Aquinas's Understanding Research Articles

The Concept of «Right» and the Focal Point of Juridicity in Debate between Villey, Tierney, Finnis and Hervada

The article revisits and seeks to clarify and provide with new perspectives the debate between the theoretical approaches of four authors – Michel Villey, Brian Tierney, John Finnis and Javier Hervada – in their accounts of the contemporary formulation of the concept of “ius”. Although all authors analyzed in the paper share common thomistic roots in their respective argumentations on the essential meaning and content of the concept of “right”, they still differ in their accounts with regard to the understanding of Aquinas’s classical juridical realism, the relation between “law” and “right” and the role of subjective rights in history and in today’s juridical discourse. The paper seeks to highlight how such comparative perspective reveals not only the contrasts in the theoretical accounts of these authors with regard to the structural “locus” of the focal point of juridicity, but also renders manifest certain perspectives of integration of each approach with contributions achieved by the other interlocutors of the debate.

Aquinas’ Ontology of Transeunt Causal Activity

Abstract This paper reconstructs and analyzes Thomas Aquinas’ intriguing views on transeunt causal activity, which have been the subject of an interpretive debate spanning from the fifteenth century up until the present. In his Physics commentary, Aquinas defends the Aristotelian positions that (i) the actualization of an agent’s active potential is the motion that it causes in its patient and (ii) action and passion are the same motion. Yet, in other texts, Aquinas claims that (iii) action differs from passion and (iv) “action is in the agent” as subject. This paper proposes a solution for how to reconcile Aquinas’ varying claims about what transeunt causal activity is in reality. In addition to advancing understanding of Aquinas’ views on causal activity, the paper also offers insights into more general topics in his thought, such as the relationship between actualities and accidents and the nature of extrinsic accidents.

The Afterlives of Rape in Medieval English Literature by Suzanne M. Edwards

Reviewed by: The Afterlives of Rape in Medieval English Literature by Suzanne M. Edwards Vickie Larsen Suzanne M. Edwards. The Afterlives of Rape in Medieval English Literature New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Pp. vii, 193. $95.00. Suzanne Edwards's The Afterlives of Rape in Medieval English Literature is not about rape, but about having been raped, about living on within the dominant epistemology of the European Middle Ages as a survivor of sexual assault. Edwards's challenging, deeply troubling—and also supremely timely—introduction challenges her readers to acknowledge [End Page 465] how their own investments in condemning rape and in calling for justice may come at the expense of accompanying survivors in their survival. It opens with a passage from City of God, in which Augustine offers theological consolation to the rape victims of invading Visigoth soldiers during the siege of Rome in 410 ce. For Augustine, Edwards tells us, rape is "an extreme bodily experience of dispossession" that "reorganizes embodiment around the knowledge that one has never been as self-possessed as one might have thought." Augustine defends the "moral, ethical and material" integrity of the rape victim and claims that any shame that a survivor might feel results not from guilt, but from "a consciousness of the self as constitutively dispossessed" (7). Regardless of how others might view the victims of 410, Augustine attributes to them a "painful—but spiritually valuable" knowledge of human limitation (8). I read and I rage at Augustine's homage to the survivor, and at Edwards's investment in it, and perhaps even at her willingness to work through it—carefully and disinterestedly—for her readers. In an age (like every other) when people of all gender identities suffer from sexual violence, some of it inside Christian spaces, Augustine's commitment to seeing victims as they live on after rape—rather than simply averting his eyes—is hardly consoling, and the supreme knowledge of "dispossession" that he accords to rape victims—with its implications of a universal powerlessness against predation—stings like salt in a wound. In Chapter 1, Edwards examines Thomas Aquinas's determination in Summa theologiae that suffering rape in obedience to God counts as martyrdom. Edwards patiently untangles Aquinas's "strained" negotiation of the problem that martyrdom must be chosen willingly while rape is, by definition, a violation of the will (23). She uses Aquinas's understanding of fear in rape narratives—fear of the loss of virginity and fear of surviving the separation of the self from the will—to frame her comparison of Ambrose's and Goscelin of St. Bertin's hagiographic retellings of the life of the Virgin of Antioch. In De virginibus, Ambrose narrates the story of the virgin's double bind: a traditional martyrdom is off the table; the virgin must choose between worshipping idols and being sent to work in a brothel. She chooses the brothel in obedience to her god, and in so doing chooses her own rape. Her first client helps her escape, and they both end up properly martyred, but not until she has consented to rape. According to Edwards, Ambrose's version emphasizes the virgin's understanding of rape as martyrdom, her rescue from it [End Page 466] being convenient for readers, but not essential to her own progress toward martyrdom. Goscelin's telling of the same tale in his Liber confortatorius emphasizes instead the virgin's fear of rape and its shameful aftermath. Goscelin's survivor will not so much be dead to the world, martyred through rape, but will live out whatever remains of her life in penitent humiliation as a whore. Edwards closes this chapter by mapping the links between rape and death in the pseudo-hagiographic Life of Christina of Markyate. Christina is not a martyr, but her pursuit of sanctity requires her to live in fear of rape and repeatedly escape from impending sexual assault. Edwards's partnering of Christina's vita with the hagiographic narratives is not entirely satisfying, insomuch as martyrdom by death or rape do not factor into the narrative (Christina valiantly rescues her virginity for her chosen spouse, Jesus). The hagio-graphic narratives might have been more...

Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective by Jean Porter

Reviewed by: Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective by Jean Porter J. Brian Benestad Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective. By Jean Porter. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2016. Pp. xiii + 286. $40.00 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-8028-7325-5. Porter describes her book as "a study of the virtue of justice as Aquinas presents it in the Summa theologiae, developed in such a way as to bring out the contemporary significance of his account" (x). Porter does not attempt to summarize in any way what Aquinas says about justice in his other extensive writings. She thinks "that Aquinas's overall account of justice and the virtues is the true theory of morality" but will not attempt to prove this statement conclusively in her book (ibid.). She does make clear that she "will offer a constructive expansion of Aquinas's views on justice . . . developing Aquinas's theory in some way, rather than simply interpreting what he says" (6). In other words, readers should be aware that she may depart from Aquinas's account of justice or add new things to it. The remaining parts of chapter 1 focus on the basics of the Thomistic presentation of justice. Justice is a personal virtue of individuals rather than a characteristic of society's basic institutions. It is a perfection of the will, the most excellent of the moral virtues, but inferior to the supernatural virtue of charity. For Aquinas, "the will is perfected through right relations to others" (27). In order to understand justice as a virtue, we need to understand the fundamentals of Aquinas's understanding of virtue. Porter notes that Aquinas begins his analysis with Peter Lombard's definition of virtue, which was, in turn, drawn from Augustine's writings: "Virtue is a good quality of the mind, by which we live righteously, of which no one can make bad use, which God [End Page 317] brings about in us, without us" (18, quoting STh I-II, q. 55, a. 4, which is quoting II Sent., d. 27, q. 5). The last part of the definition only applies to the infused virtues. The word "quality" in the definition refers to a habit or stable disposition inclining a person to do the right thing. Porter also makes her readers aware of the complexity of justice by distinguishing different kinds of justice: general, or legal, justice and particular justice, which is subdivided into distributive and commutative justice. To put justice into practice, a person will always need prudence, she adds with emphasis. More examples of these three kinds of justice and a more discernible order of the book's five chapters in relation to each other would have helped Porter's readers. Already in the second paragraph of chapter 1, Porter notes correctly that Aquinas's treatment of justice as a virtue and a perfection of the will is totally foreign to the theories of justice expounded by John Rawls and his interlocutors. Porter rightly sees that Rawls's "theory of justice . . . proposes an account of the ways in which institutions ought to operate, which kinds of structural arrangements are acceptable, and which kinds of outcomes are acceptable, given basic criteria of fairness and respect" (2). Although Porter says that "Aquinas gets justice right," she immediately adds that "he does not raise, much less address, questions pertaining to social and institutional structures that are central to most contemporary theories of justice" (5). Despite her great appreciation of Aquinas's thought on the virtue of justice, she never says that Rawls and his interlocutors should draw upon Aquinas in order to raise questions pertaining to the practice of the virtues by individuals responsible for the reform of institutions and structures. The constraints of a short review will not allow me to deal thoroughly with the main points of chapters 2 through 5. In the remainder of this review, after briefly mentioning a few insightful points made in these four chapters, I will focus on Porter's nonacceptance of Aquinas's way of evaluating the morality of the human act. In sum, she thinks that his analysis leads to more prohibitions than are acceptable today. In chapter 2, Porter directs...

A Trinitarian Anthropology: Adrienne von Speyr and Hans Urs von Balthasar in Dialogue with Thomas Aquinas by Michele M. Schumacher

Reviewed by: A Trinitarian Anthropology: Adrienne von Speyr and Hans Urs von Balthasar in Dialogue with Thomas Aquinas by Michele M. Schumacher Matthew DuBroy A Trinitarian Anthropology: Adrienne von Speyr and Hans Urs von Balthasar in Dialogue with Thomas Aquinas by Michele M. Schumacher Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2014), xii + 451 pp. There has long been appreciation of the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar, but lately there has been a growing criticism of his work, often by disciples of St. Thomas Aquinas. Adrienne von Speyr has received little attention in the discussion of Balthasar's work outside of the notes that critics have made that, at key, highly questionable points, Balthasar follows Adrienne. Adrienne von Speyr was a mystic whose works Balthasar, her spiritual director, editor, publisher, interpreter, and stenographer, considered more important than his own, and whose works he largely intended to translate into a more technical expression within his own oeuvre. In fact, Balthasar "maintained that 'her work and mine are neither psychologically nor philologically to be separated; two halves of a single whole'" (7). Schumacher's book is a welcome addition that brings together Balthasar, Adrienne, and St. Thomas. The goal of this book is to present the theological anthropology of Adrienne in systematic terms supplied by Balthasar's own theological anthropology. By doing this, Schumacher wants to accomplish at least three things. First, she wants to show that Adrienne's mystical insights have theological value. Since Balthasar and Adrienne thought a mystic should be judged based almost entirely on objective content, Schumacher also intends to provide a basis for theologians to judge the objective value and the inspiration of Adrienne's works. Schumacher herself is convinced of their worth and authenticity, finding in her the genius that many think originates in Balthasar's work. Second, Schumacher aims to help readers of Balthasar be more aware of Adrienne's profound influence [End Page 1009] on him and to show their unity. Third, and finally, Schumacher intends to initiate a dialogue between disciples of Balthasar and those of St. Thomas. She does this by responding to Balthasar's critics (mostly Thomists) and by showing the harmony between the work of Balthasar and Adrienne, on the one hand, and Aquinas, on the other. She chose St. Thomas as an interlocutor largely because she is concerned with reconciling the doctrine of Balthasar and Adrienne with the Catholic theological tradition. Schumacher is suited well for this work, since she is both sympathetic with Balthasar and Adrienne and a diligent reader of St. Thomas with the aid of important Dominican theologians (Bernhard Blankenhorn, Gilles Emery, Jean-Pierre Torrell, and Michael Sherwin). In the first chapter, Schumacher compares Aquinas's understanding of how analogy works in theology with Balthasar's and Adrienne's understanding, doing so by arguing for different but complimentary Trinitarian analogies: Aquinas using the psychological analogy and Balthasar/Adrienne using the analogy of freedom. In addition to using analogy, which is characteristic of Aquinas, Balthasar's perspective is often largely katalogical, "a perspective proceeding downward from the revealed archetype to the image" (15–16). Then, in chapters 2–6, Schumacher deals with a particular tension, a difference-in-unity that is found within the Balthasarian/Speyrian corpus. Tension (Spannung) is not meant to imply conflict, but rather "unity, communion and love," and it is ultimately resolved in the Trinitarian love of God (64). Seen from the perspective of Trinitarian love, the whole and, as a consequence, the inner coherence of the parts is made more manifest. It is not simply Trinitarian love, but "Trinitarian love in the form of the reciprocal surrender of the divine Persons" that sheds light on everything (375). "Surrender" renders the German Hingabe and means "an active letting go (or letting be) by way of a generous outpouring, as it were, or a passive but nonetheless willful letting be or letting go by way of availability, consent, and receptivity" (308). The Trinity itself, then, is a difference-in-unity and sheds light on the other differences-in-unities, and therefore the notion of surrender unites the various tensions, just as it does in the Trinity. Chapter 2 concerns the tension between...

Aquinas’s Theory of Perception: An Analytic Reconstruction by Anthony J. Lisska

Reviewed by: Aquinas’s Theory of Perception: An Analytic Reconstruction by Anthony J. Lisska David L. Whidden III Aquinas’s Theory of Perception: An Analytic Reconstruction. By Anthony J. Lisska. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. xviii + 353. $99.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-19-877790-8. At the beginning of this monograph, Anthony Lisska quotes Dorothea Frede’s observation that “the vis cogitativa is, for Aquinas, ‘an embarrassment’” (4). In the remainder of this very helpful book, Lisska provides a sustained rebuttal to Frede’s statement by arguing that the vis cogitativa is crucial to Aquinas’s overall theory of perception because it “is the faculty by which human perceivers are aware of individuals as individuals of a natural kind” (4). In the course of this argument, Lisska makes an important contribution to our understanding of Aquinas’s philosophy of mind, beginning with a detailed analysis of his understanding of sensation and ending with a description of how phantasms work with the agent and possible intellects. Because the vis cogitativa plays an important role in how we come to perceive objects as individual objects, which can later be abstracted, Lisska carefully walks the reader through each step of the process of sensation, perception, and abstraction, with a special emphasis on Aquinas’s understanding of the inner senses. In pursuing his analysis, Lisska engages with two sets of conversation partners. First, among contemporary philosophers, he is primarily engaged with other analytical Thomists and at times affirms and at times corrects the work of Robert Pasnau, John Haldane, Eleonore Stump, and Anthony Kenny, among others. Part of his disagreement with some of these contemporary Thomists is methodological, as he argues that Aquinas offers a more robust account of sensation and the inner senses in his commentary on De anima than the more commonly preferred Summa theologiae, which offers an abbreviated account of his philosophy of mind since it is focused on theological issues. In engaging his second set of interlocutors, Lisska demon-strates his concern with the negative impact the British Empiricists (Hume, Locke, Berkeley, et al.) have had upon contemporary philosophies of mind and sees Aquinas’s theories of sensation and cognition as a helpful antidote to the philosophical cul-de-sacs into which their approaches to sensation have led us. In his first chapter, Lisska raises the fundamental question of the book, which is how Aquinas understands our ability to be aware of individuals as individuals rather than as a bundle of sensations. As Lisska is describing this problem, he also argues for the importance of Aquinas’s metaphysics for understanding his overall philosophy of mind, especially perception, adopting Haldane’s maxim “that there is ‘no epistemology without ontology’” (11). Additionally, Lisska provides his methodological case for the superiority of the commentary on De anima over the Summa theologiae with regard to understanding Aquinas’s theory of perception, arguing that the Summa theologiae focuses on the intellect and will and so does not contain a full account of perception, because the theological commitments of the Summa [End Page 625] limit Aquinas’s need to treat perception (23–27). This is not to say that Lisska ignores the Summa, but rather that he finds the commentary on De anima to provide a fuller account of perception, one that can help us better to interpret the Summa on perception or to fill in blanks that the Summa leaves in Aquinas’s overall theory of perception. In his next two chapters, Lisska provides his understanding of the metaphysical framework in which Aquinas’s theory of perception operates. In the second chapter, he gives an account of Aquinas’s theory of intentionality, arguing in six propositions that Aquinas is both an ontological and epistemological realist, that “esse intentionale is the cognitive content of an act of awareness” and is dependent upon the ontological status of the knower, and that Aquinas is an externalist in his philosophy of mind (37). Lisska points out that the foundation of Aquinas’s philosophy of mind is his distinction between act and potency, so that our senses and intellects must be properly disposed to receive forms. In the third chapter, Lisska puts Aquinas’s philosophy of...

Consilia sapientis amici: Saint Thomas Aquinas on the Foundation of the Evangelical Counsels in Theological Anthropology by Viktória Hedvig Deák

Reviewed by: Consilia sapientis amici: Saint Thomas Aquinas on the Foundation of the Evangelical Counsels in Theological Anthropology by Viktória Hedvig Deák Basil Cole, O.P. Consilia sapientis amici: Saint Thomas Aquinas on the Foundation of the Evangelical Counsels in Theological Anthropology. By Viktória Hedvig Deák. Rome: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 2014. Pp. 447. $45 (paper). ISBN: 978-88-7839-281-6. A doctoral dissertation rarely merits a book review, but it does when there is a gap in knowledge in a particular theological branch, as is the case today concerning the evangelical counsels. The author of this work, a Hungarian Dominican Sister, has written an exceedingly comprehensive book on St. Thomas Aquinas's understanding of the counsels of Christ, our friend—as Aquinas often calls him in his writings. Her secondary sources are too plentiful to mention in a book review, but a major mentor in this theological area is Servais Pinckaers. Deak is somewhat critical of the views of Francisco Suarez, Karl Rahner, and Hans Urs von Balthasar on this topic. This is a masterful book about the great counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience as linked intimately with the precepts or commandments of God. All of the counsels, including the evangelical ones, are meant to be understood as advice even for those not called to religious life. When the counsels are activated by the decision of a human person, they normally facilitate the living of the precepts and at the same time, in the higher stages of the spiritual life, express a deep intensification of divine love when the occasion to make an act of supererogation demands it. Possible works beyond what is obligatory emerge more profoundly as one grows in the virtues, and they become inner demands for the person "madly" in love with God. For the less advanced, the counsels act as healing agents sweeping aside excessive anxiety or solicitude for the goods of this world, that is, material goods, married life, and the desire to control one's life, often called self-determination, and autonomy. The desires associated with these goods usually become unnecessary or excessive, making growth in divine love more difficult to achieve because the mind becomes cluttered and unable to concentrate on God, the friend and lover. Thus, these counsels are not principles of life extrinsic to the commandments, [End Page 151] nor are they meant exclusively for those consecrated by vows. Whether in the state of religion or marriage, all are called to holiness, which means seeking the perfection of infused charity. Acts that flow from the counsels produce a lived freedom for intimacy with the Triune God. Deák is careful to show that for Thomas the obstacles to life are not created goods, but extreme anxiety over or excessive desire for them. Not being able to manage solicitudo (major distractions, tensions, worries, and the like) tends to reduce the ability of the human person to contemplate God and so grow in charity. However, when adopted the counsels heal many false desires and so reduce the anxieties hindering the thirst for truth and goodness embedded in the love for God. Chastity (continence), recognized today as the foundation of consecrated life, is therefore natural to some because the desire for contemplation as such is a natural inclination. While for Thomas, poverty becomes the foundation of religious life, the virginal life is well appreciated in his writings. For instance, in his definition of religious life at the beginning of the Pars prima of his Contra impugnantes, he gives chastity top billing, listing and treating the counsels in the order chastity, poverty, and obedience. Later on he will change that order to poverty, chastity, and obedience. Deák examines all of the relevant major works of Thomas to show his many insights, but she especially relies on his commentaries on John's Gospel, Paul's Epistles, Peter Lombard's Sentences, and Pseudo-Dionysius's On the Divine Names. In other words, her tome opens a gold mine of Thomas's thought, and in addition it discusses a wide swath of secondary literature of Thomists as well as the writings of St. Bonaventure and the adversaries...

Post-Truth and Vices Opposed to Truth

Philosopher Harry Frankfurt has famously coined bullshit as a technical term—it refers not to outright lying but rather to a casual indifference to truth. Disregard for is accepted and even expected in many contexts, yet it creates conditions for gross injustice and dehumanization. I offer an account of widespread cultural indifference to as structural sin, a condition I call truth Drawing on Thomas Aquinas's understanding of the virtue of ( veracitas ), I map out the conceptual framework that must be in place before Christian ethicists can provide an adequate moral analysis of structural indifference.

The Veracity of Prophecy and Christ's Knowledge

AbstractIt is widely assumed by scholars that Christ was in error on such matters as an expectation that the final judgement and its accompanying events would occur within the timeframe of a generation. While accepting that Christ did indeed prophesy his return within this timeframe, a recent co‐authored work When the Son of Man Didn't Come aims to defend the veracity of his prophecy by drawing on the same historical‐critical method that has given rise to doubts about it. The authors propose a distinction between Mosaic and Jeremianic prophecy, arguing that Christ's was of the latter kind, which was present in the Ancient Near East, the Old and New Testaments, and other Jewish and Christian authors. Their argument, however, is at risk of reducing the truthfulness of a prophecy to its success. Hence this article explores a further distinction between two kinds of prophecy made in Thomas Aquinas's account of the truthfulness of prophecy, mapping it onto the Mosaic‐Jeremianic distinction, and arguing that, in view of this linking of Aquinas's understanding of prophecy to the argument of the book, the book certainly adds to the set of proposed theological explanations of how Christ's prophecy of his return was true.

Christianity 2017: Reflections on the Protestant Reformation by Tony Equale

Reviewed by: Christianity 2017: Reflections on the Protestant Reformation by Tony Equale Paul F. Knitter Tony Equale, Christianity 2017: Reflections on the Protestant Reformation. Willis, VA: Boundary Rock Publishers, 2016. Pp. 256. $23.00, paper. Among the many scholarly reflections marking the 500th Anniversary (2017) of the Protestant Reformation, this one is sure to stand out. Scholar, activist, former Catholic priest, Equale makes a carefully crafted historical and philosophical case that the Reformation actually missed its mark. What needed reforming was never really reformed. The problem was not a misunderstanding of justification but "a misrepresentation of the character of 'God' derived from and in turn nourishing a pathological evaluation of human nature." That, he tells us, is "the point" of his book (p. 178). From Equale's perspective, the God who tormented Luther and who supported the theocratic political structures of European kings and princes (as well as of Roman emperors after Constantine) was not "the Jewish Yahweh that Jesus knew as 'Father'" (p. 5). The loving God of Jesus was "irreparably assassinated" first by "a Platonic matter-spirit metaphysics, coupled to a cosmic good-evil dualism that defined humanity as morally crippled and imprisoned by matter, and 'God' as remote and inaccessible." But, the most influential assassin of Jesus' God was, according to Equale, Augustine with his doctrine of a punitive personal God "who ruled a corrupt humankind, saving some and damning others" and who demanded obedience to both himself and the temporal rulers (p. 178). Luther's "tower-experience" that saved him "by faith alone" identified the problem of this transcendent, punitive God but did not solve it. Even after his "sola fide" revelation, Luther believed he was just as corrupt and that God was just as wrathful as before; "by Scripture alone" he knew he would not be punished only because of the substitutionary death of Christ. "Luther never challenged that 'God' [Augustine's]; he simply found a way to live with it or vault over it, through faith" (pp. 53, 37, 194). Equale laments that this transcendent, [End Page 470] punitive God "is as solidly in place today for religionists and 'atheists' alike as it was in 1517" (p. 54). However one might assess Equale's analysis of Luther and Augustine, his own suggestions for how our understanding of God and the human condition can be reformed are both empirical (grounded in contemporary evolutionary science) and inspiring (equally grounded in scripture and tradition). Connecting Aquinas's understanding of the divine as "esse in se subsistens" (being subsisting in itself) and science's understanding of matter-as-energy, Equale concludes that "there is only one 'esse' and it is 'God'" (p. 96). Therefore, "'matter' and 'spirit' no longer refer to separate things. Neither word is valid any longer. What exists is one 'substance' bearing the qualities of both. I call it 'matter's energy'" (p. 227). He concludes that "the only metaphysics that will support Jesus' message [that humans are able to live God's life and love] is some form of panentheism . . . we are 'indeed God's offspring' . . . by nature we 'live and move and have our being in 'God'" (p. 197). Critical of the reformers, Equale intends here to carry on their still urgent task. His multiple writings, offered outside the precincts of the academy (see https://tonyequale.wordpress.com), deserve a greater hearing and conversation within the academy. Paul F. Knitter Union Theological Seminary (emer.), New York, NY Copyright © 2017 Journal of Ecumenical Studies

Mind over Matter : Aquinas’s Transformation of Aristotle’s Definition of « Change »

Cet article présente une analyse de l’interprétation de la définition aristotélicienne du mouvement dans Physique III. 1 (201a10-11) par Thomas d’Aquin, notamment en avançant deux thèses. Premièrement, Thomas comprend le mouvement comme une actualisation de la potentialité d’être mu. Deuxièmement, nous montrons que d’après Thomas le mouvement est une entité semi-réelle, dans la mesure où le processus du mouvement est dans l’esprit de celui qui perçoit. Ces thèses nous mènent à conclure que Thomas d’Aquin ne reprend pas simplement la définition aristotélicienne du mouvement, mais qu’il la transforme.

Narrative, Casuistry, and the Function of Conscience in Thomas Aquinas

Both the function of one’s conscience, as Thomas Aquinas understands it, and the work of casuistry in general involve deliberating about which universal moral principles are applicable in particular cases. Thus, understanding how conscience can function better also indicates how casuistry might be done better – both on Thomistic terms, at least. I claim that, given Aquinas’ descriptions of certain parts of prudence ( synesis and gnome ) and the role of moral virtue in practical knowledge, understanding particular cases more as narratives, or parts of narratives, likely will result, all else being equal, in more accurate moral judgments of particular cases. This is especially important in two kinds of cases: first, cases in which Aquinas recognizes universal moral principles do not specify the means by which they are to be followed; second, cases in which the type-identity of an action – and thus the norms applicable to it – can be mistaken.

CAUSALIDADE E NATUREZA NA COSMOLOGIA DE TOMÁS DE AQUINO

Aquinas’ conception of causality, especially when associated to the notions of creation and nature, grounds his cosmology as presented in the Summa contra gentiles . Two theses are central to this cosmology. The first claims that the divine causality bestows order upon the world. The second in turn maintains that the set of stars, the heaven, rules and moves the sublunar realm, which necessarily occurs due to divine causality. There is therefore an articulation conceived by Aquinas between the two theses. To show this articulation is the aim of this paper. For this, I investigate how Aquinas understands and associates the notions of causality, creation and nature in such a way that it guarantees both divine creation and the operation proper to natural beings, among which stands out the heaven, which, in virtue of continuous locomotion, sets the condition for the actualization of beings’ potentialities.

Natural Final Causality and Providence in Aquinas

AbstractThomas Aquinas articulated an understanding of nature that sought to maintain together the integrity of created causality and God's providential ordering of the cosmos. Developing and combining Aristotelian and Neoplatonic approaches to nature and to final causality, Thomas formulated a horizontal or linear final causality wrapped within a larger vertical or circular final causality. This formulation balanced two seemingly opposed principles. First, that natures operate through intrinsic principles toward determinate ends. Second, that non-cognitive agents must be directed toward an end extrinsically. Aquinas balanced these two principles by situating the first within the second such that God creates and directs natures toward determinate ends through divinely bestowed principles intrinsic to those natures. In this way, Aquinas's understanding of providence underlies his approach to nature.

Thomas Aquinas, Josef Seifert, and the Metaphysics of Respecting Persons

I. Introduction Jacques Maritain once quipped that can be more remote from the facts than the belief that 'personalism' is one school or doctrine, as some philosophies have nothing more in common than the term 'person.' (1) Nevertheless, there are at least several distinguishing features of any genuinely philosophy: a belief in the unbridgeable divide between persons and nonpersons, and in the inalienable dignity of the former; an emphasis on a person's incommunicability or uniqueness; a defense of the personalist norm, which states that persons ought to be affirmed for their own sake (or ought never to be treated merely as means to an end); and, finally, the rejection of any political system that subordinates a to the social whole or, conversely, that marginalizes a person's obligations toward the common good. (2) If these are accurate standards for identifying a system or thinker, then Thomas Aquinas appears to be a paradigmatic personalist, at least at first glance. He certainly thinks that the difference between persons and nonpersons is a difference in kind, not degree. (3) He also defends the inherent dignity of persons by arguing that the term person refers to is most perfect in all of nature. (4) Further, he thinks that a is incommunicable or radically unique because she is individuated in part through her freely performed actions. (5) With respect to how we ought to treat persons, he says that a ought to be loved with the love of friendship, which involves willing the good of a for that person's own sake. (6) And, finally, Aquinas states that a human person, as a member of the species Homo sapiens, must at times subordinate her good for the sake of the common good; however, this does not make her a mere part within a whole, because she is willed by God for her own sake (or as an end in herself). (7) True, Aquinas does not give us a systematic or complete personalism, but (according to the above criteria) he certainly seems to be a thinker. Karol Wojtyia goes so far as to argue that a broadly Thomistic anthropology and ethics are necessary for grounding an adequate personalism. And he makes this argument despite criticizing Aquinas for failing to explore personal subjectivity and lived experience. In sum, Wojtyia focuses on what he takes to be missing in Aquinas's account of the person, but he affirms and defends its underlying metaphysical principles. (8) Josef Seifert, however, offers a different kind of critique in his Personalism and Personalisms, one that questions the suitability of Aquinas's principles for grounding an adequate personalism. His central argument is that Aquinas's account of the good is incompatible with the respect owed to persons--because Aquinas thinks that something is good only in relation to an appetite, a can be good for another, but not in himself. In what follows, I argue that Seifert's critique fails because he misreads Aquinas's metaethical claims. In particular, he fails to appreciate Aquinas's understanding of the ecstatic (or other-directed) nature of being and goodness. If my interpretation of Aquinas is correct, then his metaphysical principles can ground the proper respect owed to persons. They are, in fact, ideal for doing so. I conclude by suggesting that Seifert's own account of the good needlessly creates a divide between a and his desires, and thereby creates problems for his account of moral motivation. II. Seifert on Aquinas as a Personalist Thinker Seifert does acknowledge that personalism owes a genuine debt to Aquinas: St. Thomas is in a great many respects not only a thinker, but even a true model of a metaphysician. (9) As I noted earlier, however, he thinks that Aquinas's understanding of goodness precludes the possibility of affirming a for her own sake, which is the only appropriate response to the dignity of personhood. …

Espíritu e inmutación espiritual: desarrollos y problemas en Tomas de Aquino

Los conceptos de espíritu e inmutación espiritual, aunque ampliamente olvidados, son de gran interés para comprender la teoría de la percepción en Aquino. En este artículo se sostendrá con fundamentos históricos y sistemáticos que en Aquino el concepto de spiritus es ontológicamente ambiguo, siendo la pregunta principal si este tiene que concebirse como algo principalmente material o inmaterial. La ambivalencia se torna especialmente obvia en su tratamiento de la inmutación espiritual. Una breve mirada a Alberto Magno y a Roger Bacon apunta a que en el siglo 13 había de hecho teorías alternativas a la explicación de Aquino para el proceso perceptual.

HOPE, A MODE OF FAITH: AQUINAS, LUTHER AND BENEDICT XVI ON HEBREWS 11:1

In articulating a theological account of Christian hope faithful to its objective character, Pope Benedict XVI summons the authority of Thomas Aquinas, citing his comments on faith and hope as those terms occur in Hebrews 11:1. Benedict sets off Aquinas's understanding of hope‐filled faith's objectivity by placing it in contrast with Luther's apparently more subjective interpretation of faith in Hebrews 11:1 as conviction. Closer analysis of both Aquinas and Luther, however, suggests a greater overlap in their exegetical conclusions, opening the way for a more nuanced appreciation of a virtue whose living possession and exercise, as the rest of Spe Salvi confirms, involves both objective and subjective dimensions

Quaestio Disputata the Recovery of Aquinas's Action Theory: A Reply to William Murphy

The article addresses a recent claim regarding Aquinas's understanding of voluntary human action; namely, that moral species is determined by an object that functions as the proximate end of a chosen behavior. This reply examines the context of the argument, the text on which the argument is said to be based, and Aquinas's more specific texts in regard to formulating a moral intention to an end and choosing a way to accomplish that end.

The Human Body and Human Happiness in Aquinas's Summa Theologiae

AbstractThere appears to be no serious treatment of the positive role played by the body in Aquinas's account of human happiness. This would seem to be a significant gap in the literature given Aquinas's well known insistence on the human person as a body-soul unity. This paper aims at taking a first step in filling-in the gap by considering Aquinas's discussion of the body's part in human happiness in the Secunda Pars of the Summa theologiae. In particular it considers the place of the body in each of the three different forms of happiness that Aquinas talks about there. It is perhaps the role of the body in the third form of happiness – the perfect happiness of the beatific vision – that is most crucial to understand since this is human happiness simpliciter. Although the body has a part to play here too, Aquinas's understanding of it is not without problems.

Rediscovering Aquinas and the Sacraments ed. by Matthew Levering, Michael Dauphinais

97 Book Reviews RH is a book well worth reading, and Hillenbrand’s basic theological premise, that “one must be active not only in the liturgy but in the extension of the liturgy in the world” (130), should not be forgotten. Indeed, Tuzik’s authorial hope is well grounded: “that the publication of this book will keep the fires burning for still more progress in liturgical renewal and social justice, for much of what Reynold Hillenbrand believed and taught is still useful in the life of the Church today” (ix). David Pitt Loras College Dubuque, IA Matthew Levering and Michael Dauphinais, eds. Rediscovering Aquinas and the Sacraments Chicago/Mundelein IL: Hillenbrand Books, 2009 xiv + 143 pages. Paperback. $18.00 As the title of the book suggests, this work centers on the recovery of Aquinas’ sacramental theology. Though not a comprehensive introduction to the sacraments in Aquinas, it provides a good primer that allows one to enter into the key points of Aquinas’ thought on each of the seven sacraments. In addition, it examines the notions of worship and liturgical solemnitas. The book consists of a compilation of essays, drawing from many notable Thomistic scholars. Even with the diverse approaches of the authors, several general points emerge from the work. The first is that there is a dearth of scholarship on the sacraments in Aquinas. The editors state in their introduction that “Aquinas’ sacramental theology is not particularly well represented today in theological formation,” and therefore “a new introduction to St Thomas Aquinas’s sacramental theology is needed” (x). Part of the reason for this is that Aquinas’ theology in general is misunderstood as overly rationalistic. The late Cardinal Avery Dulles describes this common misconception as follows: “Most of us think of Thomas Aquinas as a man totally absorbed in scholastic abstractions, a man of books who put his feelings aside in order to follow out the demands of an inexorable logic” (1). What all the authors demonstrate is that St Thomas actually had what Dulles describes as “a burning love for the liturgy,” which flows forth from “an intense and unremitting life of worship” (1). Recovering Aquinas’ sacramental theology should not be seen as a simply historical pursuit, but rather one ordered toward the renewal of contemporary theology. These essays represent Aquinas’ thought 98 Antiphon 15.1 (2011) as deeply spiritual, rooted in God’s trinitarian life and our liturgical participation in it, which at the same time uses metaphysics to support this trajectory. The mystical, personal, and relational aspects of Aquinas’ sacramental theology are enhanced by a philosophical depth that is clearly theocentric, hylomorphic, and realist. This can be seen especially in the consistent relation that is highlighted between the natural and supernatural in Aquinas’ sacramental thought. The sacraments reflect our hylomorphic nature and arouse devotion in us through the use of signs. Aquinas’ analogy, referenced throughout the book, of the order of the sacraments from bodily life, serves as one striking example of this relation. Finally, at 143 pages the work is certainly not an exhaustive or even comprehensive introduction to the topic, but rather a brief introduction that highlights the key points that shed light on the whole of Aquinas’ sacramental theology . The brevity of the book by no means dismisses the important insights of the book that speculatively advance understanding of Aquinas’ thought.1 Cardinal Dulles in the first chapter provides the general principles of worship in the Summa theologiae that provide the context for Aquinas’ treatment of the sacraments. The three general principles he discusses are religion, examining Aquinas treatment of it as a virtue; the sacred, which he exposits as a “relational reality” that “belongs to whatever is connected to the divine”; and the ecclesial dimension, which shows the Church as the locus of true worship (2, 4, 9). Michael Dauphinais begins the direct treatment of the sacraments by looking at Christ and the metaphysics of baptism, focusing particularly on the enduring role of baptism in the Christian life by initiating a new creation and providing the basis for all Christian worship through the imparting of a character. Robert Miner presents a straightforward explanation of Aquinas’ description of confirmation in the Summa, with an...