Corpus Christianorum has announced two new series: Thomas de Aquino Graecus and Thomas de Aquino a Byzantinis receptus. Its aim is to produce “critical editions of Greek translations of, and commentaries on, various works by Thomas Aquinas composed by Byzantine scholars and theologians between the late thirteenth and fifteenth centuries.” For more information visit the webiste here.
Sacra Doctrina Project conference June 10-13 in Rochester, NY. Call for Papers!
Read MoreThe readers of Thomistica are undoubtedly familiar with the ongoing publication of the complete works of St. Thomas in English.
Yesterday, January 28, it was announced that a similar project in Polish has been initiated by the Thomistic Institute in Warsaw, run by the Polish Province of the Dominican Order, and the Pro Futuro Theologiae Foundation at the Theology Faculty in Torún. The edition will comprise of seventy volumes and aims to be complete in 2035.
Signing the contract: From the left: Mateusz Przanowski OP, Fr. Piotr Roszak, Tomasz Grabowski OP, Piotr Paweł Orłowski
Chance and Indeterminacy in the Natural World
June 16-20, 2021 | Washington, DC
Aristotle claimed that nature works "always or for the most part" and this tension between fixed necessity and the randomness of "the most part" has always been a part of the study of nature. Classical physics seemed to paint a world where the "always" of determinism was at work, at least in principle, while contemporary quantum physics and evolutionary biology have pushed chance and randomness back into the spotlight in the study of nature. Are probabilities used in various physics, chemistry and biology simply an approximation for a complicated deterministic system, or is there some inherent indeterminism in nature? Do various fields of contemporary science understand and approach these questions the same way? Do the Aristotelian and Thomistic understanding of chance and necessity, act and potency, apply to contemporary questions about nature?
The Thomistic Philosophy and Natural Science Symposium gathers expert scientists and philosophers to discuss the potential compatibility and mutual enrichment of the study of Aquinas' philosophy of nature and various forms of modern scientific knowledge in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology.
The 2021 symposium will once again include a day of lectures geared towards an introduction to Thomistic philosophy and the history of science, with a focus on chance and indeterminacy. The rest of the symposium will have scientific experts discussing the understanding of chance, randomness, and indeterminacy in their own fields with one another and with philosophers.
Applications will open in January and are due by March 31.
Dominican House of Studies | Washington, D.C.
A graduate colloquium on Justice in Thomistic Ethics with Dr. Thomas Hibbs. The graduate colloquia are a new initiative of the TI intended to give a selection of emerging scholars from different PhD programs an opportunity to meet and work with other younger scholars that share their interests, and to benefit from the wisdom and formation of a senior scholar.
July 18 - July 24, 2021
About the Speaker:
Thomas Hibbs has been President of the University of Dallas since 2019. Previously, he served as distinguished Professor of Ethics & Culture and Dean of the Honors College at Baylor University. He is the author of books including Virtue's Splendor: Wisdom, Prudence, and the Human Good and Shows About Nothing, one of two books of his about film. His two most recent books are Wagering on an Ironic God: Pascal on Faith and Philosophy and Laudato Si: Nihilism, Beauty, and God (forthcoming, University of Notre Dame Press). He also has written on film, culture, books and higher education in publications including Books and Culture, Christianity Today, First Things, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Students currently enrolled in PhD programs in relevant disciplines are welcome to apply.
Successful applicants will receive a full tuition scholarship and room and board for the duration of the conference. A limited number of travel scholarships are also available; preference will be given to those accepted students who do not have access to institutional funding for travel.
Overdue from Thomistica is a review of recent issues of The Thomist (vols. 83.4 and 84.1) and the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly (94.4). Surveying some of the articles from these issues below, we highlight points and topics both perennial and pressing which may be of interest to our readers.
In his “Determinate and Indeterminate Dimensions: Does Thomas Aquinas Change His Mind on Individuation?”, Gaston LeNotre challenges the consensus view that Aquinas "wavered in his opinion about whether determinate dimensions or indeterminate dimensions serve in the individuation of corporeal substances.” The philosophical context is the interpretive key: “Determinate dimensions resolve a problem in the order of perfection, and indeterminate dimensions resolve a problem in the order of generation.” On the whole, LeNotre’s painstaking work promises to clarify important distinctions in the metaphysics of the composition and individuation of material substances.
Matthew McWhorter argues in “Aquinas and the Moral Virtues of a Christian Person” that the Christians's acquired moral virtues, present during this life, will pass away in the life to come. A wide array of views are taken of St. Thomas’s teaching concerning the moral virtues which are naturally acquired as opposed to those which are infused by grace. McWhorter reviews those in favor of their coexistence and subordination, the composition as a unified habit “comprised of formal (infused) and material (acquired) elements,” a transformational approach, which “asserts that the acquired moral virtues are intrinsically changed when taken up into Christian life,” and the abolitionists view which thinks that “a Christian person no longer possesses acquired moral virtues, only gratuitous moral virtues.” McWhorter aims to conciliate all of these views as having grasped only elements of Aquinas’s overall account.
Robert McNamara's “Edith Stein’s Conception of Human Unity and Bodily Formation: A Thomistically Informed Understanding” proposes that Edith Stein creatively appropriates key concepts of Aquinas's anthropology regarding human unity and bodily formation, “reinterpreting the meaning of these teachings through performing a fresh phenomenological investigation.” This investigation must navigate between Aquinas’s defense of the unity of the substantial form and pluriformism: “[T]hough Stein follows Aquinas in affirming the unifying and formative primacy of the rational soul, in contrast to Aquinas she argues that the human being is best described in terms of a ‘formal structure’ and ‘formal framework,’ with substantial unity secured by the ‘spiritual soul’ as the ‘ruling form’ or ‘dominating principle of form.’”
St. John Henry Cardinal Newman once ended a sermon on perfection by saying: “Go to bed in good time, and you are already perfect.” Brandon Dahm’s “The Virtue of Somnience” draws on the virtue-ethics tradition of Aristotle and Aquinas to propose that somnience as a form of temperance: “Somnience is the virtue of thinking, desiring, feeling, and acting with wise moderation—as one should—about sleep.” It is, Dahm argues, a needed virtue that “connects to a number of other virtues, which helps us fill out the nature of the virtue,” and aids in the formation of virtue. This reviewer hopes to study Dahm’s article closely, but only after a good night’s sleep.
The same Brandon Dahm coauthors “Thomas Aquinas on Separated Souls as Incomplete Human Persons” with Daniel De Haan. They propose a via media in the seemingly intractable recent debate between the corruptionists and the survivalists. Is the human soul after death a person or not? The survivalists say yes, the corruptionists say no. De Haan and Dahm argue that “the separated soul is an incomplete person” because it imperfectly satisfies “Aquinas’s criteria for personhood.” On the one hand, the corruptionists have an “indestructible” textual case that the separated soul is not a person, but, on the other hand, cannot exclude the philosophical case which De Haan and Dahm make for the incomplete person, which is based upon Aquinas’s own “distinction between a complete hoc aliquid and an incomplete hoc aliquid.” While they end with the observation that “our conclusion will not be the final word in this debate,” some have hopes that it will, in fact, be among the final nails in the debate’s coffin.
In “Three Sixteenth-Century Thomist Solutions to the Problem of a Heretical Pope: Cajetan, Cano, and Bellarmine,” Christian D. Washburn examines the theological views of Cardinal Cajetan, Melchoir Cano, and St. Robert Bellarmine concerning the possibility of a heretical pope. Washburn concludes that all naturally agree on the basics of papal infallibility, that this infallibility is divinely revealed, which revelation and its traditional infallible elaboration is binding on the pope. This does not prevent the pope, however, from falling into serious doctrinal error for which he could be tried by a council for heresy. However, at this point—regarding the fact and conditions of such a trial of —their views diverge. Nonetheless, “Cajetan, Cano, and Bellarmine provide insight not only on the nature and extent of papal power, but also its limits. Their teaching on the primacy of God’s word and the authority of tradition also helps us to better understand Dei Verbum 10: ‘the teaching office [of the Church] is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on.’”
Rik Van Nieuwenhove’s “Saint Thomas Aquinas on Salvation, Making Satisfaction, and the Restoration of Friendship with God” attempts to refute claims that Aquinas's “alleged incipient penal notion of salvation” is “a precursor to later Calvinist doctrine.” It examines the “plurality of models” used by Aquinas in his account of human redemption, arguing that “Aquinas’s soteriology cannot be reduced to the notion of making satisfaction. As in a symphony, every movement or model (merit, satisfaction, redemption, sacrifice) is multi-layered and recalls previous elements, with a cumulative effect.” Indeed, it is “through charity” that “Christ’s satisfaction compensates for sin. ... In short, the central role charity occupies in Aquinas’s soteriology explains why God’s justice is always predicated upon divine mercy, and why penal readings are less than convincing.”
In her “Feminist Christology: A New Iconoclasm?,” Sr. Sara Butler draws upon St. Theodore the Studite to show that his writings against iconoclasm provide a basis to “[meet] the objections posed by feminist Christology” which questions “the theological significance of Christ’s own maleness.” That is, just as recent feminist theologians propose an analogous “iconoclasm,” Sr. Butler responds in kind by drawing suggestions from a Father of the Church defending icons depicting Christ. Specifically, St. Theodore’s arguments suggest ways to answer or qualify feminist theologians’s claims that Christ’s being male is “only one ‘historical particularity’ among others” and thus not significant, theologically speaking, that what is significant is his “humanity, not his male sex,” and that the resurrected Christ “transcends sexual identity.” Analogous to the ancient iconoclasts, feminist Christology “fails to grasp (or accept) the teaching of the Second Council of Constantinople on the hypostatic union” and likewise runs afoul of the arguments of the Studite.
Gregory M. Reichberg’s “Scholastic Arguments for and against Religious Freedom” discusses the dichotomous stance of the scholastics “in line with Aquinas and indeed the wider Latin tradition that stems from St. Augustine,” namely, that they “were highly selective in their appeals to religious freedom: affirming some of its modalities and denying others.” St. Thomas’s defense of conscience and his defense of coercion are examined alongside Vitoria and Suárez for the sake of the light these shed on contemporary discussions of religious freedom, especially in regard to Dignitatis Humanae. While the views of Melvin Endy, Thomas Pink, Mary Keys, and Charles Journet, among others, all make an appearance, the focus of Reichberg’s essays is Aquinas, Vitoria, and Suárez. He concludes that “Aquinas’s contemporary disciples accordingly face a quandary. If we seek support in his teaching for a right of religious freedom—along the lines of Dignitatis Humanae—we can either downplay the aspects of his teaching that cut against it or offer some account of how the affirmation of this right can be detached from the restrictions he placed on it.” As for St. Thomas himself, Reichberg proposes that “were he writing today, [Aquinas] would surely amend the social and political aspects of his theology to fit the new expectations of our age and the underlying legal codes, civil and ecclesial, that have accordingly emerged.”
Fr. Andrew Hofer, O.P., in “Humbert of Romans on the Papacy before Lyons II (1274): A Study in Comparison with Thomas Aquinas and Pope Gregory X’s Extractiones,” compares the views St. Thomas with those of Humbert of Romans (1254–63) the fifth Master of the Dominican order in regard to the office of the papacy. These are “mutually illuminative,” insofar as Humbert “offers additional practical insight and frank criticism for understanding the papacy, not found in Thomas.” Fr. Hofer considers Humbert’s writing on that office, the Opus tripartitum, in comparison with the Extractiones, the “working notes” of the pope at whose request it was composed, Gregory X. He proposes that by putting these three in concert, “theologians and historians can better understand the complexity of arguments concerning the papal office on the eve of the Second Council of Lyons, and so contribute, in some very small part, to a better understanding of the papacy both in its historical development and in its exercise today.”
Michael Gorman’s “Using Models for the Hypostatic Union: Lessons from Aquinas and Scotus” gets its start from “a misunderstanding of how Aquinas uses models, and out of a misunderstanding of how models ought to be used” when it comes to contemplating Christ’s hypostatic union. The various philosophical comparisons that are made in this context, based upon what is better known to us naturally (e.g., a whole and its parts, or a subject and its accidents), become models when used in a thoroughgoing theological endeavor. Aquinas uses a variety of comparisons when discussing the hypostatic union (including both the aforementioned); Scotus favors the comparison to subject-accident union. Gorman examines the use to which Aquinas and Scotus put their models, and then turns from these historical lessons to draw normative ones about such theological models. We ought to model our approach to theological models upon Scotus and Aquinas for the sake of doctrinal clarification by comparison and contrast, to ground sound pedagogical method, and to harmonize faith and reason by using models as the natural analogs or “pro-examples that demonstrate the possibility of satisfying a certain necessary condition of a theological mystery’s being true.”
The issue concludes with “The Christological Character of the Beatific Vision: Hans Boersma’s Seeing God,” Michael Root’s essay-length consideration of Boersma’s book defending the beatific vision as the purpose of human life. He first lays out Boersma’s argument concerning the beatific vision “as a vision of God in and through the humanity of Christ.” Instead of the “unity model” which “stresses our unity with Christ, with whom we will see God,” Boersma’s is an “object model” which “stresses Christ in his humanity as the immediate object of the beatific vision, in whom we will see God.” The difficulty is that Boersma’s thesis seems to fall under the condemnation of Benedictus Deus (1336). Root’s main question, then, is “[s]hould the Catholic theologian affirm his proposal?” His answer is in the negative: “[I]n constructing his solution Boersma takes a significantly wrong turn, a turn with deleterious theological effects, and one which the Catholic theologian cannot affirm. Fortunately, there are in the tradition at the center of his criticism the resources for an alternative that addresses his problem in what I believe is a more fruitful manner.”
We are excited to announce that the Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology in Berkeley, CA is launching a new scholarship program for the fall of 2021. We are seeking exceptional MA degree candidates who want to join our community of scholars in Berkeley and who are passionate about advancing the Catholic tradition. We desire students who are want to rigorously engage philosophy and theology and prepare for leadership in the academy and the Church.
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Scholasticism and the Sacraments: Sacramental Anthropology
International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo
(May 13-15, 2021)
This session is focused on the way in which the medieval sacramental imagination affected scholastic accounts of the human person. Adapting categories from Augustine, Peter Lombard's doctrine of signs provided a sacramental perspective that would shape the approach of later scholastics. Many of the philosophical accounts of the human person that emerged in thirteenth and fourteenth century scholasticism remained indebted to this sacramental worldview in important ways. Papers in this session may consider thinkers as early as the Victorines and as late as Duns Scotus, and may focus on either aspects of general sacramental theory or on a specific sacrament.
Papers are 20 minutes in length. Paper proposals are due by Sept. 15, 2020, and must include a 300-word abstract.
Paper proposals must be submitted directly through the congress website: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2021am/cfp.cgi. Select ‘sessions of papers’, and then begin a submission to ‘Scholasticism and the Sacraments: Sacramental Anthropology.’ For further information, email rlynch@dhs.edu.
There will be a total of 6 sessions between May 13th and May 15th devoted to Medieval philosophical and theological thought, especially that of Aquinas, sponsored by:
The Center for Thomistic Studies, c/o S.J. Jensen, Center for Thomistic Studies, University of St. Thomas (TX), 3800 Montrose, Houston, TX 77006-4696. FAX: (713) 942-3464. email: jensensj@stthom.edu . Three sessions will be devoted to any topic about the philosophy of Aquinas, his sources, or contemporary applications of his thought.
The Thomas Aquinas Society, c/o John F. Boyle, Department of Catholic Studies, 55-S, University of St. Thomas, 2115 Summit Ave, St. Paul, MN 55105. Fax: (651) 962-5710, email: jfboyle@stthomas.edu. For these three sessions, proposals on any topic dealing with Aquinas are welcome.
All papers must be submitted through the Western Michigan University website. Please go to https://icms.confex.com/icms/2021am/cfp.cgi
Papers are 20 minutes in length.
Paper submissions must include a 300 word abstract.
Deadline for submissions: 15 Sep 2020.
The Kalamazoo conference is the largest congress for Medieval Studies in the world. Cost of room and board is quite moderate, and the atmosphere congenial to those interested in Aquinas. In short, you won’t regret it.
The editors of Thomistica are thrilled to inform you that the Aquinas Institute has finished putting together its edition of Aquinas’s commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Like the AI’s other editions of Aquinas’s works, this one features Aquinas’s text in Latin with a facing English translation. It also includes the Greek text of Aristotle’s work, so that those who are familiar with the language will have access to that as well. As per usual, these books come in a hardback form with imitation leather. Please see the AI’s announcement here for more information.
Fr. Romanus Cessario, O.P., has joined the Patrick F. Taylor Graduate Programs in Theology at Ave Maria University. Fr. Romanus will occupy the Adam Cardinal Maida Chair of Theology. Here’s the post on the new appointment at the Theology Department blog.
On July 3, 2020 Father Walter Senner passed away in Mainz (Germany) after a long illness. Born on July 30, 1948 in Auggen-Breisgau (Germany), he entered the Order of Preachers in 1969 and received priestly ordination in 1974. In 1989 he received his Ph.D. in philosophy at the Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium) with a dissertation on and edition of John of Sterngassen’s commentary on the Sentences. From 1998 to 2005 he was a member of the Leonine Commission and from 2006 to 2018 he taught at the Angelicum in Rome. In 2013 he was conferred the degree of Master of Sacred Theology. He gave his farewell lecture on October 27, 2018. The lecture, entitled “Saint Thomas Aquinas: A Peaceful Life of Controversies”, can be viewed here.
The funeral will be held on July 13 at the St. Boniface church in Mainz and the burial in the Waldfriedhof Mombach (Mainz).
Father Senner specialized in the thought of Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus and Meister Eckhart but also published widely on medieval Dominican spirituality and education. (For a list of his publications see here).
Ever since he accepted to direct my dissertation, I had the honor to come to know him as a meticulous scholar of the sources, a deeply religious friar and a humble and generous person.
Requiescat in pace!
Under the direction of the Sacra Doctrina Project
