This article is a summary of the article entitled" Spiritual Theology * "which appeared in the dictionary of life written by Giovanni Moioli spiritual, Catholic priest and theologian. He earned his degree in theology in 1958 and was appointed spiritual director of the seminary of Milan in 1956. It promotes spiritual theology, which he should be regarded as the authentic teaching of the Christian life.
I. The history of theology as a basis for understanding the real problem of spiritual theology
To understand this new branch of theology, it is useful to understand the historical background on which it broke. Until the twelfth century, theology contained no really distinct disciplines because it was based primarily on four senses of Scripture which provided them a certain unity. Subsequently, there has emerged some questioning the very nature of knowledge of faith that can be summarized as follows: "To what extent the knowledge of the faith can be intelligible reason as critical or research? "
This tense relationship between faith and understanding of faith to push some theologians and they limit the dialectical theology in the objective content of faith. Over time, this will help dry theology. On the other hand, others criticize This approach is deliberately taking out of this intellectual trend and will put more emphasis on personal appropriation of faith. As time progressed, we had to accept that the separation between knowledge and experience was already done because even when theology claimed to give space to a living faith, it was often only to reduce it to validate or to discern given the intelligence of dogmatic faith. Moreover, this first current wittiest did not quite understand his own value was in the nature of faith.
II. Spiritual theology in its recent developments
In this historical context will emerge in the late nineteenth century, a mystical movement that was characterized by the need to find the dogmatic notions (thanks, sacraments, liturgy), then turn to the mystical experience contemplative-lived or achieve.
The institutional church has also participated in this growth as shown by the creation of a specialist chair in the faculties of theology by Pope Pius XI. The attempt that was to teach asceticism and mysticism unfortunately did not have any value and the expected range. However, it had the merit contribute to the production of scholastic materials and this has prompted further reflection on the speeches and the methodology of this new theology
III. Problems and fundamental contents of the "new" education and "new" manual
a) The first problem with this theology was that it had to first determine if the mystique that was the normal progression of asceticism or they were separated by a gap real quality. As we did not want to create two chairs of theology, we opted for a biblical term that could bring these two realities in the designation "spiritual." On the other hand, it should also determine how the speech would differ from the dogmatic discourse of theological anthropology and moral discourse of perfection
.
b) It should also take account of different positions that were already expressed by two leading journals around 1920. The first view, expressed by the Dominicans and presented in their review "The Spiritual Life" had a more speculative and deductive. The second view, expressed in the "Journal of ascetic and mystic, was intended as a sort of composite method cohabiting with historical and empirical science.
c) This new discipline would be in the practical theology, which placed in the same category as morality. Although it was fairly easy to distinguish from the moral casuistry, it was more difficult to delimit its field of study related to the speech's moral perfection. A first attempt had been developed by Vermeersch who presented it as a way of Christian perfection and there was also an attempt by J. Maritain, who wanted to highlight a more speculative approach of practical knowledge including casuistry moralists.
d) There was also the theologian A. Stolz, who called for greater rigor to those studying spiritual theology. He questioned whether it was possible to develop a speech and a methodology based on both the phenomenon and psychology while resisting but to make it completely objective. An answer to these questions has been sketched by Gabriel de Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, which proposed criteria for discernment and reflection characteristics obtained by a posteriori made of spiritual experience.
e) Two theologians have offered answers that were going in that direction. Firstly J. Mouroux which demonstrated that the study of religious experience Christian was legitimate and had a specific typology. Then, HU von Balthasar, who propose a practical theological phenomenology of holiness as the place of faith lived and assumed. Despite none of these approaches have been represented in official manuals of spiritual theology, the questioning of these two theologians was not confined to spiritual theology but he also challenged the dogmatic theology as it is thought for centuries.
IV. Conclusion: the "theology spiritual "as a problem of theology
In light of the study of history and theology of twists and manual, we see the clear direction of spiritual theology. She will be able to deal much with the complementarity that tensions between the fides quae and fides qua . It is also interesting to the prospect that in developing the spiritual theology, we are also about to make a comprehensive overview of the operation theology.
* Moioli Giovanni, "Spiritual Theology" Dictionary of the spiritual life , Paris, Cerf, 1983 1120-1127.
