theologians-from-italy

"The story of Galileo Galilei, on closer inspection, was not an exegetical dispute but a great philosophical and cultural confrontation, which had a positive influence on the Catholic Church, spurring it to distance itself more and more from an instrumental and unenlightened use of the Scriptures.... If they are true knowledge of the world, Catholic theology has nothing to fear from scientific knowledge: it may be rightly challenged by it, but, for the sake of the one truth, it must accept the challenge with intellectual honesty and epistemological rigor."

"The standard model that organizes the properties of elementary particles is highly symmetrical and elegant, but it is not the only example. Just think of Mendeleev's Periodic Table of Elements, or Maxwell's equations describing electromagnetism. Good science seems to have a privileged relationship with order and symmetry: it is not a relationship that we only read about in our intellect, it must also have sufficient objective confirmation in things. The news that the Higgs boson seems to have finally been revealed confirms us in the same idea. We now know that the 24 fundamental particles and the four forces of nature can be brought together in a single grand theoretical framework. Some may wonder where this rationality and elegance come from and, more boldly, whether they have any connection with the idea that the physical universe is the reflection of a creative intelligence... Put this way, the question goes beyond what the scientific method can tell us, which is based on measurable quantities and does not question the ultimate causes of reality. It is nevertheless significant that scientists, as human beings, are surprised by this and seek an explanation. The question then becomes philosophical or perhaps even theological: we cannot answer it by asking for new measurements from the Large Hadron Collider, but it is interesting that, as a question, it is now also being raised by scientific research and is arising in our laboratories."

"The idea of evolution is at home in Christian theology. For the cosmos and life to evolve, a positive amount of information is necessary. I do not believe that biological evolution is possible in a materialistic world, without information, without direction, without a plan."

"I believe that Darwin was good at helping us understand the past, but I wouldn't invoke him too much as a prophet of future scenarios. The biological evolution of human beings seems to have stopped precisely with the emergence of freedom and culture."

"Most media outlets present us with the image of scientists as atheists or, at the very least, people who are not inclined to see nature as the work of a creator God. However, this image only partially corresponds to reality and is not representative of scientists as a whole."

"To do science, you need commitment and passion. You need to have at least an implicit belief that nature will not behave capriciously towards us, but will remain faithful to its laws. Above all, you need to believe that there is a truth out there, and that it is worth seeking. Every scientist has his or her own “worldview” and within that worldview employs the categories he or she finds most congenial. It is this personalistic aspect of scientific research, now highlighted by many authors, that deserves to be explored. The reasons why a scientist “embraces” one worldview rather than another also deserve to be explored."

"Evolution, after all, is the way God creates."

"It is often believed that defending the dignity of the human person and his transcendent dimension requires revenge against the reasons for scientific progress, which should therefore be scaled back, slowed down, or even rejected. Little thought is given to the fact that the true subject of technical and scientific endeavour is the human person, and that this endeavour, in addition to expressing a vocation to seek the truth, has a value of promotion for man and for the whole society in which he lives."

"Every step forward in our certain knowledge of nature is always a step toward the truth of things and, ultimately, toward Truth with a capital T."

"Interviewer: What is meant by “theology of credibility”? Tanzella-Nitti: By this expression we mean a theology that reflects on the reasonableness of believing in Revelation, first and foremost in the Revealer par excellence, Jesus of Nazareth. Classical apologetics, which accompanied us until the dawn of the Second Vatican Council, did not have a fully theological status, but developed its arguments mainly on the logical and philosophical side. The first theology of credibility is given to us by the Gospels, when they declare, with St. Luke, that they were written so that we might realize the solidity of the teachings received, or with St. John, that those things were transmitted to us so that we might believe in Jesus Christ and so that, by believing, we might have life in him."

"Contemporary philosophy has considered the subject of God and the meaning of life too “strong” to be addressed, thus settling on positions of weak thought. Science, on the contrary, has not been afraid to address these questions, as can be easily seen in the popular works of many scientists. The fact that the scientific method cannot provide a comprehensive answer to these questions does not prevent them from arising and continuing to attract those who study nature."

"When Christians no longer live according to their faith, history will not fail to show the consequences, reserving for them a necessary purification."

"The physical and mathematical sciences now have a mature epistemology, which protects them from ideological drifts because it has made them touch in a formally rigorous way on the foundations, and also the limits, of knowledge. The biological sciences, on the other hand, are younger and have not yet encountered the problems of formal and ontological incompleteness that the physical and mathematical sciences are well aware of. This can lead biology to want to offer its own exhaustive and sometimes self-referential “worldview,” considering any discussion of the foundations of being, and therefore of the origin of things, to be superfluous. In reality, when the problem of foundations is closely examined, and biology is beginning to do so as it strives to delve deeply into the origin of DNA, the problem of Logos, rationality, and the meaning of things reemerges, and with it the question of God. The career of a researcher such as Francis Collins is sufficient proof of this."

"From the point of view of scientific analysis, the term “finalism” should not be too surprising, if it does not refer to an intentional purpose, but only to an interpretative strategy. The action of finalistic principles, in fact, is not new to other fields of science. Mathematical physics knows the principle of least action, which indicates how a physical system always takes the most advantageous path. The principles of classical thermodynamics are essentially finalistic principles, and chemistry also uses them when explaining chemical bonds, starting from the principle that each atom tends to complete its eight fundamental electron orbitals."

"The Christian faith is a friend of reason, and a God without Logos cannot be the Christian God. The world responds to a creative plan, and this plan is in a certain way glimpsed by the man of science, who is capable of perceiving this Logos because his intelligence is the image of God. Theology must take an interest in scientific knowledge in order to be a better theology."

"Saying that Christian theology provided the cultural and philosophical ‘humus’ for the birth of science is of little interest to anyone, while saying, impertinently, that science and theology are eternally at war, or that Christianity is irrational, sells books."

"In my opinion, those who believe that a weak science, aware of its own limitations and its own continuous provisional nature, dialogues better with faith because it is incapable of “challenging it” are mistaken. Quite the contrary is true: a science that recognizes itself as a quest for truth is more open to the questions that matter, the truly important ones, which point to the origin and meaning of things, thus making itself ready to listen with interest to the answers that theology and faith offer to these questions. The worst enemy of the Christian faith continues to be ignorance and superficiality, certainly not science."

"The horizon of our knowledge, even scientific knowledge, is open to being, to totality. And this is simply because knowledge is a dimension of our spirit, unlimited because it transcends matter. The material world may one day end, but our knowledge of it, insofar as it participates in the knowledge of God, never ends."

"The Christian faith does not seem to have any prejudicial arguments against the presence of life and intelligent life in the cosmos (how could it, since these are events that belong to the factual order?), but neither can it be considered anti-scientific to consider reasonable, in the absence of compelling data, the “classical solution” that envisages the uniqueness of the human being... Even the Incarnation of the Word has a revelatory value that is universal, not just local. Its primacy over angelic creatures may ultimately be an expression of its primacy over all possible creatures, a Christocentric primacy, not geocentric or anthropocentric, even if we do not know how it is exercised. The final word on the subject of life in the cosmos does not belong to theology, but to science. Theology, like the rest of humanity, can only wait."

"I believe that fundamental theology should promote unity in the intellectual life of believers by helping them to reflect on the reasons for their faith—certainly with the help of pastoral care and catechesis. Secularism and secularization have an easy time of it when there is weakness of thought, even among believers. The fact that the Christian faith has its foundation in Jesus Christ does not exempt us from looking to philosophy, history or sciences to show our interlocutors that the Christian message does not contradict the knowledge of these other fields of knowledge, but rather reveals their ultimate meaning. A believer who works as an intellectual must be able to explain what Jesus Christ has to do with philosophy, history, medicine, economics, law, and even mathematics, as Monsignor Luigi Giussani loved to repeat."

"At the express wish of the pope, he became cardinal bishop of Palestrina, to the government of which he applied himself with untiring energy."

"In the “'world”' we must not only desire “'few”' things, because few things are desirable, but we must also desire those few things “'little”', both because they are not very desirable and because, if greatly desired, they become a source of pain."

"Wisdom is not absolute autocracy and independence of the soul, but obedience and subordination of the soul to higher things, through which it acquires the ability to dominate and subordinate lower things. Only in this way does it become subordinate and mistress. “'Servire Deo libertas est”'. Humility and freedom are equally necessary."

"The “”vanity“” of life and pleasure can be clearly seen when we consider that pleasure is everything in the perspective of pleasure and never in the perception of it."

"Origen embraces the key principle of Christian metaphysics, the theorem of creation. With Clement, he affirms that everything that is not God was drawn from nothing. He is the only principle of all things. (p. 55)"

"Great metaphysical creations always coincide with the golden age of a civilisation. Whereas the disappearance of Metaphysics is one of the most eloquent signs of a civilisation's decline. (prologue, p. 7)"

"The problem of man is the problem of worship, and everything else is done to bring you light and substance."

"There are two salient features of Renaissance culture that influence Metaphysics speculation: spiritual unrest and the secularisation of culture. (p. 10)"

"The God of Clement's Christian metaphysics is endowed with intelligence, will, freedom, power and goodness. (p. 32)"

"The main merit of the school of Alexandria is that it created theological science, granting Christian citizenship to philosophy and building a solid Christian metaphysics. (p. 23)"

"The transition from one era to another is never instantaneous. Epochs are historical periods spanning several centuries, and cultural transitions last a few centuries. (p. 9)"

"Autumn is the season of man, because it is like us: a death that is not without fruit."

"Christianity reveals many mysteries that are completely inaccessible to reason. Such are the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation, sanctifying grace, the Mystical Body, and the resurrection of the flesh. (introduction, p. 7)"

"It is in Christianity that the spirit becomes self-transparent consciousness, a reality ‘in and of itself’ (to use the language of Hegel), free initiative and absolute freedom. (introduction, p. 9)"

"In both Greek and Latin, up until Tertullian, the meaning given to the term “”person“” (which is the equivalent of the Greek “'prosopon”') was that of ‘mask’ or ‘face’. (introduction, p. 9)"

"Negative theology and positive theology are almost like the wheels of a bicycle. Just as a bicycle cannot move forward if the two wheels do not turn together, so there can be no valid theology if the negative and positive approaches are not used together. The positive path alone leads to anthropomorphism, idolatry, and blasphemy. The negative path leads to agnosticism and atheism."

"Only with God and in God can man hope to fulfil himself. The study and knowledge of God are the burning embers that (together with worship and prayer) fuel the flame of our hope."

"My latest book is entitled La Trinità: Mistero d'Amore (The Trinity: Mystery of Love) and has been reprinted for a second edition. Of all the books I have written (more than a hundred), this is the most beautiful and the most original. I also consider it my ‘masterpiece’. The mystery of the Trinity is a mystery of Love, which is realised and expressed in the Three Divine Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is the basic idea of the book, the idea that inspired me: total Love; Love, in the strongest sense of the term, is truly everything!"

"Socrates is not a metaphysician in the traditional sense [...] and yet the epithet “metaphysician” rightfully belongs to him, because his study of man goes far beyond the field of science and penetrates the deepest roots of human being and action. (p. 120)"

"The concept of person is an acquisition of Christianity. Historically, the word ‘person’ marks the dividing line between pagan and Christian culture. (introduction, p. 9)"

"While man is clearly a finite being, in self-transcendence he reveals himself to be “'capax infiniti”'. Self-transcendence “together with culture and freedom, is the third characteristic trait that clearly separates man from animals: man constantly surpasses himself ... in everything he does, thinks, says, knows, loves and achieves."

"[Natural law] does not come from outside (and therefore is not heteronomous) but from within (and in this sense is autonomous: it is the law that reason itself gives to man or, better still, it is the law that man himself gives himself through his own reason): it is not the result of arduous and abstruse speculation and its perception is so easy that it appears almost intuitive. :*Quoted in Giuseppe Brienza, “”Who was Battista Mondin, missionary and theologian“”, “'Formiche.net”', 4 February 2015."

"The long and patient exploration of the spiritual world led classical Metaphysics, in its final phase, to the discovery of God: the one God (the One, the Good) of Plotinus, Porphyry and Proclus. (introduction, p. 5)"

"Parmenides reaches the highest peak: it is the peak of being, the culmination of metaphysics. Parmenides is the first to conquer this marvellous peak, which, after him, all the other great metaphysicians will also attempt to reach. Parmenides is aware of the greatness of his achievement. [...] Parmenides reached this highest peak not through the senses but through reason. (p. 70)"

"There is a faith that is enriched by the concepts of reason, and there is a reason that is enriched by the gifts of faith. (introduction, p. 6)"

"Christianity is a religion and not a philosophy: an act of salvation (a Heilsgeschichte) and not philosophical speculation. Its goal is not, like philosophy, to provide an exhaustive explanation of reality, but to establish a relationship of communion between man and God. (introduction, p. 7)"

"Only thanks to the concept of persona – a being endowed with dignity and absolute value – brought by Christianity, which makes all men images of God created directly by Him, do all forms of discrimination based on sex, age, race, language, power, wealth, religion, etc. All men are equally worthy of esteem, respect and love, even their enemies, especially the weakest, the poorest, the most humble and defenceless. (introduction, p. 10)"

"Adrienne had a very high spirituality with many mystical manifestations (including stigmata). By conversing assiduously with her and noting down her confidences, B. slowly developed his own theological vision."

"At the school of Philo, Christian doctors from Alexandria learned to do philosophy and to develop Christian metaphysics, creating a synthesis between Greek philosophy and the philosophical potential of Christianity. (p. 22)"

"The cradle of Christian metaphysics was Alexandria, Egypt. When Christianity was born, this city was the most important cultural centre of the Roman Empire, having taken the place that had previously been held by Athens. (p. 21)"