"The Vatican" and the Lutherans released a new document recently, that lays another charge at Scotus' door:
"146. Luther’s main objection to Catholic eucharistic doctrine was directed against an understanding of the Mass as a sacrifice. The theology of the eucharist as real remembrance (anamnesis, Realgedächtnis), in which the unique and once-for-all sufficient sacrifice of Christ (Heb 9:1–10:18) makes itself present for the participation of the faithful, was no longer fully understood in late medieval times. Thus, many took the celebration of the Mass to be another sacrifice in addition to the one sacrifice of Christ. According to a theory stemming from Duns Scotus, the multiplication of Masses was thought to effect a multiplication of grace and to apply this grace to individual persons. That is why at Luther’s time, for example, thousands of private masses were said every year at the castle church of Wittenberg."
So he's responsible for the reformation not only because of univocity as the postmodern theologians tell us, but because he allowed for the apparent abuse of multiple masses and he forgot that the mass was just the unique sacrifice of calvary.
Hmm...
The document does not cite a source, but this corresponds to Scotus' discussion in his Quodlibet q. 20. From the document, it sounds like Scotus is wrong, and that Catholics do not believe that the priest can apply grace from multiple masses to the soul of an individual (i.e. in Purgatory). But of course this is wrong. Catholics, even today, have masses said for their deceased relatives on the anniversaries of their deaths and other occasions (and indeed, still pay the priest a stipend). What would be the point of doing this if the grace or merit from a particular mass could not be applied to a soul? All Scotus did was formulate a principle that is still operative today, at least in practice. And if this theory did indeed originate with Scotus, how can we account for the fact that private masses for the dead were said long before Scotus was born?
The document links this teaching of Scotus with a late medieval forgetfulness of the mass being a re-presentation of the single sacrifice of Christ on Calvary; but if Scotus' view in fact is still accepted by the Church today, then the Church today is also forgetful of the unique nature of the sacrifice of the mass. But this may be a separate issue. Catholic apologists spend a great deal of time explaining this aspect of the mass today; and really, once the mass is described as a sacrifice, the fact that there has been more than one mass since Calvary is what requires explanation. It doesn't really matter whether there is just one mass per year or a thousand.
Earlier in the document we find that Cajetan, the most brilliant Catholic theologian of the 16th century, was to blame in causing the rift of Protestantism since he did not try to understand Luther in Luther's own framework, but only in his own, Thomistic framework. So I think we can all agree that Scotus is the remote cause of the reformation, but Cajetan is the proximate cause.
A mediaevalist trying to be a philosopher and a philosopher trying to be a mediaevalist write about theology, philosophy, scholarship, books, the middle ages, and especially the life, times, and thought of the Doctor Subtilis, the Blessed John Duns Scotus.
Showing posts with label Protestantism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Protestantism. Show all posts
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Scotus and the Global Jihad
Ripped from today's headlines comes a mention of the subtle doctor in conjunction with radical Islam (or whatever else you wish to call it). I was perusing a book by Robert Reilly, The Closing of the Muslim Mind, which argues that the victory (by means of violence) of the ash'arite school over the mut'azilite school has had catastrophic effects in Sunni islam, indeed, the effect described by the title. The reference to Scotus comes on p.56:
"The early Christian thinker Tertullian questioned what relevance reason could have to Christian revelation in his famous remark 'What does Athens to do with Jerusalem?' The antirational view was apparent in Duns Scotus's and Nicholas of Autrecourt's advocacy of voluntarism. It was violently manifested in the millenarian movements of the Middle Ages, and somewhat within the movement that was known as fideism-faith alone, sola scriptura. In its most radical form, this school held that the scriptures are enough. Forget reason, Greek philosophy, and Thomas Aquinas."
There is a footnote, but the note refers only to an edition of Averroes, which mentions Nicolas of Autrecourt as the "medieval Hume". Scotus is not mentioned. Indeed, the only source I could find is Pope Benedict's Regensburg address, in which he accuses Scotus of voluntarism that unmoors society, etc. So we have the pope to thank for this one. The remainder of the chapter is devoted to contrasting the rationality of Christianity embodied in Aquinas, with the irrationality of the fideists of Islam, the ash'arites. These theologians reduce everything to divine will, and allow that the will can cause other divine attributes and the divine essence, that human knowledge of the natural world is impossible because there is no natural causality, only the divine will willings things in and out of being, that there are 99 divine attributes (+ the eternal koran that exists on a divine tablet "next" to the divine essence) but one should not inquire as to their relation to each other or the divine essence, and so on.
In the popular mind, then, Scotus is the origin of the word "dunce" because he was stupid or because his followers resisted the enlightenment, or, now, Scotus becomes part of the negative backstory of contemporary political punditry. This particular author, is not deserving of the term, as the book contains much theological and philosophical discussion, but it is marketed as part of the "current events" genre.
The numerous stereotypes should be clear to even new readers. Aquinas is the pinnacle of the harmony of faith and reason, Scotus their dissolution. Intellectualism is good, voluntarism is bad. Eithe with Aquians, or against him with deleterious consequences. I'm not sure such a remark is worth refuting, and even less that anyone will care, but here goes:
On the authority side, Benedict himself seems to have revised his views; in his letter to the archdiocese of Cologne and the congress held there during the 700 anniversary of Scotus's death, he praised Scotus for having a harmonious view of faith and reason. Regarding the will, Scotus never held anything near to the ash'arite view, nor indeed, did any other medieval thinker I've ever read. To claim that the divine will constitutes other divine attributes would compromise divine immutability, to which all the medieval scholastic authors adhered. Scotus was indeed a voluntarist, but such terms need to be clarified. In Scotus' case, the divine will and the divine intellect are related as two essentially-ordered causes of the act of volition, leaving no room for the "capricious" charge, for God is not simply pure will nor does his ever will except in conjunction with the intellect. I would supply texts, but as I examined Bonnie Kent's book on the will, I realized that the usual places that get cited for this are all problematic. This is common in Scotus, though especially annoying at the moment; there may be something in Qq in met. IX that is clear, but the other passages all rely on Reportationes and Additiones, none of which have been edited and their level of authority and authenticity determined. So no direct quotes to back up my claims, but one can easily consult the host of scholars who have written on these issues.
UPDATE!!!
Here is an unproblematic text from a genuine work.
Lectura II d. 25 q. un n.69-70 (ed. vat. 19, 253-55):
Therefore I respond to the question that the effective cause of willing is not only the object or phantasm (because this in no way preserves freedom), as the first opinion claimed – nor also is the effective cause of the act of willing only the will, just as the second extreme opinion claimed, because then all the conditions which are subsequent to the act of willing would not be prserved, as was shown. Therefore I hold the middle way, that both the will and the object concur for causing the act of willing, so that the act of willing is from the will and from the object known as from an effective cause.
But how can this be from the object? For the object has abstractive being in the intellect, and it is necessary that the agent is this-something and in act. Therefore i say that the intellet concurrs with the will under the aspect of effective cause – understanding the object in act – for causing the act of willing, and so, briefly, ‘natura actu intelligens obiectum et libera’ is the cause of willing and not-willing and in this consists free choice, whether this be said of us or of the angels.
"The early Christian thinker Tertullian questioned what relevance reason could have to Christian revelation in his famous remark 'What does Athens to do with Jerusalem?' The antirational view was apparent in Duns Scotus's and Nicholas of Autrecourt's advocacy of voluntarism. It was violently manifested in the millenarian movements of the Middle Ages, and somewhat within the movement that was known as fideism-faith alone, sola scriptura. In its most radical form, this school held that the scriptures are enough. Forget reason, Greek philosophy, and Thomas Aquinas."
There is a footnote, but the note refers only to an edition of Averroes, which mentions Nicolas of Autrecourt as the "medieval Hume". Scotus is not mentioned. Indeed, the only source I could find is Pope Benedict's Regensburg address, in which he accuses Scotus of voluntarism that unmoors society, etc. So we have the pope to thank for this one. The remainder of the chapter is devoted to contrasting the rationality of Christianity embodied in Aquinas, with the irrationality of the fideists of Islam, the ash'arites. These theologians reduce everything to divine will, and allow that the will can cause other divine attributes and the divine essence, that human knowledge of the natural world is impossible because there is no natural causality, only the divine will willings things in and out of being, that there are 99 divine attributes (+ the eternal koran that exists on a divine tablet "next" to the divine essence) but one should not inquire as to their relation to each other or the divine essence, and so on.
In the popular mind, then, Scotus is the origin of the word "dunce" because he was stupid or because his followers resisted the enlightenment, or, now, Scotus becomes part of the negative backstory of contemporary political punditry. This particular author, is not deserving of the term, as the book contains much theological and philosophical discussion, but it is marketed as part of the "current events" genre.
The numerous stereotypes should be clear to even new readers. Aquinas is the pinnacle of the harmony of faith and reason, Scotus their dissolution. Intellectualism is good, voluntarism is bad. Eithe with Aquians, or against him with deleterious consequences. I'm not sure such a remark is worth refuting, and even less that anyone will care, but here goes:
On the authority side, Benedict himself seems to have revised his views; in his letter to the archdiocese of Cologne and the congress held there during the 700 anniversary of Scotus's death, he praised Scotus for having a harmonious view of faith and reason. Regarding the will, Scotus never held anything near to the ash'arite view, nor indeed, did any other medieval thinker I've ever read. To claim that the divine will constitutes other divine attributes would compromise divine immutability, to which all the medieval scholastic authors adhered. Scotus was indeed a voluntarist, but such terms need to be clarified. In Scotus' case, the divine will and the divine intellect are related as two essentially-ordered causes of the act of volition, leaving no room for the "capricious" charge, for God is not simply pure will nor does his ever will except in conjunction with the intellect. I would supply texts, but as I examined Bonnie Kent's book on the will, I realized that the usual places that get cited for this are all problematic. This is common in Scotus, though especially annoying at the moment; there may be something in Qq in met. IX that is clear, but the other passages all rely on Reportationes and Additiones, none of which have been edited and their level of authority and authenticity determined. So no direct quotes to back up my claims, but one can easily consult the host of scholars who have written on these issues.
UPDATE!!!
Here is an unproblematic text from a genuine work.
Lectura II d. 25 q. un n.69-70 (ed. vat. 19, 253-55):
Therefore I respond to the question that the effective cause of willing is not only the object or phantasm (because this in no way preserves freedom), as the first opinion claimed – nor also is the effective cause of the act of willing only the will, just as the second extreme opinion claimed, because then all the conditions which are subsequent to the act of willing would not be prserved, as was shown. Therefore I hold the middle way, that both the will and the object concur for causing the act of willing, so that the act of willing is from the will and from the object known as from an effective cause.
But how can this be from the object? For the object has abstractive being in the intellect, and it is necessary that the agent is this-something and in act. Therefore i say that the intellet concurrs with the will under the aspect of effective cause – understanding the object in act – for causing the act of willing, and so, briefly, ‘natura actu intelligens obiectum et libera’ is the cause of willing and not-willing and in this consists free choice, whether this be said of us or of the angels.
Labels:
Divine Attributes,
Protestantism,
Robert Reilly,
Voluntarism,
Will
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Bonaventure contra Feeney
Each of these excerpts should be of interest to Protestants and those who encounter Protestant ideas. It's always nice to see an old author affirm something that people accuse of being a modern innovation. Each excerpt is from In Sent. IV. Dist. XVII. Pars I. Art. I. Q.IV, on whether confession is necessary for justification, and I translate without providing the Latin:
And the second:
Again, it seems so from reason, for everyone having grace and justice enters into the kingdom of heaven, nor can anyone close the gate, justice and grace being preserved; but no one can enter into the kingdom of heaven except through the doorward [ostiarium] Peter, since the keys are given to him, from which no one is exempt: therefore no one can obtain grace nor have remission of guilt, unless he has it through the authority of the supreme Pontiff and those who are in communion with him. But no one is absolved by a priest without confession first, ergo etc . . . it should be replied that to enter without the power of the keys can be understood in two ways: either without the power, understood contrarily, as though despising the key of Peter; or without the power, understood privatively, and this [can be understood] in two ways: either simply privatively, so that one does not have the effect of absolution, neither in work nor in devotion nor in desire; or so that one has it in devotion and intention [proposito], and so has it in a certain way. In the first and second way one does not enter, nor is justified, but in the third way one may enter, and this in some way through the key, although not just as he who is actually absolved.
And the second:
God is more prone to being merciful than to condemning . . . God does not restrict his power to the sacraments. Therefore whenever man does what is in himself, God does what is in himself: therefore, if someone is sorry for his guilt in his heart, [even] if there is not a confessor or external confession, God does what is in himself: therefore he justifies.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Thomism as Protestantism?
As a post a while back made clear, I recently read Joseph Owens' An interpretation of existence. One thing that struck me forcefully at a number of places throughout the book was the peculiar and familiar character of some of his statements. Consider the following passage:
There seems to me something uncannily like what the Protestants like to say about St Paul here. Substitute "Paul" for "Aquinas", "Scripture" for "Thomistic texts," "Scholastic tradition" for "Christian tradition," and what do we get? Paul says something which everyone forgot about or misinterpreted for centuries until Luther rediscovered its true meaning, enabling him to discard all previous Christian tradition at his whim and thereby making it unnecessary for Protestants to even become familiar with the contents of that tradition. (By the way, Owens is by no means the only Thomist who talks like this. I recall both Gilson and Maritain saying very similar things.)
And this is just what many (most?) Thomists do! Like Protestants, they read their sacred texts in isolation from both the historical context of the texts themselves and from the way that the later tradition read them. Thomists tend not to read other scholastics, or not much. Instead they read Thomas in the context of contemporary philosophical and theological thought--like Protestants!--and, lacking the proper context and really appreciating Thomas for his "relevance" to our own concerns rather than for his own sake, they (first subtly, then increasingly drastically) distort Thomas' thought itself, all the while maintaining its supremacy--like Protestants!
The other thing that struck me in Owens' book was this: several times he mentions Heidegger's suggestion in the latter's Introduction to Metaphysics that "being", however interpreted, holds "the spiritual destiny of the West." Owens uses the phrase with approval and makes Heidegger's question his own epigraph. Now here's the funny thing: I was recently also reading Heidegger's book and it stuck me that the very same Protestantlike element pervades Heidegger's own thought! Just replace "Paul" or "Aquinas" with "the Greeks" and take as our texts the Presocratics, and make the tradition the tradition of all Western philosophy, and don't we have almost the exact same claim, namely that the "true meaning" of the original insights were almost immediately forgotten and abandoned by every successor, who mouthed the relevant words under a devastating and ruinous interpretation, until a lone genius prophet rediscovered the Gospel for himself and brought it back to the world? Isn't Heidegger just Luthor redux?
Coincidence? Or is this where the Thomists learned to talk like this? Or am I nuts?
One might in fairness note that many many philosophers have made similar gestures ever since Descartes, though not usually as radically as Heidegger. But if so this may simply reinforce my long-standing suspicion that modern philosophy is in large part simply the rationalistic flip-side of Protestant thinking.
. . . But the genetic leap to judgment as a distinct synthesizing cognition that apprehends an existential synthesizing in the thing appears for the first time in Aquinas. It ushers in a profoundly new metaphysical starting point. Nor is there any evidence that it was understood or appreciated by his successors. The distinction between simple apprehension and judgment did become a commonplace in Scholastic tradition. But the logical background of the distinction proved too dominant to allow the metaphysical import of the Thomistic texts to make itself felt. . . . The Thomistic insight that the judgment itself was the original knowledge of the existential synthesis eluded the attention of the later Scholastic thinkers. The notion that the intellectual activity of synthesizing was itself the knowing of existence escaped them. In Kant's penetrating scrutiny, however, the notion that a synthesis underlies conceptual knowledge reappears . . .
There seems to me something uncannily like what the Protestants like to say about St Paul here. Substitute "Paul" for "Aquinas", "Scripture" for "Thomistic texts," "Scholastic tradition" for "Christian tradition," and what do we get? Paul says something which everyone forgot about or misinterpreted for centuries until Luther rediscovered its true meaning, enabling him to discard all previous Christian tradition at his whim and thereby making it unnecessary for Protestants to even become familiar with the contents of that tradition. (By the way, Owens is by no means the only Thomist who talks like this. I recall both Gilson and Maritain saying very similar things.)
And this is just what many (most?) Thomists do! Like Protestants, they read their sacred texts in isolation from both the historical context of the texts themselves and from the way that the later tradition read them. Thomists tend not to read other scholastics, or not much. Instead they read Thomas in the context of contemporary philosophical and theological thought--like Protestants!--and, lacking the proper context and really appreciating Thomas for his "relevance" to our own concerns rather than for his own sake, they (first subtly, then increasingly drastically) distort Thomas' thought itself, all the while maintaining its supremacy--like Protestants!
The other thing that struck me in Owens' book was this: several times he mentions Heidegger's suggestion in the latter's Introduction to Metaphysics that "being", however interpreted, holds "the spiritual destiny of the West." Owens uses the phrase with approval and makes Heidegger's question his own epigraph. Now here's the funny thing: I was recently also reading Heidegger's book and it stuck me that the very same Protestantlike element pervades Heidegger's own thought! Just replace "Paul" or "Aquinas" with "the Greeks" and take as our texts the Presocratics, and make the tradition the tradition of all Western philosophy, and don't we have almost the exact same claim, namely that the "true meaning" of the original insights were almost immediately forgotten and abandoned by every successor, who mouthed the relevant words under a devastating and ruinous interpretation, until a lone genius prophet rediscovered the Gospel for himself and brought it back to the world? Isn't Heidegger just Luthor redux?
Coincidence? Or is this where the Thomists learned to talk like this? Or am I nuts?
One might in fairness note that many many philosophers have made similar gestures ever since Descartes, though not usually as radically as Heidegger. But if so this may simply reinforce my long-standing suspicion that modern philosophy is in large part simply the rationalistic flip-side of Protestant thinking.
Labels:
Aquinas,
Causality,
Descartes,
Heidgger,
History,
Philosophy,
Protestantism,
Scholasticism,
Scriptures,
Stupid people,
Theology,
Thomas Aquinas,
Thomism
Monday, July 21, 2008
Angels on Pinheads
Although it does not seem that the scholastics ever actually asked how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, still it must be admitted that they do at times discuss questions which seem, at least from this distance, just as trite and ridiculous. Take, for instance, St Bonaventure's In IV Sententiarum Dist. VIII. Pars II. Art. I Q. II ob. 7-8, where someone in Bonaventure's class is worrying about the fact that in the words of consecration--"This is the cup of my blood"--the principle thing referred to, the Precious Blood, is, horror of horrors, declined rather than in the nominative case, that is, crooked obliquo rather than straight recto! I have to admit it's hard to see why anyone would think this is a legitimate problem, or why Bonaventure would deem it worthy of response. It should at least be recalled that Bonaventure's Sentences commentary is a revised record of actual classroom lectures, and that even silly questions might come up and be discussed in a classroom setting which an academic professional would not today include in his published work.
At the same time the present question is extremely interesting in a number of other respects. For one, it sheds light on the present-day "pro multis" controversy. Just a few objections after the frivolous declension ones, it is asked why the words of consecration are "pro vobis et pro multis", for you and for many, and not "pro omnibus," for all, given that the blood of Christ was in fact shed for all. Bonaventure replies that by "pro vobis" Christ meant the Apostles to whom he was speaking, and by extension the Jews, and that by "pro multis" he meant the gentiles; or, similarly, by "for you" Christ meant the priests, the ministers of the sacrament he was instituting, and by "for many" he meant those to whom the priests were to minister. So that "for you and for many" in fact means the same thing as "for all". In the body of the question Bonaventure ventures the opinion that the *exact words* of the Roman canon are not *absolutely necessary* for confecting the sacrament--for one thing they are not the words found in the New Testament--and that so long as the sense remains identical the words might vary without changing the sacrament's form: forma in illis verbis omnibus salvatur, et modica variatio verbi, salvo sensu, formam non mutat. So thanks to St Bonaventure we can dispense with that canard of today's Traditionalists.
In any case, the "for you and for all" translation in today's English mass was approved specifically by Rome. In this same Responsio St B also deals with the question of *why* the form of confection differs from any of the formularies found in scripture, and his response is simply that the Roman Church has declared that this is the form. He affirms Roman primacy--based of course on its founding by Peter and Paul the princes of the Apostles--in explicit and strong terms, as well as the priority of the unwritten Tradition handed down by the Apostles over the authority of Scripture, at greater length than I care to quote and translate.
So here we have an excellent demonstration of the awesomeness of the scholastic method. Right next to merely absurd grammatical quibbles and scruples--just making sure we leave no stone left unturned, thank you--we have an exposition and defense of some of the central doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, with immediate applicability to controversies very much alive today within that Church. Did I mention that St Bonaventure is great?
At the same time the present question is extremely interesting in a number of other respects. For one, it sheds light on the present-day "pro multis" controversy. Just a few objections after the frivolous declension ones, it is asked why the words of consecration are "pro vobis et pro multis", for you and for many, and not "pro omnibus," for all, given that the blood of Christ was in fact shed for all. Bonaventure replies that by "pro vobis" Christ meant the Apostles to whom he was speaking, and by extension the Jews, and that by "pro multis" he meant the gentiles; or, similarly, by "for you" Christ meant the priests, the ministers of the sacrament he was instituting, and by "for many" he meant those to whom the priests were to minister. So that "for you and for many" in fact means the same thing as "for all". In the body of the question Bonaventure ventures the opinion that the *exact words* of the Roman canon are not *absolutely necessary* for confecting the sacrament--for one thing they are not the words found in the New Testament--and that so long as the sense remains identical the words might vary without changing the sacrament's form: forma in illis verbis omnibus salvatur, et modica variatio verbi, salvo sensu, formam non mutat. So thanks to St Bonaventure we can dispense with that canard of today's Traditionalists.
In any case, the "for you and for all" translation in today's English mass was approved specifically by Rome. In this same Responsio St B also deals with the question of *why* the form of confection differs from any of the formularies found in scripture, and his response is simply that the Roman Church has declared that this is the form. He affirms Roman primacy--based of course on its founding by Peter and Paul the princes of the Apostles--in explicit and strong terms, as well as the priority of the unwritten Tradition handed down by the Apostles over the authority of Scripture, at greater length than I care to quote and translate.
So here we have an excellent demonstration of the awesomeness of the scholastic method. Right next to merely absurd grammatical quibbles and scruples--just making sure we leave no stone left unturned, thank you--we have an exposition and defense of some of the central doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, with immediate applicability to controversies very much alive today within that Church. Did I mention that St Bonaventure is great?
Labels:
Bonaventure,
Church Authority,
Eucharist,
Protestantism,
Sacraments,
Scriptures,
Theology
Friday, June 27, 2008
The Remnant Church
Here's a bit that might please Protestants in some ways if not in others:
"Nevertheless it is true that in the sacrament of Baptism the merit of the faith of the Church Militant profits the children [i.e. the ones baptised], which [faith], although it can fail in some persons specially [as individuals], nevertheless never generally fails nor will fail, as that statement in the last chapter of Matthew says, verse 20, "Behold I am with you even until the consummation of the age." Whence just as the species in always preserved in any one of [its] individuals, so is the faith [preserved] in any one of the faithful, and this by the working of divine providence. Nor ever, since the Church began, has there failed to be someone who pleased God, as also there never will be."
--St Bonaventure, IV Sent., dist. 4 pars 1 dub.2.
Protestants love the idea of a remnant Church holding out against the tide of the unfaithful. Of course they also like to imagine that they themselves are the remnant Church, and that the remnant of the faithful across the ages were just like them, rather than being faithful Catholics. They certainly do not like the idea of the merits of the faithful remnant helping to remit the sins of others, nor of their faith serving for infants in making their baptism valid, if their parents are faithless. All in all an interesting passage.
Nihilominus tamen verum est quod sacramentum Baptismi prodest parvulis merito fidei Ecclesiae militantis, quae, quamvis possit deficere in aliquibus personis specialiter, generaliter tamen nunquam deficit nec deficiet, iuxta illus Matthaei ultimo, 20, "Ecce ego vobiscum sum usque ad consummationem saeculi." Unde sicut species semper salvatur in aliquo individuorum, sic fides in aliquo fidelium, et hoc, divina providentia faciente. Nec unquam fuit, postquam incepit Ecclesia, quin semper esset aliquid qui Deo placeret; sic nec unquam erit.
"Nevertheless it is true that in the sacrament of Baptism the merit of the faith of the Church Militant profits the children [i.e. the ones baptised], which [faith], although it can fail in some persons specially [as individuals], nevertheless never generally fails nor will fail, as that statement in the last chapter of Matthew says, verse 20, "Behold I am with you even until the consummation of the age." Whence just as the species in always preserved in any one of [its] individuals, so is the faith [preserved] in any one of the faithful, and this by the working of divine providence. Nor ever, since the Church began, has there failed to be someone who pleased God, as also there never will be."
--St Bonaventure, IV Sent., dist. 4 pars 1 dub.2.
Protestants love the idea of a remnant Church holding out against the tide of the unfaithful. Of course they also like to imagine that they themselves are the remnant Church, and that the remnant of the faithful across the ages were just like them, rather than being faithful Catholics. They certainly do not like the idea of the merits of the faithful remnant helping to remit the sins of others, nor of their faith serving for infants in making their baptism valid, if their parents are faithless. All in all an interesting passage.
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