#179: The Nine Lives of Modernism—Dr. William Marshner
St. Pope Pius X called Modernism “the synthesis of all heresies” and strong condemned it in his 1907 Encyclical Pascendi. You’ve heard Modernist ideas before: Jesus is extremely important and special, but not the unique Savior; truth is not immutable; you don’t need the Church, only the Holy Spirit working in your conscience; the Bible is inspired and inerrant only when it comes to spiritual truths and lessons. You get the idea.
Dr. William Marshner, professor emeritus of philosophy at Christendom College (where he taught for 38 years!) has been teaching and writing about Modernism from every conceivable angle. It was an honor to sit down with him and learn the history of and magisterial response to, this pernicious set of “isms.”
In this episode you will learn
- Biographical sketches of the first Modernists, like Alfred Loisy, SJ, Baron Frederick Von Hügel, George Tyrell, SJ, and Maurice Blondel
- How Modernism was reborn as Neo-Modernism in the 1950s and 60s
- How the sunny optimism of the 1960s, and the indirect influence of Neo-Modernist periti (experts), led to some ambiguities in the documents of the Second Vatican Council
- The irony of the fact of “Trad dissent:” the early Modernists were all deeply attached to the Latin Mass
- Specific examples of Modernist ideas in contemporary theology
- How Modernism led to dissent in the sexual sphere
- The importance of solid catechesis and thinking with the Church (sentire cum ecclesia, said St. Ignatius of Loyola)
Resources mentioned in this episode
- Defending the Faith: An Anti-Modernist Anthology ed by William Marshner
- 1907 Encyclical PASCENDI DOMINICI GREGIS and the Holy Office document Lamentabili Sane by Pope St. Pius X
- William Marshner lectures on YouTube devoted to Modernisme
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2 Responses
Loved the podcast on Roger Stone. I sent it to my friends who enjoyed it as well.
I was really looking forward to this video. I even subscribed to your website so that I could listen to the full interview, which I did. I appreciated a lot of Dr. Marshner’s and your presentation regard the history of the development of Modernism, which is a serious problem still wreaking havoc in the Church. As it happens, I recently published three videos (two on de Lubac and one on von Balthasar) correcting misrepresentations of their thought by other YouTubers. In my doctoral studies, I studied both of these fellows in depth on the topics you discussed regarding them (i.e., natural-supernatural and the dare we hope book). I was disappointed to see your (pl.) presentation of them here fall into many of the same misinterpretations. Questions were raised about missionary zeal being diminished by their thought, but they both address this, and I think quite adequately. Additionally, while I agree that the way he described de Lubac sounded like Rahner to a degree (kudos to Patrick for noticing that), the reality of it is: de Lubac and Rahner had vastly different approaches to the nature-grace question. In fact, Rahner’s own work partly originated as a corrective to what he and others saw as a flaw in de Lubac’s approach. Rahner is much closer to the neo-Thomist school than to de Lubac’s view. Rahner held firmly to the concept of pure nature as a necessary one, spoke of the obediential potency as distinct from the supernatural existential (which some people conflate, mistakingly). Von Balthasar, being more de Lubacian in his thought along with Ratzinger (and probably de Lubac himself), actually critique Rahner’s thought (although, I think they also misrepresent it). I studied Rahner in depth as well, from a few of his actual students. So, I will say, when it comes to those three figures, I think the presentation was inaccurate. I am not saying one must agree with any one of them; I am only saying, I don’t think they were presented fairly. Finally, I do find it odd that people keep pointing to them as the “modernists,” which seems odd to me, when it was clearly more people like Küng, Schillebeeckx, and others that were the modernists, which the likes of von B and de Lubac fought against. I say all this out of a genuine desire for clearer understanding, especially among those of us who share a love for orthodoxy and tradition! God bless you for your good work!