Can the Pope Change Tradition? On Tradition as a Principle of Progress in the Light of Thomas Aquinas’ Theology

Wrocławski Przegląd Teologiczny 29 (2021) 1, 251–267 Wrocław Theological Review Piotr Roszak Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland ORCID: 0000-0002-2723-2667 Can the Pope Change Tradition? On Tradition as a Principle.. of Progress in the Light of Thomas Aquinas’ Theology Czy papież może zmienić Tradycję? O Tradycji jako zasadzie postępu w świetle teologii św. Tomasza z Akwinu Abstr act: The article analyses the Thomistic understanding of Tradition in the context of the contemporary theological discussion on the extent of changes proposed by recent papal texts, which for one group of theologians is a change of Tradition, and for another a faithful development of it. By recalling the 19th-century understanding of “developing” Tradition forged on the dispute with modernism by Newman, Möhler or Blondel, and juxtaposing it with a Thomistic approach, a conviction is shown that fidelity demands the theologian to develop what is conveyed in the Revelation. Contemporary debates, however, reveal old theological problems, including ultramontanism, which is voiced when the primacy of the Bishop of Rome is reduced to guarding formulas, rather than receiving and illuminating the current problems with the light of Revelation. On the base of the biblical commentaries of St Thomas Aquinas to the Letters of St Paul, the vision of the exercising primacy of the Bishop of Rome will be analysed. Keywords: tradition, modernism, ultramontanism, act of faith, collegiality, Blodel, McGrath, Thomas Aquinas Abstrakt: Artykuł analizuje tomistyczne rozumienie Tradycji w kontekście współczesnej dyskusji teologicznej na temat zasięgu zmian proponowanych przez obecne teksty papieskie, które dla jednej strony sporu są zmianą Tradycji, a dla innej jej wiernym rozwinięciem. Przywołując XIX-wieczne rozumienie znaczenia „rozwoju Tradycji”, wykuwane przez Newmana, Möhlera czy Blondela na kanwie sporu z modernizmem, i zestawiając je z tomistycznym ujęciem, podkreśla, że wierność domaga się od teologa rozwijania tego, co przekazane w Objawieniu. Współczesne debaty odsłaniają jednak stare problemy teologiczne, w tym ultramontanizm, który dochodzi do głosu, gdy DOI: 10.34839/wpt.2021.29.1.251-267 © Papieski Wydział Teologiczny we Wrocławiu 252 Piotr Roszak prymat biskupa Rzymu sprowadza się do strzeżenia formuł, a nie przyjmowania i oświetlania światłem Objawienia współczesności z jej problemami. Niniejszy artykuł, odwołując się do komentarzy biblijnych św. Tomasza z Akwinu do Listów św. Pawła, przybliża wizję sprawowania prymatu przez biskupa Rzymu w ujęciu tomistycznym. Słowa kluczowe: tradycja, modernizm, ultramontanizm, akt wiary, kolegialność, Blodel, McGrath, Tomasz z Akwinu S t Thomas Aquinas’ theological reflection was driven by disputes that might have put him at a risk of losing the trust of some and in a position of gaining the respect of others. St Thomas is said to have rejected few of the views of his opponents: he accepted many of them, and he always showed discernment (only the Arians and the Manichaeans appear to have stirred negative emotions in him).1 Most often, however, Thomas surprises us with statements that a given claim – which has a hint of heresy – is correct from one angle, but not from another.2 From this perspective, the Summa Theologiae is an attempt at finding the bearings in the thicket of issues (which is what Aquinas says openly in the prologue to this work), which have ceased to be seen in an organic whole and which, if isolated and without reference to the whole of knowledge, lead to a harmful sense of loss.3 Students of sacra doctrine do not know the interconnections, which is why they make mistakes. That is what Aquinas thinks and that is why he prepares the Summa Theologiae as an answer, which, however, he did not manage to test in the realities of didactic work. St Thomas did not want to solve only individual controversies, but to put them into a broader perspective, thanks to which everything gains legibility. After all, it is precisely this perception of things from the perspective of the whole, as Henry de Lubac remarked, that is an important feature of Catholic thinking.4 Drawing on the 1 2 3 4 Cf. D. Turner, Thomas Aquinas. Portret [Thomas Aquinas: A Portrait], transl. M. Romanek, Poznań–Warszawa 2017. A good example is the reflection in the Christological part of Summa Theologiae, when, for example, St Thomas asks in numerous articles q. 16 Tertia Pars: is the sentence “did man become God” true? (a. 7); is the sentence “Christ is a creature” true? (a. 8); is the phrase “Christ as man is a creature” true (a. 10)? Cf. T. Huzarek, Thomas Aquinas’ Theory of Knowledge through Connaturality in a Dispute on the Anthropological Principles of Liberalism by John Rawls, “Espiritu” 156 (2018), pp. 403–417. Cf. H. de Lubac, Katolicyzm. Społeczny aspekty dogmatu [Catholicism: Social Aspects of Dogma], Krakow 1988, pp. 38–39. Can the Pope Change Tradition? On Tradition as a Principle... 253 thought of St Thomas Aquinas, I will try to answer the title question: can the Pope change Tradition? The first surprise may be that St Thomas does not ask such a question at all, and yet he was not afraid of the questions: the whole Summa Theologiae is a series of challenging issues. Why? Perhaps because, in his opinion, such a question can only arise in someone who has the wrong vision of the role of St Peter and his successors in the Church, who sees the Pope in isolation from the College of Bishops, in other words (and using later terminology), someone who is an ultramontanist.5 For this reason, it will be necessary to refer to Blondel, Newman or Möhler, who lived at a time when the question about the develop ment of Tradition and consequently the meaning of papal statements, were the source of lively theological debates. Let us begin answering this question, however, from the end, by considering the individual components of the title question, that is to say: Tradition – change – Pope. Understanding of Tradition in the Church: subjective or objective? The title question of the article deals with Tradition writ large and brings up fundamental disputes about understanding what is Greek paradosis or Latin traditio and how it relates to Scripture: do they each fifty-fifty make up Revelation or are they two overlapping sets, two ways, out of which one must be chosen?6 For St Thomas, Tradition is an expression of the fact that God’s Revelation is transmitted to man, and this transmission is vertical and horizontal because it includes the transmission from Christ to the Apostles and within the Church itself. 7 It is pleasing to God that his mystery (and the related call to live in his glory) is accomplished by others and by means of mediating realities. It was clear to Thomas in his doctrine of God: it is more appropriate that God, as the First Cause, acts not directly but through secondary causes.8 The diversity of creation better expresses the goodness and perfe (...truncated)