In his review of the dissertation, Garrigou criticized Wojtyła for not using the phrase “divine object” of God. One assumes that this was an issue between dissertation director and student during the preparation of the dissertation and that Garrigou did not persuade Wojtyła of his point. Whatever the process involved, the fact remains that, in his insistence on not treating God as a divine “object,” even by way of analogy, Wojtyła was moving beyond the vocabulary, formulas, and intellectual categories that dominated the Angelicuм during his two years there.

1948 (June 14) Took the admission examination for his Ph.D. Cardinal Sapieha sent him to Rome to continue his studies at the Angelicuм. But there was, at that time, as Rector of the university, the great theologian and writer Father Garrigou-Lagrange, who was a giant on Thomism. Wojtyla, not being a member of that teaching, was following the philosophy that he wanted, that of existentialism, the modern type of Kant. Therefore, his dissertation, “Faith according to St. John of the Cross,” was criticized and rejected by Lagrange, because it supported the ideas of the Modernists who claimed that Faith is based on personal experience. For this, Wojtyla was not accepted for the doctorate and he had to return to the University of Krakow, where there he was accepted.