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Innovation and creativity are two buzzwords academics are nowadays pressured to use. This volume does not want to encourage this unhealthy attitude. It also does not primarily deal with the development of doctrine because that idea stems mainly from the nineteenth century.1 Instead, this volume plans to rediscover structures of innovation and creativity within early modern Catholicism. This is easier said than done. In the twentieth century, these two terms were used mostly in the arts and technology, and only recently in connection with societal “progress”; now they are being applied to a confessional culture in which continuity and tradition were of higher value than the modern appreciation of constant change.2 Nevertheless, such an enterprise is necessary not only to better understand the rhetoric of innovation and tradition, but also to overcome the disintegrated historiographies of the past, which often excluded Catholicism as a source of innovation. Certainly, this can be understood given repressive features such as the persecution of dissenters and the proscription and censorship of books; but by overemphasizing them early modern Catholic intellectual discourse has been downplayed or neglected, thus constructing a distorted view of the past.
To argue for a recalibration of historiography is not apologetics but merely an improvement of our understanding of the culture of early modern Catholicism. Persecution and oppression by Catholic institutions notwithstanding, we should be open to recognizing innovation wherever we find it and giving it its deserved place in the history of thought. It becomes clear that a particular Catholic approach to philosophical, theological, or cultural challenges is what one could call innovation through tradition—that is, a creative rereading of the past.3 Such innovation often only becomes visible by contrasting it to previous forms of thought; nevertheless, such a synchronic view also allows us to better grasp patterns of continuity. Censorship can serve as an example: a history as we envision it not only allows us a better understanding of the structures that supported innovation, but also the pragmatic actions taken to escape censorship and avoid institutional conflict by a rhetoric of dissimulation. Lastly, thinking about innovation in Catholicism also contributes to a better understanding of the development of imperialism and colonialism and can, as Elizabeth Kinkaid shows in this volume, have surprising results. It allows the historian to appreciate better the reception history of such innovations in non-European countries, as well as the creative innovations conceived in non-European countries.4
While innovation has become the topic of theological research in contemporary theology, especially in regard to the interpretation of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), early modern Catholicism, with the exception of the occasional mention of Melchior Cano (1509–1560),5 has been largely ignored.6 This, together with studies on censorship and the Inquisition, has led many to infer that the intellectual debates of early modern Catholicism were hostile to innovation or progress, and consequently not worth studying. Yet how can we, if we leave the intellectual debates of Spain, Portugal, France, Poland, Italy, and the Catholic parts of Germany and the Netherlands out of our description of early modern Europe, gain an adequate view of this time? How can we understand Catholic institutions such as Jesuit universities, the inquisitorial tribunals, or the formation of canon law, if we are unable to appreciate the intellectual quarrels they were involved in? Can we really understand the relationship between Jansenism and Cartesianism if we know hardly anything about the ways in which Augustinian orders taught Augustine and his theology in early modernity? How can we comprehend the development of modern biblical exegesis if Catholic engagement with the Bible is almost entirely uncharted territory?7 A top-down intellectual history would not help to close the lacunae, but rather a thorough engagement with the culture of Catholic intellectual discourse during the early modern era, outlining its innovativeness as well as its shortcomings and restrictions.8
The quest to define innovation begins with the realization that it denotes something new. Yet, what is new? The answer seems to be simple—namely, something that was not here before or was not known. Nevertheless, this does not mean that the new thing must have been created “out of nothing” or has no precedents, but merely that an aspect of it has not been here before. A good example is the use of metaphors: innovation not only exists where a new metaphor is created but also where a metaphor receives a new value and place in a broader discourse. Thus, the difference to mere variation seems to lie in the surplus an innovation brings.9
Such innovations can be tangible objects, but also the entire realm of intellectual creation. Yet in the moment thoughts are new, after they have emerged out of the fog of nonexistence, they are not yet classifiable, conceivable, or understandable. Only when we force the “new” into our conceptual language does it receive a structure that enables it to be communicated and understood.10 Thus, the experience of newness is to a great extent dependent on the use of language and preceding traditions. In order to distance the new from what is perceived as outdated or negative, something new is described as “innovative.”11
Innovation also seems to occur only as a response to a problem. A problem, however, occurs when a person is confronted with evidence contrary to an established narrative. Such an experience shakes our convictions because it demonstrates the dissonance between what is known (the established truth) and what is (the new evidence). Yet, since our intellect is made for truth, it feels wonder and shock about this clash, will try to overcome it and arrive once again at true knowledge. After all, ignorance was seen as an evil, the avoidance of which drives us to inquire more thoroughly and to find a solution for the colliding narratives. Thus, for scholastics the flight from ignorance is always shaped by a hope for a resolution and finding truth, and therefore a “negative” principle of inquiry. Its positive counterpart is the desire for truth inherent in the avoidance of error.12
Problems are a catalyst for innovation because they invite creative minds to solve them. We encounter a number of such problems in this volume; for example, the problem of reconciling God’s providence with human freedom. This problem enticed a myriad of philosophers and theologians to wrestle with this question and come up with solutions. When evidence13 is not convincing and does not lead to assent, doubt arises. For the Thomist, doubt is a state of mind and not a Cartesian act of will, so that the mind is not free to doubt or not. As a philosophical method (dubitatio universalis) it aims at finding evidence because it confides in the intelligence of humans and their competence.14 Such doubt caused Thomists to ground their theory of divine providence better (as well as responding to Jesuit criticism), leading to the assumption of physical predetermination, which is explored in this volume. Yet, innovations such as these also produce unintended side effects not only because they change the calibration of an entire system of thought (ontology, metaphysics, ethics, etc.), create new problems, and thus become catalysts for further innovation, but also because they produce negative side effects, such as a petrified Thomistic language, which tends to misunderstand non-Thomistic vocabulary. This is the “consequential burden” (R. Specht) of innovations, which inheres in every innovative moment.15 One of the most fascinating instances of negative side effects occurred in the new genre of fundamental theology, coming into existence since the seventeenth century, which dealt with the hypothetical question of atheism.16 At the time, hardly anybody embraced this view. Yet it was these theological treatises, which spread the best arguments for materialism, that helped the philosophes in the eighteenth century to gain momentum for an atheist movement.17
Early modern Catholic thought did not develop in a vacuum but in the rapidly changing world of confessionalism, discoveries, colonialism, and a shifting economy. The world became more convoluted as new patterns of interaction developed; for example, toward the native population in colonized territories or between international merchants. The more complex the situations became, the more difficult the problems that they created became. The same can be said about networks: the more complicated the networks became, such as economic communities or for that matter also academic ones, solutions to their problems were even harder to solve and were often only unscrambled by a community of scholars. The latter aspect of communal innovation is perhaps most visible in the history of the Society of Jesus but could also be traced in other religious orders such as the Benedictines, or academic societies where the networking enabled and disseminated innovation.18
An often-overlooked aspect of innovation is that the realm in which it can occur is limited and often controlled. After all, an innovative theory challenges the traditional reference frame and thus changes a traditional language. As we pointed out above, besides the limitations of conceptual language, we face another limitation, namely a personal one: those who adhere to the traditional vocabulary will reject the new and resist change. Yet how do we assess their behavior? How empathetic can we be toward their arguments, and can we detect personal interests that seek to limit innovation, such as envy or greed? Does a group feel suddenly threatened by questioning the status quo and then organize a movement of resistance? These and other questions one might also ask about the conflict between Jesuits and Dominicans in the sixteenth century, known as the de auxiliis controversy. Both orders mutually charged the other with heresy, which led to a papal “moratorium” forbidding future condemnations without actually deciding which theological solution to the problem of grace was preferable.19 Assessing innovation will also depend greatly on our ability to understand and evaluate the new system and what it actually tries to overthrow. Thus, for instance, in order to appreciate the Cartesian innovation, we have to know the preceding philosophical tradition it tried to replace.20
Is the innovative group part of a bigger institution, perhaps making a theoretical war over words into an institutional conflict? Is the organization able and willing to accept changes? One might think here of the enormous challenge Molinism/Suarezianism posed to Thomism, and thus about the institutional conflict between Dominicans and Jesuits. Their conflict over theological vocabulary was to a great extent also one of institutions and their institutionalized worldviews.21 The medieval friars were quite different from the Jesuits, and thus the inner workings of the Society of Jesus were seen as so innovative that the old orders felt threatened in their very right to exist and serve the church.22 Only the genius of Francisco Suarez (1548–1617) in his treatise De Religione (4 vols., 1608–1625) could convince the other orders that the Jesuits were only innovative insofar as they tried to perfect what was already established in old traditions.23 It should therefore not surprise us that, within such a novel institutional framework, many individuals felt empowered to be innovative themselves, so that it is probably not too far off the mark to call the Jesuits (despite their claim of having been the pope’s most faithful “soldiers”) an incubator of innovative thought and practice—be i...
