ROUSSELOT, PIERRE. – Theologian and philosopher, born in Nantes on 29 December 1878, fell in the Battle of Les Éparges on 25 April 1915. He entered the Society of Jesus in October 1895. From November 1909 until the mobilization of 1914, he taught dogmatic theology at the Catholic Institute of Paris.
Despite the brevity of his scholarly career, R. exerted a considerable influence on the direction of philosophical and theological discussions during 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, an approach subsequently taken up with greater rigor and breadth by P. J. Maréchal (v.). R. seeks to ground the objective and real value of abstractive and discursive knowledge by understanding it as an imitation and substitute for an intuitive apprehension of being, toward which the human intellect is ordered by its very nature. In theology, R. introduced new points of view, chiefly in the discussion faith (v.). He places the role of grace in faith and in the acts that prepare for it in the foreground, and insists on the importance of «per connaturalitatem» knowledge in religious life. His theory, according to which the certain and committing judgment concerning 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.