ROUSSELOT, PIERRE. - Theologian and philosopher, b. in Nantes on 29 Dec. 1878, fell in the battle of the Eparges on 25 Apr. 1915. He entered the Society of Jesus in Oct. 1895. From Nov. 1909 until the mobilization of 1914 he taught dogmatic theology at the Catholic Institute of Paris.
Despite the brevity of his scholarly career, R. had a considerable influence on the direction of philosophical and theological discussions in the first decades of our century. His doctoral thesis, L'intellectualisme de st Thomas (Paris 1908; 3rd ed., ibid. 1924), represents an attempt to give the critical problem a new formulation within the framework of a general metaphysics of knowledge, a direction later taken up with greater rigor and breadth by Fr. J. Maréchal (v.). R. seeks to ground the objective and real value of abstractive and discursive knowledge by understanding it as an imitation and substitution of an intuitive apprehension of being, to which the human intellect is, by its very nature, ordered. In theology R. brought new points of view to bear, principally in the discussion of the psychological-theological problems of faith (v.). He gives first place to the role of grace in faith and in the acts that prepare for it, and insists on the importance of knowledge "per connaturalitatem" in the religious life. His theory, according to which the certain and binding judgment on the credibility of the "pracambula fidei" coincides with the act of faith itself, does not, however, seem to interpret correctly either the proper function of the judgment of credibility or the character and inner structure of the virtue of faith.
Other principal works: Pour l'hist. du problème de l'amour au moyen âge (Münster 1908 and Paris 1933); Métaphysique thomiste et critique de connaissance, in Rev. néo-scol. de philos., 17 (1910), pp. 476-509; Les yeux de la foi, in Rech. de sc. rel., 1 (1910), pp. 241-59; Remarques sur l'hist. de la notion de foi naturelle, ibid., 4 (1913), pp. 1-36.
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