The Nature of Historical Theology in the Light of Scheeben, Franzelin, and Newman.

In the beginning of his History of Dogma (first German edition, 1885), Adolf von Harnack claims that Catholics cannot write histories of dogma because they are too committed to the unchanging nature of dogma. While intended as a smirch, there may be a kernal of truth to von Harnack’s claim, especially for how dogma was conceived by two German Catholic theologians, Scheeben (first edition, 1873) and his teacher Franzelin (first edition, 1870).

This article aruges that Catholic investigation into the history of dogma, as practiced by Scheeben, Franzelin and Newman, has a different object of enquiry than what might be called the historicist strain. Whereas historicism in Christianity seems interested in the phenomena of human thought and actions as the inheritors of the Gospel message, Scheeben and Franzelin study those same phenomena not for their own sake but as witnesses to the ecclesial tradition of apostolic deposit.

When clearly distinguished, the two approaches to the Christian past can coexist in a fruitful relationship similar to the dynamic that Thomas Aquinas sees in the play between philosophia and sacra doctrina. What I propose in these pages is a theological reading of history that has the appropriate apophaticism and whose claims are subject and accountable to rigorous examination by historians.

Read more here.