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Illtyd Trethowan
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Illtyd Trethowan
Illtyd Trethowan (12 May 1907 – 30 October 1993), born Kenneth Trethowan, was an English Benedictine monk, Roman Catholic priest, philosopher, theologian, and author.
Born at Salisbury in 1907, Trethowan was the son of William James Trethowan, a solicitor, by his marriage to Emma Louisa van Kempen. He was baptised as William Kenneth in the Church of England and educated at Felsted School and Brasenose College, Oxford. While at Oxford, he contracted poliomyelitis and was left with a withered arm. In 1929 Trethowan was received into the Roman Catholic Church and took a job as a schoolmaster at the Oratory School, London, later transferring to Downside Abbey.
Trethowan became a novice monk at Downside Abbey in 1932 and the same year was 'clothed' a monk under the name of Illtyd, in honour of Saint Illtud. In 1938, he was ordained a priest and from then on taught philosophy to junior monks in the monastery. From 1936 to 1982, he also taught Classics and later English literature at Downside School, a boarding school for boys then attached to the monastery.
Trethowan was the author of several religious books and many learned articles, translations and book reviews. From 1946 to 1952 and again from 1960 to 1964, he edited The Downside Review. He served as sub-prior of Downside Abbey between 1958 and 1991 and, when he retired, was given the honorary title of "Cathedral Prior of Ely". He was also a visiting professor in theology at Brown University.
Trethowan died at Bath, Somerset, on 30 October 1993, having said shortly before that he was happy to die. An obituary said of him:
Illtyd Trethowan was a man for whom God was the priority. In 61 years of unswervingly faithful monastic life, he lived what he taught: that it is possible for the human mind to be aware of God. He was... a gentle, learned, and always kind monk.
A fearless thinker, Trethowan argued the centrality of contemplation and also that philosophical certainty about God was possible. He also worked to gain a greater audience for some less well-known writers, including Maurice Blondel and Dominique Dubarle. For philosophical inspiration, he looked to Augustine of Hippo. For over twenty years, he was in dialogue with Eric Mascall, with whose work Louis Bouyer draws comparisons, calling Trethowan "a born Augustinian, but of exceptional intellectual acuity".
Trethowan’s main contribution to the philosophy of religion is the argument that human awareness is intelligent and that the transcendent (divine, absolute, infinite) is implicit in it. "Illtyd’s proposal is that only in so far as we are (already) cognitively aware of infinite, transcendent reality can we sensibly talk of relations between things in the world and such reality." He argued that our knowledge of God is not a matter of propositional reasoning on the basis of empirical experience; the recognition of God’s presence to the mind was like waking up to what it meant for a human being to be intelligently aware of things, and he was content with a broadly Platonist or Augustinian approach to explaining that. Consequently he bridled at any argument for God’s existence he suspected of being inferential. "There is available to all humans a cognitive awareness of God that is direct, albeit arising in and mediated by self-awareness (not immediate): a contact thus with God to which one can point people, but which is not susceptible of strict 'description', or again 'proof'."
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Illtyd Trethowan
Illtyd Trethowan (12 May 1907 – 30 October 1993), born Kenneth Trethowan, was an English Benedictine monk, Roman Catholic priest, philosopher, theologian, and author.
Born at Salisbury in 1907, Trethowan was the son of William James Trethowan, a solicitor, by his marriage to Emma Louisa van Kempen. He was baptised as William Kenneth in the Church of England and educated at Felsted School and Brasenose College, Oxford. While at Oxford, he contracted poliomyelitis and was left with a withered arm. In 1929 Trethowan was received into the Roman Catholic Church and took a job as a schoolmaster at the Oratory School, London, later transferring to Downside Abbey.
Trethowan became a novice monk at Downside Abbey in 1932 and the same year was 'clothed' a monk under the name of Illtyd, in honour of Saint Illtud. In 1938, he was ordained a priest and from then on taught philosophy to junior monks in the monastery. From 1936 to 1982, he also taught Classics and later English literature at Downside School, a boarding school for boys then attached to the monastery.
Trethowan was the author of several religious books and many learned articles, translations and book reviews. From 1946 to 1952 and again from 1960 to 1964, he edited The Downside Review. He served as sub-prior of Downside Abbey between 1958 and 1991 and, when he retired, was given the honorary title of "Cathedral Prior of Ely". He was also a visiting professor in theology at Brown University.
Trethowan died at Bath, Somerset, on 30 October 1993, having said shortly before that he was happy to die. An obituary said of him:
Illtyd Trethowan was a man for whom God was the priority. In 61 years of unswervingly faithful monastic life, he lived what he taught: that it is possible for the human mind to be aware of God. He was... a gentle, learned, and always kind monk.
A fearless thinker, Trethowan argued the centrality of contemplation and also that philosophical certainty about God was possible. He also worked to gain a greater audience for some less well-known writers, including Maurice Blondel and Dominique Dubarle. For philosophical inspiration, he looked to Augustine of Hippo. For over twenty years, he was in dialogue with Eric Mascall, with whose work Louis Bouyer draws comparisons, calling Trethowan "a born Augustinian, but of exceptional intellectual acuity".
Trethowan’s main contribution to the philosophy of religion is the argument that human awareness is intelligent and that the transcendent (divine, absolute, infinite) is implicit in it. "Illtyd’s proposal is that only in so far as we are (already) cognitively aware of infinite, transcendent reality can we sensibly talk of relations between things in the world and such reality." He argued that our knowledge of God is not a matter of propositional reasoning on the basis of empirical experience; the recognition of God’s presence to the mind was like waking up to what it meant for a human being to be intelligently aware of things, and he was content with a broadly Platonist or Augustinian approach to explaining that. Consequently he bridled at any argument for God’s existence he suspected of being inferential. "There is available to all humans a cognitive awareness of God that is direct, albeit arising in and mediated by self-awareness (not immediate): a contact thus with God to which one can point people, but which is not susceptible of strict 'description', or again 'proof'."
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