“Where is the New Theology Leading Us?”

By Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.
Published in A.D.1946

https://web.archive.org/web/20070807042825/http://www.cfnews.org/gg-newtheo.htm

Editor’s note: Catholic Family News proudly presents its exclusive English translation of Father Garrigou-Lagrange’s landmark work, “La nouvelle théologie où va-t-elle?”, which was first published in 1946 in Rome’s Angelicum, one of the most prestigious theological journals in the world. Father Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. one of the greatest Thomistic theologians of this century, warned that the “New Theology” of Maurice Blondel, Henri de Lubac, etc. is nothing more than a revitalized Modernism. This same new theology was subsequently deounced by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis. This article, because of its in-depth nature, is meant not only to be read, but studied. It is hoped that the publication of this work will help dispel the widespread confusion of our time, especially since, by admission of its own adherents, this modernist “new theology” has become “the official theology of Vatican II”.  (See Si Si No No series "They Think They Have Won" on “The New Theology”)

Excerpts: 

It should be remembered that on December 1, 1924, the Holy Office condemned 12 propositions taken from the philosophy of action, among which was number 5, or the new definition of truth: “Truth is not found in any particular act of the intellect wherein conformity with the object would be had, as the Scholastics say, but rather truth is always in a state of becoming, and consists in a progressive alignment of the understanding with life, indeed a certain perpetual process, by which the intellect strives to develop and explain that which experience presents or action requires: by which principle, moreover, as in all progression, nothing is ever determined or fixed.”18 The last of these condemned propositions is: “Even after Faith has been received, man ought not to rest in the dogmas of religion, and hold fast to them fixedly and immovably, but always solicitous to remain moving ahead toward a deeper truth and even evolving into new notions, and even correcting that which he believes.”19

Many, who did not heed these warnings, have now reverted to these errors.

Thus is modernism reprised: “Truth is no more immutable than man himself, inasmuch as it is evolved with him, in him and through him.42 As well, Pius X said of the modernists, “they pervert the eternal concept of truth.”

            

This is what our mentor, Father M.B. Schwalm previewed in his articles in Revue thomiste, (1896 through 1898)43 on the philosophy of action, on the moral dogmatism of Father Labertbonnière, on the crisis of contemporary apologetics, on the illusions of idealism, and on the dangers that all of these posed to the Faith.

But while many thought that Father Schwalm had exaggerated, little by little they conceded the right to cite the new definition of truth, and they more or less ceased defending the traditional definition of truth, as well as the conformity of judgment to intuitive being and the immutable laws of non-contradiction, of causality, etc. For them, the truth is no longer that which is, but that which is becoming and is constantly and always changing.

Thus to cease to defend the traditional definition of truth by permitting it to be illusory, it is then necessary to substitute the vitalist and evolutionary. This then leads to complete relativism and is a very serious error.

Moreover, this leads to saying what the enemies of the Church wish to lead us to say. When one reads their recent works, one sees that they are completely content and that they themselves propose interpretations of our dogmas, whether it be regarding original sin, cosmic evil, the Incarnation, Redemption, the Eucharist, the final universal reintegration, the cosmic Christ, the convergence of all religions toward a universal cosmic center.44

One understands why the Holy Father in his recent speech published in the September 19, 1946, issue of L’Osservatore Romano, said, when speaking of the “new theology”: “If we were to accept such an opinion, what would become of the unchangeable dogmas of the Catholic Faith; and what would become of the unity and stability of that Faith?”