Abstract
AbstractAccording to Thomas Aquinas, a miracle had to surpass the whole of the created nature, which meant the visible and corporeal, as well as the invisible and incorporeal nature. Prospero Lambertini (1675–1758), the future Pope Benedict XIV, when he was promoter of the faith, noticed that it was impossible to distinguish a cure that occurred beyond the boundaries of incorporeal and invisible nature (the whole nature) from one that exceeded just corporeal and visible nature. The issue was of utmost importance since it risked delegitimizing the whole system of miracle verification. Consequently, Lambertini, in the fourth book of his magnum opus De servorum Dei beatificatione et beatorum canonizatione (On the Beatification of the Servants of God and the Canonization of the Blessed, 1734–1738), developed a new classification of miracles, which included the works of angels, with the aim of solving the problem. Furthermore, to counteract Spinoza's denial of miracles, he claimed that miracles were not contrary to the laws of nature.
Highlights
Prospero Lambertini’s (1675–1758) reconsideration of the concept of miracle was not the only attempt at revising the relationship between the natural and the supernatural in early modern Catholicism
Whereas the philosophical issues related to the northern European debate on miracles has been in part already outlined, this paper will restrict the inquiry within Catholicism, and in particular it will focus on the works of Lambertini
This apparent contradiction as the peculiarity and the limit of Jesuit rhetoric, which consisted of an attempt to reform Catholicism from within and at the same time to keep it in line with tradition
Summary
Some attitudes and behavior of early modern Catholics concerning the cultural novelties could be considered ambiguous. This is what can be understood of Suarez’s concept of miracle from De legibus In his treatise Disputationes de angelis (1620), Suarez criticizes Aquinas’s definition of miracle as something surpassing the whole of created nature, opting for a looser definition that has to include the work of angels. At the beginning of the section entitled, “Whether angels by assuming bodies, can perform true and miraculous things through them” (Utrum angeli assumentes corpora, per ea possint vera et miraculosa opera efficere), Suarez points out that his argument is only valid if miracles are understood in the broad sense—as something that goes beyond the order of corporeal nature, not beyond the whole of created nature.. When Suarez makes a claim for miracle going beyond corporeal nature, he is not just proposing to expand the capacity of miracle-working to angels He is pushing for a new definition of miracle.
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