"As Pierre Manent has written, 'The Christian teaching has an emphatically objective character'—its claim to absolute truth makes up part of its essential content. By reducing Christian theology to one among a number of ways to 'symbolize' the divine, Voegelin ends up with a Christianity that no truly devout Christian could readily recognize or affirm." - 2023/Spring Claremont Review, Daniel Mahoney
"Modernism, however, being the synthesis of all heresies, necessarily requires the violation of this principle of non-contradiction. And it is Henri de Lubac who 'formalized' a particular philosophy to enshrine and justify the principle of self-contradiction into theology. The fundamental means which he employs to disguise and 'sanctify' such an aberration is the concept of 'paradox.'" - James Larson
In 2021, Catholic philosopher Edward Feser decided to promote the problematic "existential experience" Modernist thinker Eric Voegelin:
"Eric Voegelin (1901-1985) was among the most important thinkers to analyze modernity under the category of heresy, and the specific heresy he regarded as the key to the analysis was Gnosticism. The Gnostic heresy is one that has recurred many times in the long history of the Church, under various guises – Marcionism, Manicheanism, Paulicianism, Albigensianism, Catharism, and so on. Like Hilaire Belloc, Voegelin regarded Puritanism as a more recent riff on the same basic mindset. And he argued that modern ideologies like communism, National Socialism, progressivism, and scientism are all essentially secularized versions of Gnosticism. Voegelin’s best-known statement of this thesis appears in The New Science of Politics, though he revisited and expanded upon it in later work."
"Now, what Voegelin saw in these ideologies is manifestly present in Critical Race Theory and the rest of the “woke” insanity now spreading like a cancer through the body politic. But it is also to be found in certain tendencies coming from the opposite political direction, such as the lunatic QAnon theory. Voegelin’s analysis is thus as relevant to understanding the present moment as it was to understanding the mid-twentieth-century totalitarianisms that originally inspired it. It reveals to us the true nature of the insurgency that is working to take over the Left, and will do so if more sober liberals do not act decisively to check its influence.[https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2021/01/31/the-gnostic-heresys-political-successors/]
The problem with using Voegelin to try to attack modern Gnosticism is that he himself was promoting a type of Modernist "existential experience" Gnosticism. Catholic philosopher Frederick D. Wilhelmsen revealed the deep problem with Voegelin:
"Frederick D. Wilhelmsen was critical of Voegelin's treatment of Christianity in The Ecumenic Age. In writing about the volume, Wilhelmsen states that the "historical figure of Jesus is totally bypassed by Voegelin and the only Christ to emerge in Voegelin's pages is the resurrected Christ of Paul's experience, the Christ who appeared to Paul and who transfigured his life and the life of all mankind as well."4 For Wilhelmsen there is a crucial distinction between historical fact and personal experience that Voegelin ignores. The historical figure of Jesus nothing, only the spiritual experience of Paul mattered. Friendly critics like Gerhart Niemeyer still generally agreed that Voegelin did not emphasize the figure of Jesus and his direct relationship to Christianity... "
"... The historical figure of Jesus cannot be ignored and replaced with the experiences of his followers. Wilhelmsen concludes that for Voegelin personal experience is more important than historical facts. Like Gerhart Niemeyer, Wilhelmsen claims that Voegelin has given insufficient attention to the existence of Jesus. For Wilhelmsen, Jesus as a particular figure at a particular time in history is more important than Paul's experience of the Resurrected Jesus. The meaning of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection cannot be divided from the historicity of those events, where Wilhelmsen sees Voegelin as only concerned with their meaning and not their history. Wilhelmsen is outraged at Voegelin's apparent disinterest 4 Frederick D. Wilhelmsen, Christianity and Political Philosgphy (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1978), p. 197. in the historical facts about Jesus. In a rhetorical flourish, he states that 'the historicity of Christ and of his resurrection, of the Easter we Christians celebrate as the central feast of our faith, annoys Voegelin: he finds it vulgar ... Whether Christ arose in deed or arose from the dead only in Paul's experience of a deed that occurred only in Paul is an irrelevant distinction for the German professor.'5"
"The fact that historical reality for Voegelin cannot be divided from the experience of reality makes Willielmsen compare him to George Santa Ana who held that there was no historical Jesus to be discovered by scholarship behind the Christ of faith as known throughout history. However, Santa Ana held that the Christ of faith was just a myth, so history and faith were both devoid of truth. Wilhelmsen writes that Voegelin, because of his conception of reality, is not even concerned about whether Christ is a false myth. It appears to him that Voegelin has ignored that historical existence precedes any meaning or interpretation. For Wilhelmsen what is important is that the events of the New Testament happened historically prior to any interpretation of them." [file:///C:/Users/Fred/AppData/Local/Temp/Hoffmann.pdf]
It is almost amusing to see the Thomist Feser whose writings show the importance of Neo-scholasticism apparently promoting the Modernist heretic Voegelin who together with Henri de Lubac totally reject Neo-scholasticism for the Modernist Gnosticism of "existential experience" which rejects real Thomism because it" take us away from the existential experience of longing described by a de Lubac and a Voegelin":
Feingold agrees with de Lubac that “Contemporary man has lost the sense of the supernatural character of the Christian promise and vocation; this is the great pastoral problem that faces us today,” and that de Lubac sought to address.[xi] “Nevertheless,” Feingold continues, the Neoscholasticism against which de Lubac wrote:
“One can imagine that de Lubac would reply that Feingold’s ‘solution,’ which is the Neoscholastic solution, is the problem. In TMS, de Lubac said: “In my concrete nature . . . the ‘desire to see God’ cannot be permanently frustrated without an essential suffering. . . . And consequently – at least in appearance – a good and just God could hardly frustrate me, unless I, through my own fault, turn away from him by choice.”[xiii]
John Milbank defends de Lubac and opposes Feingold in a long footnote in The Suspended Middle. Leaving aside the question of whether Feingold is right, Milbank’s criticism of him is unfortunately, in my view, overly strident, given the very thoughtful treatment that Feingold gives the subject in The Natural Desire to See God. Milbank calls Feingold’s book “arch-reactionary . . . written to reinstate a Garrigou-Lagrange type position . . . Frankly this selectivity [in citing Aquinas] gives the lie to the appearance of scholarly bulk and solidity which the weight of his tome seems to promise. Its exegetical method is much like that of the proof-texting of a Protestant fundamentalist. This gets even more ludicrous . . .”[xiv] And so on.
I would say, however, that the Neoscholastic position, as Feingold describes it, entails the splitting of very fine theological hairs, and take us away from the existential experience of longing described by a de Lubac and a Voegelin. Query: If the Neoscholastics’ reading of Aquinas, and not de Lubac’s, is the correct one, is it possible that it was Aquinas who got things wrong?
Feingold reminds us of what Voegelin criticized in Catholic theology – its wish to “monopolize” revelation. The interesting thing for the student of Voegelin in this context is how his approach, because it is not wedded to the idea that revelation only occurs through the Church, cuts through these tangled intellectual problems and supports the “paradox” of a natural creature with a supernatural longing and end. While Voegelin thus supports de Lubac on the nature of the human person, Voegelin and de Lubac have very different approaches to the question of the relationship between theology and philosophy, with Voegelin taking what from the perspective of the Church is a very heterodox position. despite his Surnaturel thesis, repeated in AMT and TMS, upholding the “traditional,” “orthodox position.”
De Lubac’s own reply to Feingold would be that the sharp distinction Feingold draws between the natural and the supernatural orders certainly makes sense – but it does not apply to the case of man, who alone of God’s creatures has a paradoxical nature, living in time, yet somehow participating in and longing for the timeless.[xv] And, de Lubac would continue, we know this “paradox” because it is us. [xxii][https://voegelinview.com/eric-voegelin-henri-de-lubac-metaxy-suspended-middle-part-2/]
Did the Modernist Gnosticism of "existential experience" or "existential context" of de Lubac and Voegelin bring us the the Francis Catholic's apparent supreme doctrines which seem to be taught in Amoris Laetitia and the Amazon Synod?
The Francis Catholics "new Gnostic paradigm" is shown by theologian Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap.:
"People are encouraged to discern, on their own, the best course of action, given the moral dilemma they face in their own existential context – what they are capable of doing at this moment in time. In this way, the individual’s own conscience, his or her personal communion with the divine, determines what the moral requirements are in the individual’s personal circumstances. What Scripture teaches, what Jesus stated, what the Church conveys through her living magisterial tradition are superseded by a higher 'knowledge,' an advanced 'illumination.'”
"If there is any new Gnostic paradigm in the Church today, it would seem to be found here. To propose this new paradigm is to claim to be truly “in-the-know,” to have special access to what God is saying to us as individuals here and now even if it goes beyond and may even contradict what He has revealed to everyone else in Scripture and tradition." [https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2018/06/07/gnosticism-today/]
Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi on the Mystical Body of Christ condemned the ideas of Pantheism which are apparently infused in the Amazon Synod.
These ideas were embodied in the Vatican indigenous rituals that appear to claim that man, nature and God are one and don't need Jesus Christ's saving grace because grace and nature are already intrinsic to each other.
Here is Pius XII's condemnation of the "false mysticism" of Pantheism which some says was a condemnation of Henri de Lubac:
"[T]here is a on the other hand a false mysticism creeping [into the Church], which, in its attempt to eliminate the immovable frontier that separate creatures from the Creator, falsifies the Sacred Scriptures... a distorted idea, a false teaching, impious, and sacrilegious"
(Crisis, "Art & Liturgy: The Splendor of Faith, January 13, 2012)
Francis said that the Amazon Synod is a "child" of his document Laudato si which in my opinion and the opinion of the Washington Post teachings a sub-set of Pantheism called Panentheism.
(Washington Post, "Pope Francis' environmental encyclical is even more radical than it appears," June 19, 2019, Quote from the article: "[P]anentheism in a papal encyclical!")
Many of the ideas in that document seem to have originated in the error of Henri de Lubac that nature and grace are not separate entities, but that grace is intrinsic to nature and human nature. Some say this passage of Pope Puis XII's encyclical was directed at de Lubac's teachings on grace.
Most well informed Catholics don't realize that the French "theologians" such as De Lubac and his French collaborators are linked to the French Revolution Jansenist heretics who engineered the Modernist tactic of pretending to be Catholic with ambitious Catholic sounding language which was ultimately semi-Calvinist and almost always in their countries gets transformed into secular Calvinistic Socialism/Marxism which eventually seems to lead to paganistic idolatry.
(Moreover, from France came Jean-Jacques Rousseau which is the basis for Immanuel Kant's philosophical complex anti-Thomist nonsense which brought us Hegel and others who begot Marxism and Nietzschean reaction that fathered the present day postmodernism with its LBGT offspring who hate to be reminded that German Nationalist Socialism called Nazism which brought us "deep ecology" is basically today's leftist globalist's Socialist climate change ideology of Francis.)
Below is scholar James Larson's overview of de Lubac's heresies:
Heresies of Henri de Lubac SJ
http://waragainstbeing.com/
JAMES LARSON
"The God of ‘classical ontology’ is dead, you say? It may be so; but it does not worry me overmuch."
- Fr. Henri de Lubac, The Discovery of God
Considering Pope Pius X’s statement in Pascendi that Modernism is the "synthesis of all heresies," we might easily be led to the hasty conclusion that there is nothing really new to be found in the errors of such men as de Lubac and von Balthasar. We would be very wrong. The title which I have chosen for this article is taken from the very first paragraph of Pascendi:
It must, however, be confessed that these latter days have witnessed a notable increase in the number of the enemies of the Cross of Christ, who, by arts entirely new and full of deceit, are striving to destroy the vital energy of the Church, and, as far as in them lies, utterly to subvert the very kingdom of Christ.
Historically, heresies often represented excesses which were the direct opposite of one another. Any notion, for instance, that Arianism (which denied the divinity of Christ) could be synthesized with Monophysitism (which emphasized the divinity of Christ to the point of denying His humanity) would have seemed absurd, and as constituting something impossible to human thought or conviction. Yet, such opposing ideas and statements, as noted by Pius X, are often to be found in Modernist writings and statements, even to the point of espousing both the orthodox and heterodox view on the same issue.
It might be concluded that such duplicity on the part of Modernists is simply a matter of calculated and sinister deceit. However, while such may often be the case, I believe that there are here involved "arts entirely new" which both necessitate and facilitate such deceits. It is these arts which now entrap much of the thinking and practice of the Church, including a great many who appear to be of good will towards Christ and His Church. It will be the purpose of this article to explore these errors, especially in the writings of their most powerful exponent Henri de Lubac.
The Lubacian Principle of Paradox
"In short, to maintain and defend these theories they do not hesitate to declare that the noblest homage that can be paid to the Infinite is to make it the object of contradictory statements! But when they justify even contradictions, what is it that they will refuse to justify?" [Pascendi, #36]
With any particular heresy of the past we encounter the denial of one or more specific doctrines of the faith. Generally speaking, however, we are dealing with people who still acknowledged the integrity and non-self-contradictory nature of truth itself.
Modernism, however, being the synthesis of all heresies, necessarily requires the violation of this principle of non-contradiction. And it is Henri de Lubac who "formalized" a particular philosophy to enshrine and justify the principle of self-contradiction into theology. The fundamental means which he employs to disguise and "sanctify" such an aberration is the concept of "paradox."
We must realize, however, that de Lubac’s first distortion is of the word "paradox" itself.
The commonly accepted definition of paradox is that it is the holding of two truths which appear to be contradictory. The contradiction, we must emphasize strongly, is in appearance only.
The Bible contains many paradoxes. The proper use of paradox can be a very effective tool for imparting truth. Our Lord, for instance, teaches, "For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it." [Luke 9:24] A small child reading this passage might indeed be very confused by the apparent contradiction; but the mature Christian, understanding the concepts and realities involved, sees no contradiction at all in this statement.
Virtually wherever one goes in the works of de Lubac one encounters his use of paradox. Ignatius Press offers two books (Paradoxes of Faith and More Paradoxes) particularly dedicated by de Lubac to this subject. Often, of course, his use of paradox is acceptable. But this is why the extensive use of paradox becomes such a dangerous tool in the hands of an unorthodox writer. A plethora of apparent contradiction becomes the camouflage for real contradiction, and a very powerful literary technique becomes an effective means of assimilating error into the minds and hearts of even the most sophisticated reader.
In the case of de Lubac these errors penetrate to the very heart of our faith. In essence they represent "arts entirely new" which have enabled Modernism to penetrate into the life of the Church with an effectiveness and an all-pervasiveness which was not possible under the earlier and more blatant forms of this heresy.
We must first understand that in the system of de Lubac, paradox is not just a literary technique, but the very "stuff" of reality:
For paradox exists everywhere in reality, before existing in thought. It is everywhere in permanence….Parodoxes: the word specifies, above all, then, things themselves, not the way of saying them….Oppositions in thought express the contradiction which is the very stuff of creation. [Parodoxes of Faith. pp.10-11]
All this, of course, makes the real "stuff" of reality exist outside the laws of logic, and outside of what St. Thomas and the Church have always taught are the absolutely "first principles of being": the Principle of Contradiction, the Principle of Identity and Difference, and the Principle of the Excluded Middle:
Paradoxes are paradoxical: they make sport of the usual and reasonable rule of not being allowed to be against as well as for. Yet, unlike dialectics, they do not involve the clever turning of for into against. Neither are they only a conditioning of the one by the other. They are the simultaneity of the one and the other. They are even something more - lacking which, moreover, they would only be vulgar contradiction [which is exactly, as we shall see, what they often are in the hands of de Lubac]. They do not sin against logic, whose laws remain inviolable: but they escape its domain. They are the for fed by the against, the against going so far as to identify itself with the for. [Ibid. pp. 11-12]
Lubacian "Paradox", in other words, is simple Orwellian "Newspeak".
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