All thinkers
Philosopher · Modern
Félicité de Lamennais
1782–1854 · Liberal Catholicism; traditionalism (common consent)
Catholic · censured
Latin
His liberal Catholicism was condemned in Mirari Vos (1832) and his “Paroles d'un croyant” in Singulari Nos (1834); he left the Church and died unreconciled.
A Breton priest who began as the most extreme ultramontane, grounding certitude in the “common consent” of mankind rather than individual reason, and ended as the father of liberal Catholicism, demanding separation of Church and state, freedom of the press and alliance with the peoples against the thrones. After Gregory XVI's rebuke he broke with the Church entirely.
Why he matters: The man who set the agenda for a century of debate about Catholicism and liberty: Montalembert, Lacordaire and Ozanam were his disciples, and the Church's later engagement with democracy was worked out partly in reaction to him.
Where to be careful
Condemned in Mirari Vos (1832) and Singulari Nos (1834) for indifferentism, unrestricted liberty of conscience and the press, and separation of Church and state; his philosophical traditionalism (certitude by common consent) was also rejected by the Church in 1855. Read as history, not as a guide.
Reading
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Essay on Indifference in Matters of ReligionFélicité de Lamennais · The early ultramontane and traditionalist work.
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Words of a Believer (Paroles d'un croyant)Félicité de Lamennais · The prophetic tract condemned in Singulari Nos; read with the encyclical.
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Mirari VosPope Gregory XVI, 1832 · The Church's answer to L'Avenir.
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?
Fideism or agnosticism
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
Do natures and essences really exist?
Realism
Nominalism
Realism
God's essence and His energies
Absolute simplicity
Essence–energies distinction
Absolute simplicity
How should we speak of God?
Cataphatic (analogical) way
Apophatic (negative) way
Cataphatic (analogical) way
How does creation speak of God?
A book of signs and vestiges
Natures studied in their own right
A book of signs and vestiges
II
Faith, Reason and Truth · How we know, and whom we trust.
Faith and reason: who has the last word?
Fideism
Rationalism
Fideism
Where does knowledge begin?
Illumination and innate ideas
Senses and abstraction
Illumination and innate ideas
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?
Between
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?
A living development
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?
Basically good
Totally depraved
Basically good
Does nature desire God?
Natural desire for the vision of God
Pure nature
Natural desire for the vision of God
The body and its desires
Between
Contempt for the flesh
Desire as its own law
Person and community
Between
Individualism
Collectivism
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?
An evil to be relieved
An evil to be relieved
A share in the Cross
IV
The Moral Life · Law, virtue, conscience and the good.
Is morality objective and knowable?
Natural law
Relativism
Natural law
Why is the good good?
Eternal law (intellectualism)
Divine command (voluntarism)
Eternal law (intellectualism)
Are some acts always wrong?
Intrinsically evil acts
Consequentialism
Intrinsically evil acts
Rules or character?
Morality of virtue and beatitude
Morality of obligation
Morality of virtue and beatitude
What is conscience?
Autonomous conscience
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?
The will's love and enjoyment of God
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?
Indifferentism
Strict exclusivism
Indifferentism
What is salvation for?
Deification
Pardon and escape
Deification
Hell and hope
All will be saved
The many are lost
All will be saved
Would the Word have become flesh had Adam not sinned?
Christ was willed first (absolute primacy)
Christ came to redeem sinners
Christ was willed first (absolute primacy)
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
Laicism
Laicism
Social kingship of Christ
The economic order
Socialism
Socialism
Laissez-faire capitalism
Where does authority come from?
Social contract
Social contract
Authority from God
Reform or tradition?
Remake by reason
Remake by reason
Guided by tradition
The nation and the Church
Nation does not matter
Nation or race first
Nation does not matter
May the state restrain false religion?
Civil liberty for every religion
The confessional state: error has no rights
Civil liberty for every religion
Which form of government best suits a Christian people?
Democracy and participation
Monarchy and hierarchy
Democracy and participation
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
Between
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 procession of the Holy Spirit
From the Father and the Son (Filioque)
From the Father through the Son
From the Father and the Son (Filioque)
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
Resist and judge
Resist and judge
Every word binds
Holy Orders and the Church's constitution
Reformable by the people
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
What are the Eastern Catholic Churches?
Sister Churches with their own rights and theology
Rites of the one Roman Church
Sister Churches with their own rights and theology
Contemplation or action?
Action: the apostolate and the works of mercy
Action: the apostolate and the works of mercy
Contemplation: the one thing needful