’Evangile et L’Eglise (1902) - First little red book - response to liber protestantism (Harnack), which he saw as a simplified Christianity - love and do what you will theology. Bishop Loisy? - mentioned as possible bishop. Popes are first open then strict with regard to france - look where it got them in the end. Autour d’un petit livre (1903).

Pascendi Dominici gregis

(September 8, 1907) and the Condemnation of Loisy - Rome said Science and History are naturally agnostic. Loisy negotiated, but Rome was intransigent.

Life after the Excommunication

Relief and a new direction for Loisy; More actions by the Holy See - Relation to french revolution - how was modernism's locus in France related to French revolution. Pius IX hardhanded, and he was authoritarian with French and Italians - wanting to go backward. But in the 19th century, THE IDEAS were found in Germany, in History and Philosophy. It interesting to note that the French Catholics were 50 years behind the German Protestants. Crisis begins when Loisy is condemned, but you can't say that Loisy was the first 'modernist'.
- Anthropology of Religion - after condemnation he took Renan's chair in historical studies.
- Dogmatic faith - accepting catholic faith as expressed by scholastic terms by Roman Center. Contrasted to mystic faith - la grande puissance - is not conceptualized.
- Loisy's position builds and radicalizes as he goes along. He got rumblings from Rome starting at the Institute Catholique.

Life

Maurice Blondel (2 November 1861, Dijon - 4 June 1949, Aix-en-Provence) was a French philosopher. Blondel developed a "philosophy of action” that integrated classical Neoplatonic thought with modern Pragmatism in the context of a Christian philosophy of religion. He held that action alone could never satisfy the human yearning for the transfinite, which could only be fulfilled by God, whom he described as the "first principle and last term." In 1881, he joined the École Normale Supérieure of Paris. In 1893 he finished his thesis "L'Action" (Action), a critical essay of life and of a science of the practice. In 1895 he became a Maître de Conférences at Lille, then at Aix-en-Provence and became a professor in 1897. His wife died in 1919 and in 1927 he retired for health reasons. Between 1934 and 1937 he published a trilogy dedicated to the thought, the being and the action. In 1935, he published an essay of concrete and integrale ontology "L'être et les êtres" (The Being and the Beings) and in 1946 he published "L'esprit chrétien" (The Christian Spirit).1861 - 1949. from line of lawyers. Religiosity: read imitation of Christ and Eucharistic piety. Personalities: Elme Caro, Emile Boutroux, Leon Olle-Laprune. 1884 holiday in Italy and teaching position. 1889 doctoral work. Sought the will of God, thought about priesthood. He was pious and devoted to Rome even an ultramontanist.

Works

First Period

A'Action - critique of life and science of practice. Sought primal source of human energy; source of human activity. Philosophy isn't only intellectual (as in Aristotle, Descartes). Philosphy is a matter of life and death, not merely mental game. Blondel argues against nihilism, answer lies in something, positive science, national life and human family > phenomena of action. 1893 - no position in university. Law in Low Countries, Scandinavia, Germany. Henri Huvelin counselled on 1984 married to Rose Royer. Action is the Key, Thomistic stasis had proved inept. 1) relations between thought and action, critique of life, negotiation intellect and action. 2) relations between science and belief - autonomous philosphy and religion. Blondel critiques both irreligious philosophy and unrealistic theology.
Lettre sur les exigences de la pencee contemporaine en matiere d'apologetique 1896. University appointment Aix-en-Provence. Philosopher of Aix. Letters of apologetics - current apologetic isn't philosophical - it works only for believers. You have to start first to establish miracles more rigorously. He starts from interior vector to transcendent. 1) open to transcent 2) xn hypothesis fits the openness.

Middle Period

Histoire dt Dogme 1904, Correspondence.

Third Period

L'Action II (eliminates last chapter), Philosophy and the Christian Spirit. Became blind at the end of his life. Less phenomenological tone - but more difficult. Eventually he became very influential, maybe came too early.
Why was immanance so dangerous? Immanence is seen as in contrast to transcendence - which is seen as absolute. Immanence realitivizes. Openness to transcendent - also in Rahner and Chardin.

Introduction

Tyrrell: Modernist is a churchman who tries to synthesize the essential truths of religion and of modernity. Poulat: Modernism is a confrontation between the age old truths of religion and the present which looks for inspiration in.... Pascendi says Tyrrell: Pascendi tries to show modernist he is no catholic but shows he is no scholastic. Modernism = liberal catholicism. Period:' 1869 - 1910, esp 1904-7; no assumption about orthodoxy - canons of integralism have largely passed by the wayside. No bright line to determine modernists, term is inescapably imprecise. About immanence, transcendence, the Roman Catholic challenge to the received neo-scholasticism of the period. Integralism - Catholic faith, like a house of cards, stands or falls as a whole - it doesn't matter where you attack, it will all fall.

Chapter 1

Integralism - Catholic faith, like a house of cards, stands or falls as a whole - it doesn't matter where you attack, it will all fall. Kant supports Luther's subjectivism - as such is suspect. VCI in Dei Filius tries to chart a course between rationalism and fideism, reason and faith. Blondel sought to synthesize, antimodernists wanted no natural dimension or human predisposition to faith. VCI treated two theological issues: teaching church=pope and faith / reason. Leo XIII Aeternae Patris - return to Thomas - though he wasn't steeped in Thomas himself. By this he sought to put into effect VCI's harmonization of faith and reason. Intellectual movement can't be imposed - many just returned wholesale to the 13th century, Mercier sought a more critical mining of the sources. Manual theology, from scripture, from tradition, from reason, homogenization of theological culture. Billot: key is ascent of faith - blank check to God to pour content into faith; a posteriori ascent based on miracles and prophecies as proof of revelation, then a priori ascent to content of revelation. Robotic apologetics: strict parallel between religious faith and human faith. Laberthonniere criticized this for lack of internal personal moral dimension of faith. Transcendence and immanence see as incomprehensible foreign concepts, even dangerous. Implementation of Thomism was uneven and often inept. Many neo thomists were inadequate as scholars, intolerant as churchmen, intemperate as controversialists - seeing things too clearly to see them well; seriously underrating the intellectual cogency (and momentum) of the case they were attacking. They fell to the rationalist, positivist errors they attacked, albeit in a supernatural key. Eternity was expressed in time, the absolute in historical contingency without apparent stress or strain. Fait interieur, exterieur. Fait interieur is the internal personal ascent to the spark of faith within. Pascal we know the truth not only through our reason but also through our heart. Only intuition, with its wide lens and soft focus could do justice to the magnitude, mystery and grandeur of God's word to man.

History and Dogma, Blondel returns to these problems in a more historically motivated fashion. In the Letter on Apolgetics, he argued that there was a historical progress in the emancipation and subsequent development of Modern thought, not progress simpliciter, however, but rather a condition for progress, a condition that would be satisfied only in the evaluation, critique, and reappropriation of Modern thought by the integral philosophy he elaborated. Blondel also maintained that the proper attitude for the Catholic Church to take in the face of the effects, and even dominance, of Modern thought in recent time was not one of retrenchment, or return to an idealized Middle Ages dominated by Thomism, in part because of the progress to be realized through the confrontation with Modern thought, but also in greater part because there is no humanly historical origin-point to be returned to, which means that those advocating such a return are in effect covertly relying upon a form of idealism. In History and Dogma, Blondel takes up this problem more explicitly, arguing for a middle position between and critical of historicism and extrinsicism.

The question in particular was to the status of Christian dogma and its relationship to historical developments. One view, extrinsicism, held that dogma was unchanging, that it provided the meaning to historical events and developments, and that therefore the problems posed by the development of dogma in human history simply reflected errors. The static position taken by extrinsicism was motivated in part by the excesses of historicism, which argues that since dogmas arise historically, they are merely contingent products of historical processes. Within Catholic circles, such historicism took the form of Modernism, which, among other things, advocated accommodating dogma to Modern thought, precisely by using the categories and systems of Modern thought as the criteria for such accommodation.

Blondel rejects the explicit and systematic claims of both sides in the dispute, but offers a solution that allows a more fertile relationship between history and dogma. Dogma does in fact develop historically, and it is the product of historical process that are to a great degree contingent; in fact, going even further, in order for Dogma not to be simply another form of idealism, the believer must acknowledge that it is never present in absolutely completed form as extrinsicism maintains. Since Dogma purports to refer to reality, as part of that reality changes though the momentous changes of History, Dogma must be open to reinterpretation in light of, but not simply in terms of, present situations. In fact, living tradition allows for such a dialectic between past and present without requiring one to be absolutely subsumed to the other. On the other hand, the relativist claims of historicism are not even coherent, when they are taken to their logical conclusions. While the direction and thematics of history cannot be determined a priori (one of the conditions of it even being historical development), this does not mean that there are not some central processes and events that are more important than others and which play a much greater determinative role. In addition, for Blondel, history itself poses the religious problems that the dogma of Christianity represent solutions to.

Blondel's emphasis upon tradition reflects his very methodology. Tradition is to function a a guide to the interpretation of the relationship between dogma and history, but this tradition itself, if it is not to falter and slip into one extreme or the other, must be a living and vital tradition. This means that it must remain engaged with the developments of the world outside of that tradition while at the same time remaining engaged within in a continuing conversation with the luminaries and decisive agents of its past. In the case of Catholicism, as Blondel argues both against the conservative Catholics of his time and against the Modern thinkers hostile to religion in general, let alone to Christianity or Catholicism, the very nature of the tradition requires a reflective and assiduously maintained commitment to fidelity to keeping that a living tradition.

Historic Christ

is Christ in the Bible. Christ promised the kingdom, instead we got the church.
The church is successful in history and this is seen as an affirmation of its truth, but this isn't convincing. Do we then go to Islam.
Immanent expectation of the parousia
Contact with helenistic culture stongly influenced christianity, but this limits it to the system where it was first planted.

Positivism

a system of philosophyical and religious methods, denies philosophical speculation and relies only on sense data. Auguste Comte (Positivism); Mach - Post-positivism; Wittgenstein-neo-positivism.

Lagrange

Community wrote the history, lived the history and proclaimed it.

Historicsm

Scientific history and real history distinguished. Can historicist link history and belief. Three problems: 1) Consciousness of Christ - seen only in the consciousness of disciples, or seen as christ. 2) parousia: historicism says parousia was expected, church was received. realist says it was a stream to parousia. 3) Dogma: dogma is adaptation of christan facts, blondel: dogma is the incarnation in history of revelation. Passing from fact to belief: 1) fact is a chronological succession, or 2) intelligible continuity. Blondel says no bridge from facts to faith. Loisy says church is Gospel continued - but Blondel sees the danger. Belief and science are distince. Is there a difference between knowledge and faith // faith and reason // history and dogma.