Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

50 BRIAN V. JOHNSTONEby which he meant the person or subject, using reason. 16 Thepoint at issue was Suarez’s treatment of the relation betweenthe subjective and objective elements. It was in this connectionthat I mentioned Suarez’s concern to counter suspicions thatSt. Ignatius’s spirituality was a kind of subjectivism. He thussought to synthesize the subjective and objective. Since this wasthe central issue of my article, I gave particular attention to thispoint. (I am grateful for Selling’s informing me that Suarezwrote on many other topics, but I was aware of that). Suarez’sinterpretation of rational nature as such as the subject usingreason, suggests that Suarez may have been an important figurein the modern “turn to the subject.” In this connection,Alasdair MacIntyre, has called Suarez “…a distinctively modernthinker, perhaps more authentically than Descartes, the founderof modern philosophy.” 17 This, I believe, calls for furtherresearch, particularly in regard to Suarezian influence on laterphilosophy and moral theology. This is a point to which I willreturn in discussing “proportionalism.”In any case, it is not crucial to my argument to establishhistorically the precise date at which this change occurred orwho was “responsible.” These are questions that can be pursuedin further research. What counts is that the change tookplace and that the framework of thought which emerged had asignificant impact on philosophy, and, I argue, on moral theology,in the modern era from the seventeenth centurySelling presses his criticism that I cited only a limited numberof authors, for example, Suarez, the Carmelites, and Jone.As I have already explained, I cite the first two because they arethe authors who have been identified by scholars (such asPinckaers) as significant figures in the historical developmentof moral theology. I cited Jone because he was the author of apopular manual and because his method clearly manifests theterms of the framework of thought that I am investigating.Again, I would welcome information on other theologians ofthe period. It may well be that further research would invali-16Gemmeke, Die Metaphysik des sittlich Guten, 208.17Alasdair MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry:Encyclopedia, Genealogy and Tradition (Notre Dame, Ind.: University ofNotre Dame, 1990) 73.