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José Todolí Duque
Putting New Questions
to an Old Tradition
Student
• Navarre 1915-1999
• Studied at Oxford, Louvain, Sorbonne &
Walberberg
• Doctorates in theology at Angelicum &
philosophy at Madrid Universities
• 1945 Secretary of Luis Vives Institute of
Philosophy of Consejo superior de
Investigaciones Cientificas
• Pioneer in Philosophy of Religion in Spain
Philosopher of Religion
• Filosofía de la Religión (1955)
– history, including RC orthodox distrust
– facing modernist arguments, drawing on Aquinas
• Phenomenon of religion
– transcendence, reality, holiness
• Basis of religion
– Ontological, axiological, dynamic
• Noetics of religion
– rational, instinctive, willed
• Religion as virtue
– awareness by rational creatures, reverence, part of justice
– the will guides people to the divinity
“of those obscure natural tendencies, of
those experiences in whose entrails we
find as a correlative of the same to God
the only possible explanation &
justification of His existence, in the same
way as when we study our religation with
God, from the point of view of intelligence,
we also encounter God as a correlative of
our insatiable aspiration to truth.”
Labour
• Filosofía del Trabajo (1955)
• Characteristics of labour
– transformation, utility, obligation
– definition: “useful & dutiful human activity”
• Classification of labour
– starting from Aristotle’s Politics
– harvesting, economic, organising, moral, intellectual
• Duty & right to labour
– our need to co-operate, develop potential
– our link in the chain of beings – ecological
– duty to give back to society (UDHR), social value
“All of the process, from the pure
possibility… when one is born, up to
the perfection of the personality..
.taking God’s assistance always into
account, results from one’s labour.
One sanctifies oneself in one’s work
with things, in one’s daily job.”
Common Good
• El Bien Comuń (1953)
– faces question of ends & means: still relevant
– from destructive C20th ideologies to
– Thomistic humanism inspired by CST
• Nature & Dignity of the Person
– Human person is where spiritual & material unite
– in relationship with God & others
• Supremacy of Common Good in Society
– state (material good) & church (spiritual good) not opposed but
in co-operation: need authority & organisation
• Individual & State
– State aims to achieve social justice through positive law
– Limited by inalienable rights, values & freedom of the person
“The state should watch over… social justice
for both workers and employers so that, if
justice reigns, peace may reign
everywhere in the peace, security and
wealth which make up the material
common good, which in turn prepares the
common good in all orders.”
Medical Transplants
• La Ética de los Transplantes (1968)
• 1960s transplants a novelty & new moral
challenge: radical thought at the time
• Surgeons “must defend life wherever it
may be & to the very end”
• Good, even heroic act to sacrifice a nonvital organ for another - e.g. one kidney
• No moral obstacle to heart transplants if
death of the donor patient is certain
Moral Consciousness
• Sociología y Moral: Lecture as John Paul II
Chair (1971)
• Against Durkheim’s positivist “collective
consciousness”: morality innate to humans
• Spanish 1970s religious & moral crisis:
– “confusionism”, precipitative judgement, activism
– context of political transition
• Liberty must be understood as “a capacity by
humans, as against other beings, to fulfil their
own end consciously & responsibly”
• Urgent need to recover sense of meaning for
human existence