Issue 106/2 (2025) of the magazine “Gregorianum” is available, quarterly published by the Gregorian University.

ARTICULI

Tomás J. Marín Mena, Heterodoxia trinitaria: modalismo y subordinacionismo 17 siglos después

Abstract - This paper studies the ontological structure of modalism and subordinatio­nism as the main Trinitarian heresies in history. Modalism is described as the paradigmatic temptation of the West and subordinationism as the typically Eastern deviation. It is analyzed how modalism owes a debt to rationalism and subordinationism to apophatic mysticism. In addition, the theological reflections on the Trinity by R. Haight and R. Panikkar are approached as contemporary updates of these two tendencies. We consider that the primary flaw of both theological tendencies is to prioritize the Divine One, whether as Consciousness or abstract Silence, without attending to the importance of intra-Trinitarian Otherness.

Keywords: heresies – Arianism – Trinity – rationalism – apophatic mysticism

 

Jeremy D. Wilkins, Faith, Reason, and the Trinity: A Reply

Abstract - A recent article in this journal claims that Aquinas gives necessary reasons for the Trinity which, however, are seen only by the eyes of faith. Its author, Higgins, appeals to Rousselot, but misunderstands him, too. For Aquinas and Rousselot, the eyes of faith see not the necessity of the mysteries but rather the necessity of belief. This shapes the different kinds of arguments Aquinas gives in constructing his Trinitarian theology. The alternative constructed by Higgins is difficult to distinguish from semi-Rationalism. Our conclusion is a dialectical analysis following Lonergan’s method.

Keywords: Aquinas – Rousselot – Trinity – Faith – Reason – Semi-Ration­alism – Theological Method – Dialectic – Lonergan – Higgins

 

Carlo Lorenzo Rossetti, L’Assunzione di Maria e la gloria dei santi alla luce della Scrittura. Un’ipotesi biblica ed ecumenica

Abstract - The article proposes the hypothesis that in favor of the dogma of the glo­rification of the Virgin Mary three biblical texts could be adduced which are not yet used in the Catholic Magisterium. It is Mat 27:52-53; 2Cor 5:1-5 and Rev 20:4-6. This biblical expansion strengthens Catholic doctrine and makes it more ecumenical, but at the same time it demands a renewed conception of the immediate post-mortem destiny of the martyrs and saints.

Keywords: Assumption of Mary – Eschatology – Resurrection – Munificen­tissimus Deus – Mat 27; 2Cor 5; Rev 20

 

Roberto Di Ceglie, Il pensiero cristiano alla prova dell’umiltà intellettuale

Abstract - In the context of contemporary epistemology, a widespread area of inve­stigation is that of virtue epistemology. Among the virtues it deals with, in­tellectual humility plays a prominent role. In this article, we intend to show first of all that although virtue epistemology arose some forty years ago in response to strictly gnoseological problems, an early implicit reference to it is in the reflection that Jacques Maritain devoted decades earlier, in the 1930s, to the subject of Christian philosophy. We intend then to show that some of the difficulties that plague intellectual humility, as it is usually elaborated by virtue epistemologists, seem to come to an end once it is understood in line with a distinctively Christian perspective. The intellectual vitality of Christian thinking thus emerges, if it is true that it not only gives rise to but also shows how to promote an important phase of contemporary epistemology.

Keywords: Maritain – virtue epistemology – Macaskill – Thomas Aquinas – Dunnington – Pritchard

 

Pascal tra filosofia e teologia

Simone D’agostino, Perché leggere i filosofi se siamo cristiani? L’Entretien tra Sacy e Pascal

Abstract - Against the background of St. Augustine’s complex relationship with vari­ous philosophies, as well as of the polemic ignited by Jansenius against phi­losophy, qua “mother of errors,” the confrontation between M. de Sacy and Blaise Pascal, as reconstructed by Nicolas Fontaine in the famous Entretien (1728, 1736), revolves around the question whether Christians still ought to read philosophers – a burning question for the solitaires at Port-Royal. Al­though Fontaine endeavors to reconcile the two interlocutors’ positions, his text reveals both Sacy’s concern to avoid any “danger” in reading philosophy and Pascal’s attempt at working out a solution. In remarkably medical terms, Pascal suggests “advising” and “regulating” philosophical readings by tak­ing into account each individual’s own “conditions” and “customs.” Pitting as opposite toxins the reading of the Stoic Epictetus and that of the “skepti­cal” Montaigne, Pascal’s therapy does not propose to mix them but rather to calibrate the dosage of one or the other in order to “counter” each individual’s vicious tendencies.

Keywords: Blaise Pascal – Lemaistre de Sacy – Augustine of Hippo – phi­losophy

 

Tibor Bartók, S.I., Louis Lallemant e Blaise Pascal: un incontro attorno al concetto di cuore

Abstract - The comparison between the two authors is an attempt to demonstrate that certain currents and mystical persons within the Society of Jesus could repre­sent spiritual and theological sensibilities not so far from early Jansenism or from some of its future representatives and sympathizers. Sharing a common metaphor – the heart – and with it certain anthropological and theological presuppositions, Lallemant and Pascal reveal an affinity of thought and a keen perception of the stakes of Christian existence in early modernity.

Keywords: Blaise Pascal – Jesuit mysticism – heart – will – Holy Spirit

 

Alberto Peratoner, Per una physis dell’esperienza morale. Blaise Pascal nel reale concreto, tra naturalismi e antinaturalismi

Abstract - If the influence of the Port-Royal milieu seems to leave extensive traces, in Pascal’s works, of an asceticism that we could define as anti-naturalistic, the­re are also, especially in the anthropological sphere, numerous elements that positively rebalance and reveal a much more complex overall picture. We can thus outline the framework of a balanced Pascalian naturalism or, better, of a fundamental recognition of the positivity of nature, which comes to be under­stood as a lever and instrument of salvation. Four levels can be recognised: a rhetorical-dialectical naturalism, supported by an ontological naturalism, on which in turn depends a gnoseological-epistemological naturalism; finally, as its most accomplished expression, the appreciation of natural positivity takes shape in an anthropological-ethical-existential naturalism, which expresses itself in an authentic physis of moral experience, with the implication of the physical- corporal dimension, reacquired to the strategy of a pedagogy of con­version.

Keywords: Blaise Pascal – nature – naturalism – anthropology – ontology – ethics

 

Nicolas Steeves, S.I., L’immaginazione secondo Pascal: un pharmakon paradossale per l’apologetica

Abstract - The history of modern philosophy has often counted Pascal amongst the sworn enemies of the imagination. More recent philosophical studies, howev­er, leading beyond the rationalism that once ruled supreme, highlight the com­plexity of Pascal’s destructive-constructive relation to fantasy, from physics to philosophy to Christian apologetics. Derrida’s metaphor of the pharmakon helps welcome this complexity and outline a few principles and guidelines for a renewed apologetics that would serve to announce the Gospel today, in the midst of the equally great complexity of our postmodern times. This should be a central task for fundamental theology.

Keywords: apologetics – fantasy – imagination – paradox – Blaise Pascal

 

Gian Pietro Soliani, La libertà umana in Blaise Pascal alla luce delle fonti prossime e remote

Abstract - The article is aimed to examine the most relevant sources, remote and prox­imate, of Pascal’s account of human freedom. Pascal never devoted a specific consideration to this topic. However, his theological works contain several remarks on divine grace, and its action on human free will. Even if Pascal does not seem to support a particular philosophical perspective, in the Writings on Grace, he employs the scholastic concept of freedom of indifference, briefly elucidating it and manifesting the influence of both Descartes’ Meditationes and Jansenius’s Augustinus. The article analyses Jansenius’ voluntaristic doc­trine on freedom built as a syncretistic intersection of theses inspired by Au­gustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Duns Scotus. Pascal never quotes those theses. Furthermore, in the eighteenth letter of his Provincial Letters, he defends the so called “Augustine’s disciples” through the authority of the Dominican Di­ego Alvarez, who supports an antivoluntaristic theory of freedom. By investi­gating a complex and braided set of remote and proximate sources, the article provides new insights on Pascal’s theological background and tries to show an evolution in Pascal’s thought from the Writings on Grace up to the Thoughts and Provincial Letters.

Keywords: Blaise Pascal – freedom – free will – Jansenius – divine grace

 

Vincent Carraud, Vere e false immagini: «La verità fuori dalla carità»

Abstract - According to Heidegger, the Augustinian phrase used by Pascal, accord­ing to which “we enter into truth only through charity,” points to the affec­tion involved in any act of understanding whatsoever. For L’art de persuader, however, if love is a condition of knowledge for all truths, it should in theory only apply to those truths that are divine. The phrase thus has a paradoxical status: it is because truths are not naturally loveable – that we must (want to) love truth in order to enter into it. Having explained this crucial phrase, we can now turn our attention to the difficult fragment L 926: “We make an idol of truth itself, for truth apart from charity is not God, but his image and an idol.” Several questions arise: what does the concept of truth independently of charity mean, and what does truth mean in relation to charity? If truth is God himself, why does the absence of charity turn truth into an idol? And how can we understand truth as an image? By distinguishing between true and false images, this paper shows that a true image is a figure known qua figure. If, by contrast, a “figuring thing” is ignored in its figurative function and we dwell on it, it is a fake image, which becomes a false image, i.e., an idol.

Keywords: Blaise Pascal – truth – love – image – idol

 

NOTA

Modern Science and Revelation: Ulanowicz, R. E., The First Incarnation: Hope in Reality (J. M. McDermott), 445-448.

RECENSIONES

Biblia: S. Ramond– R. Burnet – E. Pastore, ed., Repenser la rétribution / Rethinking Retribution (L. Mazzinghi), 449-452; A.L.H.M Wieringen, van – S. Jang, The Function of the Reader in the Formation and the Reception of the Book of Isaiah (E. M. Obara), 452-454.

Philosophia: P. H. Byrne, Toward Environmental Wholeness: Method in Environ­mental Ethics and Science (L. Caruana), 454-456; E. Gabellieri, Être et grâce. Simone Weil et le christianisme (P. Gilbert), 456-459; M. Simion, Resistance to Evidence (J. Stoffers), 459-461; G. Von Wendt, Melodie des Werdens. Romano Guardinis Gegensatzdynamik als Muster menschlicher Entwicklungsprozes­se (R. Lucas Lucas), 461-464.

Historia Ecclesiae: V. Criscuolo, Edoardo D’Alençon. Le origini dell’ordine dei Frati Minori Cappuccini e le gravi difficoltà dei primi anni 1525-1541 (T. K. Mantyk), 464-466; R. Viladesau, The Folly of the Cross. The Passion of Christ in Theology and the Arts-Early Modernity (Y. Dohna Schlobitten), 466-467.

Studi Interreligiosi: D. Tonelli – G. M. J. Mannion, Exiting Violence. The Role of Religion (A. Bongiovanni), 468-469.

Spiritualitas: M. Fédou, La compassion de Dieu (E. Aban), 470-472; E. Rotundo, Lo spirito di Cristo nello spirito dell’uomo. Un unico mistico “sé”. Saggio sull’Unione intima fra Cristo e il cristiano (E. Caroleo), 472-473.

INDICATIONE

E. Vergani, Efrem il Siro. La rugiada della Risurrezione. Storia e natura negli Inni di Nisibi (E. Caroleo), 475-476.

OPERA ACCEPTA

(477-478)