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Philosophy and Theology in the Monastery: The Thought of Dom Illtyd Trethowan
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
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Dom Illtyd Trethowan, monk of Downside, died on October 30, 1993. One of his last publications was a recent review in New Blaclfriars, but his writings, and his efforts to make available works of theology and philosophy by others, go back a very long way. His first article appeared in The Downside Review in 1935 (he subsequently came to be Editor of The Downside Review).His first book, Certainty, Philosophical and Theological, appeared in 1948. Before then he translated Eugène Masure’s seminal study Sacrifice du Chef (1944), and, as early as 1940 (together with Frank Sheed) he translated Etienne Gilson’s La Philosophic de Saint Bonaventure. Between 1948 and the time of his death he published 110 articles, plus numerous book reviews. He also produced seven substantial books, an edition of the writings of Walter Hilton, and several translations of important authors not much known in the English-speaking world—most notably, Maurice Blondel, Louis Lavelle, and Louis Bouyer.
Dom Illtyd was not a monk who travelled to teach and spend lots of time outside his monastery. In 1969 he lectured for one semester in the U.S.A. (at Brown University in Rhode Island), but he was otherwise a fixture at Downside from the day that he joined the community there. Yet simply in terms of pages printed, his published works and translations clearly place him in the forefront of twentieth century British Catholics writing on religion and trying to make available the writings on religion of others.
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- Copyright © 1993 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 Dom Illtyd's baptismal name was Kenneth. He was born in Salisbury on 12 May 1907, the son of William and Emma Trethowan (née Van Kempin). He was educated at Merton Court, Sidcup (1914—21), Felsted (1921—25), and Brasenose College, Oxford (1925—29). At Oxford he contracted polio, which subsequently left him without the use of his left aim. Originally an Anglican, he became a Catholic in 1929, after which he taught briefly at the Oratory School and at Ampleforth. He entered Downside Abbey in 1932 and was ordained priest in 1938. He was Subprior of Downside from 1958—91 and Cathedral Prior of Ely from 1991.
2 The review was of Volume XXIII of Karl Rahner's Theological Investigations. This review appeared in the October 1993 number of New Blackfriars.
3 The first article was “The Beautiful in Art”, The Downside Review, October 1935. He was Editor of The Downside Review from 1946—52 and 1960—64. As Dom Sebastian Moore has said: “During his early period as editor, he revolutionised The Downside Review, which became, just after the war, the only periodical to awaken Catholics in England to the dawning, in France, of the theology which was to acquire droit de cité at the Second Vatican Council. The work of de Lubac, Congar, Chenu and others, found its way, in translation, into the Review. (The Tablet, 6 November 1993)
4 The books are: (1) Christ in the Liturgy (1952), (2) An Essay in Christian Philosophy (1954), (3) The Basis of Belief (1961), (4) Absolute Value (1970), (5) The Absolute and the Atonement (1971), (6) Mysticism and Theology (1975), (7) Process Theology and Christian Tradition (1985).
5 The July 1977 issue of The Downside Review is a tribute to Dorn Illtyd offered to celebrate his seventieth birthday. It is worth noting that, as well as being appreciated by Catholic writers in Britain and abroad, Dorn Illtyd was held in great respect by a number of non‐Catholic thinkers—e.g. E.L. Mascall, Austin Farrer, H.D. Lewis, and H.P. Owen.
6 Dom Illtyd was a great reader. In his books and articles he often (too often, some would say) presented his own thinking while linking it to that of many other writers, some of them very well known, some of them less well known. In what follows I make no attempt to indicate what in his thinking can be found in other authors. I focus, in an introductory way, on his main contentions and his own way of presenting them.
7 As an undergraduate at Oxford, Dom Illtyd studied under H.A. Prichard (d. 1947), who was a vigorous defender of the idea that people can recognize themselves to be certain in a sense that guarantees that they know (cf. Knowledge and Perception, Oxford, 1950)Google Scholar. The influence of Prichard on Dom Illtyd's thinking will, I think, seem clear to those who take time to read both Prichard and Dom Illtyd.
8 Mysticism and Theology, p. 1. The thought conveyed in this quotation can be found in many of Dom Illtyd's writings.
9 Mysticism and Theology, pp. 1 f. Cf. Absolute Value, p. 51.
10 Mysticism and Theology, p. 4.
11 Absolute Value, p. 30.
12 Cf. Absolute Value, pp. 34—35, 41—42.
13 Mysticism and Theology, p. 28; cf. An Essay in Christian Philosophy, pp. 62 ff., The Basis of Belief, pp. 44 ff.
14 Absolute Value, p. 123.
15 Dom Illtyd frequently says that in holding to this judgement he stands in an “Augustinian” tradition taken up in various ways by writers like St Anselm, St Bonaventure, Pascal, Newman, and Maurice Blondel
16 Absolute Value, pp. 84f.
17 ibid. p.89.
18 The Basis of Belief, p. 100.
19 Mysticism and Theology, p. 25.
20 Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, Vol.1, discussed in The Absolute and the Atonement, pp. 153ff.
21 Mysticism and Theology, pp. 47ff.
22 For the notion that the awareness of God which is had in faith might not be recognized for what it is, see Mysticism and Theology, pp. 46 ff.
23 The Scale of Perfection, by Walter Hilton, abridged and presented by Illtyd Trethowan (London, 1975), pp. 5f. The quotation is part of Dom Illtyd's introduction to Hilton.
24 Mysticism and Theology, p. 76.
25 In the Posterior Analytics Aristotle taught that there must be some non‐derivative knowledge to serve as a foundation to all other knowledge and opinion.
26 J.O. Urmson, “Prichard and Knowledge”, Human Agency (ed. Jonathan Dancy, J.E. Moravcsik, and C.C. Taylor), Stanford, 1988, pp.14 f.
27 Urmson brings this point out well in the essay cited above.
28 I try to defend it in a section of a commentary on the new Universal Catechism (forthcoming from Geoffrey Chapman). I also try to defend it in “God and Some American Philosophers” (forthcoming from Tulane University Press). See also my Thinking About God (London, 1985)Google Scholar.
29 As we have seen, Dom Illtyd disagreed with Aquinas on the question of arguments for God's existence. In my opinion, his various discussions of Aquinas (and comparable writers) on this matter need serious correction. The same, I think, is true of his views on God and human freedom. But this is not the place to try to defend such judgements.
30 Ayer, A.J., Language, Truth and Logic (2nd edn., London, 1946)Google Scholar.