All thinkers
Saint · Early modern
St. Ignatius of Loyola
1491–1556 · Ignatian spirituality
Saint
Latin
Canonized 1622; founder of the Society of Jesus.
A Basque soldier converted while recovering from a cannon wound, Ignatius composed the Spiritual Exercises, a month-long school of meditation, discernment of spirits and election, and founded the Society of Jesus (1540) for the defense and propagation of the faith under a special vow of obedience to the Pope. His Constitutions and the Jesuit schools shaped the Catholic Reformation.
Why he matters: The Exercises remain the Church's most used method of retreat; his Rules for Thinking with the Church and his teaching that God is to be found “in all things” define a spirituality at once ecclesial, active and contemplative.
Reading
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The Spiritual ExercisesSt. Ignatius of Loyola · Not to be read but made; the Rules for Discernment and for Thinking with the Church are at the end.
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A Pilgrim's Journey: The Autobiography of Ignatius of LoyolaSt. Ignatius (dictated to Luís Gonçalves da Câmara) · Short; his conversion told in the third person.
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The First JesuitsJohn W. O'Malley, SJ · What the Society was for in its first generation.
Documented positions
Where this thinker stands on each dispute the test covers.
Settled teaching
Its center
Open question
Beyond teaching, not condemned
Condemned error
I
God and Being · What is, and whence it is.
Can reason know that God exists?
Natural theology
Fideism or agnosticism
Natural theology
How is God related to the world?
Creation from nothing
Pantheism or emanation
Creation from nothing
Is the world governed by purpose?
Providence and final causes
Chance and mechanism
Providence and final causes
II
Faith, Reason and Truth · How we know, and whom we trust.
Faith and reason: who has the last word?
Between
Rationalism
Fideism
Is truth objective?
Objective truth
Relativism and pragmatism
Objective truth
Who interprets revelation?
Living Tradition and Magisterium
Private judgment
Living Tradition and Magisterium
How should Scripture be read?
Fundamentalist literalism
Critical reductionism
Fundamentalist literalism
What is theology for?
A wisdom ordered to loving
A science ordered to knowing
A wisdom ordered to loving
Does doctrine develop?
Always the same, in the same words
Always the same, in the same words
A living development
Are the world's learning and arts a danger or a gift?
A gift to be baptized
A danger: Athens has nothing to do with Jerusalem
A gift to be baptized
III
The Human Person · Soul, body, freedom and the Fall.
Is there a spiritual soul?
Immortal spiritual soul
Mind is brain
Immortal spiritual soul
Is the body really you?
Body–soul unity
Dualism
Body–soul unity
Are you free?
Free will
Determinism
Free will
How fallen is human nature?
Between
Totally depraved
Basically good
The body and its desires
Between
Contempt for the flesh
Desire as its own law
Marriage, sex and the body's meaning
Given by nature and grace
Given by nature and grace
Defined by consent and identity
What is suffering for?
A share in the Cross
An evil to be relieved
A share in the Cross
IV
The Moral Life · Law, virtue, conscience and the good.
Rules or character?
Morality of virtue and beatitude
Morality of obligation
Morality of virtue and beatitude
What is conscience?
Conscience bound to truth
Autonomous conscience
Conscience bound to truth
In doubtful cases
Laxism
Rigorism
Laxism
What is happiness?
Beatitude in God
Earthly flourishing
Beatitude in God
What is heaven's happiness, at its heart?
Between
The intellect's vision of God
The will's love and enjoyment of God
V
Grace and Salvation · How God saves, and whom.
How does grace move the will?
Molinist
Thomist (Bañezian)
Molinist
How are we made right with God?
Infused, transforming grace
Forensic imputation
Infused, transforming grace
Who can be saved?
Strict exclusivism
Strict exclusivism
Indifferentism
Where does your eye rest in Christ: His divinity or His humanity?
The man Jesus of Nazareth
The eternal Word made flesh
The man Jesus of Nazareth
VI
Church and Society · Authority, the state, wealth and the nation.
Church and state
Social kingship of Christ
Laicism
Social kingship of Christ
May a Christian take up the sword?
Yes: war can be just and sometimes a duty
Never: the way of the Cross is nonviolence
Yes: war can be just and sometimes a duty
VII
Worship, Prayer and the Two Lungs · Liturgy, icons, the Spirit, and the See of Peter.
Liturgical development
Receive and develop organically
Reconstruct and innovate
Receive and develop organically
Icons and images
Veneration of images
Iconoclasm
Veneration of images
The way of prayer
Discursive meditation
Stillness and the Jesus Prayer
Discursive meditation
The office of Peter
Universal and immediate primacy
Conciliarism
Universal and immediate primacy
What do the sacraments do?
Efficacious ex opere operato
Signs only
Efficacious ex opere operato
When the Pope speaks
Every word binds
Resist and judge
Every word binds
Holy Orders and the Church's constitution
A clerical Church
A clerical Church
Reformable by the people
Should the faith take the forms of each culture it enters?
The Gospel in each people's own forms
One form everywhere
The Gospel in each people's own forms
Contemplation or action?
Action: the apostolate and the works of mercy
Action: the apostolate and the works of mercy
Contemplation: the one thing needful