THOMAS INSTITUUT TE UTRECHT
Heidelberglaan 2
Utrecht / The Netherlands

DIVINE TRANSCENDENCE AND IMMANENCE IN THE THOUGHT OF THOMAS AQUINAS CONFERENCE 15- 17 DECEMBER 2005

CALL FOR PAPERS - CALL FOR PAPERS - CALL FOR PAPERS

From 15 to 17 December 2005 the Thomas Instituut te Utrecht will organize an international conference on the thought of Thomas Aquinas for the third time. The Thomas Instituut te Utrecht is an institute of the Catholic Theological University at Utrecht (NL) and the Tilburg Faculty of Theology (NL). Its members are theologians, philosophers and historians from several universities and institutes in the Netherlands. Its main aim is to promote both individual and collective research into Thomas Aquinas. One of the ways by which the Institute tries to achieve this is by organizing an international conference every five years. For the year 2005 the subject will be :

Divine Transcendence and Immanence in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas.

An influential, but rather debatable, interpretation of Thomas Aquinas’ lasting contribution to human culture focuses on the distinction between the natural and the supernatural. Such a distinction may serve the interests of human autonomy, human rationality, the development of the sciences and the dialogue with non-Christian partners. But it also serves to marginalize church and religion, in response to important cultural forces, and to deeply secularise human understanding of self and society. Over the past decades, however, both philosophers and theologians have formulated an interpretation of Aquinas that is quite different. It focuses on the Christian and theological thrust of Aquinas’ authorship, and is in search of both God’s presence and absence in our world. There is no absolute, clear-cut opposition or simple contrast between God and the human world, nor can God be reduced to the latter. This is a negative formula. How can we best approach this negative formula? Are there any good strategies to elucidate it, and what would they look like? How can Aquinas be of help in recognizing and interpreting God’s presence in our world?

In a three-day conference, scholars from different disciplines and different countries of the world will devote their attention to this challenge. For this, we have selected four areas: Aquinas’ understanding of God, his teaching on creation and on grace and life eternal, and his approach to Christ and his sacraments.

The conference will be held from Thursday, 15 December until Saturday, 17 December 2005 in the conference-center ISVW at Leusden (near Utrecht, NL). Main speakers will be Conor Cunningham (Nottingham), Harm Goris (Utrecht), Bruce Marshall (Dallas), Herwi Rikhof (Utrecht), Gregory Rocca (Berkeley), Hans-Christian Schmidbaur (Lugano), Henk Schoot (Utrecht) and Rudi te Velde (Amsterdam/Tilburg).

They will speak about one of four subject areas: Aquinas’

· understanding of God;

• teaching on creation;
• teaching on grace and life eternal;
• approach to Christ and his sacraments.

The main lectures will be followed by parallel paper sessions, which also will focus on these four subject areas. We kindly invite scholars from different disciplines and different countries of the world to send in proposals for papers, which will take approx. 25 minutes. Conference languages are: English, German and French.

Proposals must be submitted by 1 June 2005 . Please send a short abstract (approx. 400 words) to:

Dr. Cristina Pumplun (Secretary of Studies)
PO Box 80101
NL-3508 TC Utrecht

E-mail: cpumplun@ktu.nl  

fax: +31 30 2533665; tel. +31 30 2533129

Registrationcosts: € 270, including accommodation and registration fee.

Fees must be paid in advance. Payment by credit card is possible. For special requests for concessions please contact the Secretary of Studies at the above address.

The conference committee will inform you before 1 August 2005 if your proposal has been accepted. The conference committee will select a number of papers for publication in the proceedings. If you think your contribution qualifies for publication, please have a full version (approx. 15 pages) ready by January 2006.

Please contact the Secretary of Studies, dr. Cristina Pumplun, for further information.

You can also have a look on our website: http://www.thomasinstitute.org

We look forward to your proposals,

Yours sincerely,

Prof. dr. Herwi Rikhof
Director of the Thomas Instituut at Utrecht

Dr. Cristina Pumplun
Secretary of Studies of the Thomas Instituut te Utrecht

For more information, go to the Thomas Instituut te Utrecht’s web site.