This article examines a fundamental transformation in thirteenth-century theory of science by tracing the shifting role of the subiectum scientiae in scholastic theology. While Aristotelian epistemics defined a science through a unitary subject conceived as a logical genus, medieval debates-especially within the Parisian university context-revealed increasing tensions when applying this framework to theology. Focusing on key figures such as Robert Kilwardby, Thomas Aquinas, and Giles of Rome, the article reconstructs an epistemological turn whereby the subject of science was progressively reinterpreted in relation to the intellect and its objects. Kilwardby's essentialist redefinition of the subject as a unified nature laid the groundwork for this development. Aquinas advanced it further by integrating the notion of obiectum and emphasizing the role of the intellect, introducing a dual account in which both subject and formal object contribute to the unity of a science. The decisive shift occurs in Giles of Rome, who effectively collapses the distinction by identifying the subject with the principal object of cognition, thereby centering epistemology on the relation between intellect and object. This reorientation foregrounded the limits of human cognition and intensified debates about the scientific status of theology, particularly in contrast to divine and beatific knowledge. The article argues that these developments culminate in an emergent notion of "subjective science," wherein the identity and validity of scientific knowledge become inseparable from the capacities of the knowing subject. This medieval trajectory, far from being anachronistic, offers a historically grounded account of the epistemic conditions that anticipate later conceptions of subjectivity.

ABSTRACT This paper examines the claim in God, Science, the Evidence that recent scientific discoveries converge toward evidence for a creator God. After clarifying the authors' relative, non-demonstrative understanding of evidence, it asks whether science crosses into metaphysics. Through cosmology, thermodynamics, and the limits of scientific models, the paper argues that neither the Big Bang nor cosmic heat death scientifically demonstrates a metaphysical beginning or end. Drawing on Dominique Lambert, Thomas Aquinas, and Ted Peters, it distinguishes creation, metaphysical beginning, and natural beginning, concluding that science may inspire metaphysical reflection but cannot establish God's existence empirically.

Can Catholics ethically use GLP-1 agonists to pursue the goal of weight loss? I argue that the goal of maintaining a healthy weight should serve the further ends of caring for the good gift of one's own body and pursuing the virtuous beatitude which befits the human person. Drawing from Thomas Aquinas, I argue that temperance is an integral part of human flourishing. I apply the work of other Catholic ethicists on analogous behavior-modifying drugs to consider whether GLP-1 agonists facilitate or thwart the development of temperance. I conclude that the drug may contribute to insensibility (the opposite of temperance) and undermine the moral agent's development of a Eucharistic disposition toward the gift of food. Finally, I argue that GLP-1 agonists must not be regarded as a fix-all solution when the greatest share of America's obesity crisis is borne by the poor and marginalized. Rather, Catholics must recognize and reform underlying unjust socioeconomic structures, such as food deserts, and the American culture of food consumerism, which make it more difficult for disadvantaged communities to exercise responsible stewardship of their bodies.

A book review essay on The Christian Structure of Politics: On the De Regno of Thomas Aquinas, by Fr. William McCormick.

According to Saint Thomas Aquinas, following Saint Gregory the Great, acedia or sadness in the face of divine blessings is one of the causes of despair. To the extent that joy in contemplating the truth is a remedy for acedia, knowledge can be considered an instrument at the service of hope. The philosopher Byung-Chul Han characterizes today’s society as a society without hope and appeals to the contemplative life as a necessary counterpoint to recovering the spirit of hope. In this communication, we attempt to delimit the scope and limits of such a proposal in light of the teachings of Aquinas

Hope is a protective factor for mental health, especially when a person goes through difficult situations in life. While it does not resolve the situation, it strengthens the individual by giving them reasons to persevere and make decisions that help them overcome life’s challenges. It is a resilience factor, closely related to what Viktor Frankl proposed with the notion of the meaning of life. The theological psychology of Thomas Aquinas allows for the integration of the human need for meaning with the call to participate in divine life, as Augustine of Hippo expressed when he exclaimed: “My heart is restless until it rests in You, Lord.” Integral psychotherapy cannot separate the need for meaning from participation in divine life, nor be satisfied with a merely pragmatic use of hope in therapeutic progress. Instead, it must understand the transformation that occurs in the person who directs their hope toward the supernatural end to which they have been called: beatitude.

This article proposes an account of the fundamental role of the theology and philosophy of the Angelic Doctor in the life of the church, drawing on an interpretation of the Motu Proprio Doctor Angelici. It argues that the charism of rational clarity, togheter with the gifts of knowledge and wisdom characterizes Thomas Aquinas’ thought and grounds the enduring mission of guiding the Church’s path, particularly in our time, given the distinctive capacity of his principles to enlighten, order and confirm in truth, and to dispel doubts and refute errors

This article explores the link between friendship and hope, with the aim of investigating whether it is possible to find, in the shared life between friends, a foun- dation that nourishes the hope of attaining the full good and happiness towards which human beings are oriented as their ultimate fulfilment, consisting in contemplation. To this end, it delves into the thought of Thomas Aquinas and the classical tradition that has addressed these questions

This study explores the Christian leadership paradigm based on the 13th-century philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, focusing on its relevance to contemporary leadership practices, especially in addressing social transformation. Amid growing challenges such as moral crises and social inequality, the need for ethical, spiritually grounded leadership has become urgent. The purpose of this study is to examine how Thomistic principles caritas (charity), prudentia (wisdom), justitia (justice), and bonum commune (common good) can guide modern Christian leadership. Using a qualitative descriptive methodology, this research conducted a theological hermeneutic analysis of Aquinas's writings, comparing them with real-world social transformation examples, such as the La Red community's impact on Bellavista Prison. The results reveal that Thomistic leadership principles provide a moral and ethical framework that not only fosters organizational effectiveness but also drives social change. By focusing on service, justice, and moral integrity, the study highlights how these principles can address the pressing issues of public integrity, structural poverty, and social solidarity in today's context. The conclusion suggests that the Thomistic model of leadership is not merely a theoretical construct but a practical tool for transforming societal structures through moral virtue and a commitment to the common good. Future research could expand on these findings in diverse organizational contexts.

Existence and essence in the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas

The advent of CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing represents a transformative moment in biotechnology, enabling genome editing with unprecedented precision, scale, and accessibility. This scientific breakthrough holds genuine promise for curing heritable diseases and advancing personalized medicine, yet it also introduces profound moral and theological challenges. This paper offers a Christian bioethical analysis of CRISPR through the lens of the imago Dei, drawing from the moral reasoning of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. It contrasts utilitarian and autonomy-based frameworks in contemporary bioethics with a theological anthropology that grounds human dignity in the divine image rather than in genetic perfection or functional capacity. After presenting the scientific foundations of gene editing, the paper examines key ethical tensions-therapy versus enhancement, eugenic reasoning, the destruction of embryos, and intergenerational responsibility. Finally, it proposes a theological framework informed by virtue ethics, the principle of double effect, and a Christ-centered vision of human flourishing. The goal is not to reject gene editing categorically but to cultivate moral wisdom that upholds the sanctity of life, respects human limitation, and directs scientific vocation toward healing and justice.

The prime mover’s notable god-like characteristics, such as pure actuality, omnipotence, and unchangeability constituted the further blend of the figure into many religions, often as God. The most prominent is Thomas Aquinas’ modification of prime mover into God of Christian Theology, heavily based upon Aristotle’s metaphysics. However, there is no evidence in line with the that Aristotle’s prime mover is intended as God; Rather, Aristotle, as an advocate of science and physics, does not cite omnipotent power in any other instances. This essay intends to investigate the extent to which Aristotelian metaphysics is modified through the hands of influential philosopher Thomas Aquinas and evaluate the extent to which Aquinas’ five ways is reliant on Aristotle’s fundamentals, examining the bilateral interactions between Aristotelian philosophy and Christian theology made possible by the interphase of Thomas Aquinas. This essay concludes that while Aquinas’ modifications have significantly influenced Christian theology, the original concept of Aristotle's Prime Mover does not explicitly represent a deity. The relationship between Aristotelian and Christian thought reflects a nuanced interaction, where Aquinas built upon Aristotle’s foundations to support religious beliefs. Thus, the validity of ancient religious concepts remains tied to the authenticity of Aristotle’s assertions.

This article proposes a reading of the Gospel according to Mark through the lens of the category of wonder (admiratio), understood as a theological and spiritual disposition essential to the Christian experience. Mark's narrative is marked by episodes of astonishment at the figure of Jesus, whose authority and actions provoke awe in disciples, crowds, and adversaries. Wonder, far from being a mere narrative device, is presented as a path to faith. The analysis draws upon philosophical and theological traditions — from Plato and Aristotle to Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Josef Pieper — which conceive of admiration as the origin of knowledge and the beginning of wisdom. In particular, Pieper highlights wonder as a contemplative posture and openness to mystery, in contrast to the modern logic of productivity. In this sense, the Gospel of Mark does not aim to explain the mystery of Christ, but to provoke in the reader an experience of awe that disposes them to faith. The text concludes that admiratio is more than a fleeting emotion: it is an existential structure that sustains one’s gaze and inaugurates the path of wisdom.

Abstract Jacques Maritain’s contributions to the philosophy of art and beauty are of great historical and philosophical importance. Art and Scholasticism (1920) in particular brought unprecedented attention to the place of beauty in the thought of Thomas Aquinas and provided other substantial insights on the relation of the fine arts to being. Maritain’s account of beauty, however, emphasizes the invisibility or ‘secret’ nature of ontological form, however, in a manner that shows the influence of modern European romanticism and modernism and that does not accurately reflect the thought of Aquinas or that of Aristotle and Pseudo-Dionysius, both of whom are the chief sources of Aquinas’s discussion of the nature of beauty. This essay argues for a Dionysian account of integrity, harmony, and clarity that suggests a closer relationship between Aquinas’s three conditions of beauty than Maritain’s discussion indicates.

This article deals with the analysis of selected parts of Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae that contain certain parts of his economic thinking and with the subsequent comparison of his economic thought with related fields of contemporary economic theory and economic life that is determined by inland legislation. The overlaps of Aquinas’s economic thinking into the present times were found by the research process, among others in the area of price, consumer protection, restitution and profit. The absence of ethics in contemporary (positive) economics then contrasts sharply with the economic thinking of Thomas Aquinas.

Abstract In this paper, I argue that shame ( verecundia ) functions as a key passion, revealing the complex structure of human affectivity and shedding new light on the understanding of Aquinas’s theory of the passions. In numerous passions, such as sadness, fear, or pleasure, the appetitive motion and the accompanying bodily changes follow the same direction – expansion or contraction – according to a common sensory basis. In contrast, shame presents a clear exception: while the appetite contracts inward, vital spirit and heat expand outward, producing blushing. According to Aquinas, passions are motions of the sensitive appetite accompanied by bodily change. Although shame retains this structure, its change is nevertheless formed through the redundantia of the higher faculties, which leads me to argue that it occupies an intermediate position between ‘passions properly speaking’ and ‘purely intellectual pseudo-passions’. By analyzing shame in this light, I demonstrate that human passions should be understood not as purely natural or rational, but as complex intersections of both.

Abstract Jacques Maritain draws from the wisdom of Thomas Aquinas in order to distinguish between art and prudence and to argue for the indirect influence of morality on art. He extends Thomas’s notion of knowledge by connaturality or affective knowledge, as it is sometimes called, to the domain of art and poetry. Maritain’s move here is certainly innovative, for in Thomas this sort of knowledge is principally applied to the realm of morality whereby the cultivation of virtue leads a person to spontaneously know how to act, creating, as it were, a second nature in the person. For Maritain knowledge by connaturality has fallen into oblivion and needs to be restored; he explains creative intuition as a form of connatural knowledge that regards not only the knowledge of things to be expressed in the artist’s work but also the subjectivity of the artist in whom things are grasped through affective resonance. It seems that for Maritain creative intuition is conditioned by the degree to which the artist takes a disinterested stance with respect to his own ego; if he does not, then the work of art is in jeopardy as is also the beauty to which art tends.

This paper argues that friendship, long underemphasized in both theology and church practice, is essential to human flourishing and should be reintegrated into the catechumenate—the Church’s process for adult moral and spiritual formation. Drawing on the eudaimonistic ethics of St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas, it demonstrates that friendship is not only a vehicle for developing virtue but also a means of experiencing divine grace. Contemporary psychology affirms this claim: figures like Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Martin Seligman show that loneliness and lack of meaningful connection are major factors in declining mental health. Friendship combats what Csikszentmihalyi calls “psychic entropy” by grounding individuals in shared purpose and love. In a culture increasingly marked by isolation, the Church has the potential to be a counter-cultural community of friendship that promotes both psychological and spiritual well-being. Embedding friendship in the catechumenate offers a concrete and tradition-rooted response to the mental health crisis of modern life.

Contemporary theology finds itself under increasing pressure to justify its intellectual credibility in a cultural context marked by suspicion toward metaphysics, relativized truth claims, and appeals to “mystery” that often function as substitutes for argument. Within this landscape, logic is frequently regarded as either irrelevant or even harmful to faith, as though rational coherence necessarily diminishes divine transcendence. Against this assumption, the present study revisits the classical Christian conviction that faith and reason are not rivals but collaborators, and that theological mystery presupposes intelligibility rather than contradiction. This article offers an extended and systematic examination of the relationship between logic, metaphysics, and theology through an explicit dialogue between Thomas Aquinas and contemporary analytic Thomism, with particular focus on P. T. Geach’s chapter “Logic in Metaphysics and Theology” in Logic Matters. Against prevailing currents of relativism, anti-metaphysical theology, and the fragmentation of spirituality, the article argues that logical rigor is not an external constraint on theology but a necessary condition for its intelligibility, doctrinal integrity, and spiritual credibility. By situating Geach firmly within the Thomistic tradition, the study demonstrates how analytic Thomism constitutes a genuine retrieval and renewal of classical theology, capable of responding to intellectual, pastoral, and spiritual challenges in culturally plural and postcolonial contexts where appeals to mystery, tradition, and lived religious experience often coexist with deep intellectual contestation.

In this paper, we study the ontological dimension of evolution, from the metaphysical perspective of Ferdinand Ulrich, which is very much in line with the philosophical theological thought of Hans Urs von Balthasar. From the angle of Ulrich’s Metaphysics, we approach the ontic cause of creation and evolution, based on the guiding sentence of Saint Thomas Aquinas on being: «completum et simplex, sed non subsistens».