MARÍN-SOLA, FRANCISCO

Theologian; b. Carcar (Navarre), Spain, Nov. 22, 1873; d. Manila, Philippine Islands, June 5, 1932. He entered the Order of Preachers and received the habit at Toledo, Spain, in 1897. On completion of his philosophical and theological studies, he was assigned to the Philippines, ordained on Sept. 18, 1897, and posted to the parish in Amulung, Province of Cagayan. While there he was imprisoned during the revolution of 1898. He returned to Manila in 1900, joined the staff of the Colegio de San Juan de Letran, and won recognition for his articles in Libertas. After seven years, the ill effects of his imprisonment caused his superiors to send him to Spain to teach in the house of studies in Avila. In 1908 he was back in Manila and received a doctorate in theology at the University of Santo Tomás. He was then appointed to its faculty and to the moderatorship of Libertas. In 1910 he returned to Avila and again crossed the ocean to found the Dominican College in Rosaryville (Ponchatoula), La. He taught there and also at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana). In 1917 the University conferred on him an honorary doctor of laws degree. He returned to Europe in 1918, occupied the chair of theology at the Catholic

University of Fribourg (Switzerland), and acted as the dean of its faculty of theology. Ill health forced his resignation in 1927. During the remaining years of his life he divided his time and labors between Spain and the Philippines.

Marín-Sola was a theologian of vitality and resourcefulness. His outstanding work is L'Evolution homogéne du dogme catholique (Fribourg 1924). In this work he expanded upon the idea of a Dominican confrere, A. gardeil, and in doing so restored the correct notion of another Dominican, Melchior cano, on the subject of theological conclusions. While many theologians deny that there is a homogeneity between a revealed principle and a conclusion deduced from it, when that deduction has been made by reason in a strictly illative process, and hold that such a theological conclusion cannot represent an objective truth susceptible of being incorporated into dogma, Marín-Sola held that strictly illative theological reasoning can discover truths capable of being defined as dogmas of the faith. Two propositions with the same subject (God) differ or are identical inmeaning, only by reason of their predicates. If therefore, their predicates are identical, so will be the meaning and likewise the doctrine. Marín-Sola is noted also for his concept of the role of instrumental causality in relation to the reviviscence of the Sacraments and for his notion of divine premotion. His Spanish brethren revere him as the classical personification of a Spanish Thomistic theologian.

Bibliography: t. tascÓn; Ciencia Tomista 46 (1932) 132–135. m. j. congar, Bulletin Thomista 3 (1930–33) 679–681. Analecta Sacri Ordinis Praedicatorum 20 (1931–32) 776–778. g. gieraths, in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 7:83.

[f. d. nealy]