ROUSSELOT, PIERRE. - Theologian and philosopher, born at Nantes on 29 Dec. 1878, killed in action at the Battle of the Eparges on 25 Apr. 1915. He entered the Society of Jesus in Oct. 1895. From Nov. 1909 until mobilization in 1914 he taught dogmatic theology at the Catholic Institute of Paris.
Despite the brevity of his scholarly career, Rousselot exerted considerable influence on the direction of philosophical and theological discussions in the first decades of this century. His doctoral thesis, L’intellectualisme de St Thomas (Paris 1908; 3rd ed., ibid. 1924), represents an attempt to give a new formulation to the critical problem within the framework of a general metaphysics of knowledge, an approach later taken up with greater rigor and breadth by Fr. J. Maréchal (q.v.). Rousselot sought 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, by its very nature, the human intellect is ordered. In theology, Rousselot introduced new perspectives, especially in the discussion of the psychological-theological problems of faith (q.v.). He emphasized the role of grace in faith and in the acts that prepare for it, and insisted 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 “praeambula 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 inner character and 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.