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A. Concept and Problems This article does not deal with tolerance in the religious sense (see Religious Freedom) or with the juridical problems of tolerance in civil law or with the history of tolerance as it has in fact been. It is concerned with the problem of tolerance in social philosophy. For in spite of the claim to objectivity which every well-founded, judgment must put forward, there is and has been a bewildering juxtaposition of claims to truth, which conflict with or exclude each other. The philosophic…

1. Totalitarianism is a term applied as a rule indifferently to all systems of total control of individual and social life by the State. It is therefore formally speaking a type of society in which the essential dialectical interplay of spontaneous interaction, and social condition as a pre-established form of interaction, has ceased to be an equilibrium. A given form of social self-interpretation predominates exclusively and consistently and is rigidly institutionalized in fixed systems of administration, public order and the linguistic media of self-interpretation. 2. The usu…

God has revealed himself to man, and he has completed and perfected his salutary self-disclosure in the life and teaching of the incarnate Word, so that no new public revelation of God to man is possible till the parousia. In the encounter with Christ, in faith in his word and in allowing his grace to work, man receives his supernatural salvation. But how does the fullness of God’s revelation reach the individual incorrupt and unmixed with error, so that the individual knows that he is really addressed and challenged by the word of God and not by one of the many claims of men? The Christian answer…

Traditionalism is the doctrine according, to which a primitive revelation was necessary for the human race, not only to acquire knowledge of the truths of the supernatural order, but even for the fundamental truths of the metaphysical, moral and religious order: the existence of God, the spirituality and immortality of the soul and the existence of a strictly obligatory moral law. This revelation comes down to us through tradition: whence the name of traditionalism given to the system which deve…

A. The Horizon of the Classical Thinking on Transcendence The notion of transcendence derives from experience. Beings present themselves in their distinction from one another and in their definite contrast with nothingness as “what” they are, but they are still — in themselves — incomprehensible, strange and obscure. The fluid multiplicity and the constant mobility of beings make the question of their basic origin and purpose more insistent. The answer can clearly be derived only from some being which is…

1. Introductory. The consideration that philosophy as knowledge of all reality in its principles, expresses itself through the medium of the concept, is of the very essence of philosophy and is as ancient as philosophical reflection itself. But the difference thus posited between concept and reality, being and thought, is an implicit questioning of philosophy itself, which remains insignificant as long as the spontaneous idealism and optimism of thought and knowledge is not radically called in qu…

The inmost force which moves to philosophical thinking is being. Certain necessary notes of being recur in all beings as such, and are called transcendentals, because they reach out beyond the limited orders of individual beings or surpass all limits ( transcendere). These transcendentals are unity, truth, goodness, and also beauty. Here we discuss them historically and systematically. 1. Historically. For Plato, the forms or ideas constitute that which really is (ὄντωςὄv), in which the essence of being is fully and clearly manifested along with the not…

1. The approach to the concept. The term “transcendental theology” was modelled on the analogy of transcendental philosophy to indicate a certain receptivity to the latter in Catholic thought (since Maréchal; see. O. Muck), with important influences on Catholic theology. This does not mean that transcendental theology is merely the application of a transcendental philosophy to theological subjects. The main thing is that a historical context is indicated in which a procedure always in use in theology…

In practice no clear distinction is made between the expressions metempsychosis, metensomatosis, palingenesis, re-incarnation and transmigration. Older writers (Plotinus and the Fathers) preferred to use metensomatosis Palingenesis is a notion with a much broader connotation, in some sort of way presupposed by the more systematic ideas involved in that of metempsychosis. Many cultures without written traditions (the so-called primitives) hold that the principle of life of a living being can pass into another after death, without having to remain…

1. Transubstantiation is described by the Council of Trent as the change of the whole substance of bread ( totius substantiae panis) into the body of Christ, and of the whole substance of wine ( totius substantiae vini) into the blood of Christ, the species of bread and wine remaining unchanged (Session XIII, can. 2; D 884). This notion of transubstantiation is coloured by the branch of philosophy known as cosmology and is the result of a development which was not always consistent. Though the element of change ( metabolismus) had been expressly stressed by St. Ambrose (see J. Geise…

A. The Scriptural Doctrine of the Trinity 1. The Old Testament. Since revelation and salvation come in historical form, it cannot be expected that the Trinity of God should have been explicitly revealed in the ОТ. The ОТ as such is part of the revelation of God in word, though this word is essentially a moment and an interpretation of God’s saving acts. Hence as long as God’s self- communication in Jesus Christ was not yet an irreversible reality and the Spirit of God was not yet a triumphant eschatologic…

A. Introduction to the State of the Question We are not enquiring here into the content of the doctrine of the Trinity and the problems which it raises, but the situation of the doctrine itself as such. Here the question arises both on principle and in terms of a given epoch. 1. On principle, one may ask where the treatise on the Trinity should fit into dogma. Its ordinary place, which it has occupied for a long time now, is in the dogmatic treatise De Deo (Uno et Trino), at the beginning of dogmatic theology, after the usual preambles. Here a further question arises. Should one fo…

Part of Truth: 1. Philosophical 2. Truthfulness A. Historical Survey 1. Old Testament. Two main sources determined the development of the question of truth in the philosophy of the West. One was the ОТ, the other was Greek philosophy. The ОТ word for “truth” (אֳמֶת) really means to be firm, reliable, faithful. When Yahweh’s ’emeth is spoken of, it means the divine will to perpetuate his favour. Thus ’emeth can be translated as fidelity. God’s word is “truth” (2 Sam 7:28 — RSV, “thy words are true”; cf. Ps 119:160), cf. Ps 132:11, “The Lord swore to David a sure oath ( ’emeth) from which he will …

Part of Truth: 1. Philosophical 2. Truthfulness 1. Any effort to analyse and co-ordinate the various approaches to truth in ethics is faced with the difficulty that the term “truth” is used on a variety of levels of meaning in philosophy and theology, the reason clearly being that man finds himself relying on truth and tied to it, while at the same time it is not something that he can control, since he is in the service of truth. A survey of the various ways in which truth has been understood also show…

By the (Catholic) Tübingen School the group of theologians is meant who followed at Tübingen a common line of thought as against the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Idealism. They were disciples of J. S. Drey (and J. B. Hirscher) and their main aim was to show the intrinsic justification of the Christian faith in the various realms of theology. Though they gave their allegiance to the great tradition of the ancient Church and the Middle Ages, they had close contacts with the thought of Schleierma…