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."

Augustine's Opera Omnia in Latin Online

I’m not an Augustine scholar but in my research and teaching I occasionally have a need to check a text of Augustine that I don’t have a copy of. A few years ago I came across the Italian site augustinus.it and have made profitable use of it. The site, sponsored by the Italian publisher Città Nuova, offers all of Augustine’s texts in Latin and Italian in an html format. Not long ago Città Nuova also completed the hard copy edition of Augustine’s Opera Omnia in Latin/Italian, which amounted to 70 volumes or so. (Here’s a blurb about the series on the Città Nuova site.) I used some of these volumes back in the 90s and recall that they were very well put together with extensive notes.

The resources at augustinus.it are vast but I don’t have time at the moment to provide a list. Probably the most useful of these resources is the search engine, which allows users to locate words and phrases across all of Augustine’s Latin texts. The Italian texts are also searchable and they are working on putting up the texts in Spanish translation too. A few dozen are already available in Spanish.

Limited areas of the site are in English, Spanish, French, and German. Here is the welcome page for English-speakers.