Work Of Aquinas Research Articles

Witnesses to the Living God: Three Paradigms for Approaching the Politics of Nouvelle Théologie*

Witnesses to the Living God: Three Paradigms for Approaching the Politics of <i>Nouvelle Théologie</i>*

Św. Tomasza z Akwinu koncepcja wspólnoty politycznej - o potrzebie władzy praworządnej

Celem artykułu jest zaprezentowanie dorobku św. Tomasza z Akwinu dotyczącego koncepcji wspólnoty politycznej, zwłaszcza w zakresie odnoszącym się do zagadnienia władzy praworządnej. Bazując w pewnym zakresie na myśli Arystotelesa oraz na Policraticusie Jana z Salisbury, Akwinata rozwija własną, oryginalną koncepcję wspólnoty politycznej, zakorzenioną w chrześcijańskiej antropologii. Wspólnota polityczna jest więc nie tylko naturalna, ale również zajmuje ważkie miejsce w Bożym planie zbawienia, nabierając – poprzez swój cel, jakim jest dobro wspólne – wymiaru eschatologicznego. Nieprzemijającą wartość ma również twórczość Akwinaty dotycząca władzy praworządnej, która jest antycypacją późniejszej koncepcji praworządności materialnej, a zatem determinowanej nie tylko formą stanowienia prawa (jego legalnością), ale również treścią norm prawnych.

Virtuous Law-Breaking

A rapidly growing body of scholarship embraces virtue jurisprudence, a series of (often ad hoc) attempts to incorporate the philosophical tradition of virtue ethics into legal theory. Broadly understood, virtue ethics describes an approach to moral questions that emphasizes the importance of developing and embodying various virtues, often as manifestations of human flourishing. Scholars typically contrast virtue ethics with deontological and consequentialist moral theories, tracing virtue-centered analysis to ancient Greek philosophers, and in particular to Aristotle. Virtue ethics has experienced a revival over the past 65 years; but, long before that, it proved especially influential in Catholic moral thought, particularly through the work of Aquinas. Perhaps relatedly, scholars have seized on virtue jurisprudence to defend a range of politically conservative positions, such as originalist constitutional interpretation and the propriety of utilizing the law to regulate ostensibly “private” immoralities. This Article reveals the radically underappreciated progressive promise of virtue jurisprudence. Virtue jurisprudence requires no religious commitments whatsoever, but a strong version entails acceptance of the moral significance of developing one’s character—both within and without the law. On a compelling understanding of the virtues, rejecting a state of perpetual disadvantage under the law is a meaningful marker of the virtue of self-respect, and a repudiation of the vice of servility that would otherwise be imposed by the legal system itself. Thus, contrary to the predominant tenor of research on the subject, virtue jurisprudence can ground significant resistance to—and even defiance of—the law. In making this argument, the Article also draws novel connections between virtue jurisprudence and literature on (inter alia) race, feminism, and sexual orientation to reveal the unnoticed potential of virtue jurisprudence to push forward work in those and related areas. At a time when massive and widespread protests across the United States reflect a groundswell of support for overturning certain long-standing, legally-ingrained, systemic disadvantages of people of color, many might be surprised to learn that virtue jurisprudence can serve as a potent theoretical ally.

Thomas Aquinas and Some Thomists on the Nature of Mathematics

The authors explicate Aquinas's conception of mathematics. They show that in his work the Aristotelian conception is prevalent, according to which this discipline is—together with physics and metaphysics—a theoretical science, whose subject is the study of real quantity and its necessary properties. But, alongside this dominant and prevalent conception, Aquinas's work contains a number of indications that cast doubt. These sparse and rather marginal reflections lead the authors to conclude that Aquinas's texts contain a "constructivist" conception of mathematics in rudimentary form. According to this approach, mathematics is not a theoretical science examining real quantity but, rather, a special kind of "art" by means of which mathematical objects are "created." From a constructivist point of view the authors then attempt to formulate a conception of mathematics that would accord with the basic Aristotelian assumptions of Aquinas's thought.

Politeness and Pietas as Annexed to the Virtue of Justice

“Politeness” appears to be connected to a quite disparate set of related concepts, including but not limited to, “manners,” “etiquette,” “agreeableness,” “respect” and even “piety.” While in the East politeness considered as an important social virtue is present (and even central) in the theoretical and practical expressions of the Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist traditions, (indeed politeness has been viewed in these traditions as central to proper education) it has not featured prominently in philosophical discussion in the West. American presidents Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington all devoted discussion to politeness within the broader ambit of manners and etiquette, as too did Erasmus, Edmund Burke and Ralph Waldo Emerson but on the whole sustained philosophical engagement with the topic has been lacking in the West. The richest source for philosophical investigation is perhaps afforded by the centrality of the concept of respect in Immanuel Kant.However in this paper we will instead draw on the writings of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas to defend the centrality of “politeness” as an important and valuable moral virtue. Starting with an analysis of the broader Aristotelian arguments on the virtues associated with “agreeableness,” namely, friendliness, truthfulness and wit I will argue that “politeness” should be thought of as an important moral virtue attached to social intercourse (and by extension the vice of impoliteness). I then move to identify an even broader and more important account of politeness, drawing on the work of Aquinas, as intimately connected to the notion of pietas (piety) as a fundamental part of the virtue of justice.

Thomas Aquinas: A Historical and Philosophical Profile by Pasquale Porro

Reviewed by: Thomas Aquinas: A Historical and Philosophical Profile by Pasquale Porro Brian Davies Thomas Aquinas: A Historical and Philosophical Profile. By Pasquale Porro. Translated by Joseph G. Trabbic and Roger W. Nutt. (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press. 2016. Pp. xiii, 458. $65.00. ISBN 978-0-2805-1.) This book is a translation of Porro's Tommaso d'Aquino: Un Profile storicofilosofico, published in 2012. Porro is well known as an expert on Aquinas, and in the present volume he offers a magisterial contribution to Aquinas scholarship. Anyone with serious interests in Aquinas who lacks fluency in Italian will be grateful to the translators and to the Catholic University of America Press for making the book available in English. It has rightly become common to stress that Aquinas was not a philosopher in the modern sense. He did not formally lecture on philosophy. He was a Dominican friar whose interests were chiefly theological. Yet his writings contain much that contemporary philosophers can recognize as philosophical. And Porro picks up on this fact to great effect. He offers a wonderful account of Aquinas's philosophy. He also has much to say about the biography of Aquinas. Books on the philosophy of Aquinas typically adopt a thematic approach. They expound and comment with an eye on topics or questions addressed by Aquinas. By contrast, Porro turns to his philosophy as it evolved over time. He moves chronologically through Aquinas's writings while also trying to place them in their precise historical contexts. Porro is aware of reasons that might be given for not taking Aquinas to be someone who wrote philosophy. But he explains very well why we can think of Aquinas as sometimes doing just this. In his preface he briefly [End Page 575] notes four reasons for thinking that, theologian though he was, Aquinas was also concerned to engage philosophically with many philosophical problems. In the chapters that follow he goes on to make it abundantly clear why those reasons are good ones. The result is an admirably judicious approach to the question "Was Aquinas a theologian or a philosopher?" When it comes to biographical and related textual matters, Porro is familiar with the most recent findings of the Leonine Commission, to which he frequently draws attention when trying to say how various works of Aquinas can be dated in relation to each other. He does not give us a biography of Aquinas comparable to books such as Jean-Pierre Torrell's Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Person and His Work. (1996). Yet his book exhibits the same high standard of historical scholarship as that displayed by Torrell and scholars similar to him. And Porro's expositions of Aquinas are always solid and defensible. A single volume cannot provide detailed analyses of all philosophically interesting writings that Aquinas produced. So Porro selects some to be noted in detail while passing over others in a cursory way or in silence. But his selection gives readers a good sense of what Aquinas's philosophy amounted to as it evolved. I was especially impressed by his discussion of Aquinas's commentaries on Aristotle. I was also impressed by the way in which he brings out the seriously negative approach to God that Aquinas develops in the wake of his claim that we do not know what God is. Some readers of Aquinas do not seem to realize that he meant what he said when stating that we do not know what God is. Porro explains to such people why Aquinas meant exactly what he said. Porro seems to favor Aquinas's philosophical thinking, but not rigidly so. He occasionally laments some of Aquinas's conclusions. He does not develop his reasons for approving or disapproving of Aquinas's philosophy to the extent that certain contemporary philosophers might wish him to have done. But then, of course, there is only so much that one can do in a book reporting on a huge number of Aquinas's writings while also trying to contribute to the history of philosophy and the history of Aquinas himself. Brian Davies Fordham University Copyright © 2017 The Catholic University of America Press

Subsidiarity’s Roots and History: Some Observations

Subsidiarity, i.e., principle of subsidiarity, i.e., principle of sub- sidiary function/responsibility, i.e., the principle that it is unjust for a higher authority (e.g., the state's government and law) to usurp the self-governing authority that lower authorities (e.g., in families or other civil associations), acting in the service of their own members (groups and persons), rightly have over those members, is a presumptive and defeasible, not an absolute, principle. But it excludes any general policy or aim of assuming the control or managerial direction of lower groups. Its deepest rationale is the intrinsic desirability of self-direction (not least in cooperatively associating with other persons), a good that is to be favored and respected even at the expense of some efficiency in the pursuit of other goods. Though arising out of Aristotelean moral and political theory, it denies or strongly disambiguates a cardinal principle of Aristotelean political theory. It is reflected in the work of Aquinas, Taparelli, Mill and Maitland, before its articulation by Pius XI (1931).

Cajetan’s Harp: Sacraments and the Life of Grace in Light of Perfective Instrumentality

65 The Thomist 78 (2014): 65-106 CAJETAN’S HARP: SACRAMENTS AND THE LIFE OF GRACE IN LIGHT OF PERFECTIVE INSTRUMENTALITY REGINALD M. LYNCH, O.P. Pontifical College Josephinum Columbus, Ohio T IS NO LONGER common to hear discussion of the sacraments as causes in theological circles.1 Where the concept does resonate, moreover, it may well be associated only with a bygone theological era, in which topics like “sacramental causality” might have seemed to be little more than fodder for neo-Scholastic polemics. Upon closer examination , however, the teaching of the authentic Thomistic commentatorial tradition may be seen to represent a long and painstaking engagement with the texts of Aquinas, which has at once yielded both disagreement and deeper penetration of the mystery of sacra doctrina. Despite the ditch of history that may seem to separate the classical Thomistic commentators from modern concerns, the sapiential nature of the Thomistic project renders the fruit of their inquiry still ripe, with as much to say in the present as in the past. This study concerns a particular moment within this commentatorial tradition in which a shift—or rather a development—in Thomistic doctrine can be observed in progress . As I will show, this development does not represent a departure from the thought of the Angelic Doctor, but rather parallels a development within the texts of Aquinas himself. Specifically, I will examine the doctrine of Thomas de Vio 1 A happy exception can be found in Romanus Cessario, “Sacramental Causality: Da Capo!” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Catholic Theology, Washington, D.C., May 22-24, 2012). I 66 REGINALD M. LYNCH, O.P. Cajetan on sacramental causality as an interpretation of Aquinas’s later thought (as expressed in the Summa Theologiae). Unlike his Thomistic predecessors, Cajetan argued that the sacraments are instrumental efficient causes in a true and unqualified sense, able to cause even supernatural effects because of the power of the God who wields them. Although eventually adopted by the vast majority of Thomists, Cajetan’s doctrine of perfective instrumental causality met with some initial disagreement within the Thomistic school. The implications of Cajetan’s interpretation will be unfolded first by examining the doctrinal disagreement on this subject between Cajetan and Sylvester de Ferrara, who represents the older Thomistic commentatorial tradition on this matter. Close attention will be paid to the role played by the doctrine of grace in this disagreement.2 Focusing on this moment of development within the commentators highlights both the underlying textual development within the works of Aquinas and the value of Cajetan’s work as an interpretation of Aquinas within the context of the broader Thomistic tradition. Following this, we will examine the implications of Cajetan’s doctrine for contemporary sacramental theology in light of the doctrine of sacraments as signs, comparing Cajetan’s integrated approach to the signate and causal dimensions of sacramentality with that of Louis-Marie Chauvet, for whom the categories of sign and cause are necessarily opposed.3 I. A COMMENTATORIAL DISPUTE A) Cajetan In question 62 of the Tertia Pars of the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas describes the sacraments as instrumental causes of 2 The importance of grace in the context of sacramental causality is accurately described by J. Gallagher. See John F. Gallagher, Significando Causant: a Study of Sacramental Efficiency, Studia Fribugensia New Series 40 (Fribourg: The University Press, 1965), 138-41, et al. 3 See Louis-Marie Chauvet, Symbol and Sacrament: A Sacramental Reinterpretation of Christian Existence, trans. Patrick Madigan and Madeleine Beaumont (Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1995), 9-36, et al. See note 103. CAJETAN’S HARP 67 grace, which is the final end of the sacraments.4 He teaches that where instrumental causality of this kind is concerned, the effect is properly attributed not to the instrument, but to the principal agent whose intended finality governs and directs the movement of that same instrument towards an end. Aquinas views the relationship of the instrumental efficient cause to the finality of the principal agent as a kind of analogical participation.5 The sacraments are real instrumental causes, yet because grace is understood most fundamentally as a participation in the divine nature, the effect...

Does Abortion Take A Human Life? Thomas Aquinas Answers

The paper dwells on the research questions as to whether abortion takes a human life and when human life begins? Thomas Aquinas’s answers on the question will be provided in this paper. But the research aims to interrogate his answers and will critically reflect on them. In doing so, the paper’s methodology opted for an exploratory study using primary and secondary data on which the author draws. The data so required will enable the research to furnish an impressionistic account of the ideas produced by the works of Aquinas, Aristotle and Plato on the one hand, and the works of contemporary philosophers and writers on the other hand. In other words, this data is going to be complemented by documentary analysis and the author’s critical insight, so as to warrant the article as to presenting new knowledge. The findings of this research will prove to have larger import beyond the specific case or instance under investigation. It reopens the issue of a revival of the implementation of the dignity of human life. The Church opposes every threat to human life from the moment of conception. The threat to human life is most intense at the point where life begins – at that stage where it is at its most defenseless. It is at this moment (pre-natal stage) when human beings are totally dependent on the goodwill and care of others. Humankind is obliged to respect life. It expresses the human persons’s relationship to other persons: and it is valid from the first moment of conception through to adulthood. The fetus also is a fellow human being and his or her rights should be respected just as the case would with every other human being. These methodological observations present an innovative, thorough and systematic attempt to address the research questions mentioned above.

Beauty and Beholders: Are Past Intuitions Correct?

This essay discusses four definitions of beauty from Western philosophy in light of recent experimental work from the more modern fields of psychology and biology. The first idea, derived from Plato, that beauty consists of relationships between parts, is partially confirmed by recent psychological experiments on infants and adults. The second idea, that beauty consists of one salient feature amid a mass of details, is more recent, perhaps from Hume, and is confirmed by some experiments on adults, but this finding has not been replicated in non-Western cultures. The third idea, that beauty is based on utility, occurs in Plato but is more difficult to support through experiments; biology suggests that a longing for beauty, not merely for survival, is an evolutionary target. Finally, the fourth idea, that beauty is a type of cognitive pleasure, is a constant thread from Plato through the work of Aquinas and Kant and seems to confirm a preference for an optimum level of complexity by adults, but cannot explain a parallel preference for complexity in human infants.

A Defensible Conception of Tolerance in Aquinas?

1 See J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), 215. In the page that follows Rawls provides equally simplistic references for the attitudes of the Protestant Reformers towards tolerance. 291 The Thomist 75 (2011): 291-308 A DEFENSIBLE CONCEPTION OF TOLERANCE IN AQUINAS? MANFRED SVENSSON Universidad de los Andes Santiago de Chile INTRODUCTION: A COHERENT THEORY OF TOLERANCE? D OES AQUINAS HAVE a theory of tolerance that is not only “understandable in its own context” but defensible in our context? The question is not an easy one to answer and has, in fact, been given opposite answers. This should come as no surprise, since at first sight the diverse articles in the Summa Theologiae that deal with tolerance seem to be written in a spirit very different from each other. When Aquinas explicitly asks, for example, whether heretics must be tolerated, the answer seems to consist in an unqualified denial of tolerance (STh II-II, q. 11, a. 3). On other occasions, however, he speaks on behalf of the tolerance of actions or rites that he clearly describes as sins. This, as is well known, is his position regarding prostitution as well as regarding Jewish religious ceremonies (STh II-II, q. 10, a.11). Naturally, from these two kinds of texts opposite images of Aquinas are projected into the secondary literature regarding tolerance. When John Rawls, for instance, writes that Aquinas and the Protestant Reformers did not even acknowledge the limited tolerance that Locke or Rousseau later promoted,1 he supports his interpretation with reference to only one proof-text: question 11, article 3 of the Secunda Secundae, the question concerning MANFRED SVENSSON 292 2 See, e.g., E. Téllez, “Tomás de Aquino como Antecedente Medieval de la Tolerancia Moderna,” Tópicos 36 (2009): 37-63. 3 See R. Forst, Toleranz im Konflikt (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2003), 91-96. 4 J. Finnis, Aquinas: Moral, Political and Legal Theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), vii. 5 J. Knasas, Thomism and Tolerance (Scranton and London: University of Scranton Press, 2011), 7. 6 In fact, none of these texts are even quoted until the very last chapters of his work. tolerance of heretics, which Aquinas answers negatively. Other authors, wishing to evoke the image of a tolerant Aquinas, simply disregard this passage, quoting instead diverse texts from which a more tolerant author seems to emerge—for instance, texts in which we see a Christian in dialogue with Muslim philosophers.2 There are also those who are more willing to admit the existence of texts pointing in both directions in the work of Aquinas.3 Some try to give us reasons to privilege the more “tolerant” texts, or to go beyond mere tolerance to full-fledged freedom of religion. This kind of project, which can be found for instance in the work of John Finnis, rests on the idea that one can make an “internal” correction of the system: that “some serious flaws” which can be found in Aquinas’s thoughts on human society can be criticized on the basis of “premises he himself understood and articulated better” than his own masters and successors.4 John F. X. Knasas, in his recent Thomism and Tolerance, holds a similar position, arguing for what he calls “fraternal tolerance,” a perspective that widens the concept of tolerance to include our engagement, respect, and sympathy for the other.5 Accordingly, the texts where Aquinas speaks about tolerance proper play no decisive role in Knasas’s argument.6 The preceding summary suggests that contemporary scholarship has been largely unable to draw a coherent and defensible view of tolerance from the texts in which Aquinas addresses this topic. That is the goal of the present article. Thus, I will not argue for freedom of religion, nor even for respect. Such freedom and such respect are great things indeed, things that deserve to be defended. But it is also a good thing to have an adequate theory of mere tolerance, and the limited goal of the present article is to show that Aquinas does have one. Furthermore, while I agree with TOLERANCE IN AQUINAS? 293 7 For a good version of the...

The Theological Problem of Grace and Experience: A Lonerganian Perspective

For Bernard Lonergan and Karl Rahner, grace is a reality that can be not only professed in worship or inferred through metaphysical analysis but also experienced in the depths of consciousness. Here the author uses a Lonerganian hermeneutic to study the evolution of the theology of grace from the writings of Augustine through the Scholastic work of Aquinas to the theology of Lonergan. His analysis demonstrates that the transition to an account that expresses grace in terms of human experience represents a development in the Catholic theology of grace.

Edith Stein and Thomas Aquinas on Being and Essence

In her later philosophical writings, Stein works to synthesize the medieval scholastic tradition and contemporary phenomenology. Stein draws heavily from Thomas Aquinas's work so that the prevalence of positive references to Thomas have led many to read Stein as a Thomist. On critical questions regarding being and essence, however, Stein is not a Thomist. In addition to mental and actual being, she also affirms essential being, which is properly the being of intelligibilities as well as potencies. Essential being is never separate from an entity with either mental or actual being, but it is a distinct type of being. In this essay, I attempt to contrast briefly Stein's account of being and essence with Thomas's position and to bring out the way in which Stein's affirmation of essential being leads her in a more Scotist than Thomist direction, at least on questions related to essences and universals.

Aquinas on Oral Teaching

The Thomist 71 (2007): 505-28 AQUINAS ON ORAL TEACHING KEVIN WHITE The Catholic University ofAmerica Washington, D.C. IN QUESTION 42, article 4 of the Tertia Pars, Aquinas asks whether Christ should have handed on his teaching in writing. He argues that it was fitting he did not, for three reasons: because of his dignity, because of the excellence of his teaching, and so that his teaching might go forth from him to everyone else in an order. I propose to consider this article more closely.1 By way of a prologue, I will begin with a look at its most important written philosophical antecedent, even though Aquinas does not seem to have known it, namely, the argument in Plato's Phaedrus that no serious teaching can be transmitted in writing. To contextualize the issue in Aquinas's work I will then briefly mention some passages on writing in his commentary on Boethius's De Trinitate and his Summa Theologiae. Finally, with respect to the article on Christ's not having written, I will discuss its Augustinian source, its sed contra, and its three arguments. 1 For a thoughtful earlier consideration of Aquinas's article see Domenico Farias, "Utrum Christus debuerit doctrinam suam scripto tradere," Divus Thomas (Piacenza) 59 (1956): 2037 . The present discussion differs in emphasis from that of Farias, who, for instance, draws some useful connections with texts ofAquinas on the nature of teaching. See also Jean-Pierre Torrell, Le Christ en ses mysteres: La vie et !'oeuvre de Jesus selon saint Thomas d'Aquin (Paris: Desclee, 1999), 2:250-54. For the general context of STh III, q. 42, see the discussion of the structure of the Tertia Pars in John F. Boyle, "The Two-fold Division of Thomas's Christology in the Tertia pars," The Thomist 60 (1996): 439-47. 505 506 KEVIN WHITE I. THE PHAEDRUS ON TEACHING AND WRITING The Phaedrus consists of a conversation between Socrates and Phaedrus that treats the question of how to compose a speech addressed to a beloved, then goes on to discuss written composition in general and the difference between good and bad writing. Towards the end Socrates offers a critique of the art of writing in three parts.2 First he presents a myth about the invention of writing (274c275d ). Someone who had invented writing and many other arts showed them to a king, praising the art of writing in particular as a drug for improving memory and wisdom. The king disagreed. He said that writing would instill forgetfulness rather than memory, because men would come to rely on written marks instead of exercising their memories; it is a drug for being reminded rather than for improving memory, and it would instill an appearance of wisdom rather than the reality, because its users would lack instruction, although they would be "hearers" of many things who as a result would seem to know a lot. Socrates comments that anyone who believes he can put knowledge into writing, and anyone who accepts writing as if anything clear and steady could come from it, are foolish to think that written words can do more than serve as a reminder to someone who already knows what the writing is about. Socrates next compares writing to painting (275d-276a). The products of the art of painting stand there as if they were alive, he says, but if you ask them something they are very silent and solemn. It is the same with written words: they speak as if they had understanding, or so you would think, but if you want to learn something and ask them about it, they just keep signifying the same one thing. Once a speech is written, it rolls around promiscuously in all directions, among those who understand it and those for whom it is unsuitable, and it does not know the difference between those to whom it should and those to whom it should not speak. If it is attacked and unfairly accused it always 2 Cf. Plato, Seventh Letter 341a-342a. AQUINAS ON ORAL TEACHING 507 needs the help of its "father" or author, since it is unable to defend itself. By contrast, the living...

A synthesis of knowing and governance: making sense of organizational and governance polemics

Where do all the management theories and fads come from? Why are they so different and constantly changing. This paper develops a comprehensive and dynamic cognitive formwork from an understanding of the formulations of Aquinas, Lonergan, Jung, Weber and the Enneagram. The synthesis is new and goes beyond each of the sources to present a more systematic and useable JEWAL synthesis formwork. First, the neo‐platonic hierarchical structure of triadic unity is identified as a particularly pertinent and effective differentiation of reality. Second, whereas the neo‐platonists developed their hierarchical construction of reality from a meta‐physical viewpoint as emanations from the ultimate unity, later philosophers explained the differentiation of consciousness principally by working in the reverse direction. Third, the paper explains the process of learning in terms of the cognitive procession through the layered levels of differentiated consciousness. Fourth, an explanation follows as to how this cognitive formwork can be used to explain a character typology based on the differentiation of consciousness – one that finds expression in a typology commonly known as the Enneagram. Fifth, the JEWAL synthesis formwork is presented as a comprehensive framework in which to understand human governance and social action. More broadly, the paper discusses the significance for the social sciences of achieving such a synthesis of ideas within this new formwork – a synthesis between the Western developed philosophy, which runs through the work of Aquinas, Lonergan, Weber and Jung, and the Eastern physio‐psychological wisdom encapsulated in the Enneagram typology. In conclusion, the paper attempts to bring it all together in an answer to the questions underpinning the paper; namely, what does it mean to know and how do we make sense of those voices that speak out of that knowing.

Martha Nussbaum and Thomas Aquinas on the Emotions

[Martha Nussbaum in her Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions presents a philosophical theory of emotions that interacts with contemporary research in other sciences. Although she has drawn upon the same Aristotelian and Stoic sources as did Thomas Aquinas, she pays scarce attention to his work. The purpose of this present article is to explore the extent to which Nussbaum's book could profit from closer utilization of Aquinas, and, at the same time, could broaden the insights of Aquinas's work.]

Natural Law and Natural Rights: Old Problems and Recent Approaches

Widely divergent views exist among modern scholars concerning the relationship between natural law and natural rights. Some hold that the two concepts are logically incompatible with one another. Others maintain that natural rights were derived from natural law in the work of Aquinas or, alternatively, that natural law was derived from natural right in the work of Hobbes. All these views seem open to criticism. An alternative approach is suggested by a consideration of the idea of permissive natural law.

The Psychological Analogy for the Trinity: At Odds with Modernity

The dominant role played by the psychological analogy in Trinitarian theology has largely been rejected by twentieth-century theology. This paper reviews the role of the analogy in the work of Aquinas and argues that the analogy embeds certain philosophical positions deeply at odds with modernity and post-modernity. It further suggests that this embedding may in fact be part of its point, if we view the doctrine of the Trinity as culturally transformative.

Motion According to Aquinas and Newton

This article seeks to examine the theological basis of the understanding of motion in the work of Aquinas and Newton. As well as the Aristotelian roots of Aquina's view, attention is also paid to motion understood as a participation in the perfect ‘motionless motion’ of the emanation of the Son from the Father. This is contrasted with the crucial theological context of Newton's view of motion as expressed in the Principia, namely his Arianism and theological voluntarism. Motion becomes a purely physical and spatial category predicted on violent competition rather than mutual enhancement and the goal of perfection. Meanwhile, it is suggested that Newton has to resort to unmediated divine action within absolute and eternal space in order to describe how a universe in motion might have anything to do with God.

Von Balthasar's Aims In His Theological Aesthetics

The volume and diversity of Balthasar's output makes it hard to grasp his theological purpose. This article considers the aims of Herrlichkeit in particular. To take the beautiful seriously is ontologically important but evangelically more urgent still. The Gospel requires sensitivity to the form of Jesus Christ. If the anxieties of those who fear the aesthetic will displace the ethical and even the religious can be overcome, this approach permits a wonderful integration of apologetics and dogma, fundamental and systematic theology. This primary aim of Herrlichkeit is supported by showing it is not unknown to the history of Christian thought. To gain a proper idea of its scope, however, requires exploration of pre‐Christian paganism's estimate of the beauty of being, and of the human capacity to register it. then, under the impact of revelation, it is possible to locate the climax of ontological thinking about beauty in the work of Aquinas—which integrated revealed and natural sources in an account of being as glorious because given away: supremely on the Cross, in self‐diffusion of the Trinitarian life. Balthasar's purpose now shifts. He will show how Western metaphysics declined from this high‐point of perception—but in such a way that the glory of being took refuge in the holy folly of the saints. Finally, he aims to show how re‐reading Scripture in the light of the above can generate the conviction that the message of the Bible is ultimately about the self‐giving divine glory as universal foundation of history and the world.