A Theological Style: Dulles and Guarino...Loyal, Receptive yet Rigorous, Modest, Detached

I was delighted that the theological work of our friend Fr. Tom Guarino was recognized by the Vatican naming him a monsignor.  I recalled a similar happy event when Fr. Avery Dulles was named a cardinal for the same reason. I think that Fr. Dulles was something of a mentor to Fr. Tom who has assumed leadership in the Catholic-Evangelical-Dialogue. I have found in them a similar and striking theological style that is at once:  fiercely loyal to the Church, open minded and yet rigorous in thought, detached from any particular theological approach, and modest in epistemological expectations.  Each shows a fierce filial loyalty to Christ’s Church as Mother and Magister in all elements starting with Scripture, Tradition, the magisterium and the testimony of the saints. Each practices “theology on the knees” albeit in a humble, unpretentious manner.  Secondly, they welcome dialogue with other faith traditions and a diversity of theological approaches even as they are precise and painstaking in analysis and wholesome criticism. For example, they will parse a papal statement to discern exactly what is and isn’t intended, not hesitating to point out limitations, but in a stance of loyalty and obedience.  Docility of the will is joined with clarity of the intellect. They welcome the positive insights of various approaches but identify the imbalances. Thirdly, and most interestingly for me:  they both seem detached from any particular theological approach. Neither seems committed to any thinker or school of thought. I suppose they are indebted, with all Catholic theology, to Thomas, Newman, DeLubac, and possibly Rahner and Ratzinger. But they seem detached: fully committed to the Church and her teaching but distant and free to accept and reject what they want from the competing schools of thought. They both favor a “models” approach which comes from Kuhn’s understanding of “paradigms” and is, I suggest, a soft Kantianism:  the “noumenal”,  the unapproachable Mystery of God and Heaven, is inaccessible, even if it is revealed, and our cognitive expressions are always inadequate and partial, if valid and necessary.  Theirs is a humble, modest and apophatic epistemology. We “know” God best when we know we are “not really knowing Him.”This is especially true of Guarino who is engaged with postmodern agnosticism and acutely aware of human knowing in its historicity, subjectivity, and enfleshed finitude.  I see three schools of theology competing in the Catholic Church today: a renewed, traditional Thomism; the conjugal mysticism of Balthasar, St. John Paul II, Benedict and their “communio” allies; and heirs of the transcendental (Kantian) Thomism of Rahner and Lonergan.  Dulles and Guarino do not surrender to any one approach but seem to borrow from each: they share a deep, prayerful spirituality with the romantic mystics but in a sober manner, without fascination for nuptial mystery as the very interiority of the Church. With the traditionalists they reverence the intellect in its capacity and orientation to truth even as they share with the Kantian-Thomists an awareness of subjectivity and finitude. They are more engaged with modern thought than the traditionalists, even as they renounce the slide of the Rahner/Lonergan heirs into an adulterous embrace of the most anti-Catholic aspects of modernity.  My own view is that Balthasar and  John Paul are the ones who directly, clearly and deeply answer the threat our age faces in regard to sexuality, family, gender and the very ontological reality of the Church as Bride of Christ. Dulles was the unrivaled dean of American Catholic Theology: admired by all even as he resisted the slide of much of the guild away from precious Catholic truths. Guarino continues his mission: educating generations of priests, dialoguing with Evangelicals in a time of crisis, and developing the Deposit of Faith. Guarino is a particularly gifted presenter: energetic, humorous, and virally contagious in his love for theology.  Deeply in love with Christ and his Church, broad and deep in scholarship, clear in thought, and zealous in search of Truth:  How blessed we are to have close to us such Fathers of the Church!