This path-breaking approach to Thomas Aquinas interprets the Five Ways in the context of his theory of science. Aquinas is the leading medieval philosopher and his work is of continuing contemporary relevance. Addressing all the critical themes of authority and reason, Christopher Martin examines the role of science and definitions in medieval thought, and how to deal with the big question: is there a God? Rigorous and challenging, Martin's clear exposition compares and contrasts Aquinas' arguments with those of other philosophers, Anselm, Descartes and Kant.
If you could sit down with St. Thomas Aquinas over a pint of beer and ask him any one question, what would it be? Pints With Aquinas contains over 50 deep thoughts from the Angelic doctor on subjects such as God, virtue, the sacraments, happiness, alcohol, and more. If you've always wanted to read St. Thomas but have been too intimidated to try, this book is for you.So, get your geek on, pull up a bar stool and grab a cold one, here we go!""He alone enlightened the Church more than all other doctors; a man can derive more profit in a year from his books than from pondering all his life the teaching of others." - Pope John XXII
St. Thomas Aquinas’s commentaries on the Pastoral Epistles are distinctive and overlooked theological resources, offering invaluable insights into the exercise of the episcopal office in bringing about the spiritual perfection of the faithful in Christ. The Ideal Bishop includes a review of the theology of the episcopacy found in St. Thomas’s principal contemporaries, including Peter Lombard, St. Albert the Great, and St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio. The heart of this book is an examination of the theology and spirituality of the episcopacy found in the lectures on 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus. Particular attention is devoted to Aquinas’s treatment of the nature, purpose, requisite virtues, disqualifying vice, special duties, and particular graces of the episcopal office.
In this comprehensive anthology, twenty-seven outstanding scholars from North America and Europe address every major aspect of Thomas Aquinas's understanding of morality and comment on his remarkable legacy. While there has been a revival of interest in recent years in the ethics of St. Thomas, no single work has yet fully examined the basic moral arguments and content of Aquinas' major moral work, the Second Part of the Summa Theologiae. This work fills that lacuna. The first chapters of The Ethics of Aquinas introduce readers to the sources, methods, and major themes of Aquinas's ethics. The second part of the book provides an extended discussion of ideas in the Second Part of the Summa Theologiae, in which contributors present cogent interpretations of the structure, major arguments, and themes of each of the treatises. The third and final part examines aspects of Thomistic ethics in the twentieth century and beyond. These essays reflect a diverse group of scholars representing a variety of intellectual perspectives. Contributors span numerous fields of study, including intellectual history, medieval studies, moral philosophy, religious ethics, and moral theology. This remarkable variety underscores how interpretations of Thomas's ethics continue to develop and evolve-and stimulate fervent discussion within the academy and the church. This volume is aimed at scholars, students, clergy, and all those who continue to find Aquinas a rich source of moral insight.
Thomas Aquinas has always been viewed as a highly important figure in Western Civilization, and the chief philosopher of Roman Catholicism. In recent decades there has been a renewed interest in Aquinas' thought as scholars have been exploring the relevance of his thought to contemporary philosophical problems. The book will be of interest not only to historians of medieval philosophy, but to philosophers who work on problems associated with the nature of material objects. Because human beings are typically understood to be a kind of material object, the book will also be of interest to philosophers working on topics in the philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of human nature. Although the work contains the kinds of details that are necessary for a work of historical scholarship, it is written in a manner that makes it approachable for undergraduate students in philosophy and so it would be a welcomed addition to any university library.
How are God and creatures related? How can one reconcile the sovereignty and power of God with creatures' capacity to act freely?Kathryn Tanner's important and original work seeks an answer in the features and limits of traditional Christian discourse. Her search for a unique kernal or regulative dimension of the Christian doctrine of God-world relations leads her to identify in the tradition an operative "grammar&334; of meaningful theological discourse that not only informs the past but can guide the future.
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.
All of us want to be happy and live well. Sometimes intense emotions affect our happiness—and, in turn, our moral lives. Our emotions can have a significant impact on our perceptions of reality, the choices we make, and the ways in which we interact with others. Can we, as moral agents, have an effect on our emotions? Do we have any choice when it comes to our emotions? In Aquinas on the Emotions, Diana Fritz Cates shows how emotions are composed as embodied mental states. She identifies various factors, including religious beliefs, intuitions, images, and questions that can affect the formation and the course of a person's emotions. She attends to the appetitive as well as the cognitive dimension of emotion, both of which Aquinas interprets with flexibility. The result is a powerful study of Aquinas that is also a resource for readers who want to understand and cultivate the emotional dimension of their lives.
The Sentences of Peter Lombard was the standard theological text from the twelfth through the fifteenth century (and even well beyond that in some places); producing a commentary on it was the equivalent of a doctoral dissertation, since it qualified the commentator to teach at the university level. Accordingly, all of the famous medieval scholastics, from Alexander of Hales to John Duns Scotus to William of Ockham, produced their own commentaries on the Sentences. Appearing for the first time in English, this volume features a bilingual Latin-English edition of Aquinas' first major work, the Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard.
