Folia Theologica 17. (2006)

Hugh Barbour: Salvare Apparentia

SALVARE APPARENTIA

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of the middle ages and especially that of Aquinas ever did. On this view, it is not the philosophical perspective which must give way to the revealed datum, rather it is the symbol of faith which must yield to a new natural perspective in which, as Rahner's concluding discussion of the creed asserts, there can no longer be any universally intelligible formulation of the faith valid for all men. Not only does theological science vanish, but so does the catechism! A comprehensive knowledge which is formal and intuitive and distinctly human is replaced by the professedly unreachable standard of a materially exhaustive knowledge of which no one man is capable. This is the last gasp of the post-copernican critique of scholasticism.

VII. Concluding "Unscientific Postscript"

For my part, I will take refuge in St. Thomas' affirmation in his exposition of the Apostle's Creed. The reportatio tells us:

Nullus philosophorum ante adventum Christi cum toto conatu suo potuit tantum scire de Deo et de necessariis ad vitam aeternam, quantum post adventum Christi scit una vetula per fidem.

The old grandmother, the vetula, has my full sympathy. Both of us can stand on the face of the earth and look out on a cosmos fully intelligible, and capable of telling the glories of God.

I end as I promised with the poet's art, gazing on the lights of the cosmos from my earthly home, imagining this same old lady as my Beatrice:

A l'alta fantasia qui manco possa; ma già volgeva il mio disio e T velle, si come rota ch'igualmente è mossa, l'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle.