All thinkers
Philosopher · Contemporary
Dietrich von Hildebrand
1889–1977 · Phenomenological realism; value ethics
Catholic
Latin
Convert (1914); Pius XII called him “the twentieth-century Doctor of the Church”; fled Hitler, whom he had opposed from 1921.
A student of Husserl and Scheler who became the leading Catholic phenomenologist, defending an objective hierarchy of values grasped by “value-response,” the primacy of the heart alongside intellect and will, and the personalist meaning of marriage as a union of love before and in its ordination to children. After Vatican II he became a fierce critic of the “Trojan Horse in the City of God” and of the liturgical reform.
Why he matters: His personalist account of love and marriage prepared the ground for the Theology of the Body, and his anti-Nazi witness and post-conciliar critique made him a hero of orthodox Catholics.
Reading
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Transformation in ChristDietrich von Hildebrand · His spiritual masterpiece.
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The Heart: An Analysis of Human and Divine AffectivityDietrich von Hildebrand · The affective sphere restored to its place.
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My Battle Against HitlerDietrich von Hildebrand (ed. John Henry Crosby) · His memoirs of resistance.
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?
Natural theology
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
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?
Between
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
What is theology for?
A wisdom ordered to loving
A science ordered to knowing
A wisdom ordered to loving
Does doctrine develop?
Always the same, in the same words
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?
Between
Totally depraved
Basically good
The body and its desires
Between
Contempt for the flesh
Desire as its own law
Person and community
Individualism
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 makes you this one and no other?
A positive thisness (haecceity)
This matter, this body
A positive thisness (haecceity)
What is suffering for?
A share in the Cross
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?
Conscience bound to truth
Autonomous conscience
Conscience bound to truth
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 are we made right with God?
Infused, transforming grace
Forensic imputation
Infused, transforming grace
Where does your eye rest in Christ: His divinity or His humanity?
The eternal Word made flesh
The eternal Word made flesh
The man Jesus of Nazareth
VI
Church and Society · Authority, the state, wealth and the nation.
Church and state
Social kingship of Christ
Laicism
Social kingship of Christ
The economic order
Laissez-faire capitalism
Socialism
Laissez-faire capitalism
Where does authority come from?
Authority from God
Social contract
Authority from God
Reform or tradition?
Guided by tradition
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?
Between
The confessional state: error has no rights
Civil liberty for every religion
Which form of government best suits a Christian people?
Monarchy and hierarchy
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
Receive and develop organically
Reconstruct and innovate
Receive and develop organically
Icons and images
Veneration of images
Iconoclasm
Veneration of images
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
The Second Vatican Council
Reject the Council
Reject the Council
A new beginning
When the Pope speaks
Every word binds
Resist and judge
Every word binds
Holy Orders and the Church's constitution
A clerical Church
A clerical Church
Reformable by the people
Should the faith take the forms of each culture it enters?
One form everywhere
One form everywhere
The Gospel in each people's own forms
What are the Eastern Catholic Churches?
Between
Rites of the one Roman Church
Sister Churches with their own rights and theology
Contemplation or action?
Contemplation: the one thing needful
Action: the apostolate and the works of mercy
Contemplation: the one thing needful
Where does the Roman liturgy stand at its fullest: the old rite, the reformed, or both?
The old rite alone
The old rite alone
The reformed rite alone