"an elevation of the [original] sense of the text"

"Over against this [recent exegetical trend] stands the dogmatic heritage of church history [(der dogmengeschichtliche Befund)], according to which the doctrinal pronouncements of the Church on the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception (Ineffabilis Deus (Pius IX in 1854); Fulgens corona (Pius XII in 1953)) and the Bodily Assumption (Munificentissimus Deus (1950)) recognized the Protoevangelium as [a] biblical argument independently of the reading ipsa and without [an] authoritative ruling as to the [(ohne Festlegung auf)] literal or typological sense [of Gen 3:15], but rather under [the impact of an] immersion in the proof from the Fathers [(allerdings unter Einfügung in den Väterbeweis)] and in consideration of the prevailing certainty of faith [(der vorwaltenden Glaubensüberzeugung)] (the factum ecclesiae).  According to Munificentissimus Deus the Assumption has thus its fundamentum in Scripture, which wants to signify not a formal being-contained [therein (ein förmaliches Enthaltensein)], but yet functions in a more than merely supportive way.  There is in this sense no independent proof from Scripture, but an elevation [(Erhebung)] of the meaning [(Sinnes)] of the text in the light of the complete whole that is the Church’s confession of faith [(des integralen Glaubensbekenntnisses der Kirche)], which the historical-critical method is incapable of [either reaching or] representing [(zu repräsentieren)], just as it is fundamentally incompetent to decide concerning credenda [(das zu Gaubende) in general].  It is on the grounds of this faithfully ecclesial [(gläubig-kirchlichen)] interpretation that one is referred to the sensus plenior and/or to the sensus spiritualis [of Scripture].  But with reference to this there exists between exegesis and dogmatics [at present?] no agreement."

     Leo Cardinal Scheffczyk, "Protoevangelium," in vol. 5 (1993) of the Marienlexikon ed. Remigius Bäumer and Leo Scheffczyk for the Instititutum Marianum Regensburg (St. Ottilien:  EOS Verlag, 1988-1994), p. 343, underscoring mine.

Newman on Mary

"It was not enough in accordance with that heresy to proclaim Him as having an ineffable origin before all worlds; not enough to place Him high above all creatures as the type of all the works of God’s Hands; not enough to make Him the King of all Saints, the Intercessor for man with God, the Object of worship, the Image of the Father; not enough because it was not all, and between all and anything short of all, there was an infinite interval.  The highest of creatures is levelled with the lowest in comparison of the One Creator Himself.  That is, the Nicene Council recognized the eventful principle, that, while we believe and profess any being to subsist in a created nature, such a being is really no God to us, though honoured by us with whatever high titles and with whatever homage.  Arius or Asterius did all but confess that Christ was the Almighty; they said much more than St. Bernard or St. Alphonso have since said of the Blessed Mary; yet they left him a creature and were found wanting. . . .  The votaries of Mary do not exceed the true faith, unless the blasphemers of her Son came up to it.  The Church of Rome is not idolatrous, unless Arianism is orthodoxy."

     John Henry Cardinal Newman, An essay on the development of Christian doctrine I.iv.2.8, underscoring mine.

"a greater hope"

Yale Divinity School

"Not everything can or should be made Christian, but too many peoples never got the chance to do that discerning work before everything was shattered into pieces.
     "Some have always worked to turn these fragments against the faith in hopes of finding what was lost and securing a vision of a world fortified against the formation of a Christian and freed from its derogatory logics and suspicious gazes.  These fragment workers believed against Christianity, not within it.
     "I have watched many a student become converted to this quest while in the midst of their theological education, become secret agents for the fragment, looking and hoping for ways to put together an alternative to a Christian world or an alternative Christian world to the Christian one that they had inherited.  This is the perennial struggle at the site of this fragment work. . . .
". . . Yet I wanted for them all a greater hope than only restoring a sense of indigenous worlds now in pieces.  I wanted a drawing of those pieces together, a throwing of them into the air, an allowing of the Spirit of the living God to take those pieces and fit them together in new and life-giving ways that would be familiar, singing familiar songs, remembering people and lands, struggles and hopes, but also new, with new songs, new futures that would mark a path toward what Christianity could be at the site of fragments."

     Willie James Jennings, After whiteness:  an education in belonging (Grand Rapids, MI:  Eerdmans, 2020), 37-39 (chap. 1, Fragments), underscoring mine.  One might argue that this is precisely what Aquinas—though roundly criticized for it on pp. 30-31—was (and some, if indeed not many, "missionaries" were) doing, when he sought to reconcile Graeco-Roman insight into "human grandeur" with Christian humility, arguing that "there is no competition between man's grandeur and the humility he must have in relation to [the Christian] God."  I would stress also that the ultimate object of Christian theology is hardly a "fragment," however dimly it sees and partially it knows him.  No, "in him the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily" (Col 2:9; cf. Heb 1:1-3a, as interpreted by St. John of the Cross and Simone Weil (she of the no small change); and many other passages as well).  And that this is no mere quibble, given that the ultimate object of theology is not this or that theology, not even [1] "the [very] fragment formed by faith itself," every trace of which is said to be available to us "in slices and slivers" only (32), but the triune God.  Etc.
     But I did like this, at least.

A profoundly counter-cultural implication of Chalcedonian Christology

     "Second, in personal realities all nature terms must be interpreted in a way that is in conformity with, but also not in opposition to, personal identity, and vice versa.  There’s never a dialectic or a distinction of co-extensivity between personhood and nature.  Negatively speaking—what am I excluding here?—negatively speaking, it’s a great mistake to oppose natural identity, for example being human by nature or being a biological animal, for example, with personal identity, as if one must either advocate for an ontology of persons or an ontology of natures.  One way to make this error is to claim that a serious study of human nature does away with personhood and [that] personal dignity is a mere folklore concept from pre-modern culture.  Another way to do so is to claim that the acknowledgement of human personhood and of personal freedom requires that we delimit or deny the reality of nature as a normative concept for free human action or thought, as if the personal agent could or even must determine or mutate his nature in a plastic fashion in the service of his personal freedom or will to power.  In reality, all personal acts of knowledge and love are also intrinsically natural acts stemming from the natural principles of human knowledge and free will."

     Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P., "Chalcedonian Christology and the concept of pure nature," 21:30 and following, a lecture delivered on Friday, 3 December 2021, at the Inaugural Pinckaers Chair Conference "Grace and nature:  contemporary controversies," The Angelicum Thomistic Institute, Rome, underscoring mine.

"a man has not begun to live until he can rise above the narrow confines of his own individual concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."

     Martin Luther King, Jr., "The three dimensions of a complete life," New Covenant Baptist Church, Chicago, Illinois, 9 April 1967, often bowdlerized as (for example) "An individual has not started living until they can rise above the narrow confines of their individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."
     Apparently, though, King preached this sermon more than once, as (for example) already here at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church of Montgomery, Alabama on 24 January 1954 (?):  "No man has lerned to live until he can rise out of his mere concern for self to the broader concern for others."

This discipline is not my home

     "At first sight, this complex balancing of habits of attention might not seem to be Balthasar’s fabled 'theology on its knees'. . . .  And yet, while not all theological writers will be quite so directly concerned with the negotiation of scholarly literature, for those who work in or are trained within modern university cultures I suggest that what I sketch here is an essential part of how one should perform that toward which Balthasar is pointing.  The Christian philologist or scholar is inevitably linked to the academy, but it should not be her home, it should not be that in which she can rest and from which she draws all sense of worth and purpose as a theologian (let alone as a person!).  Just as early Christian scholars viewed some ancient philosophical traditions as traditions of great worth, and yet also as traditions calling for great watchfulness and, at times, correction and denunciation, so too must we regard the academy.  Theologians can certainly be thankful for the hospitality often shown to us by the university, and theologians have much to contribute to the life of the university and the flourishing of the humanities (especially in an era where even scholars in the humanities can seem so unable to defend their own purpose); but we make that contribution best when we understand why the university is not our home.  The home of the theologian is the city of God. . . ."

     Lewis Ayres, "Seven theses on dogmatics and patristics in Catholic theology," Modern theology 38, no. 1 (January 2022):  55-56 (36-62).

"those texts which must be heard"

"There is always too much to read, and there are always too many avenues of fascinating thought to travel down; theology needs to make certain that it has created a space, a conversation in which those texts which must be heard are actually heard.  From this style of attention theologians will then be better able to speak to and in new contexts, and answer the particular questions and concerns of each generation."

     Lewis Ayres, "Seven theses on dogmatics and patristics in Catholic theology," Modern theology 38, no. 1 (January 2022):  59 (36-62).  From p. 42:

     These problems [with the term 'systematic' theology] become worse when . . . those identifying as systematicians have expertise mostly in—using again Cyril O’Regan’s language—those who have remembered the tradition badly.  In such cases simulacra of Christian doctrines may be argued over with great intelligence and sophistication, but that which should be remembered is still constantly missed. . . .  [Given] the linking of systematic and modern theology, it becomes [all too easy] for the trainee systematician to set sail on a sea of opinions without useful knowledge of where the tradition has been badly remembered, and without sufficient attention to where many things floating on that sea comprehend the nature of theological thinking in ways inimical to Catholic principles.