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When Aquinas meets Husserl: Phenomenological Thomism and Thomistic Personalism (From “The Philosophy Forum”)

NewTestamentChristian

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This post was initially a topic I discussed on a separate website, The Philosophy Forum, but I have noticed a lot of militant atheists brewing in the forum lately so I have decided to distance myself from it. That being said, I will post a few threads that I wrote here to hopefully generate thoughtful discussion and dialogue. Hope you enjoy.

"Born and nurtured when the human being first asked questions about the reason for things and their purpose, philosophy shows in different modes and forms that the desire for truth is part of human nature itself." - John Paul II, Faith and Reason

Two of the greatest impacts on the history of philosophy are St. Thomas Aquinas, the father of Thomism, and Edmund Husserl, the father of phenomenology. We see two ways of doing philosophy: A philosophy concerned with the nature of Being and a philosophy concerned with the nature of consciousness and this union births Phenomenological Thomism (sometimes called Existential Thomism). It is through a marriage of the classical Aristotelian-Thomist tradition and the modern phenomenological-existential tradition that we find an objective ethical and metaphysical dogma; One needs both objective fact and subjective experience to understand reality. The project undertaken by Edith Stein, the Lublin School of Thomism, and to some extent Dietrich von Hildebrand all sought to fulfill this. A version of personalism, another movement in philosophy and theology, could be considered the brainchild of this marriage, and John Paul II called this "Thomistic Personalism," which I identify closely with. Inspired by the ethical personalism of Max Scheler, John Paul II saw the union between these two as essential for the development of a concrete Christian ethics. Personally, I think it is unwise to try to base everything in phenomenology or humanistic existentialism (Kierkegaard, Berdyaev, and Buber are a different topic). There needs to be some presupposing objectivity. On the contrary, it is unwise to boil everything down to the nature of Being. There needs to be room for lived experience. Phenomenology and existentialism provide adequate methods of analysis of Thomistic metaphysics. The traditions of Phenomenological Thomism and Thomistic Personalism provide a healthy balance between subjective experience and transcendental truth.

A few great articles on these topics are the following:

Thomism and Contemporary Phenomenological Realism: Toward a Renewed Engagement

Transcendentalising Reduction The Heuristic Role of the Phenomenological Epoché in the Metaphysics of Existential Thomism

What Is Phenomenological Thomism? Its Principles and an Application: The Anthropological Square

On the Essence of Karol Wojtyła's Personalism
 
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linux.poet

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Awhile back I got a result from a personality quiz that said that I was Thomistically inclined. Looking through this post, I seem to agree with the philosophy as presented. For example, chess needs to be understood from reading books and the advice of instructors (studying) but also through the experience of playing the game.

A Christian idea that I have encountered that challenges this philosophy is the idea that sin is antithetical to knowledge, and thus having a sinful experience of committing the sin does not make that sin easier to understand, but rather harder. I'd like to see what the Thomistic schools of thought have to say about that. Turning away from sin and resisting it does seem to yield more knowledge though. Recently I was watching content from someone who recently quit alcohol after being a biblically qualified drunkard for 20 years. He spent 2 videos describing what he learned from the experience of quitting, and that seems to be a rather detailed understanding of how alcohol affects your self-perception, the perception of others, and why you shouldn't do it.

Meanwhile, Christianity does need to be understood this way, the Bible as objective fact and the subjective experience of the transformation that the Gospel and the Holy Spirit works in the lives of believers. But then there is this guy: Trust Your Bible — Not Your Experience With sinful experiences being a thing, subjective experience must be subject to objective fact. You can't place subjective experience and objective fact on the same playing field as equals in Christian thought or you admit relative truth.

So, it's a good philosophy if you understand the caveats and flaws.
 
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NewTestamentChristian

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Awhile back I got a result from a personality quiz that said that I was Thomistically inclined. Looking through this post, I seem to agree with the philosophy as presented. For example, chess needs to be understood from reading books and the advice of instructors (studying) but also through the experience of playing the game.

A Christian idea that I have encountered that challenges this philosophy is the idea that sin is antithetical to knowledge, and thus having a sinful experience of committing the sin does not make that sin easier to understand, but rather harder. I'd like to see what the Thomistic schools of thought have to say about that. Turning away from sin and resisting it does seem to yield more knowledge though. Recently I was watching content from someone who recently quit alcohol after being a biblically qualified drunkard for 20 years. He spent 2 videos describing what he learned from the experience of quitting, and that seems to be a rather detailed understanding of how alcohol affects your self-perception, the perception of others, and why you shouldn't do it.

Meanwhile, Christianity does need to be understood this way, the Bible as objective fact and the subjective experience of the transformation that the Gospel and the Holy Spirit works in the lives of believers. But then there is this guy: Trust Your Bible — Not Your Experience With sinful experiences being a thing, subjective experience must be subject to objective fact. You can't place subjective experience and objective fact on the same playing field as equals in Christian thought or you admit relative truth.

So, it's a good philosophy if you understand the caveats and flaws.
I just don’t like the whole “Strict Observance Thomist” camp. Thomism is an interesting philosophy and St. Thomas Aquinas was a great man. But to make his thought an alleged “theory of everything” I think does a disservice to people. If taken to such an extreme I think there is also a risk of catechumens being poorly formed in instruction of the faith, too.
 
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linux.poet

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I just don’t like the whole “Strict Observance Thomist” camp. Thomism is an interesting philosophy and St. Thomas Aquinas was a great man. But to make his thought an alleged “theory of everything” I think does a disservice to people. If taken to such an extreme I think there is also a risk of catechumens being poorly formed in instruction of the faith, too.
My understanding from the personality quiz was that Thomism was more intellectually inclined. So it's more John McArthur than John Piper, to use careless modern examples. The problem with strict observance is that it leads to hyper-intellectualism, which leads to pride and legalism. If you prioritize understanding over everything else, then you don't have time to practically help people - sometimes people need other things than lectures, like comfort and just help. People do suffer from lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6) but they also suffer from other things too.
 
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zippy2006

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A Christian idea that I have encountered that challenges this philosophy is the idea that sin is antithetical to knowledge, and thus having a sinful experience of committing the sin does not make that sin easier to understand, but rather harder. I'd like to see what the Thomistic schools of thought have to say about that.
For Augustine and Thomas sin is a destructive force, and to know sin is to fall away from one's nature and from God.

But does the alcoholic or the non-alcoholic better understand the sin of alcoholism? I would say that, at the very least, the reformed alcoholic understands it best.
 
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Quite the interesting discussion here. We studied Husserl intensively back when I was studying psychology in college, even had some of us read excerpts from some of his important pieces in the original German which we translated and discussed in lively seminars.

One of the topics came up, it was about how the religious experience and worship itself is shaped in so many ways by the phenomenological growth that occurs cumulatively as we see connections between daily experiences and obstacles we may have once dismissed, with the lessons of the Scriptures and previous thinkers and pastors. It's a way of more personally connecting us, with the chain of knowledge and experience of our faith that's progressed through the generations.

Then I had a little burst of exciting thoughts when we heard our pastor mention Husserl in a sermon, bringing up many of the things in that seminar including the apparent contradictions with sin and how it can sometimes be a teacher in unexpected ways. Helping to explain why Jesus and the early Christian Fathers and successors were so intent on welcoming sinners into their hearts, helping them to heal. Partially, because of
But does the alcoholic or the non-alcoholic better understand the sin of alcoholism? I would say that, at the very least, the reformed alcoholic understands it best.
Agreed. I can't speak well to the ideas of Augustine and Aquinas on this, and undoubted a part of being an exemplary individual of faith, is to live and practice in ways that minimize sin. Yet sin is also a part of the world around us and the people around us including those we love, and sometimes it itself can be a teacher in it's own way and help reform other sinners. As you say it here.
 
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