Providence and Science in a World of Contingency: Thomas Aquinas’ Metaphysics of Divine Action

Providence and Science in a World of Contingency: Thomas Aquinas’ Metaphysics of Divine Action

Contemporary debates on divine action tend to focus on finding a space in nature where there would be no natural causes, where nature offers indeterminacy, openness, and potentiality, to place God’s action. These places are found through the natural sciences, in particular quantum mechanics. God’s action is then located in those ontological ‘causal-gaps’ offered by certain interpretations of quantum mechanics. In this view, God would determine what is left underdetermined in nature without disrupting the laws of nature. These contemporary proposals evidence at least two unexamined assumptions, which frame the discussion in such a way that they portray God as acting as a secondary cause or a ‘cause among causes’. God is somewhat required to act within these ‘gaps’, binding God to the laws of nature, and placing God’s action at the level of secondary causes. I suggest that understanding God’s action, following Thomas Aquinas, in terms of primary and secondary causation could help dissolve this difficulty. Aquinas moves away from this objection by suggesting to speak of an analogical notion of cause, allowing for an analogical understanding of God’s causality in nature. With a radically different understanding of the interplay between secondary causes and God, Aquinas manages to avoid conceiving God as a cause among causes, keeping the distinctive transcendent character of God’s causality safe from objections.

Divine and Human Providence: Philosophical, Psychological and Theological Approaches

493 BOOK REVIEWS Unlocking Divine Action: Contemporary Science and Thomas Aquinas. By MICHAEL DODDS. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012. Pp. 328. $70.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-81321989 -9. Although no one can deny that the scientific revolution of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was an unmixed blessing in terms of the advance of technology, medicine, and our more detailed knowledge of the natural world, in terms of natural philosophy and metaphysics its effects have been more ambiguous. An exclusive focus on quantifiable forces has blinded us to many modes of natural causality, modes of long standing among the ancient and medieval philosophers. Furthermore, insofar as theology has often presupposed certain truths of or at least modeled itself on natural science, the scientific revolution likewise handicapped us in our attempts to understand divine causality. In Unlocking Divine Action, Michael Dodds first defends these claims—which have in various ways been canvassed before—but then goes much further: Dodds argues that, in spite of this legacy, there are signs that recent science is returning to the older, broader understanding of causality, and thereby equipping philosophers and theologians observing science to “unlock” divine action. The first two chapters are directed toward the claim that science since around the time of Newton narrowed our understanding of what it is to be a cause. The first chapter covers the prescientific understanding of causality as presented by Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. In what amounts to a gloss on books 1 and 2 of the Physics, Dodds lays out carefully, and yet with minimal jargon, the four causes and chance, finding the delicate balance of precision and accessibility. The second chapter discusses the project of Bacon, Descartes, Newton, and others as they decided either to truncate, ignore, or explicitly reject the notions of formal and final causality in favor of a constricted notion of efficient causality, where the only agent worthy of consideration is that of a quantifiable, and therefore measurable, force emanating from and acting on ultimate particles. This part of the book does not break new ground, but its clarity and its manifest relevance as a premise make it worthwhile. In the third chapter Dodds makes a connection often missed: an effect of the success and dominance of Newtonian science was an application of its notion of causality to both natural and sacred theology. God’s causality could only be that of a force acting on atoms; any other consideration was as 494 BOOK REVIEWS obsolete as Aristotle’s substantial forms and geocentric universe. Thinking of God as just another source of forces—in fact, one that interfered with the very order he himself had established—caused perplexity among many scientists, philosophers, and theologians about how God could interact with the cosmos. Likewise, it led many to reject the possibility of miracles because of the apparently incoherent view of nature that divine intervention suggested. The clockmaker God of the Deists, the liberal theologians following Bultmann, and the pantheist-leaning process theologians all agreed, under the influence of the force-paradigm, that God was forbidden miracles. Further, in an effort to uphold the “autonomy of creation” and to avoid imputing a violent coercion of our wills to God, they even felt compelled to reduce or limit divine omnipotence and omniscience. God ended up “locked out” of nature. The remaining four chapters of the book are devoted to picking this lock. In chapters 4 and 5 Dodds shows how many discoveries in contemporary science—that is, science in the last century or later, since the advent of quantum theory—are opening scientists’ minds to other possibilities of the idea of causality. These two chapters are divided according to a crucial distinction about the relation between science and theology. On the one hand, a theologian might import a theory from science, basing theological conclusions on it as on a premise. On the other hand, a theologian might incorporate the ideas hinted at, or even fundamentally presupposed, in a scientific theory. Chapter 4 follows attempts at the former vis-à-vis divine action, as pursued in recent decades by several philosophers, the majority of whom (one quickly notices from the footnotes) are in...

This study evaluates Thomas Aquinas’ influence on theology and philosophy by examining his background, relationship with Aristotelian thought, and reflections on the Bible. It employs theological and evaluative methodology to analyse and reflect upon Thomas Aquinas’s theological and philosophical influence. The research uses literature and documentary sources, including works by Thomas Aquinas, biblical passages, and writings by theologians and philosophers. Thomas Aquinas’ understanding of God’s nature, immortality, body, and soul was shaped by his theology and philosophy of God and humanity. His theory of sense perception and cerebral knowing is based on Aristotle’s ideas, significantly influencing his moral philosophy. God’s essence is Ipsum essence sustenance. The existence of God is self-evident, though not universally acknowledged. Aquinas argues that a living object’s soul exists before death; it is not corruptible like the body. He states that the resurrection of the body is a revealed truth, distinct from the preambles of faith. The study revealed that the soul is not distinct from the body. The soul dies and can only receive the resurrection when Christ comes. The existence is self-evident and is seen through the incarnation of Christ. Thomas Aquinas accepted that the soul was immortal, but the Bible shows that it is mortal. Thomas Aquinas’ ideas resemble Aristotle’s concept of souls entering disembodied joy, which differs from the biblical notion of new heavens and earth. The soul dies, and the resurrection on the final day, based on Jesus’ resurrection, is the key to immortality. The incarnation of Christ is evidence of the existence of God. Keywords – immortality, philosophy, incarnation, soul, resurrection.

This chapter aims to reconstruct the views of Thomas Aquinas on the emotions and psychological health. Aquinas's account of the emotions is presented in its historical context, with special attention to the passions and their relationship to virtue and human flourishing. The chapter then reconstructs Aquinas's views on the emotions and psychological health, focusing especially on sadness. First, it shows that Aquinas's interest in the passions is not moralistic. Second, it shows that Aquinas's approach to the emotions is essentially holistic: it embraces the body and soul, not one or the other. The positive role of emotion in Aquinas's theology derives in no small part from the cultural milieu of the Dominican Order to which Aquinas belonged, even apart from the influence of individual Dominicans such as his teacher Albert the Great, who had pioneered the study of Aristotle and the integration of theology with natural science. Keywords:Albert the Great; Aristotle; emotions; psychological health; theology; Thomas Aquinas

ABSTRACTThis article explores Thomas Aquinas's interrelated views of rhetoric and deliberation, particularly through his commentaries on Aristotle and his Summa theologiae. It argues that while articulating a largely Boethian understanding of rhetoric as consideration of uncertain matters, Aquinas also advances a theory of deliberation indebted to Aristotelian theories of sensation and phantasia. Building from previous work on phantasia in Aristotle's works, I argue that, in Aquinas's view, rhetorical deliberation is dependent on sensory information experienced through phantasia. Gathered through time and experience, sensory information serves as the foundational material for other forms of reasoning, such as deliberation and practical wisdom. In articulating Aquinas's views of rhetoric and deliberation, I suggest that the relationship between rhetoric and logic within Aquinas's system of thought be reconsidered, with rhetoric playing a prominent role in the consideration of variable and human phenomena.

Spiritualis Uterus:The Question of Forced Baptism and Thomas Aquinas's Defense of Jewish Parental Rights Matthew A. Tapie1 On June 23, 1858, Pope Pius IX ordered police of the Papal States to remove a six-year-old Jewish boy, Edgardo Mortara, from his home, in Bologna. Edgardo had been secretly baptized by his Christian housekeeper after allegedly falling ill as an infant. Since the law of the Papal States required that a person baptized must be raised Catholic, Inquisition authorities forcibly removed Edgardo from his parents' home and transported him to Rome in order that he receive a Christian upbringing.2 'Worldwide protests followed. Thousands of people—from American protesters to the French emperor Napoleon III—demanded the child's return.'3 Along with assurances that the boy would be well taken care of, Pius IX insisted, Non possumus. Controversy over the Mortara affair in the United States emerged once more, in January 2018, with the publication of Dominican theologian Romanus Cessario's essay defending Pius IX's decision.4 In order to forestall anti-Catholic sentiment in reaction to an upcoming film based on David Kertzer's 1997 book on the Mortara case, Cessario argues that the separation of Edgardo from his Jewish parents is what the current Code of Canon Law, and Thomas Aquinas's theology of baptism, [End Page 289] required.5 If one accepts the Catholic Church's teaching on the efficacy of baptism, Pius IX's decision is not only just, it is an act of piety, and strength. In Cessario's view, one must look beyond the human pathos of the Mortara case to see that what was required by the law of the Church, and the Papal States, concerned the deeper realities of the power and permanence of baptism, and the logical, political consequences of receiving this sacrament. Cessario's argument is as follows:6 1. An infant in danger of death can be baptized licitly even against the will of non-Catholic parents. Cessario cites the 1983 Codex iuris canonici 868, and explains that § 2 affirms that 'an infant of Catholic parents or even of non-Catholic parents is baptized licitly in danger of death even against the will of their parents.' 2. Baptism seals a person with an indelible spiritual mark that configures a person to Christ. 3. The law of the Church and the civil law of the Papal States require that legitimately baptized children receive a Catholic education (expressed today in the Codex iuris canonici 868 § 2). 4. Therefore, Pius IX was right to relocate Edgardo from his family and raise him Catholic. Cessario appeals to Aquinas's theology of baptism in the second premise of his argument but does not cite to a text. He is likely referring to Aquinas's discussion of baptism in the Tertia Pars of the Summa theologiae. For Cessario, if one conceives of the Mortara case as a kidnapping, one has fallen victim to modern indifference to theological claims, and anti-Catholic prejudice.7 Outraged scholars and writers criticized Cessario's essay. Some charged that the essay damaged Catholic-Jewish relations.8 Others criticized theological aspects of Cessario's argument, and [End Page 290] a few of these authors cited Aquinas's teaching against forced baptism of Jewish children.9 Cessario and his critics appeal to Aquinas's teaching to argue for and against Pius IX's decision to remove Edgardo Mortara. However, this contemporary debate has overlooked the fact that the question of Aquinas's teaching on forced baptism was at the center of a rather extensive theological exchange between the Mortara family, and the Vatican's papal counsel, in 1858. Soon after Edgardo was abducted, the Mortara family, with the assistance of the Jewish community in Rome, submitted a formal document (referred to as Pro-memoria and Syllabus) that argued that the child must be returned because the Church, according to Aquinas, prohibits baptizing children of unbelievers without the consent of their parents. The Mortara family's document appealed to the same teachings in Aquinas cited by critics of Cessario. Yet the Vatican's refutation also appealed to Aquinas's teaching in order to defend the decision to separate...

St. Thomas Aquinas's Appeal to St. John the Baptist as a Benchmark of Spiritual Greatness John Baptist Ku, O.P. When we think of sources of St. Thomas Aquinas's speculative theology, we rightly recall teachings given in Scripture—such as that sin came into the world through one man (Rom 5:12) or that all that the Father has belongs also to the Son (John 16:15)—as well as teachings, based on Scripture, imparted by Church councils or Fathers, such as that Christ is one person with two natures1 or that the human nature of Christ is an instrument of his divinity.2 In the project of faith seeking understanding, these teachings lead expeditiously to distinctions and clarifications concerning person and nature, habit and action, primary and instrumental causality, intellect and will, faith and reason, and the like. However, the saints themselves too serve as a source for Aquinas's speculative theological reflection. Though they admittedly constitute a less abundant source than scriptural, conciliar, or patristic teaching, the saints' contribution to Aquinas's theology merits our attention. For instance, in "Jean-Baptiste: figure du prêcheur chez Thomas d'Aquin," Jean-Pierre Torrell observes that Aquinas's research into the Fathers of the Church for the Catena aurea bore considerable influence on his subsequent works, and Torrell documents how Aquinas's treatment of John the Baptist is a precise case that shows this influence.3 More recent [End Page 1119] scholarship has, fortunately, taken note of the saints' contribution to Aquinas's theology—in the figures of St. Benedict and the virgin martyrs.4 This article will therefore examine St. John the Baptist as just such a source of Aquinas's speculative theology. Aquinas appeals to St. John as a benchmark of spiritual greatness against which to situate other figures: Christ, angels, Mary, apostles, prophets, evangelists, priests, and the people of God. By examining these cases, we will not only observe the Angelic Doctor's appreciation of the saints as our teachers, as examples to be imitated, and as proofs of God's love in transformative grace; we will also witness aspects of the Dominican master's theological method, that is, in his manner of interpreting Scripture and his application of reason to scriptural data to make arguments and draw conclusions.5 For instance, in his treatment of the least in the kingdom of heaven, Scripture will definitively confirm what theological reasoning can determine concerning the knowledge of those with the beatific vision. Furthermore, his exposition on the Blessed Virgin will reveal that he reads the Bible as a whole with one divine author, in support of traditional interpretations.6 However, he is not naive about diverse human authorship and the literal versus the spiritual senses [End Page 1120] of Scripture,7 and his methodology unveils his explicit conviction that Scripture must be the basis of theological claims.8 My presentation will unfold in five sections. After (1) a glance at some of Aquinas's comments on the authority of various sources of theology so as to situate our conversation about the saints as a source of theology, I will review Aquinas's enlistment of John the Baptist as a standard by which to establish: (2) three simple points about Christians and Christ—that all of the articles of faith must be accepted, that prepubescent children can enter religious life, and that Christ's baptism manifests divine power—(3) the superiority of angels to wayfarers, among whom John the Baptist is the greatest, followed by apostles, prophets, and evangelists; (4) the eminence of John the Baptist and a ranking, in order, of God, angels, John the Baptist, prophets, priests, and then God's people; and (5) the holiness of Mary the Mother of God. The Authority of Various Sources of Theology In just a few lines in the Summa theologiae, Aquinas identifies the roles of reason and authority in theology. On one hand, "it is most proper" to theology to offer "proofs from authority," since theology's "principles are known through revelation"—making theological arguments dependent on "the authority of those making the revelation." But on the other hand, theology "also uses human reason, not to...

Christ and Spirituality in St. Thomas Aquinas: *Takes readers to the heart of St. Thomas Aquinas as a theologian profoundly concerned with the spiritual life*St. Thomas Aquinas's holiness did not flower alongside his endeavor as a theologian or in isolation from it. Rather, it was a fruit of his practice of theology and the asceticism proper to magnanimous souls who dare to examine the mystery of God. Theological affectivity -- charity present through a living faith -- is necessary for an authentic practice of theology. The experience of God, which is essential to the mystical life, is at the heart of Aquinas's study and life. The studies in this volume investigate themes of particular spiritual relevance in Aquinas's theology: friendship, charity, prayer, configuration to Christ, priesthood, preaching. They also reveal Aquinas's entire approach to theology to be guided by the desire to grow spiritually through theologizing. The Angelic Doctor here appears as a Dominican friar whose theology flows from his faith and prayer. Desiring to underscore the Trinitarian character of the Christian life, Aquinas pays careful attention to the human being as created in the image of God. In this light, Aquinas presents Christ as the Exemplar after which we are fashioned and as the model we are to imitate. Christ thus appears in the Summa not only as the way by which the human being must travel toward God but also as the head who leads the rational creature's return to the Creator.

Reviewed by: Thomas Aquinas's Summa Contra Gentiles: A Guide and Commentary by Brian Davies Raymond Hain Thomas Aquinas's Summa Contra Gentiles: A Guide and Commentary by Brian Davies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), xxviii + 485 pp. Brian Davies's Thomas Aquinas's Summa Contra Gentiles: A Guide and Commentary comes two years after the publication of his delightfully (some would say quixotically) ambitious Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae: A Guide and Commentary. Like the first, this second book "aims to be introductory, if also comprehensive, and it does not presume that its reader is already familiar with medieval thinking" (xvii). But while both volumes run close to five hundred pages, the much shorter length of the Summa contra gentiles [SCG] allows Davies a little more breathing room, and the result is a smooth and thoughtful overview of the entire text immensely useful for nonspecialists and worth consulting for specialists. After a brief discussion of Aquinas's life and writings, Davies rejects the view that the SCG was written to aid missionaries, Dominican or otherwise, and instead claims (with the help of the opening chapters of the SCG) that Aquinas has provided "an extended essay in natural theology" in books I–III and then offers "defenses of the articles of faith" in book IV. "And that," he concludes, "is all that we can confidently refer to [End Page 1291] when it comes to the question 'Why did Aquinas write the SCG?'" (15). (But why the need to remark in a footnote that Aquinas "does refer to Islam" in these sections, offering "a brief tirade against Mohammed," even though this "little anti-Islamic outburst" is hardly evidence of a missionary purpose? [397]) Of the remaining seventeen chapters, eight address God's existence, nature, and creative power, six address creatures and their relation to God's providential plan, and the final three address the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the sacraments and salvation. Each chapter follows the same plan: a section of the SCG is explained, with copious quotations and sometimes exhaustive (and exhausting) lists of arguments with lots of examples to make Aquinas's claims both clear and attractive. Each expository section is then followed by Davies's own evaluation of the text. These are the most interesting and readable sections (and worth perusing for a specialist working on the topic at hand), and they make many references to contemporary challenges one might offer to Aquinas, as well as arguments in defense of, and occasionally critical of, Aquinas's views. Davies is most comfortable, and confident, in the eight chapters on God. These make up more than one third of his text (though treating about one fifth of the SCG), and an entire chapter is spent on SCG I, chapter 13 (arguments for God's existence). Davies is certain that Aquinas's arguments for God's existence are not obvious failures, but stops short of calling them successful demonstrations. "My view is that [whether or not they are successful demonstrations] is not an easy question to answer since some of the arguments contain stages that are difficult to understand" (45). Like most defenders of Aquinas, he constructs an example of a causal chain with two types of causes. If my hand holds a stack of books, then each book keeps the book above it from falling to the ground. But my hand is a cause of a different sort, something "whose causal power runs through the chain in such a way as to make the members of the chain do what they do or be what they are" (52). But does Davies think the arguments work? As he often does throughout the commentary, he ends only by quoting from another Aquinas scholar, in this case Edward Feser's defense of this type of argument, and then concludes: "I take it that Feser is suggesting that something that actually exists, but does not have to exist, is potentially nonexistent, and that its sheer existence depends on it being actualized by what cannot not-exist" (55). The remaining chapters on God focus on the divine attributes, which flow (as they do in the parallel questions in the Summa theologiae) from...

St. Thomas Aquinas's Treatise on Temperance and Aristotle Leo Elders S.V.D. For some decades now, one can witness a renewed interest in the non-Aristotelian sources of the thought of St. Thomas, and in particular in his debt to the Fathers of the Church and neo-Platonist sources.1 Fully acknowledging the importance of these studies and St. Thomas's real indebtedness to these sources, the editors of a recent volume underscore—and rightfully so—that, "for this reason, Aquinas's theological use of Aristotle requires renewed attention, lest the study of Aquinas's theology become one-sided."2 It is in this same spirit that I will survey and analyze, after a brief introduction into temperance in the Greco-Roman world, the use of Aristotle in St. Thomas's treatise on temperance in the secunda secundae of his Summa theologiae [ST]. What a close reading of these questions and the use of Aristotle's arguments therein, and in particular from his Nicomachean Ethics [EN], will show, I hope, is the extent to which Aristotle is Aquinas's principal philosophical interlocutor. [End Page 465] Temperance in Ancient Greece and Rome In ancient Greece, the words sōphrōn (σώφρων) and sōphrosynē (σωφροσύνη) signified reservation and restraint in one's conduct and knowing one's place. To behave oneself in a temperate way is the opposite of being passionate.3 In particular, the young should be trained to adopt this attitude of self-restraint. In the Charmides of Plato, sōphrosynē is the beginning of spiritual health, and in the Republic, Plato formulates his doctrine of the four cardinal virtues as corresponding respectively to the mind and the three appetitive parts of the soul4. Aristotle treats temperance extensively in EN 3.10 as a virtue that has its seat in the irrational part of the soul and makes us attain the mean with regard to bodily pleasures. However, he excludes from this need of restraining our desires the delight we find in objects of vision and of hearing, and part also of the delight in odor. Natural appetites may go wrong in the direction of excess, which is a sort of self-indulgence. Here, the virtue of temperance should intervene. A temperate person moderates his desires. Temperance is a disposition of the appetitive part of the soul that makes it obey reason. If one possesses this virtue, his desires will be moderate and there will be no need to repress them. Reaching "the mean" is to desire in the right degree, the right time, the right manner, and so on.5 Aristotle endorses the view that some pleasures are good while others are bad.6 He confirms, therefore, the commonsense view of moderation and a generally accepted distinction between the different kinds of pleasure. The position of Epicurus on pleasure must be understood as a recommendation to seek moderate pleasures of taste, sex, vision, and hearing. He wrote about himself the following words: "I know not how to conceive the good, apart from these pleasures of taste, sexual pleasures, the pleasures of sound and the pleasures of beautiful form."7 But, as J. M. Rist observes, Epicurus writes elsewhere that he [End Page 466] is not talking so much about the sensual pleasures as about freedom from bodily pain and mental affliction: sober reasoning brings us the happy life.8 Epicureanism became a missionary doctrine that spread through the Roman Empire in spite of the strong opposition it met from the Academy, the Peripatetics, and Stoicism, in particular from Chrysippus.9 The beginning of its decline was brought about by its denial of afterlife.10 As to the ethical doctrine of the Stoa, the four main moral virtues were strongly confirmed by Chrysippus: he considered them expressions of one and the same reason11 that unfolds itself into four directions, the four cardinal virtues. With regard to choosing desirable things, this central reason and activity of the hêgemonikon12 becomes sōphrosynē, self-control, which brings all our movements and impulses into conformity with reason. It is the expression of the harmony of the soul. For the Stoics, the connection between the virtues is so strong...

Christ as Deus Absconditus in Thomas Aquinas's Theology Mateusz Przanowski O.P. The relationship between the two natures in Christ is the subject of one of the greatest theological disputes. The way in which this relationship is defined determines the perception not only of Christ himself and his mission but also of the mystery of the divine nature and the Trinity and numerous other fundamental issues. For example, the statements that the Word's assumption of human nature causes changes in his divine nature and that whatever happens in Christ's human nature has an actual impact on his divine nature are obviously remote from what is called a "classical theism," known from the works by Augustine, Aquinas, Bonaventure, or Duns Scotus. Martin Luther was perfectly well aware of this when he put forward a new understanding of the communicatio idiomatum principle, making way for radical redefinitions not only in Christology but also, as a direct consequence, in the theology of the Trinity.1 This trend, timidly introduced by Luther, was strongly reinforced by nineteenth-century kenoticists and later prevailed in a number of twentieth-century Christological and Trinitarian concepts. Some [End Page 881] of the key elements of this process were: introduction of a weaker notion of the divine transcendence, negation of the incarnate Logos's immutability, and redefinition of the relationships within the Holy Trinity. Some truly "human" characteristics were assigned to the triune Creator: he "became" mutable and passible, full of passions and experiencing history in his divine being. The general direction of these changes may be briefly characterized as a radical increase in blurring the ontic boundary between the Creator and the creation, the boundary that was "heroically" defended by classical and Thomistic Christology. But this modern and contemporary process of transforming the Trinitarian theology began with reflection on the Incarnation and was an attempt to find a new answer to the question on the nature of God and its relation to the human nature assumed in the Incarnation. I do not intend in this article to discuss or criticize these new theologies of the nature of God and of the Trinity. This has been done many a time by Thomists, and to good effect.2 I treat these contemporary trends only as a background that helps to emphasize one of the significant themes in Aquinas's Christology: the theology of the incarnated God as the God who hides himself, the Deus absconditus. This expression was derived from Isaiah 45:15: "Truly, thou art a God who hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior!" ("Vere tu es Deus absconditus, Deus Israel salvator"). It is worth it to note at the outset that, for Aquinas, Deus absconditus refers almost exclusively to Christ, to the incarnated Son of God. It is thought-provoking in itself that St. Thomas, who was so sensitive about accentuating divine incomprehensibilitas, very rarely uses this name in connection with the mystery of God's nature in se and limits its use mainly to the description of Jesus Christ, the God enfleshed. The name Deus absconditus plays a significant role in Aquinas's Christology, as it defines the identity of the incarnated Son of God, who remains the "God who hides himself" despite the fact that he assumed human nature and allowed its unimaginable union with [End Page 882] himself. For, even though "per carnem Filius Dei visibilis apparuit [through flesh, the Son of God became visible],"3 still, as Aquinas states: The divinity of Christ is covered over [occulta], and it is apart [separate] from every creature because of its excellence: "God who is over all be blessed for ever" (Rom 9:5); "Truly, you art a God who hides yourself" (Isa 45:15).4 And in another place, he writes: For the assumption of humanity … took place in a unity of person, not in a unity of nature, which might result in our agreement with those who held that God is not exalted above all things [super omnia exaltatum], and said that God was the soul of the universe, or something of the sort.5 Therefore Jesus Christ, the incarnated God, may be called Deus absconditus because his divine...

Reviewed by: Embracing Wisdom: The Summa theologiae as Spiritual Pedagogy by Gilles Mongeau J. David Moser Embracing Wisdom: The Summa theologiae as Spiritual Pedagogy by Gilles Mongeau, S.J. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2015), xi + 221 pp. Gilles Mongeau, S.J., is professor of theology at Regis College at the University of Toronto. His book ties together three threads in recent scholarship on Saint Thomas Aquinas's theology. First, it examines its sapiential and spiritual character, expanding on the work of Jean-Pierre Torrell. Second, it joins recent studies that attempt to give an account of sacra doctrina, particularly its meaning and function in the Summa theologiae [ST]. Third, it explores Aquinas's rhetorical and pedagogical methods that constitute the form of his theology. At a basic level, the book is an analysis of Aquinas's rhetorical methods in the Summa theologiae, and it focuses on those formal patterns of memory, repetition, and affect that Saint Thomas used to train student pastors and lectors in sacra doctrina. For Aquinas, as Mongeau claims, sacra doctrina is ordered to Christian practice, or the spiritual life, since revealed doctrine is the highest wisdom (ST I, q. 1, a. 4, corp.). For Mongeau, these formal structures tell us that the Summa is a series of "spiritual exercises" that Aquinas designed to teach students the way of spiritual wisdom. The first part of the book (chs. 1–4) provides the historical context that grounds the study of the Summa theologiae's rhetorical strategies in the second part (chs. 5–10). In chapter 1, Mongeau observes the ways his own argument differs from the recent rhetorical studies of Aquinas's theology. Unlike Mark Jordan, whose important work focused on dialectic in Aquinas's theology, Mongeau's book "points to the anchoring of Aquinas's text in the symbolic, the aesthetic-dramatic, and the affective elements of meaning, as well as the way in which the rhetorical form of the text mediates religious meaning" (5). For him, the Summa theologiae is a "deliberative rhetoric" that is designed to elicit actions on the part of its readers (5). It does so precisely by means of these symbolic and affective elements of meaning. Through this formal pedagogical quality, the Summa reorders the student's acts of knowing and willing to God in Christ. In chapter 2, Mongeau explains how rhetoric conveyed meaning in ancient and medieval contexts. Drawing on the work of Alain Michel, Kathryn Tanner, and Bernard Lonergan, Mongeau argues that every culture is the product of "the dialectic of 'human-centered' and 'cosmos-centered' meaning" (36). In every culture, agents attempt to negotiate and renegotiate the relation of these two poles as new social and economic contexts arise. One way Christians did this in the ancient and medieval world was through teaching rhetoric, the "science of aesthetic [End Page 712] -dramatic meaning" (39). Mongeau observes that if this recent proposal about culture is correct, then we will surely find evidence that "Thomas in the Summa is concerned with forming persons to exercise a certain cultural agency," that is, to renegotiate the way the Church mediates its teaching about Christ in the thirteenth century (29). Chapter 3 addresses the historical context that informed Aquinas's pastoral concerns and pedagogy. Drawing heavily on Mary Carruthers's studies of medieval memorial practices, Mongeau argues that Aquinas adopted memorial schemes in his writings. These memorial strategies were often based on the movements of the liturgy. Teachers of rhetoric described them as a ductus: the movement of the student's mind through the rhetorical and literary contours of a composition (43). Then Mongeau surveys some of the social, cultural, and economic changes in the medieval world that drove intellectual developments, including the reforms of the monasteries of Cluny and Cîteaux and the rise of the merchant class: these, along with the problems of a poorly catechized peasantry, drove the need for the reforms of the Fourth Lateran Council and the Dominican order's concern for preaching and education. Aquinas understood his own vocation as a theologian within this context and became involved in the educational reforms and spiritual renewal of Lateran IV (80). Chapter 4 covers the...

Pp.viii, 219 , Aldershot/Burlington , Ashgate Publishing Ltd , 2005 , £50/£16.99, $94.95/$29.95,€79.29/€26.67. Pp. 312 , Nottingham/Downers Green , Apollos/Inter-Varsity Press , 2006 , £14.99, $22,€61.56. Corner tackles a thorny topic for philosophy. He examines the place of miracles as central to belief in God, arguing that they are not necessarily to be dismissed as pre-enlightenment and unscientific. Although he considers the nature and place of miracles generally in world religions (and amongst the non-religious), primarily he examines their place in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, approaching miracles from an historical as well as philosophical perspective. Corner's work is in three parts: ‘Miracles in Philosophical Perspective’; ‘Miracles in Historical Perspective’; ‘Miracles in a Non-Christian and Contemporary Perspective’. Part one opens with a discussion on the nature of a miracle - miracles as wonderful events, or as coincidence, or as God's intervention - which inevitably brings up questions about the laws of nature and the problems inherent in recognizing miracles; Corner then proceeds to give a workable definition of a miracle (p.13f), workable, that is, in the context of his study. This leads into an analysis of the sceptical philosophical considerations of David Hume. He then considers miracles as acts of God - initially in Biblical exegesis - then posits a distinction between ‘general’ and ‘special’ divine action (GDA & SDA, p.33), the role of human beings in these acts, and how the need arises to distinguish divine from human action in relation to internality in the world/nature. Inevitably Corner devotes much space to miracles and modern science; he considers how scientific thinking has changed - specifically the place of Newtonian and post-Newtonian thinking - and the question of SDA and the universe. This leads into a consideration of the anthropic principle, quoting Barrow and Tippler, Peacock and Polkinghorne amongst other so-called ‘scientific’ theologians, which opens to a reflection on transcendental Thomism. Corner then turns to the problem of evil, which raises questions about selectivity and the limits to our knowledge, also theodicy and the parenthood of God. Part two looks at miracles in an historical perspective: the miracles of Jesus the reluctant miracle worker and reluctant messiah: ‘The gospel accounts of Jesus' miracles present them less as a deliberate policy of self-aggrandisement and more as an almost incidental part of his ministry, towards which he is moved by compassion or even persuasion.’ (p. 86). Corner then considers miracles after Jesus: Paul, the apostles, the role of miracles in the conversion of ‘barbarians’, and the relationship between ecclesial power and claims to the miraculous in ecclesial history. Miracles after the Reformation leads Corner into a consideration of the enlightenment and the concept of a self-sufficient universe. He then turns to the central question in Christianity, the Resurrection (p.127f), and what this tells us about the nature of God. Part three considers miracles in a non-Christian and contemporary perspective: miracles in non-Christian religions and miracles in the modern world. Corner's work is inevitably wide-ranging; he concludes that miracles ‘within Christianity alone involve central theological and philosophical issues concerning the relation of God to the world, the way in which God acts and the goodness of God’ (p. 197); Corner's conclusion reassesses what he has established throughout his work by drawing on wisdom from Rabbinic Judaism, which warns against the importance of miracles, considering them ‘less as a physical impossibility than as a possible source of corruption … the tradition concentrated its fire on those whose miracles are a means of self-aggrandisement’ (p. 204). Corner concludes that whether or not miracles happen it is difficult to see how religious belief could survive without them; however, he ends by quoting (p.205) again from Rabbinic Judaism that ‘the height of folly is to place reliance upon miracles; the depth of wisdom is to know that miracles take place’ (Neusner and Neusner The Book of Jewish Wisdom: The Talmud of the Well-Considered Life, 1996 p. 171). Does Corner's work advance our understanding - our acceptance or rejection - of miracles? In a general sense this is a valuable philosophical work, and would make good reading for theology and philosophy undergraduates, though he does not really advance thinking on miracles beyond a cautious but open-minded scepticism; applying the same hermeneutic of suspicion to a scientifically grounded so-called ‘enlightenment’ would perhaps have been progress. Roy's book is in many ways comparable to Corner's work on miracles - both are about the relation of God to the world, both draw on the Hebrew-Judaeo-Christian tradition, and is it not so that questions about Trinitarian omniscience often fall into the same categories as questions about miracles? However, methodologically this work is biblical theology; more pertinently, it is by a systematic theologian producing a comprehensive biblical study; Corner's work is essentially philosophical. Questioning God's foreknowledge may on the surface seem blasphemous to many Christians; however, such inquiring and searching is valid and will lead to wisdom about God's purposes. Like Corner's work this study is wider than a single religious perspective, and essentially draws from both Judaism and Christianity. Roy's work leads off from what he terms the current debate about omniscience (specifically, foreknowledge), which, he asserts, has not given full consideration to the biblical revelation. As a correction to this perceived imbalance, Roy analytically cites scores of passages - both from the Hebrew and Christian scriptures - to be used for worship and prayer, guidance and suffering, and for teaching on theodicy and evil, though, ultimately, to engender hope in God's triumph. Roy poses two questions: ‘Does the Bible teach that God's foreknowledge is exhaustive and infallible?’; and ‘Does Scripture affirm that God foreknows the free decisions of human beings?’ He defines the problem as arising ‘when this doctrine of God's exhaustive, infallible foreknowledge is combined with an indeterministic, libertarian understanding of human freedom’ (p. 13). Central to his study is so-called ‘open theism’, the open view of divine foreknowledge, which is in effect a variation on classic Armenian theology: that God is personal and significant (in terms of libertarian human freedom), and is perceived through an initiating and responsive love. Open theists hold to an ‘open view’ of foreknowledge, yet they also affirm omniscience and claim that God is ignorant of certain details about certain elements of the future - or more critically, this must be what we term ‘the future’, within what we perceive to be temporal reality. Roy argues that this ‘openness’ is reflected in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. His introduction sets the scene well for his study by immediately positing a workable definition of God's omniscience, thereby identifying and defining the problem and citing how the dilemma has been solved in the past; he then explains the position of ‘open theism’ and evaluates its strengths within a proposal of God's limited omniscience. He then examines in depth the ‘Old Testament Evidence of Divine Foreknowledge’: initially this is through an exegesis of Psalm 139, then by examining what he terms predictive prophecy, for example, seen in the promise and fulfilment of 1–2 Kings. A key section of scripture - the evidence of divine foreknowledge in Isaiah 40–48 - is exhaustively analysed, emphasizing the ‘utter superiority of Yahweh over all the gods of the pagan nations’ (p.43), which inevitably leads into a consideration of the Old Testament messianic prophecies, which Roy regards as essential to ‘open theism’ as a matter of predictive prophecy. He then turns to the ‘New Testament Evidence of Divine Foreknowledge’: initially this is through a consideration of the New Testament language of foreknowledge (for example in a consideration of Acts 2:23, Romans 8:29 & 11:1, 1Peter, etc.), which opens up the question of divine foreknowledge and prayer - in particular in Jesus' exhortation to his disciples. It is then necessary to consider foreknowledge, or limited omniscience, in Jesus: for example, in predictions of his passion, or the behaviour of his disciples, which raises the question of the purpose and value of Jesus' predictions. Having considered the biblical evidence Roy then posits ‘A Different View of Divine Foreknowledge’: ‘In spite of the kind and amount of biblical evidence cited…open theists do not affirm that God infallibly foreknows free human decisions. In addition to philosophical arguments offered in support of their position, they also appeal to biblical texts to support their nonexhaustive view of divine foreknowledge’ (p. 125). In pursuing this line of thought Roy considers the repentance of God in the light of human sin and as a response to intercessory prayer; also the evidence of creedal statements - but also considers biblical passages that assert God does not repent (!). This allows Roy to present metaphorical models and anthropomorphisms (p.159f), raising other texts to support ‘openness’, particularly in the testing of God's chosen people, the Hebrew-Jewish nation, and the use of ‘perhaps’ attributed to Yahweh (p.185f), concluding with consideration as to whether God's questions are rhetorical. He then widens the base of his study to consider ‘Two Critical Interpretive Questions’ (p.195–228): ‘Has our analysis of the biblical evidence been so shaped by the influence of Greek philosophy that we have not read these scriptural texts fairly?’ and ‘Does the Bible teach a twofold understanding of the future and of God's knowledge of it?’; much of the remainder of this section is devoted to wrestling with these questions, and Roy does consider whether conceptual similarities necessitate a causal influence, and whether causal influences as a Greek philosophical category must be viewed negatively; however, this still leaves the question unanswered as to whether our future - from God's perspective - is fixed or partially open. It is at this point that Roy could have extended his work with a systematic study of time-temporality and cause-effect, acknowledging the fallen, paradoxical and incomplete nature of our knowledge, our epistemic limitations, in respect of temporal and divine matters; such a consideration may have released the philosophical log-jam, so to speak, which remains in his work; and, of course, there are also considerations of free will and grace (Augustine). Perhaps he continues to focus too much on ‘open theism’? It is this absence of a full consideration of time-temporality, and for that matter, a full systematic consideration of free will and grace in relation to such an understanding of God's omniscience that leaves me unconvinced of an open theistic perspective, despite his discourse through scripture. He does, however, move on to consider the ‘Practical Implications’ (p.229–278) of his developing argument - essentially from an ecclesiological and pastoral perspective.