For the first time, St. Thomas’s exposition of The Divine Names is available commercially in English. This exquisite 549 page volume includes an introduction, endnotes, a table of citations of The Divine Names in other works of Aquinas, and indexes pertaining to Scripture, Persons, and Terms used. …
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Han-Luen Kantzer Komline loves the Doctor of Grace not only as her theological guide but also as her personal companion, and that makes Augustine on the Will: A Theological Account a joy to read. Indeed, Kantzer Komline writes as though she traveled alongside St. Augustine from his conversion in Milan to his death in Hippo. Her prose is sophisticated with a familial lilt, a soulfulness that is rare in academic writing. Better still, she allows Augustine to speak for himself before she paraphrases or synthesizes; he was schooled as a rhetorician, after all. Rather than feigning originality, she allows Augustine to be Augustine without projecting any twenty-first century vogue onto him. Thus, Kantzer Komline presents a true theology, reaching the heart of what affiliates of the Sacra Doctrina Project cherish as “both scientia and sapientia.”
Read MoreReinhard Hütter has written perhaps the most significant theological work of 2020. John Henry Newman On Truth and Its Counterfeits: A Guide for Our Times is a trenchant critique of contemporary culture providing insights gained by Hütter’s ease in making Sts. Thomas Aquinas and Newman conversation partners. Hütter astounds the reader not only has with his command of Newman’s writings but also by showing how each of Newman’s works fit into his life. For my part, I have found the book to be an important course-preparation resource for establishing a development of doctrine framework in the Church history classes I have taught in seminary over the past academic year. I am re-reading and discussing the text with one of our seminarians.
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In his monograph, Cosmology Without God? The Problematic Theology Inherent in Modern Cosmology—a revised version of his doctoral dissertation written under Michael Hanby at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at the Catholic University of America—Fr. David Alcalde pronounces a harsh sentence on the cogency of much contemporary science-religion dialogue, in particular in the domain of theological claims made in virtue of the hypotheses, theories, or conclusions of modern cosmology
Read MoreEdward Feser’s Aristotle’s Revenge (Editiones Scholasticae, 2019) is consequently a welcome addition to the late 20th- and early 21st-century resurgence of broadly Aristotelian and Thomistic approaches to the philosophy of nature, and the volume spells out in detail and begins to develop the metaphysical grounds to which Simon refers. It is essential reading for those interested in the topic of the perennial Aristotelian philosophy of nature and its relationship to the particular natural sciences.
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Thomas Aquinas and the Greek Fathers, edited by Michael Dauphinais, Andrew Hofer, O.P., and Roger Nutt, Sapientia Press: Ave Maria University, Ave Maria, Florida, 2019.
In this latest of volumes that are the product of joint conferences between the Thomistic Institute of the Dominican House of Studies (Washington, DC) and the Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal of Ave Maria University (Ave Maria, FL), the editors and authors address what is variously identified as a “tragic dialectic,” a “false dichotomy,” and a “hermeneutical binary” that has arisen between the theology of Thomas Aquinas and that of the Greek Fathers. As this volume makes clear, whatever one might call this outdated approach, it fails to appreciate the mass of textual evidence supporting the considerable influence which the Greek Fathers exercised upon St. Thomas’ mature works, especially the Tertia Pars and the biblical commentaries. This volume also demonstrates that the dichotomous view profoundly incapacitates the contemporary theologian from attending with any sensitivity to the profound modes of complementarity that exist between the joint “cruciform proclamations of the truth of the Gospel” in Aquinas and the Greek Fathers.
For students of St. Thomas this volume will be a welcome addition to their library and is likely to assist in future studies of patristic themes in Aquinas. In particular, citing only a few of the many excellent essays contained herein, students ought to attend closely to the works of Fr. Khaled Anatolios (University of Notre Dame), “The Ontological Grammar of Salvation and the Salvific Work of Christ in Athanasius and Thomas Aquinas,” and Joseph Wawrykow, “The Greek Fathers in the Eucharistic Theology of Thomas Aquinas.” Both of these essays, which can be profitably read together, are masterful presentations of the complementarity that becomes possible when one abandons the false binary between Aquinas and the Greek Fathers. Likewise, the contribution of Jorgen Vijgen (Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland), “Aquinas’s Reception of Origen: A Preliminary Study,” the longest in the volume, is noteworthy for its extensive treatment of explicit references to Origen in Aquinas’ works and certainly invites further research. All of the essays, and the volume as a whole, reinforce for students and scholars the generous spirit, a spirit requisite for the renewal of theology today (see Fr. Andrew Hofer’s conclusion), with which St. Thomas went about his study and teaching of theology.
Reviewed by Gideon Barr
Many authors have noted developments in Aquinas’ thought over the years. As early as 1280, for instance, a number of Dominicans wrote a work called Articuli in quibus frater Thomas melius in Summa quam in Scriptis locutus est, which documented 32 times Aquinas changed his mind on various topics by comparing the two Summas. In this masterful work of Pasquale Porro, however, changes from the whole Thomistic corpus are documented and traced chronologically. The reader is also provided with both the historical context of the developments in Aquinas' thought and an incisive analysis of the implications and influence such developments have on contemporary discussions. It has been translated from the Italian for CUA Press by Joseph Trabbic and Roger Nutt.
- Reviewed by Ryan J. Brady
Sapientia Press has released the second edition of Wisdom in the Face of Modernity, A Study in Thomistic Natural Theology.
In this remarkable presentation of Aquinas’ natural theology, Fr. Thomas Joseph White attempts to not only clearly present the Angelic Doctor’s teaching, but to also respond to challenges brought forward by modern authors.
In response to the criticisms of ontotheology by Kant and Heidegger and their claims that the philosophical arguments presented by scholastics such as Aquinas are no longer tenable, White argues that they gravely misunderstood the philosophical presuppositions of classical natural theology. St. Thomas, White insists, would not have appealed to an aprioristic kind of intuition of God as Kant and Heidegger seem to presuppose he would have.
One of the major goals of the book is to explain the order of metaphysical discovery in terms of what Aquinas refers to as a via intentionis (according to which man begins with his experiential knowledge of that which exists and then goes on to analyze the metaphysical structure of concrete beings by means of a posteriori arguments). In this context, he examines the claims of Gilson, Maritain and Rahner regarding the order of discovery and maintains that a renewed appreciation of St. Thomas’ Aristotelianism could help us correct some of the defects in their otherwise meritorious contributions.
Finally, the book also investigates the ways that the study of natural theology can affect the study of theology. Interestingly, White considers the apophatic and cataphatic aspects of Aquinas from a philosophical point of view while pointing out that even if we can know something about what God is by means of analogy, the human mind naturally has some conception of its inadequacy and thus even on the natural level has some kind of velleity for a more perfect knowledge of God.
This edition has three new appendices :
- Philosophical Wisdom and the Final End of Man: Thomas Aquinas and the Paradigm of Nature-Grace Orthodoxy
- Divine Names
- On the Nature of Christian Philosophy: A Response to Critics
- Reviewed by Ryan J. Brady
Under the direction of the Sacra Doctrina Project
