Giovanni Salmeri: «How Philosophy can Make Theology Better»

Prof Giovanni Salmeri (Roma) debates the issue of How Philosophy can Make Theology Better. Noting the fact that he is among the last generation of Italians who could study simultaneously in two faculties, he underlines how being both a philosopher among theologians and a theologian among philosophers helps him understand the depth of the implications of the matter under discussion, and all the more so as talks here from the perspective of someone that teaches at a secular university. The point of departure, however, is the repeated observation that students who have philosophical experience seem to adapt better to the workings of theology. The medieval dictum philosophia ancilla theologiae («philosophy is the handmaiden of theology») appears to have lost relevance in our time. But there is another aspect of the question that also needs to be taken under consideration, namely, the recognition of the fact that the growing disconnection between philosophy and theology does not so much arise because the handmaiden no longer does her work, but rather because the mistress appears to no longer love or simply consider the handmaiden. Students seem more and more unaware of the importance of seriously considering the structural bond that, according to the ecclesial tradition, binds together the two disciplines. Hence the difference in the attitude of the students of theology from those of philosophy. Students of philosophy learn to seek understanding by the use of reason; in the face of important problems they look for solutions by means of methodical philosophizing. Students of theology, on the other hand, tend to think that others have problems and so they want to do something about them, while in the process they may never truly learn how to arrive at the core of their own human (personal) problem...

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