Nature and Grace
Nature and Grace

Author: Andrew Dean Swafford

Publisher: James Clarke & Company

Published: 2015-02-26

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 0227903870

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Conventional wisdom has it that thinking on nature and grace among Roman Catholic intellectuals between the sixteenth century and the eve of Vatican II was severely clouded by the work of Cajetan and his fellow Thomistic commentators. Henri de Lubachas rightly been given credit for pointing this out; and to all appearances, de Lubac's influence won the day, as can be seen by the imprint of his thought upon not just the Second Vatican Council, but also the pontifi cates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. In recent years, however, a new crop of Thomistic scholars has arisen who question whether de Lubac's word on nature and grace should be the last; hence, the debate over the nature-grace relation, so heated in the mid-twentieth century, has been stirred once again. Andrew Dean Swafford here offers a 'third way' by way of the nineteenth-century German theologian, Matthias J. Scheeben, who has been neglected in academic appraisals of the subject until now. Swafford shows that Scheeben captures the very best of both sides, while at the same time avoiding the characteristic pitfalls so often alleged against each.

Spirit and Nature
Spirit and Nature

Author: Ephraim Radner

Publisher: Herder & Herder

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13:

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Jansenism, the view of the world as dark and fallen, enjoyed its heyday in 17th century Europe. Radner explores Jansenism and its response to purported miraculous events, exploring the interior logic and its implications for Christian pneumatology.

The Graced Horizon
The Graced Horizon

Author: Stephen J. Duffy

Publisher: Michael Glazier Books

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13:

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In the present century a renaissance in Roman Catholic theology sparked a renewed interest in the theology of nature and grace. Without an understanding of the heated debate that raged in mid-century over the nature/grace dialectic, Vatican Council II is not wholly intelligible, for with this dispute Catholicism turned a corner. The theology of nature and grace that emerged from the debate furnished a theoretical foundation for exorcising the dualisms that for so long had bedeviled Catholic life and thought, and thus legitimated Catholicism's departure from its ghetto and its new openness to the world. The quotidian and the religious were now seen to reside not in separate enclaves, but to suffuse each other. The plain truth of the humdrum was transformed into poetry, and poetry into revelation. This historical and interpretative study chronicles the mid-century debate and analyzes the contributions of the major players and a cast of representative figures.

Disguised Vices
Disguised Vices

Author: Michael Moriarty

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011-09-08

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 0199589372

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The notions of virtue and vice are vital components of the Western ethical tradition. But in early modern France they were called into question, as writers such as La Rochefoucauld argued that what appears as virtue is in fact disguised vice. Disguised Vices analyses the underlying logic of such claims, and explores what is at stake in them.

The Suspended Middle
The Suspended Middle

Author: John Milbank

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 2005-09-21

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 9780802828996

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French Jesuit Henri de Lubac (1896–1991) was arguably the most revolutionary theologian of the twentieth century. He proposed that Western theology since the early modern period had lost sight of the key to integrating faith and reason — the truth that all human beings are naturally oriented toward the supernatural. In this vital book John Milbank defends de Lubac s claim and pushes it to a more radical extreme. The Suspended Middle shows how such a claim entails a non-ontology suspended between rational philosophy and revealed theology, interweaving the two while denying them any pure autonomy from each other. As de Lubac s writings on the supernatural implicitly dismantled the reigning Catholic (and perhaps Protestant) assumptions about Christian intellectual reflection, he met with opposition and even papal censure. Milbank s sophisticated account of de Lubac delineates the French theologian s relations with other proponents of the nouvelle thologie, such as Hans Urs von Balthasar, and clarifies the subtle but crucial divisions within recent Roman Catholic theology. The most substantial treatment in English of de Lubac s as yet untranslated Surnaturel and the subsequent debate, Milbank s Suspended Middle lays down an energetic challenge that every serious student of theology and Christian philosophy will want to engage.

Recognizing the Gift
Recognizing the Gift

Author: Daniel A. Rober

Publisher: Fortress Press

Published: 2016-06-01

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 1506409083

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Recognizing the Gift puts twentieth-century Catholic theological conversations on nature and grace, particularly those of Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner, into dialogue with Continental philosophy, notably the thought of Jean-Luc Marion and Paul Ricoeur. It argues that a renewed theology of nature and grace must build on the accomplishments of the recent past while acknowledging that an engagement with the political is unavoidable for theology. Ultimately, the aim is to revive and broaden discussion of nature and grace by drawing together the insights of contemporary theologians and Continental philosophers. Too often these areas of inquiry remain quite separate, in part due to differing priorities. This work tries to open that conversation, in part by critically pointing out, in dialogue with Ricoeur, the need in Marion’s work for an acknowledgment of recognition, reciprocity, and the political. It thus argues for a theology of nature and grace in terms of recognition of the gift, drawing out the reciprocal and political nature of gift and givenness in opposition to those, including Marion, who would seek to avoid politics and reciprocity as a proper avenue of inquiry for theology.