They Think They've Won!
Part 2
THE NEW PHILOSOPHY OF MAURICE BLONDELLet is now take a look at the "holy fathers" of this new theology. The first step they take in their liberation from traditional Catholic theology and dogma is by abandoning scholastic philosophy. It is thus hardly surprising to hear Urs von Balthasar stating, "Hell exists, but is empty!" Balthasar bases himself upon the philosopher Maurice Blondel - who occupies a small place in the history of philosophy, but a very important place in the history of this modernist new theology of the Church.
A GHOST - LIKE PHILOSOPHYThroughout his life (1861-1949), the Frenchman, Maurice Blondel, was a center of controversy, especially as one couldn't pin him down to his errors - since, like all modernists, he would wriggle and slither out of such attempt. This attitude was stigmatized by an adversary of Blondel's, Fr. Tonquedec O.P., in the
Dictionnaire Apologetique de la Foi Catholique:
Who were Blondel's friends? The answer is
Fr. Lubac and his gang: Bouillard, Fessard, von Balthasar, Auguste Valensin, etc. In other words, the founding fathers of the new theology, condemned by Pope Pius XII in
Humani Generis. This new theology was, in the words of Fr. Henrici SJ., elevated to the position of the "official theology of Vatican II."
BLONDEL'S PSEUDO - APOLOGETICS DESTROYS CATHOLIC DOGMABlondel's followers, Lubac and his gang had their reasons for wanting to leave Blondel's philosophy enveloped in a vague fog. This would give birth to a new, vague,
"Christian" philosophy." Blondel presented his philosophy as an apologetical method of winning over modern man. He says that classical proofs fail to penetrate the minds of modern men, which are penetrated by Kantian positivism. If you want to save souls, then you must go to where they are and if they have fallen into subjectivism, then it if through subjectivism that they must be sought.
This subjectivist philosophy typical of Protestantism and Modernism, so ruinous to Catholic dogma, was already condemned by Pope Pius X in his encyclical Pascendi. For Blondel, Catholic Truth rests more on the level of subjectivity than objectivity. Truth is more related to the will and experience, rather than intelligence.
Hence truth is what we want and feel it to be. Faith does not pass from the mind to the heart, but from the heart to the mind! This leads us into the field of scepticism and agnosticism, which is the foundation of modernism. With this elevation of the will and feelings, man believes what he wants to believe, relying on his feelings and impressions, devoid of all objectivity. This explains the current exaltation and preoccupation with personal religious experiences such as the charismatics, pietists, pseudo-mystics, etc. The majority of the Church is tainted with this subjectivism.
Blondel does not bother with rational arguments to prove the existence of God and credibility of the Christian religion. He prefers to give the unbeliever an "effective experience " of Catholicism, to make the unbeliever who has no faith "to act as though he had the faith." In other words, to "experience" God - which is exactly what Pope St. Pius X condemned as modernism, in
Pascendi.
Blondel also falls into
Immanentism (the essence of modernism) when he insists that
This is the very basis for modernism, wherein the human mind is the central reality around which everything else revolves. For in modernism, the religious soul's beliefs and reasons for belief come from its own experiences and feelings - it will not accept objective arguments that are beyond its own realm of experience.
If this attitude is followed to its logical conclusions, then such a soul will inevitably deny all external Divine Revelation and the divinity of Jesus Christ Himself.
THE NEW CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHYIn effect, what Blondel has done, is to go and seek-out "modern-man" in his place of habitat - the sickbed of subjectivity and skepticism. Yet, rather than helping him leave this sickbed of grave errors, he lets him wallow in those self-same errors. Blondel's new "
Christian philosophy” and its offspring, the "new theology of the Church" of his followers, will replace the perennial philosophy of the Church - an objective philosophy, based on reality, carefully formed and perfected throughout the course of many centuries, by the greatest philosophical minds the world has ever seen, a philosophy that reached its summit in what we now call Thomistic Philosophy.
Pope Pius XII warned us of these new theologians in his encyclical
Humani Generis, and stressed the importance of Thomistic philosophy as an aid against deviation in Catholic dogma. In his book
The Intelligence In Danger of Death, Marcel de Corte, one of the most lucid thinkers of his time, echoes this same view on the importance of Thomistic philosophy:
ALARM BELLS!Blondel had his critics and supporters. Amongst the former were the Catholic theologians Garrigou-Lagrange, Labourdette and De Tonquedec. One of Blondel's public defenders was Fr. Auguste Valensin SJ., who would present "doctored" quotes of Blondel when speaking in his defense. Thus opportunely eliminating anything that might serve to incriminate Blondel, before a public that was largely unaware of the true content of his doctrine. His writings were not freely available, and so people had to accept these "misquoted quotes" as being true.
For example, Valensin takes Blondel's quote of
and twists it into
The opportune removal of "
…that does not come from him…" is a move clearly designed to protect Blondel from the accusation of lmmanentism and Modernism.
However, good and sound theologians, such as Garrigou-Lagrange, Labourdette and De Tonquedec, spotted Blondel's errors and raised the alarm. They refuted this "
new Christian philosophy" and pointed out its ruinous consequences for Catholic dogma and its incurable opposition to the Magisterium of the Church. Today, "those who think they've won" try to reduce all this to a mere personal feud between several theologians and deny it as being of any importance for the Church. Yet this is far from being the case. The enlightening refutations of Blondel's philosophy, by the above-mentioned theologians, prove the contrary and the present crisis in the Church shows how right those "clairvoyant" theologians were!
THE CRUX OF THE MATTERIn 1946, the celebrated Dominican theologian, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange publicly refuted Blondel's errors and privately wrote to him asking him to "retract his (false) definition of truth before dying - if he didn't want to spend too long in Purgatory." Publicly, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange had said:
One of these erroneous fruits that grew out the capital error of Blondel is what the present-day Church calls "
the Living Tradition." This erroneous notion of Tradition ignores the Church's logical and indispensable link that must exist between what the Church teaches now and what the Church has always believed and taught. This is because, based on Blondel's false notion of truth, progress in dogma and understanding of truth is in a continual state of evolution or development.
Consequently, due to this continual development, there can be no fixed, definite, unchangeable truths.Already in 1924, Fr. De Tonquedec had pointed out a remarkable resemblance between Blondel's ideas and the ideas condemned by Pope St. Pius X in the encyclical
Pascendi. Tonquedec says that Blondel managed to wriggle out of a personal anathema by his characteristic vague expressions, hesitations and contradictions. A seemingly heretical statement would be contradicted a page or so further on.
Was Blondel in good faith? Fr. Tonquedec thought not, with good reason. For Blondel would often deform the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas and twist it round to mean the opposite. Added to this we have his categorical denials of ever having been opposed to orthodox Catholic thought. The typical modernist plea of "
You don't understand me!" with repeated attempts at explaining himself to his critics or those who refuted his erroneous doctrine. In fact, his whole life was one long attempt at giving his ideas an orthodox sense or meaning. This continual wriggling and self-justification under the microscope has produced a host of differing opinions of Blondel. Some believed that he was sincere in his explanations, yet the wiser and better-informed critics were not fooled at all!
The ecclesiastical journal
L'ami du Clerge (March 4,1937,p.137) wrote that the later works of Blondel were nothing else but a reflection of his earlier erroneous ideas - going on to say that "he has not changed an iota of his doctrine."
Fr. Tonquedec was of the same opinion, who also said of Blondel's later works:
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange comes to the same conclusion in his article "
Where is the New Theology going to?" With regard to Blondel's new notion of truth, Fr. Lagrange asks:
Fathers of the "New Theology"
THE CONFESSIONS OF "THOSE WHO THINK THEY'VE WON"These tenacious critics of Blondel were not wrong! Today, the "
new theologians" confirm their fears. We quote from the
Central Archives of Maurice Blondel:
On December 20, 1931, in a letter to De Lubac, Blondel asked him if he thought that some of his (Blondel's) theses "went over the top." In his letter of April 3, 1932, De Lubac replies to the contrary. He chides Blondel for being too timid in the face of the criticism and restraint that came from other theologians. De Lubac asserts that all this impedes the free development of a spontaneous Catholic mind. He goes on to say:
Bewitched by the magic flute of his "friend," Blondel takes courage and by return of post (April 5, 1932) he confesses that:
Thus we see Blondel, using the usual modernist ploy, of deliberately hiding his true thoughts so as to officially remain with the bosom of the Church and to attempt a "renewal" from within. In this correspondence between Blondel and De Lubac, we see exposed all the secret maneuvers of modernism - which seek to avoid exposure and censure. It was to his own misfortune that Blondel ran into De Lubac and his gang. For the latter saw in Blondel's new "
Christian Philosophy" the foundations for their "
New Catholic Theology." And in Rome, they could count on the sympathy of the Vice-Secretary of State, a certain Msgr. Montini - the future Pope Paul VI. We'll speak of that later!
Translated from
Courrier de Rome April 1993
[red font emphasis -
The Catacombs]