Thomas Aquinas

Can the best arguments for a privation theory of evil be parodied, with equal plausibility, as arguments for a privation theory of good? The privation theory of evil claims that evil has no positive existence, and it is but a privation of good. The privation theory of good claims the opposite. I approach this topic as one element in the so-called evil-God Challenge. Stephen Law has argued that the epistemic support for belief in an omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect God (...) (theism) is on a par with the epistemic support for belief in an omniscient, omnipotent, but completely evil-God (maltheism). In fact, he concludes, the arguments for an evil God are symmetrical with, and isomorphic to, those for a good God. The privation theory of evil has often been used to defend theism against the argument from evil. Thus, part of the evil-God Challenge is to evaluate arguments for the privation theory of evil for their vulnerability to maltheist parody. I consider a broad range of arguments for the privation theory of evil, and I argue that most of them are vulnerable to parodic neutralization. Furthermore, I argue that although the thesis of the convertibility of being and goodness is often held to entail the privation theory of evil, or to be entailed by it (or to be equivalent to it), it is independent of the privation theory. I do find that David Oderberg’s recent argument for the privation theory of evil resists any easy maltheist parody, but I argue that it has a defect. I sketch an argument according to which his good-as-fulfillment account is compatible with a perfectly evil god. My tentative conclusion is that the privation theory of evil enjoys little more plausibility than does the privation theory of good. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that the only coherent conception of evil is a positive one. The privative account rests on the presupposition that Being is Convertible with Goodness, entailing that every choice is made under the aspect of the Good, real or apparent. What follows is a process of elimination whereby any given choice between a lesser and a greater good is reducible to either chance, ignorance/error, passion/compulsion, and lastly an infinite regress of self-deception that cannot (...) account for the responsibility requisite for deeming the choice an evil one. A reckoning then follows with the Anselmian and Scotist account of the will, comprised of two affections, that is shown to lead not to a solution wherein privative evil and Being/Goodness convertibility are harmonized, but to the same dead ends previously dispatched. This leads to a dilemma in which one must deny the possibility of evil or give up the claim that Being is convertible with Goodness. The second horn of the dilemma is taken, leading to an account of evil not as privative, but as positive and intelligible, a first principle of choice, not due to an Augustinian deficient cause, but to a sufficient reason devoid of goodness: the principle of choosing the lesser good, not under the aspect of the good, but under the aspect of the lesser and therefore the worse. A second and supplementary proof follows in which the same logic is applied to a particular historical case. (shrink)

O editorial do número 39 da Tabulae apresenta uma novena de textos académicos, cada um e juntos refulgindo no firmamento do entendimento humano. Três grandes eixos sustentam o campo magnético do conjunto: o do encontro entre a ética e a tecnologia, o da continuidade das mundividências e caminhos filosóficos e teológicos e o da vitalidade dos fundamentos da teologia moral cristã. O sentido comum desta trindade radica na unidade da responsabilidade de cada pessoa perante toda aquela com quem se cruza, (...) o meio envolvente e o que está para além da esfera terrena. Cumpre-se aqui, cabalmente, o mandamento filosófico de atentar infatigavelmente às questões da vida bem-vivida numa realidade coabitada. (shrink)

Cet article propose une lecture historique du concept de virtuel visant à ouvrir une voie alternative au débat contemporain entre virtual realism et virtual fictionalism. Plutôt que de réduire le virtuel à des catégories rigides (réel ou fictif), nous verrons que l’histoire le présente comme un principe de médiation entre le réel et le possible. À travers l’étude de trois moments clés – Aristote (dúnamis), Thomas d’Aquin (virtus) et Leibniz (virtuel) –, nous montrerons que le virtuel est un concept qui (...) sert à structurer la relation entre les oppositions conceptuelles traditionnelles (réel/fictif, possible/nécessaire, corps/esprit, perception/action). Nous défendrons en conclusion que cette approche historique appelle une ontologie relationnelle et processuelle du virtuel, nécessaire pour redéfinir les objets numériques contemporains non comme des entités fixes, mais plutôt comme des produits temporels et symboliques issus d’interactions humain-machine. (shrink)

Why is God hidden? How might God be pointed out? In this timely study, Chad Engelland provides an original and compelling account of why God the creator is naturally hidden and how God can be intended. Drawing on phenomenology, philosophy of language, and medieval thought, he explores these questions, arguing that if the God in question is the ultimate source of all things, then hiddenness is necessary. Only a creature, rather than the creator, can appear directly in experience. Nonetheless, God (...) the creator can be named as the ultimate source of all through a deferred ostension, which is a way of establishing the reference to a hidden cause through some manifest effect. Moreover, the deferred ostension can be clarified not only through the phenomenology of absent authors, which is a special case of the problem of other minds, but also via the fulfillment of desire in giving thanks for all. (shrink)

This chapter assesses the philosophical background to Thomas Aquinas’s interpretation of Proposition 1 from the _Liber de causis_ that “every primary cause influences its effect more than a secondary cause.” Aquinas claims to find the doctrine in Aristotle, although at first glance—and following some recent commentators—Aristotle himself does not seem to hold this causal principle, where contemporary commentators highlight Aristotle's departure from the Platonic hierarchy between a strictly-called 'cause' (αἰτία/αἴτιον) and instrumental or co-cause (συναίτιον). Despite this apparent opposition, I show (...) how Neoplatonists—particularly Proclus—develop certain strands of Aristotle's thought, where the latter tacitly accepts a distinction between primary and secondary efficient causes. Proclus' integration of Aristotle with Plato on causes leads to his formulation of the principle of primary/secondary causality, as adapted in the _Liber's_ Prop. 1: a key foundation for all medieval philosophical thought. (shrink)

Apophaticism is usually defined as the view according to which God’s essence is unknowable and, thus, ineffable. Despite constituting a venerable tradition in all global faiths, it has been largely ignored by analytic philosophers of religion. In the past decade, efforts have been made to rectify such a situation, and some scholars have sought support for their apophatic views in medieval sources. Against this background, the present paper aims to contribute by offering a new and more accurate depiction of medieval (...) apophaticism. More specifically, the claim is that it should not be conceived as a continuous theoretical spectrum. Departing from the scholarly mainstream, the paper proposes to distinguish between two discrete kinds: ‘moderate apophaticism’ and ‘radical apophaticism’ – the latter of which has gone unnoticed in the relevant literature. It will be shown that these two independent positions – exemplified by Thomas Aquinas and John Scotus Eriugena, respectively – derive from opposite conceptions of God. To highlight the relevance of this proposal, the paper will demonstrate how the recognition of radical apophaticism leads to challenging the so-called ‘standard narrative’ on metaphors, especially regarding whether they could be admitted into philosophy. (shrink)

Three claims have dominated contemporary epistemology for the better part of a century: -/- 1. Knowledge is justified true belief; 2. Treating knowledge as justified true belief has been standard in epistemology since Plato; 3. This ancient standard was torpedoed by Gettier’s (1963) paper, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” -/- Taken together, 1–3 form the background of the JTB theory of knowledge (henceforth JTB). According to JTB, a subject S knows a proposition p just in case (i) p is true; (...) (ii) S believes p; and (iii) S’s belief is justified. But in 1963, Edmund Gettier dealt what is generally regarded to be a devastating blow to (iii), and therefore to JTB on the whole. So then, the thinking goes, some new version of JTB must be found, usually by modifying (iii), the J condition. Many many studies have been written on this, with mixed results. But what if the whole JTB enterprise is frustrated precisely because it was wrong-headed from the get-go? (shrink)

Certain aspects of Aquinas’s account of divine omnipresence, as presented in his Summa Theologiae, are well known and often summarized, especially in the growing literature on omnipresence in contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of religion. Even so, some of the most interesting and surprising aspects of this same account—including that God is genuinely spatially located, despite being an incorporeal substance—have yet to be noticed, much less fully understood. This chapter examines Aquinas’s account of divine omnipresence in the Summa in some detail, (...) with a view to highlighting those aspects of it that have heretofore been overlooked or ignored. Moreover, it argues that a proper understanding of the details of Aquinas’s account sheds new light on his views about spatial location and action at a distance. (shrink)

This study examines Dionysius the Carthusian’s contribution to medieval aesthetic thought, situating his treatise De venustate mundi et pulchritudine Dei within the broader Dominican intellectual tradition shaped by Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas. Although often judged eclectic or insufficiently original, Dionysius articulates what may be the final and most comprehensive medieval synthesis on beauty. The article reviews the history of scholarship on the De venustate, addressing earlier misinterpretations by Zöckler, Rösler, Huizinga, De Bruyne, and more recent clarifications by Emery, (...) Assunto, and Calma. Against claims that Dionysius neglects artistic beauty or espouses an excessively intellectualist account, the study shows that he affirms both sensible and spiritual beauty, while elaborating a distinctively intellectual framework rooted in participation, exemplar causality, and the transcendental character of the pulchrum. The first part of the article analyzes Dionysius’s earlier De natura aeterni et veri Dei, where he already outlines a theology of divine beauty influenced by Augustine, the Pseudo-Dionysius, and Aquinas. The second and central part focuses on the De venustate, highlighting Dionysius’s systematic integration of the pulchrum into the circle of transcendentals through convertibility with being, truth, unity, and goodness. Drawing deeply on Albert, Ulrich of Strasbourg, the Victorines, and the Summa Halensis, Dionysius distinguishes essential and accidental beauty and develops a hierarchical ascent from corporeal beauty, through the structures of the cosmos and the spiritual creatures, to the superessential beauty of God. Particular attention is devoted to his appropriation of beauty to the Word, grounded in the Verbum’s status as exemplar cause. The article concludes that Dionysius offers not merely a compilation of earlier doctrines but a creative and systematic aesthetic vision that synthesizes the major medieval traditions. (shrink)

In this paper I grapple with part 2, question 4 of Aquinas’s commentary on Boethius’s De Trinitate, in order to shed light on understudied textual passages, and to offer an original account of Aquinas’s view of individuation and its relationship to Boethius’s. I focus in particular on his account of Boethius’s claim that otherness is the cause of plurality. I argue that Aquinas definitively overcomes some Neoplatonic elements of Porphyry’s view, which Boethius’s understanding of alteritas still retained. In section one, (...) I provide some introductory elements on the theological, metaphysical and logical issue at stake in Boethius’s De Trinitate, as well as in Aquinas’s commentary. In section two, I introduce what I call the ‘individual form problem’ and endeavour to show how it relates to the remote dialogue between Boethius and Aquinas and, via Boethius, between Porphyry and Aquinas. In section three, I deal more specifically with Porphyry’s model, and with the twofold metaphysical tenet I call the ‘D-E principle’. In section four, I briefly discuss Boethius’s account of otherness, plurality, and individuality, with a special focus on his relationship to Porphyry. In section five, I discuss Aquinas’s own solution by stressing the philosophical significance of his account, and considering the ways in which he departs from Boethius and Porphyry on these points. I also delve into the connections between his account of essential otherness and its involvement in the composition of individual substances, by comparing the opposite cases of angelic and hylomorphic individuations. In section six, I offer some brief concluding remarks. (shrink)

Tomás de Aquino, na terceira via, constrói um dos seus argumentos sobre a existência divina partindo do tempo, o qual é a mensuração do movimento existente na realidade física. Por meio dessa referida prova, Tomás pode ter fundamentado o atributo da eternidade de Deus. Brain Davies, um comentador tomista, não concorda com essa inferência. Por sua vez, outro comentador do pensamento filosófico de Tomás, Paul O’ Grady, embora não sustente tal consideração, indica que possa haver uma premissa implícita na referida (...) via tomásica, por meio da qual Tomás introduz o já citado atributo divino. Inclinando-se, mas indo além do posicionamento de O’ Grady a essa questão, a presente tese irá estabelecer e defender o argumento da existência de uma relação de subordinação entre as referidas ideias tomásicas, em que o atributo divino da eternidade tem seu alicerce na terceira via. Com esse objetivo, será, primeiramente, realizada uma análise da já citada via tomásica, afirmando que existe uma relação entre os atributos da imutabilidade divina e da eternidade de Deus, na qual se verifica uma relação da primeira via para com a terceira via. Após isso, antes de refletir acerca do atributo da eternidade de Deus em Tomás, investigar-se-á o legado perpassado de Agostinho, Boécio e Anselmo a Tomás no que tange à eternidade divina. A fim de, no terceiro capítulo, no qual se investigará o atributo da eternidade de Deus, defender a ideia pela qual será apresentado o tempo como a base sensível que Tomás usa para realizar a sua argumentação tanto sobre a terceira via quanto acerca do atributo da eternidade divina. Por fim, serão apresentadas e refletidas as ponderações dos referidos comentadores tomistas, e, também, será mostrado e defendido o argumento da presente tese, por meio do qual se advoga a ideia de que a terceira via tomásica alicerça o atributo da eternidade de Deus. (shrink)

This book is a translation of the sixth and final edition of Étienne Gilson’s Le Thomisme: Introduction à la philosophie de saint Thomas d’Aquin. Gilson published the first edition of this work in 1919. Subsequent modifications and editions appeared in 1922, 1927, 1929, 1942, 1944, 1956, with the final sixth edition appearing in 1965. The 1965 edition may be regarded as his chef d’oeuvre, the culmination of Gilson’s long effort to present succinctly and comprehensively the philosophical thought of Thomas Aquinas. (...) As new editions appeared, the editors explain, older interpretations were discarded, out of date controversies were suppressed, new insights gained and incorporated into the ever-enlarged versions. (shrink)

This study investigates the function of the common good in the political theory of thomas aquinas. it concludes that at every point in his political theory the concept of the common good plays a significant, if not determinative role. his moderate position between collectivism and individualism recognizes that the individual lives in social relationships which include social responsibilities.

The purpose of this essay is to explore, and clarify, some key features in Aquinas’ account of the virtue of temperance, with an eye to answering some common objections raised against a positive evaluation of temperance. In particular, I consider three features of Aquinas’ understanding of temperance: First, the role of the rational mean in temperance; second, the role of rightly ordered passions in temperance; and third, the ‘despotic’ control of reason over the passions in temperance. Along the way I (...) consider three common objections to Aquinas’ account of temperance: the objection that temperance can be misused for evil, the objection that temperance devalues effort, and the objection that temperance devalues strong passions and thereby implicitly devalues the goodness of sexuality. In responding to these objections on behalf of Aquinas, I take the opportunity to clarify and slightly extend Aquinas’ account of temperance. (shrink)

Domingo Báñez participated in the trial against the Hebraists, expressing considerable disdain for the study of biblical languages. However, when he published his commentary on Aquinas’ Summa in 1584, he recommended the study of Hebrew and aligned himself with Fray Luis on the question of the Vulgate. This did not prevent him from maintaining a theological view of Scripture that gave the Church (and not the human sciences) the final word on biblical matters.

Aquinas presents his argument for the existence of an uncaused cause of all effects in his Second Way in the Summa theologiae as a deductively valid argument from premises known with certainty. This seems unwarranted, since the argument gives no reason for there being only one uncaused cause, and the reasons it gives for rejecting an endless causal regress seem unconvincing. These apparent shortcomings can be better understood by examining Aquinas’s metaphysics of causation, which is presupposed by the argument. He (...) uses a form of composition argument to justify the claim that endless per se causal series cannot exist. He does not argue against the possibility of a multiplicity of uncaused causes because he sees no rational grounds for entertaining this possibility. Given Aquinas’s metaphysical assumptions, it is correct to take the Second Way to be a deductively sound argument. (shrink)

This article explores the role of the body in Thomas Aquinas’ ethical thought, focusing on the Summa Theologiae. Drawing on Thomas’ account of human nature, teleology and ethics, it traces Thomas’ account of human embodiment through his discussion of the relationship between human and angelic nature, the beatific vision, law and virtue, and the active and contemplative lives. Against several recent accounts which have presented versions of Thomas as a thinker who is generally positive in his assessment of the human (...) body, it argues that there is a basic tension in Thomas’ thought between the desire to locate human distinctiveness in the conjunction of body and soul and the sense that after a certain point, embodiment is precisely that which obstructs progress towards God. This tension is inextricably connected to Thomas’ understanding of human calling and discipleship and poses serious challenges to any attempts to draw on Thomas’ work as an ethical resource. (shrink)

I begin by showing that absolute nothingness is not only incoherent but also cannot obtain anywhere: it has no standing in logical space. Existence pervades every locus of determinacy. There are no gaps for nothingness to “occupy”, since any alleged outside would be either something (thus already within existence), or an inadmissible “nothing” (ruled out by direct inconsistency). Boundlessness leaves no coherent outside from which a distinct creator could act (the No-Beyond result). The familiar picture of a deity dwelling in (...) a featureless “void” and then making a world fails: any state able to serve as a base for agency already has structure and so belongs within existence; there is no “beyond” from which to act. This reframes the Kalam Cosmological Argument (beginnings are rearrangements within what already exists), blocks creatio ex nihilo, and yields the central Aseity Fork: either God is Existence itself (the Spinozistic identity: Deus sive Natura), preserving complete aseity but forgoing a distinct, personal responder “over” the whole—or God is within existence (a personal agent/mode), allowing selective prayer response, but failing to satisfy full divine aseity by depending on the very structures it must operate through. I then show that causal finitism doesn’t rescue a distinct first cause: it replays the central dilemma under a different route, rather than opening a third option. Ipsum esse subsistens, divine simplicity, timeless decree, middle knowledge, and causal finitism all converge on the same fork. The groundwork is brief: (i) the claim “absolute nothingness exists at a region r” is self-defeating (“at” requires a locus: a point where the contrast is determinate), asserting ∃r affirms existence, while “nothingness at r” denies any existence; and (ii) any attempt to localize, model, or subtract down to absolute nothingness inevitably smuggles in structures, rules, or domains and thereby reintroduces existence. A “structured nothing” is a being-plus-non-being hybrid and dissolves into contradiction. No logical exterior remains for nothingness to obtain. (shrink)

This book examines the views on friendship of the great medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas. For Aquinas, friendship is the ideal type of relationship that rational beings should cultivate. The book argues that Aquinas fundamentally revised some of the main features of Aristotle's paradigmatic account of friendship so as to accommodate the case of friendship between radically unequal beings: man and God. As a result, Aquinas presented a broader view of friendship than Aristotle's, allowing for a higher extent of disagreement, lack (...) of mutual understanding, and inequality between friends. (shrink)

Recent work in positive psychology demonstrates the importance of self-transcendence: understanding oneself to be part of something greater than the self, such as a family, community, or tradition of sacred practice. Self-transcendence is positively associated with wellbeing and a sense of meaning and purpose. Philosophers have argued that self-transcendent motivation has a central role in good character, or virtue. Positive psychologists are just now beginning to integrate the aim of developing such motivation in character interventions. In this paper we draw (...) attention to an important but overlooked condition on effectively developing self-transcendent motivation constitutive of virtue: such a process must engage the subject’s will in the right way. If a process does not meet this condition it will fail to produce motivation constitutive of virtue according to leading philosophical accounts of virtue. We identify a suite of strategies for cultivating motivations that do meet this condition but have not been explored in relation to character interventions, namely, reappraisal strategies from the extended process model of emotion regulation (EPM-ER). (shrink)

In the early thirteenth century, the connection between the immutability of the truth of prophecy and the necessary character of the announced event, i.e. the modal aspect of the prophetic utterance, is discussed in the quaestiones de prophetia of Peter of Capua, Stephen Langton, William of Auxerre, Alexander of Hales, Philip the Chancellor, Albertus Magnus and, later, Thomas Aquinas. According to all the authors mentioned in the paper, the necessitarianism of the prophetatum (the object of prophecy) occurs only at the (...) logical-propositional level, i.e. in the form of the logical relation connecting the condition or antecedent and the consequent. The fact that prophecy is a sign of divine foreknowledge does not imply a causal capacity with respect to its content, which remains contingent in itself until it is realised, even if necessary per accidens, as a conditional fact. (shrink)

The volume aims to investigate one of the most layered and pivotal concepts in the philosophical tradition: reason, understood not only as an intellectual faculty but also as a historical force and organizing principle. The book stems from a shared intellectual project initiated at the conference held in Foggia in March 2023, later enriched by contributions developed within PRIN research programs, with the goal of expanding and deepening the inquiry into the theme. Adopting an interdisciplinary and intercultural lens, the volume (...) gathers essays that explore the concept of reason across different philosophical contexts: from classical Greek thought to Christian and Islamic medieval philosophy, from Cartesian and Kantian modernity to contemporary critiques, including lesser-studied fields such as alchemical practices. The collection highlights both the faith in rationality as a driver of human progress and its historical contradictions, epistemological ambiguities, and ethical-political limitations. A central focus lies on the tension between reason and history: on one hand, reason as a guiding force in human development; on the other, history as a testing ground for its validity, as well as a domain of crisis and transformation. This dialectic permeates the volume, offering a multifaceted and critical understanding of a concept that remains central to the human condition. (shrink)

El objetivo del trabajo es analizar el sentido que cobran en contexto las referencias corporales en el De Regno de Tomás de Aquino. Se evidencia allí un rico uso de las imágenes y las remisiones al cuerpo humano, tanto por sus connotaciones simbólicas como por las funciones que cumplen en el hilo general de un texto pionero en la historia del pensamiento político medieval.

While many people think of self-knowledge as about having particular knowledge of oneself, and contemporary philosophers think of self-knowledge as about knowing one’s own mental states, historically, many thinkers have thought about self-knowledge as about knowing one’s nature. This is clear in Thomas Aquinas’s account of self-knowledge. Yet how is knowing one’s nature, which is one of the least individual aspects of oneself, self-knowledge rather than more general anthropological knowledge? This article defends the idea that there is a knowledge of (...) one’s nature which qualifies as self-knowledge and not just anthropological knowledge. In particular, it defends Aquinas’s conception of self-knowledge in dialogue with contemporary epistemology and Leo Tolstoy’s ‘The Death of Ivan Ilyich’. It is argued that Aquinas’s account of self-cognition describes a first-personal knowledge of our nature which is self-knowledge insofar as it is acquired through reflection on one’s experience of oneself in contrast to third-personal anthropological knowledge. (shrink)

St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) saw religion as part of the natural human propensity to worship. His ability to recognize the naturalness of this phenomenon and simultaneously to go beyond it, to explore spiritual revelation, makes his work fresh and highly readable today. While drawing on a strong distinction between theology and philosophy, Aquinas interleaved them intricately in his writings, which range from an examination of the structures of thought to the concept of God as the end of all things. This (...) accessible new translation chooses substantial passages not only from the indispensable Summa Theologicae, but from many other works, fully illustrating the breadth and progression of Aquinas's philosophy. (shrink)

This thesis undertakes a comparative analysis of the philosophical contributions of Avicenna and Aquinas, focusing on the influence of Avicenna's Sufficientia on Aquinas' De Ente et Essentia, Summa Contra Gentiles, and Summa Theologiae. The central theme of this study is the transmission and adaptation of Avicenna's metaphysics, especially the distinction between essentia (مَاهِيَّة) and esse (وجود) within Aquinas' Sacra Doctrina. This Avicennian distinction, first integrated into De Ente et Essentia, became the basis for Aquinas' demonstration and proof of God's existence (...) in his Summa Contra Gentiles I. and Summa Theologiae I. This thesis also investigates the bearing of Aristotle's Metaphysica on both Avicenna and Aquinas. It distinguishes between Aristotelian and Avicennian influences on Aquinas' metaphysical theology of Sacra Doctrina concerning the subject matter of metaphysics, the definition of God (or lack thereof), the essence and existence of God, the demonstration of God's existence, the proofs of God's existence, the unity and oneness of God, and divine thought and intellect. This thesis employed a rigorous methodology that combined historical textual analysis, philosophical exegesis, and comparative conceptual analysis, examined primary texts in Koine Greek, Arabic, and Latin, alongside authoritative English translations, and traced the transmission of Aristotle's and Avicenna's metaphysics in Aquinas' texts. Additionally, the study engaged extensively with both ancient and contemporary scholarly writings on Aristotle, Avicenna, and Aquinas, contextualized and interpreted their metaphysical arguments, and showed that Avicenna's metaphysics was integral to Aquinas' knowledge of the nature of God as the necesse esse (واجِبُ الوُجُود) and ipsum esse subsistens (أن يكون قائما بنفسه) whose essence is identical to His existence. These concepts informed Aquinas' doctrines on God's divine simplicity and unity and impacted the fundamental doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church's dogmatic and natural theology. This thesis contributed to comparative medieval philosophy by demonstrating the profound philosophical influence of Avicenna's Islamic philosophy on Thomism. The engagement between these two great philosophers reflects the universality of metaphysical inquiry and demonstrates its enduring relevance to Shia Islam and Western Christianity. Avicenna and Aquinas left an indelible mark on the development of medieval scholastic philosophy, proving that Peripatetic metaphysics transcends temporal, geographic, linguistic, cultural, and religious boundaries in the interest of the ultimate Truth. (shrink)

Much opposition to the notion of dogma arises from fears that accusations of heresy or anathemas are inherently violent. Similarly, opposition to claims of churches having infallible dogmatic authority tend to arise from fears of fanaticism, close-mindedness, and mindless deference to human authority or tradition, and so on. This book justifies dogma but not violence, fanaticism, close-mindedness, or mindless deference. By appeal to philosophical considerations alone, it is argued that positions which call for principled rejection of dogma and/or dogmatic authority (...) are self-defeating for Christian theists to embrace. Discovering these facts then show us Christians ought to be united in commitment to the restoration of communion within one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. This book thus proposes a new perspective on which anathemas and dogmatic authority are constitutive components of Christian charity toward others, including the anathematized themselves. This work also furthers ecumenical aims by showing that the best of each Christian theological tradition which insists on the truth and inspiration of Sacred Scripture finds its fulfilment in the future restoration of an undivided Church. (shrink)

This volume is a tribute to Fr. John F. Wippel. Following the philosophical order that Aquinas might have adopted "had he chosen to write a Summa metaphysicae"—an order that Wippel himself lays out in his Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas—these essays unfold new research on some of the most intriguing topics in Aquinas’s metaphysics, from the most recent generation of scholars formed by Wippel’s pioneering work. The contributors address the discovery of being qua being via separation (Gregory T. Doolan), propter (...) quid metaphysical demonstrations (Philip Neri Reese), the origins of the controversies about the real distinction between essence and esse (Mark Gossiaux), a defense of essence-realism as a key to the real distinction (David Twetten), the relationship of likeness and agency (Therese Scarpelli Cory), created form as act and potency (Stephen Brock), the variation of accidental forms (Gloria Frost), the possibility of angelic judgment (Francis Feingold), argumentation for the existence of God (Gaven Kerr), the propriety of " Qui Est" as a Divine Name (Brian Carl), ‘Beauty’ as a Divine Name (Michael Rubin), and God’s application of creaturely powers to action (Jason Mitchell). (shrink)

Subsidiarity is often implicitly conceived as an organizational model or a Weberian ideal type. The purpose of this paper is to show that, in contrast, subsidiarity is a principle in the sense of the tradition originating from Thomas Aquinas. Considered as an ideal type, subsidiarity may be perceived as impossible to apply because of its ideal status, abstracted from the circumstances. Here, we will demonstrate the consequences of the fact that subsidiarity is one of the common principles of practical moral (...) reasoning of particular prudence. Because it is a principle, subsidiarity does not have a visualizable substance or prescribe an organizational model, unlike the ideal type. It thus avoids the indiscriminate application of organizational models to contexts that are not appropriate, and in the context of tension between external consultants and managers, it rehabilitates the prudence of leaders who know the circumstances of their organization. (shrink)

This essay explores the theoretical treatment of leprosy in 13th-century theological discussions on the transmission of the original sin. According to scholastic theologians, both the existence of the original sin and its transmission from parents to progeny were factual truths, whose dynamics could be explained by analogy with inherited diseases, such as leprosy. Different uses of natural philosophy and medicine in discussing the transmission of leprosy will be shown in theological and biblical-exegetical works of William of Auvergne, Roland of Cremona, (...) Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, and Henry of Ghent. (shrink)

The first part of the essay examines the different premises, of Aristotelian and Galenic origin, for the idea of an inherent consumption of the natural heat of every living body, discussing the contributions of Isaac Israeli, Avicenna and Averroes to the reflection on the relationship between the secondary humours (or moistures) and the peculiar category of fevers called ‘hectic’. The second part of the article discusses how the link between moisture, heat and food was taken up and elaborated by Latin (...) Scholastic masters (in particular Thomas Aquinas), and considers the use of the notion of ‘radical moisture’ in the field of theology. Aquinas does not follow the previous theological tradition, originating with Peter Lombard, which denies the possibility that the matter assimilated through food is part of the bodily core that belongs to every human being from birth. The moisture provided by food is, in fact, inseparable from the (radical) moisture that originally belongs to each individual; as such, it is part of the ‘truth of human nature’ (veritas humanae naturae) that will be restored at the moment of the resurrection of the body. (shrink)

The Dominican Pedro de Ledesma was a member of the School of Salamanca, professor of Theology in the late 16th and early 17th century. Here we investigate for the first time his contribution to the «de auxiliis» controversy, in which mainly the Dominicans and the Jesuits contended about human free will and God’s influence on it. Among the various theological problems involved, this thesis examines the nature of the divine concurrence in free human action and, in particular, divine concurrence in (...) actual efficacious grace. Ledesma focuses his contribution to this debate on the real (and not only moral) difference between sufficient and efficacious grace. Another original feature of his conception of divine concurrence and efficacious grace are the target of his attacks, since he does not only dispute the theology of the Jesuit Luis de Molina, but also that of several Dominicans, such as Juan Vicente de Astorga; likewise, he opposes Pedro de Herrera and Diego Álvarez with a less sophisticated conception of «physical premotion» than theirs. This thesis updates Ledesma’s intellectual biography and contains the most complete list of his manuscript work to date. Ledesma’s ideas are studied on the basis of three documents: first, his unpublished lectures of 1590 on divine concurrence; second, the report on Molina’s Concordia sent to the Inquisition in 1594 (a manuscript hitherto neglected, and transcribed in the Appendix); third, the book on the dispute completed in 1601 and published in 1611. (shrink)

I argue that Jīva Gosvāmin’s (c. 1517–1608 ad ) concept of acintya and Thomas Aquinas’s (1225–1274 ad ) concept of mystery are similar. To make this case, I examine how each of them characterizes the nature of unity and plurality within the being of God, which is the issue of relations within a single object. I examine contemporary translations of acintya as it is used by Jīva, and I argue that mystery is a best translation because it addresses the ontological (...) and epistemological senses of the word. I examine contemporary accounts of mystery as it is used by Aquinas, arguing that they reflect Jīva’s use of the word acintya. This comparative study makes the case for similar approaches in Hindu and Christian scholasticism in regard to the use of reason to address the relational problem of simultaneous oneness and difference. (shrink)