The role of philosophy

Fr. Benedict Ashley OP
What should be done in the future

Abstract

Since the time of Sts. Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas the Order of Preachers has served the Church by showing how philosophy – by which they meant all forms of purely human knowledge - can serve theology as „faith seeking understanding“ and the preaching mission of the Church. The importance of this task has been recently reaffirmed by John Paul II in Fides et Ratio. To maintain this service to the Church the Order needs to prepare its members by continuing formation in three ways:

1. To preach to our times we must understand our culture, especially as it is today dominated by natural science and technology, appreciating its great achievements yet critically recognizing the conceptual confusions that tend to close off its thinking to the Gospel message.
2. Then we must have a solid understanding of the Catholic tradition, but most especially of the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas as it is a fundamental resource in opening out culture and its thought to the Gospel message.
3. We must always present this Thomistic philosophy, not in isolation, but always in such a way as to show its immediate relevance to theology and to the preaching of the Gospel to our times.

© 1.5.2003, P. Benedict Ashley OP.