Author: Ryan J. Brady Publisher: Emmaus Academic ISBN: 1645851648 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 298
Book Description
How do the intellect and will remain free while pursuing a life of virtue? This is where the question of prudence comes in. Is the practical wisdom of the prudent man founded upon some kind of innate or acquired instinct, or does it presuppose understanding of intellectually grasped basic principles? And if those principles are presupposed, is reason necessary for applying them in any given instance, or can one solely look to the rightly formed appetites acquired by moral virtue? In answering these questions, Ryan J. Brady looks first and foremost to St. Thomas Aquinas and his ancient and modern interpreters. Brady’s way of engaging the question of the interplay between the intellect and reason is by focusing on two apparently conflicting texts of St. Thomas Aquinas, one of which says that synderesis (the habit of the first principles of the practical intellect) appoints the end to the moral virtues and another which says prudence does. The author’s conviction is that the correct way of reconciling the two texts not only establishes knowledge of the role of conscience, virtue, and natural law in the moral life but also provides insight into the profoundly complementary roles of reason and will within the context of a life of virtue.
Author: Matthew Levering Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess ISBN: 0268106355 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 452
Book Description
Matthew Levering offers a biblical and Thomistic portrait of the cardinal virtue of temperance and its allied virtues, in dialogue with an ecumenical range of theologians and scholars. In Aquinas’s Eschatological Ethics and the Virtue of Temperance, Levering argues that Catholic ethics make sense only in light of the biblical worldview that Jesus has inaugurated the kingdom of God by pouring out his spirit. Jesus has made it possible for us to know and obey God’s law for human flourishing as individuals and communities. He has reoriented our lives toward the goal of beatific communion with him in charity, which affects the exercise of the moral virtues that pertain to human flourishing. Without the context of the inaugurated kingdom, Catholic ethics as traditionally conceived will seem like an effort to find a middle ground between legalistic rigorism and relativistic laxism, which is especially the case with the virtue of temperance, the focus of Levering’s book. After an opening chapter on the eschatological/biblical character of Catholic ethics, the ensuing chapters engage Aquinas’s theology of temperance in the Summa theologiae, which identifies and examines a number of virtues associated with temperance. Levering demonstrates that the theology of temperance is profoundly biblical, and that Aquinas’s theology of temperance relies for its intelligibility upon Christ’s inauguration of the kingdom of God as the graced fulfillment of our created nature. The book develops new vistas for scholars and students interested in moral theology.
Author: Tom Angier Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1108943683 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 893
Book Description
This Handbook provides an intellectually rigorous and accessible overview of the relationship between natural law and human rights. It fills a crucial gap in the literature with leading scholarship on the importance of natural law as a philosophical foundation for human rights and its significance for contemporary debates. The themes covered include: the role of natural law thought in the history of human rights; human rights scepticism; the different notions of 'subjective right'; the various foundations for human rights within natural law ethics; the relationship between natural law and human rights in religious traditions; the idea of human dignity; the relation between human rights, political community and law; human rights interpretation; and tensions between human rights law and natural law ethics. This Handbook is an ideal introduction to natural law perspectives on human rights, while also offering a concise summary of scholarly developments in the field.
Author: R. Jared Staudt Publisher: Emmaus Academic ISBN: 1645851699 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 450
Book Description
To contemporary minds, the notion of justice toward God is seldom considered and often foreign. Far more discussed is how God might either undermine or motivate social justice. The Primacy of God by R. Jared Staudt offers an important intervention. With the aid of St. Thomas Aquinas, Staudt argues that it is vital for both contemporary society and contemporary Catholic theology to return to the traditional view of God as the one to whom all human and social action must be ordered and to recover the virtue of religion as the virtue which orders all other virtues to God. Not only does Staudt helpfully remind readers of the ancient philosophical and biblical notion of worship as a dictate of the natural law, he also illuminates the way in which Christian liturgy, as an enactment of Christ’s high priesthood, is the great fulfillment of natural and biblical worship. Accordingly, Staudt secures religion as essential for the virtue of love. This brings Staudt to criticize modern theologians like Karl Barth, who claimed that religion is inherently idolatrous, as well as Karl Rahner, who claimed that love of neighbor is the highest moral act. Staudt also considers the question of religious truth in light of the plurality of religions, soliciting the assistance of Hans Urs von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger, as well as the way in which religion relates to the development of culture, engaging the great Catholic social historian Christopher Dawson. The Primacy of God is a much-needed work that ought to set the agenda for Catholic theology in the twenty-first century.
Author: John F. Boyle Publisher: Emmaus Academic ISBN: 1645851753 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 181
Book Description
St. Thomas Aquinas is best known for his Summa Theologiae and is regarded as the great exemplar of systematic theology. Yet St. Thomas himself might be surprised at this legacy. He may well have saw himself principally as a commentator and teacher of Sacred Scripture. When it comes to engaging St. Thomas’ scriptural work, readers are at a significant disadvantage. They are arguably more foreign and more dense than his Summa yet have been scarcely studied. This book by one of the foremost experts on St. Thomas’ use of Scripture is a significant and much needed contribution. In The Order and Division of Divine Truth: St. Thomas Aquinas as Scholastic Master of the Sacred Page, John Boyle opens up the riches of St. Thomas as a master of the Sacred page. Readers will find explorations not just of the style of Aquinas’ commentaries, which differs from that of the modern biblical commentary, but also the overarching theological and methodological perspective that shapes his approach to Scripture. Boyle gives insight into how Aquinas would have understood the task of biblical commentary as a university lecturer, how Scripture is ordered to divine revelation, how medieval masters divided up the text, and how Aquinas’ biblical commentaries relate to his theological summaries. This book will be important for anyone seeking to better understand St. Thomas’ theology and the often-overlooked role that Scripture plays in his work.
Author: Keith Lemna Publisher: Emmaus Academic ISBN: 1645852482 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 494
Book Description
Christian theology in recent decades has seen an explosion in the number of books published seeking a renewal of Trinitarian ontology. There has also been a proliferation of studies dedicated to the theology of Wisdom. Few if any of these books on the Trinity or on Wisdom have drawn for inspiration on the comprehensive vision of French Oratorian priest Louis Bouyer (1913–2004), one of the greatest theologians of the modern age. Bouyer produced a comprehensive work of theology that integrated these two seminal concerns based on a vast “re-sourcing” of the Christian tradition. Dr. Keith Lemna explores Bouyer’s achievement in depth, showing that at the heart of his venture was a deep, contemplative penetration into God’s mediation to the world—his creation, sustenance, and redemption of creation in the Wisdom of the Eternal Son. Bouyer is a decisive resource for theologians wanting to develop the Christian understanding of the Trinity and creation based on tradition but in dialogue with modern cosmological thought. The Trinitarian Wisdom of God: Louis Bouyer’s Theology of the God-World Relationship gets to the heart of Louis Bouyer’s theology of the God-World relationship more deeply than any other has done before. In doing so, Lemna recovers a great theologian at his best.
Author: John R. Betz Publisher: Emmaus Academic ISBN: 1949013871 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 671
Book Description
The Prologue of the Gospel of John identifies Jesus Christ as the eternal Word or Logos of the Father, who became flesh for the salvation of the world. Yet the world that Christ saves is his world from the beginning, for he is also the Logos of creation, the one “through whom all things were made” (John 1:3). This divinely revealed claim has profound implications not only for theology but also for metaphysics, whose relation to Christian doctrine was undermined over the course of the twentieth century, such that the Christian faith has become an increasingly private affair rather than a credible account of reality and an invitation to participate more fully in it. With Christ, the Logos of Creation, John Betz seeks to recover a Christ-centered, analogical metaphysics and to establish the indispensability of such metaphysics for Christian theology and the Christian vision of reality. In Part I, he dispels the fog of confusion about analogical metaphysics and addresses the ecumenical issues posed by Karl Barth’s famous rejection of the analogia entis. Part II demonstrates how analogical metaphysics helps to explain Christian doctrine and sheds new light on the interrelationship between individual doctrines, including Trinitarian theology, Christology and soteriology, and theological anthropology. In Part III, Betz explores how this analogical perspective can aid in resolving a number of theological disputes, including the metaphysical relationship between nature and grace and the issue of divine humility. Finally, Part IV outlines further directions toward a fully Christological metaphysics that is proportionate both to the challenges of modern theology and the reality of our life in Christ the Logos.
Author: R. Michael Dunnigan Publisher: Emmaus Academic ISBN: 1645853349 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 511
Book Description
The Second Vatican Council’s declaration Dignitatis Humanae marks a significant advance over prior magisterial teaching about the right to religious liberty, yet the nature of this advance has long been subject to controversy. Is it a true development, conserving and extending what came before? Or does it instead chart a new course entirely, rejecting and replacing the older teaching? In Religious Liberty and the Hermeneutic of Continuity, R. Michael Dunnigan takes up these pressing questions and offers a careful examination of how the claims of Dignitatis Humanae relate to the magisterial precedents set by the papacy in the nineteenth century. With precision and nuance, Dunnigan analyzes the object, scope, and foundation of the right to religious liberty itself, and his analysis culminates in the proposal that the “right” endorsed by Vatican II is not identical with the “rights” condemned by previous popes. Beyond establishing the claims of Dignitatis Humanae as a true development of prior teaching, Dunnigan shows that its contribution to the question of religious liberty has not yet received full appreciation. Indeed, Dunnigan demonstrates how the Vatican II declaration reaffirms, reinforces, and even revivifies prior magisterial teaching on religious liberty through its emphasis on human integrity, which emerges as a foundational but often overlooked principle of continuity.
Author: David H. Delaney Publisher: Emmaus Academic ISBN: 1645853594 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 445
Book Description
In numerous works both before and after his papal election, John Paul II offers ample reflection on the themes of personhood, relationality, and sexual complementarity, but while he advances a clearly articulated theology of femininity and motherhood, as in his apostolic letter Mulieris Dignitatem, he might seem to offer no equivalent treatment of masculinity and fatherhood. In Viri Dignitatem, David Delaney seeks to surface and systematize the rich but often overlooked theology of masculinity and fatherhood that is found dispersed throughout John Paul II’s writings, demonstrating its essentiality for understanding his larger anthropology. In the first part of the study, Delaney treats the foundations of this anthropology, establishing John Paul II’s thought on personhood, relation, and human action. Building on this, the second part considers sexual differentiation, drawing out from John Paul II’s teaching on the body, femininity, Mary, and the Church his corresponding perspective on masculinity, which is itself rooted in nuptial complementarity and the revealing work of Christ. The third part focuses on John Paul II’s theology of fatherhood, which Delaney presents as both a natural and spiritual vocation that is based on the Fatherhood of God as this is manifested and imaged by the incarnate Son. Finally, the fourth part provides a synthetic assessment of this theology of masculinity and fatherhood, showing its coherence and addressing contemporary criticisms and misinterpretations. At a time of accelerating crises of sexuality, the family, and fatherhood, Delaney’s Viri Dignitatem provides a welcome and important elaboration of John Paul II’s teaching on the dignity and vocation of man.
Author: Roland Millare Publisher: Emmaus Academic ISBN: 1645852059 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 349
Book Description
A Living Sacrifice focuses on the inherent relationship between eschatology and the liturgy in light of Ratzinger’s insistence upon the primacy of logos over ethos. When logos is subordinated to ethos, the human person becomes subjected to a materialist ontology that leads to an ethos that is concerned above all by utility and progress, which affects one’s approach to understanding the liturgy and eschatology. How a person celebrates the liturgy becomes subject to the individual whim of one person or a group of people. Eschatology is reduced to addressing the temporal needs of a society guided by a narrow conception of hope or political theology. If the human person wants to understand his authentic sacramental logos, then he must first turn to Christ the incarnate Logos, who reveals to him that he is created for a loving relationship with God and others. The primacy of logos is the central hermeneutical key to understanding the unique vision of Ratzinger’s Christocentric liturgical theology and eschatology. This is coupled with a study of Ratzinger’s spiritual Christology with a focus on how it influences his theology of liturgy and eschatology through the notions of participation and communion in Christ’s sacrificial love. Finally, A Living Sacrifice examines Ratzinger’s theology of hope, charity, and beauty, as well as his understanding of active participation in relationship to the eschatological and cosmic characteristics of the sacred liturgy.
Author: Ryan J. Brady
Author: Matthew Levering
Author: Tom Angier
Author: R. Jared Staudt
Author: John F. Boyle
Author: Keith Lemna
Author: John R. Betz
Author: R. Michael Dunnigan
Author: David H. Delaney
Author: Roland Millare