The Historical-critical

[Kephapaulos]

Did the historical-critical method start with 19th century Protestants?

Does it have any validity whatsoever in any field of study at all?

[Geremia]

Did the historical-critical method start with 19th century Protestants?

Cdl. Siri discusses this in the second half of his Getsemani: Riflessioni sul Movimento Teologica Contemporaneo (chapters 4 ff.). The key players are Kant, Hegel, and Dilthey. (There is an English translation of this, but apparently it is a translation of the French translation!)

Pascendi §31 notes that the Modernists, with their "criticism,"

oppose the history of the faith to real history precisely as real. Thus we have a double Christ: a real Christ, and a Christ, the one of faith, who never really existed; a Christ who has lived at a given time and in a given place, and a Christ who has never lived outside the pious meditations of the believer

Humani Generis §7:

There is also a certain historicism, which attributing value only to the events of man's life, overthrows the foundation of all truth and absolute law, both on the level of philosophical speculations and especially to Christian dogmas.

[Geremia]

Does it have any validity whatsoever in any field of study at all?

What would the "historical critical method" mean in, say, physics?

In the history of physics, there are two main views:

• Today's physics is the product of centuries of continuous development since Aristotle (continuity thesis)
• Today's physics resulted from Galileo's "paradigm shift" and is completely different from pre-Galilean physics (Kuhn's scientific revolutions thesis / "discontinuity thesis")

By the way, Galileo commentated on Aristotle and read St. Thomas, St. Albert, et al.; cf. this volume of Galileo's early works.

[Kephapaulos]

Which view would be correct? Or maybe both are true in that Galileo inherited the scientific development that had occurred since Aristotle, but Galileo then made incorrect modifications and false interpretation of Scripture that led to modern-day scientific assumptions.