New Book: General Principles of Sacramental Theology

Roger W. Nutt has released a new book with The Catholic University of America Press entitled General Principles of Sacramental Theology.

General Principles of Sacramental Theology addresses a current lacuna in English-language theological literature. Bernard Leeming's highly respected book Principles of Sacramental Theology was published more than sixty years ago. Since that time, there has been a noted decrease, especially in English-language sacramental theology, in treatments of the basic topics and principles—such as the nature of the sacraments of signs, sacramental grace, sacramental character, sacramental causality, sacramental intention, the necessity and number of the sacraments, sacramental matter and form, inter alia—which apply to all of the sacraments.

Rather than deconstruct the Church's tradition, as many recent books on the sacraments do, Roger Nutt offers a vibrant presentation of these principles as a sound foundation for a renewed appreciation of each of the seven sacraments in the Christian life as the divinely willed means of communion and friendship between God and humanity. The sacraments bestow and nourish the personal communion with Jesus Christ that is the true source of human happiness. Recourse to the patrimony of Catholic wisdom, especially St. Thomas Aquinas, can help to highlight the sacraments and their significance within the plan of salvation.

This book will be of use in seminary, graduate, and undergraduate courses. It is further offered as a source of hope to all those seeking deeper intimacy with God amidst the confusion, alienation, and disappointment that accompanies life in a fallen world. The sacraments play an irreplaceable role in pursuing a Universal Call to Holiness that is so central to Vatican II's teaching.

Roger W. Nutt is associate professor of theology at Ave Maria University, Florida

“This book will help priests and laity alike to gain a fuller understanding of the worth and power of the sacraments. Prof. Nutt helps to move the conversation about the sacraments forward in a much-needed way in our day.”

— Paul Keller, OP, The Athenaeum of Ohio

New Book: Thomism and Predestination

A new book entitled Thomism and Predestination: Principles and Disputations is now available from The Catholic University of America Press. See below for more details. 

"There is perhaps no aspect of traditional Thomistic thought so contested in modern Catholic theology as the notion of predestination as presented by the classical Thomist school. What is that doctrine, and why is it so controversial? Has it been rightly understood in the context of modern debates? At the same time, the Church's traditional affirmation of a mystery of predestination is largely ignored in modern Catholic theology more generally. Why is this the case? Can a theology that emphasizes the Augustinian notion of the primacy of salvation by grace alone also forego a theology of predestination?

Thomism and Predestination: Principles and Disputations considers these topics from various angles: the principles of the classical Thomistic treatment of predestination, their contested interpretation among modern theologians, examples of the doctrine as illustrated by the spiritual writings of the saints, and the challenges to Catholic theology that the Thomistic tradition continues to pose. This volume initiates readers―especially future theologians and Catholic intellectuals―to a central theme of theology that is speculatively challenging and deeply interconnected to many other elements of the faith.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Steven A. Long is a professor of Theology at Ave Maria University and author of Teleological Grammar of the Moral Act (Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University Publications). Roger W. Nutt is an associate professor of Theology, codirector of the Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal, and editor-in-chief of Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University. Thomas Joseph White, OP, is the director of the Thomistic Institute at the Domincan House of Studies. He is the author of several books including The Incarnate Lord: A Thomistic Study in Christology (CUA Press), and coeditor of the theological journal Nova et Vetera."

Roger Nutt's translation of the De unione verbi Incarnati

Roger Nutt has just published a translation of Aquinas's De unione Verbi incarnati with Peeters. The volume is part of the Dallas Medieval Texts and Translations series that Peeters publishes. Dr. Nutt is a professor of theology at Ave Maria University and the editor of Thomistica.net. Here is the blurb from the Peeters' site:

This volume contains the first publication in book form of an English translation of Thomas Aquinas’s controversial disputed question De unione Verbi incarnati. This disputed question is a remarkable portal into the Angelic Doctor’s theology of the hypostatic union, which is recognized as an area in which Aquinas forged some of his most original and penetrating articulations of the Christian faith. In the De unione Verbi incarnati Aquinas presents in five articles material that occupies more than eighteen questions in the third part of the Summa theologiae. The attribution of an esse secundarium to Christ, in the fourth article of the De unione, has been the object of intense debate, for it seems to contradict the account of the Summa.

In addition to Professor Nutt’s English translation, the volume includes the critical Latin text published by Barbara Bartocci, Klaus Obenauer, and Walter Senner, as well as a substantial introduction. Professor Nutt’s introduction carefully unfolds the historical background, technical concepts, sources, and speculative claims needed for understanding the breadth of the biblical and metaphysical contemplation represented in this work; it also includes a detailed exploration of the debate over the fourth article.

Here is the book's page at the Peeters site and here is its page at Amazon.