Medieval Philosophy of Religion

A *very* rough draft of a paper on Anselm's "ontological argument" in which I argue that the argument in the Proslogion rests on a robust notion of having "that then which nothing greater can be thought" in one's mind.

Reading only the contemporary and popular literature on the Orthodox spiritual life, it is possible to get the impression that Orthodox Christianity affirms only mystical theology and that it has no place for philosophical investigation, rational inquiry, or thinking for oneself. In this paper I show that this view of the relationship between philosophy and the Orthodox Christian life is one-sided and distorted. For while it is certainly true that reason is impotent to lay bare the very nature of God, (...) St. Gregory the Theologian, St. Maximos the Confessor, and St. John of Damascus all see it as a guide and powerful ally in coming to know that God exists and a little of what He is like, as well as in patterning our lives after He who is the source of all life. The explicit statements that these Fathers make as well as the use that they make of reason in their writings show how it can function as a guide for those in the beginning stages of the spiritual life even if it ultimately points beyond itself to the God who is beyond every conception. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Aquinas’ account of analogy provides resources for resolving the prima facie conflict between his claims that (1) the divine relations constituting the persons are “one and the same” with the divine essence; (2) the divine persons are really distinct, (3) the divine essence is absolutely simple. Specifically, I argue that Aquinas adopts an analogical understanding of the concepts of being and unity, and that these concepts are implicit in his formulation of claims about substance (...) and relation in the Trinity. I then show how Aquinas appeals to key structural features of analogical concepts, notably, the simpliciter/secundum quid characterization, to resolve apparent conflicts between the unity of substance and distinction of relations in the Trinity. (shrink)

The Muʿtazilī theologians, particularly the later Imāmī ones, developed numerous interesting arguments against divine command theory. The arguments, however, have not received the attention they deserve. Some of the arguments have been discussed in passing, and some have not been dis-cussed at all. In this article, I aim to present and analyse the arguments. To that end, I first distinguish between different semantic, ontological, epistemological, and theological theses that were often conflated in the debate, and examine the logical relation among (...) them. Then I go over the Muʿtazila’s arguments determining, among other things, which of the theses was targeted by each argument. In presenting the arguments, I focus mainly on the late kalām period, the period falling roughly between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries of the common era, as the arguments were at their most sophisticated level by this time. (shrink)

In Reason, Authority, and the Healing of Desire in the Writings of Augustine, Mark Boone explains Augustine’s theology of desire in a cross-section of his writings. He shows that Augustine's writings consistently teach a Platonically informed, yet distinctively Christian, theology of desire.

Thomas Aquinas consistently defended the thesis that the separated rational soul that results from a human person’s death is not a person. Nevertheless, what has emerged in recent decades is a sophisticated disputed question between “survivalists” and “corruptionists” concerning the personhood of the separated soul that has left us with intractable disagreements wherein neither side seems able to convince the other. In our contribution to this disputed question, we present a digest of an unconsidered middle way: the separated soul is (...) an incomplete person. (shrink)

The methods of intellectual history have not yet been applied to studying the invention of technology for printing texts and images ca. 1375–ca. 1450. One of the several conceptual developments in this period reflecting the possibility of mechanical replication is a view of the relationship of eternity to durational time based on Gregory of Nyssa’s philosophy of time and William of Ockham’s. The article considers how changes in these ideas helped enable the conceptual possibilities of the dissemination of ideas. It (...) describes a direct connection of human perceptual knowledge to divine knowledge that enhanced the authority of printed production to transfer and reproduce the true and the good. (shrink)

This article offers a reading of Sartre's phenomenological ontology in light of the pre-modern understanding of ‘transcendentals’ as universal properties and predicates of all determinate beings. Drawing on Sartre's transcendental account of nothingness in his early critique of Husserl as well as his discussion of ‘determination as negation’ in Being and Nothingness, this article argues that Sartre's universal predicate of ‘the not’ (le non) could be understood in a similar light to the medieval scholastic conception of transcendentals. But whereas the (...) scholastics saw the transcendental properties of oneness, truth, and goodness as reflections of God's divine perfections, Sartre's predicate of the ‘not’ operates as an atheistic transcendental which signifies the non-being of God – that God is not. By comparing Sartre's phenomenological ontology to medieval theological metaphysics, this article not only highlights the atheist underpinnings of Sartre's entire ontological schema in Being and Nothingness but also offers a new way of interpreting Sartre as a systematic transcendental metaphysician. (shrink)

This article presents a new approach to Japanese Zen Buddhism, alternative to its traditional views, which lack exact definitions of the relation between the meditator and the Buddha’s ultimate cause, dharma. To this end, I offer a comparative analysis between Zen Buddhist and Christian views of causality from the medieval to early modern periods. Through this, human causation with dharma in the Zen Buddhist meditations can be better defined and understood. Despite differences between religious traditions in deliberating human causal accounts, (...) there are parallel ways of thinking and practicing between Christian and Buddhist meditators. Firstly, I reconstruct three sorts of Christian scholastic theories of creaturely causality: conservationism, occasionalism, and concurrentism. Secondly, Zen Buddhist doctrines are introduced by placing particular emphasis on dharma as causal agency. Focusing on the Japanese Zen practice of meditation, finally I expound two theories of human causality: Sōtō Zen quasi-occasionalism following Master Dōgen’s teaching of enlightenment, and Rinzai Zen quasi-concurrentism given the meditator’s interactive kōan practice. Hence, my comparative analysis explains why religious beings are causally active, passive, or interactive in relation to the first agency, God or dharma, whereby systematically establishing alternative definitions of human causality in Zen Buddhism. (shrink)

La búsqueda de lo divino que aparece en el cristianismo como un asunto espiritual, perfila ser tema de importancia para una mística agustiniana que tiene referencias a la figura de Dios, esto es, expresiones que intentan describir la naturaleza divina. Así pues, el santo de Hipona a través de términos como luz y verdad, presenta los rasgos de un Dios que parece mostrarse tal como es, pero para alcanzar una visión tan inefable es necesario el deseo de esta; una búsqueda (...) de Dios que, traducida en amor, perfila ser un proceso de ascenso a la verdad de lo divino permeado por ese intenso deseo de ello. De manera que un deseo de Dios, posiblemente connota una erótica entendida como amor vehemente, y el cual para interés del presente artículo puede resignificar la noción común de erótica y de sexualidad inherentes al carácter relacional del ser humano, a veces visto con sospecha. (shrink)

This book uses the tools of analytic philosophy of disability (and Disability Studies more generally) and close readings of medieval Christian philosophical and theological texts in order to survey what these thinkers said about what today we call “disability.” The chapters also compare what these medieval authors say with modern and contemporary philosophers and theologians of disability. This dual approach enriches our understanding of the history of disability in medieval Christian philosophy and theology and opens up new avenues of research (...) for contemporary scholars working on disability. The volume is divided into three parts. Part I addresses theoretical frameworks regarding disability, particularly on questions about the definition(s) of “disability” and how disability relates to well-being. The chapters are then divided into two further parts in order to reflect ways that medieval philosophers and theologians theorized about disability. Part II is on disability in this life, and Part III is on disability in the afterlife. Taken as a whole, these chapters support two general observations. First, these philosophical theologians sometimes resist Greco-Roman ableist views by means of theological and philosophical anti-ableist arguments and counterexamples. Here we find some surprising disability-positive perspectives that are built into different accounts of a happy human life. We also find equal dignity of all human beings no matter ability or disability. Second, some of the seeds for modern and contemporary ableist views were developed in medieval Christian philosophy and theology, especially with regard to personhood and rationality, an intellectualist interpretation of the imago Dei, and the identification of human dignity with the use of reason. This volume surveys disability across a wide range of medieval Christian writers from the time of Augustine up to Francisco Suarez. It will be of interest to scholars and graduate students working in medieval philosophy and theology or disability studies. (shrink)

Gregory of Nyssa’s bearing in Qohelet 3:5b to wealth, rather than to the matrimonial “embrace”, is unusual by comparison withother ancient exegeses; it seems to be motivated not only by the acoluthia which characterizes his spiritual interpretation of the passage Qo. 3:2-8, but also by the crucial importance he gives to catharsis, as one the qualities he considered necessary for the exegete.

Marion obliquely suggests that we return to religion when we think through and struggle with those topics that philosophy excludes or subjugates. This paper investigates a selection of such subjugated motifs. Marion’s recent claim (perhaps even ‘principle’): “auto-affection alone makes possible hetero-affection,” will be examined through piecemeal influences made upon its development through Marion’s return to religious thinking beyond the delimited jurisdiction of philosophy. Although still proper to the philosophies of Descartes, Kant, and Husserl, Marion finds new insights by tracing (...) their legacy back further to the Christian gospels, Augustine, Aquinas, and, importantly, Nicholas of Cusa. Philosophy, proper, (if there is such a thing) may well adumbrate human understanding of data, phenomena, and possibility by discouraging any further thinking of them in terms of love, givenness, or revelation. It is by preferentially opting for these themes that philosophy excludes or subjugates that makes possible the entanglement of truth with love, suggested by Marion: “truths that one knows only if one loves them first.”. (shrink)

I discuss Eckhart’s and Aquinas’ conception of human-divine union with reference to what I call the problem of intrinsic goods, a problem concerning how to reconcile the pursuit of actions which are prima facie sought for their own sake (e.g. pursuing justice for the marginalized, listening to a work of music) with the pursuit of God as the ultimate end of every action. I introduce the problem with the help of Germain Grisez’s critique of Aquinas’ account of union with God, (...) and I suggest that Eckhart’s alternative conception of union may be understood as an attempt to resolve (or dissolve) the problem. (shrink)

Il volume ripercorre lo sviluppo del pensiero del giovane Nicola Cusano dalla frequentazione del maestro albertista Eimerico da Campo presso l’Università di Colonia (1425) e dal confronto con le posizioni filosofiche dei domenicani dello Studium coloniense, fino agli anni della maturità a Roma (1450). Il saggio illustra il contesto storico-culturale della genesi del De docta ignorantia, testo che suggella la presa di distanza di Cusano dal proprio passato universitario ma anche, al contempo, la sua insoddisfazione nei confronti dell’umanesimo diffuso in (...) Italia negli anni del Concilio di Ferrara-Firenze; e lo segue nella sua ‘caccia della Sapienza’, nell’incontro con differenti tradizioni e contesti, fino alla formulazione dell’ideale del ‘Socrate cristiano’ nell’Idiota. Il volume, riccamente documentato anche sul piano della storia delle interpretazioni e degli studi su Cusano, contribuisce a far luce sulla formazione del suo pensiero e sulle questioni che ne hanno segnato la vita. (shrink)

The phrase tempora christiana in Augustine has been studied from various points of view. This article illuminates the way in which it refers to the care of divine providence for individuals and society in the period when true worship is rendered to God through the Christian religion. Furthermore, we find Augustine proposing, using the idea of kairós, i.e. a new opportunity to be embraced, to create a new cycle of the human story, to which everyone will contribute.

Dr. DP Singh is a prolific writer in many areas of Science, Religion and Literature. He came into my contact almost four decades back when he started his teaching career in Shivalik College, Nangal. In my note published on the blurb of this book, I wrote: " I expect his forthcoming book "Science and Sikhism: Conflict or Coherence" will prove to be a landmark in the area of Science-Religion Dialogue, with special reference to Sikh religion". I can declare without an (...) iota of doubt that DP has more than justified my claim on his book. -/- The title of the book is followed by a note "Anthology of Essays on various Concepts in Sri Guru Granth Sahib" which may be considered as a sub-title to the book. Nearly a dozen titles have appeared in the global market projecting scientific vision of Sikh Gurus enshrined in the holy pages of Sri Guru Granth Sahib but there is no rival to this volume in my view till date. The coverage of topics by DP Singh is very exhaustive. All Chapters of the book open with an appropriate quotation from Science, Religion or Literature. (shrink)

The late scholastic philosopher Francisco Suárez articulates and defends an extraordinarily detailed account of efficient causation. Some of the most interesting and difficult questions connected with this account concern the particular types of efficient causation he acknowledges. This paper clarifies one of the most fundamental distinctions Suárez employs in the course of his treatment of efficient causation—namely, that between motion or change, on the one hand, and creation ex nihilo, on the other. The paper shows that, although motion and creation (...) differ in systematic and important ways, they nevertheless can both be captured by Suárez’s general theoretical model of efficient causation. Moreover, the paper shows that creation serves as a kind of limit case of efficient causation, and accordingly that it informs how Suárez understands motion or change as well. (shrink)

A review of Paul Stern's Dante's Philosophical Life: Politics and Human Wisdom in Purgatorio (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018).

Anselm is known for offering a distinctive definition of freedom of choice as “the ability of preserving uprightness of will for its own sake.” When we turn to Anselm’s account of the devil’s fall in De Casu Diaboli, however, this idiosyncratic understanding of freedom is not at the forefront. In that text, Anselm seemingly assumes a traditional understanding of free will defined in terms of alternative possibilities for the angels. These alternative possibilities must be present so the angels can engage (...) in ‘self-determination.’ God, however, does not face alternative possibilities to achieve His self-determination. Anselm thus explicates his notion of free will in terms of three different concepts: his distinctive definition of free choice, self-determination, and the principle of alternative possibilities. Despite attempts (by both scholars and Anselm) to explain how these three concepts are related, I argue that their relationship is problematic. In particular, I argue that Anselm is guilty of conflating and equivocating with regard to these concepts. I further importantly claim that the conflation obscures the fact that his understanding of self-determination calls into question God’s excellence over that of the good angels. (shrink)

God’s Patients approaches some of Chaucer’s most challenging poems with two philosophical questions in mind: How does action relate to passion, to being-acted-on? And what does it mean to submit one’s will to a law? Responding to critics (Jill Mann, Mark Miller) who have pointed out the subtlety of Chaucer’s approach to such fundamentals of ethics, John Bugbee seeks the source of the subtlety and argues that much of it is ready to hand in a tradition of religious (and what (...) we would today call “mystical”) writing that shaped the poet’s thought. Bugbee considers the Clerk’s, Man of Law’s, Knight’s, Franklin’s, Physician’s, and Second Nun’s Tales in juxtaposition with an excellent informant on a major stream of medieval religious culture, Bernard of Clairvaux, whose works lay out ethical ideas closely matching those detectable beneath the surface of the poems. While some of the positions that emerge—most spectacularly the notion that the highest states of human being are ones in which activity and passivity cannot be disentangled—are anathema to much modern ethical thought, God’s Patients provides evidence that they were relatively common in the Middle Ages. The book offers striking new readings of Chaucer’s poems; it proposes a nuanced hermeneutical approach that should prove fruitful in reading a number of other high- and late-medieval works; and, by showing how assumptions about its two fundamental questions have shifted since Chaucer’s time, it provides a powerful new way of thinking about the transition between the Middle Ages and modernity. (shrink)

What does it mean to be an embodied thinker of abstract concepts? Does embodiment shape the character and quality of our understanding of universals such as “dog” and “beauty,” and would a non-embodied mind understand such concepts differently? I examine these questions through the lens of Thomas Aquinas’s remarks on the differences between embodied intellects and non-embodied intellects. In Aquinas, I argue, the difference between embodied and non-embodied intellection of extramental realities is rooted in the fact that embodied and non-embodied (...) intellects grasp different kinds of universals by means of different kinds of intelligible species, which elicit in them different “modes” of understanding. By spelling out what exactly it means to be an embodied knower, on Aquinas’s account, I argue, we can also shed new light on his mysterious claim that the embodied intellect “turns to phantasms”—the imagination’s likenesses of individuals—in its acts of understanding. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to outline Peter Auriol’s theory of connotative distinction as applied to the divine attributes and his criticism of Scotus’s formal distinction, as well. He mainly tackles this issue in two important texts : his Scriptum I, dist. 8, q. 3 and his Quodlibet q. 1. Although Auriol takes into account the opinions of various scholars on the matter, Scotus plays the role of the main debater in both texts. Accordingly, the rst part of this (...) article is devoted to a survey of Scotus’s formal distinction. This doctrine is certainly one of the most important of Scotus’s teachings. At the same time, it is one of the most problematic. It elicited radically different interpretations even among medieval scholars. In particular, it seems that differences between his teaching in Oxford and in Paris may have occasioned such a dispute. Auriol appears to be aware of such a difference. In the second section of this paper, I examine Auriol’s arguments against Scotus’s formal distinction. Finally, his solution to the problem of the distinction of the divine attributes is presented. On the one hand, Auriol cannot accept the formal distinction due to metaphysical reasons. On the other, he tries to elaborate a theory according to which attributes are not just conceptually distinct. To overcome this impasse, he claims that the attributes are connotative terms, that is they differ through what they connote. (shrink)

У статті розглянуто феномени жанрової та ідеологічної пам’яті ландшафтів українських ходінь до раю та показано поліморфізм функцій просторових описів у середньовічній літературі. Теоретичний аспект дослідження передбачає осмислення способів протистояння авторської інстанції стихіям культурної та жанрової пам’яті, яка зберігає усі ціннісні, етичні й естетичні програми претекстів новопосталого твору. На позначення цього явища запроваджено термін «криптограматичність літературного дискурсу», сила опору якій прямо пропорційна до меж індивідуалізму письменницької свободи, установленої в рамках кожної культурно-історичної епохи. З цієї перспективи стверджено, що специфіка ходіння до раю (...) як окремої таксономічної одиниці визначається сумою його претекстів та архітекстуальних взаємодій, оскільки для середньовічного скриптора схрещення й модифікація жанрових матриць подекуди ставали ключовою формою самовираження. Завдяки внутрішній жанровій інтеракції у наративній структурі апокрифів завжди наявні осередки інших типів раціональності та ідеологем, резервуарами яких у художньому тексті часто слугували шаблонізовані екфразиси. Історико-літературний ракурс розвідки сфокусований на механізмах рецепції античного греко-римського «індійського тексту» в середньовічній апокрифічній традиції. (shrink)

A review of Maria Luisa Ardizzone's Reading as the Angels Read: Speculation and Politics in Dante’s Banquet. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016. xii 1 454 pp. $95.

The story of the devil’s fall poses at least three separate philosophical puzzles, only two of which Anselm addressed. The first (Puzzle A) wonders how this angel could have committed a sin in the first place since he was created with a good will and good desires. A second puzzle (Puzzle B) consists of trying to explain why the devil cannot ever be forgiven for that first sin. According to Christian teaching, the devil is unable to “repent” (i.e., express sorrow (...) for) that first sin and thereby acquire forgiveness for it. Humans, by contrast, are portrayed as repeatedly sinning, repenting, and being forgiven. It is a mystery why no mechanism similar to that humans use for forgiveness is available to the devil. The final puzzle (Puzzle C) is slightly different. It wonders why the devil was never given a second chance. In daily life, most of us are given (and grant to others) second chances all the time. Given that the consequences of choosing incorrectly were in this case so disastrous and permanent, it seems inconceivable that a good God would permit one of His angels merely one chance to choose and thereby determine his eternal fate. And yet, despite this inconceivability, this is precisely the way the story is presented. Anselm addressed Puzzles A and B but never explicitly raised Puzzle C. I propose he failed to raise it because he conflated it with Puzzle B. In this paper, I first explain how he solved Puzzles A and B. I then go on to argue that Puzzle C does indeed constitute a separate puzzle that should not be conflated with Puzzle B. I then argue that the best (and perhaps only) way in which Anselm could solve Puzzle C is to appeal to a type of free will that conflicts with his solution to Puzzle A. As a result, I argue that there may be a latent contradiction in Anselm’s treatment of the devil’s sin unless an alternate solution to Puzzle C can be found. (shrink)

I argue that Diego Alvarez and Thomas de Lemos through their participation in the De auxiliis controversy developed and defended Cajetan’s view of the causation of sin in such a way that they were able to defend the predetermination of the material aspect of sin while at the same time assimilating important aspects from his critics. It is important to recognize that Lemos and his associates hold both that the premotion of sin’s material aspect is not necessarily connected with the (...) Catholic faith and that it is knowable by natural reason. Even though they argued that other Molinist theses should be condemned as heretical, they held that this rejection of the Dominican thesis concerning sin is simply wrong but not heretical. First, I consider Cajetan’s position. Second, I consider the reception of this position by Medina, Zumel, and Báñez. Third, I show that Alvarez and Lemos make distinctions that allow them to incorporate the insights of both Cajetan and his critics. (shrink)

The article presents the question of understanding divine causality and its analogical character in the context of Thomas Aquinas’s teaching on Divine Providence. Analyzing Aquinas’s texts concerning the relation of God’s action towards nature and its activities it is necessary to emphasize the proper understanding of mutual relations between secondary causes and the primary cause which are not on the same level. Influenced by the reflection of M. Dodds and I Silva, the author of the article refers to Aquinas’s biblical (...) commentaries which have not been discussed so far from the perspective of the character of God’s action. In the final part of the article, metaphors used by Thomas in reference to the relation of God towards the world will be presented. (shrink)

Given the significance of Nicholas of Cusa’s ecclesiastical career, it is no surprise that a good deal of academic attention on Nicholas has focused on his role in the history of the church. Nevertheless, it would also be fair to say that a good deal of the attention that is focused on the life and thought of Nicholas of Cusa is the legacy of prior generations of scholars who saw in his theoretical work an opportunity to define the most salient (...) features of transformations in the habits of thinking leading from the Middle Ages into the epoch of modernity. Thus, although contemporary scholars have not been able to achieve any clear consensus on the question of whether Nicholas belongs to the Middle Ages or to modernity, the field of Cusanus studies has become much more attentive to the possibility that the uniqueness and significance of Nicholas’s vision is a function of his ability to synthesize and redeploy a variety of strands in the Catholic intellectual tradition—strands that are as apt to involve practical matters of canon law and church reform as they are to hinge on a unique and richly developed mystical theology. Given the flourishing of the attention devoted to Nicholas in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the choices about which texts to include in this article were difficult ones. The rationale for this article’s predominant focus on scholarship of the late 20th and early 21st centuries is that, insofar as the recent studies listed here enter into the debates that have been shaped by their predecessors, the sources mentioned here will point readers to the prior work in the field not acknowledged here. (shrink)

It seems odd that in such a densely theological text that Augustine would bring up something like the KK-thesis, which is so epistemological. Yet, as one progresses through the book it does begin to make sense. In this paper, I aim to try to come to some understanding of how and why Augustine uses something like the KK-thesis in Book 11 of The City of God. The paper will progress in the following way: First, I discuss Jaakko Hintikka's work on (...) the KK-thesis in order to have a clear idea of what the KK-thesis is, and some associated problems with it. Next, since Augustine most explicitly deals with the KK-thesis in De Trinitate, with the help of Gareth Matthews work, I discuss Augustine's use of the KK-thesis there. Finally, I return to The City of God, in order come to an understanding of Augustine's use of the KK-thesis there. (shrink)

This article centers on the modes of maintaining an equivalence of the moral and the good that lies behind and within Augustine’s and Aquinas’ understandings of beauty. Beauty, in the medieval experience of it, never derived exclusively from sense impression; it was neither purely pleasure in the sensuous nor a wholly intuitive contemplation of the transcendent occurring exclusively in the mind. Rather, beauty was the intelligible form of some higher reality, the quality of things that reflects their origin in the (...) divine. Beauty, then, like meaning itself, could never be fully present in its material sign, as it appears to us only as a promise of presence through embodied absence, neither fully here and now nor entirely elsewhere and beyond. This, ultimately, may be the very purpose of beauty, a hopeful pull toward the perfect and yet never fully knowable God who is beauty. (shrink)

The article analyzes the a posteriori argumentation for the existence of God present in saint Anselm’s Monologion. It defends that the arguments in chapters I-IV are parts of a single argumentative way comparable with the fourth way of Thomas Aquinas. The only starting point for the argumentation is the evidence of the degrees of transcendental perfection (goodness and greatness) found in things. According to this single point of departure, the argument also has a single formulation of the principle of causality (...) given in chapter I. By this principle, Anselm infers the existence of a single first principle (that which is through itself) from its effects (that which is through another). Contrary to what is usually held, it is shown that chapters III and IV do not contain arguments properly meant to demonstrate God’s existence. Chapter III’s specific goal is to demonstrate the impossibility that that which is through itself may be something multiple, while chapter IV aims to demonstrate the impossibility that the supreme nature through whom all things exist may be overcome or equaled in dignity by another. Both arguments depend of the principle of causality formulated in chapter I to be conclusive. (shrink)

Traditionally divine life has been conceived as an attribute that belongs to God according to his way of acting. This thesis is based on a notion of life as a purely operational perfection and on the place in which Aquinas develops his thought about divine life in the Summa theologiae. Here we contend that these arguments are not entirely conclusive and introduce the idea that life, in its most radical meaning, is an attribute that belongs to God according to his (...) way of being. In our view, this approach is more consistent with Thomas’s doctrine and avoids some common misunderstandings. (shrink)

This study examines a number of different answers to the question: wheredoes Avicenna demonstrate the existence of God within the Metaphysics of the Healing? Many interpreters have contended that there is an argument for God’s existence in Metaphysics of the Healing I.6–7. In this study I show that such views are incorrect and that the only argument for God’s existence in the Metaphysics of the Healing is found in VIII.1–3. My own interpretation relies upon a careful consideration of the scientific (...) order and first principles of the Metaphysics of the Healing, paying attention to Avicenna’s own explicit statements concerning the goals andintentions of different books and chapters, and a close analysis of the structure ofthe different arguments found in the relevant texts of the Metaphysics of the Healing. I conclude that Avicenna’s explicit goal in I.6–7 is to establish the properties that belong to necessary existence and possible existence, which consists, not in ademonstration of God’s existence, but in a dialectical treatment of the first principlesof metaphysics. (shrink)

This paper addresses the connections between love of self and love of God in terms of their impact on personal subjectivity according to the thought of Thomas Aquinas. I argue that Aquinas’s understanding of self-love illuminates the experience of oneself as a person. Part of this argument relies on Aquinas’s notion that love of self is more basic than love of others. Aquinas further affirms that one ought to love God more than oneself. I explore the implications of this claim (...) for my interpretation concerning personal self-experience. I maintain that our participation in God causes a pull toward goodness and God within one’s experience of self. Also, friendship with God through charity offers the highest fulfillment of self-experience. (shrink)

The object of this paper is not arguments from contingency in general, but specifically Aquinas’s ‘Third Way’ as it appears in his Summa Theologica. I will raise three objections to this argument. First, the argument depends on the premise, that if everything were contingent, then there would have been a time during which nothing exists, but this is not self-evident and no argument is given for it here. Secondly, Aquinas tells us that a key premise in this argument, that an (...) infinite order of things necessary through one another is impossible, has been proven just previously (in the ‘second way’) with respect to an infinite order of efficient causes. But this argument fallaciously equivocates between two different senses of the term ‘first’, and the fallacy does not disappear when applied to the ‘third way’. Thus, Aquinas not only fails, in this argument, to prove the existence of a thing necessary in itself, but fails to prove that anything is necessary at all. Lastly, this argument suffers from a puzzling ambiguity as to the meaning of the term ‘necessity’, and either way of interpreting the term consistently in the argument raises difficulties. (shrink)

The future state of the redeemed human being in heaven is difficult, if not impossible, to pin down in this life. Nevertheless, Augustine and Anselm speculate on the heavenly life of the human being, proceeding from certain theological premises gathered from Scripture, and their arguments often both mirror and complement one another. Because Anselm and Augustine hold the premise that human beings in heaven are “equal to the angels” (Luke 20:36), our understanding of the heavenly condition of the human can (...) be illuminated by angelology, and vice-versa; each reveals the nature of the other. The paper examines aspects of the positions of Augustine and Anselm on the original state of the angels, their fall, and their confirmation, and then explores the condition of prelapsarian Adam and the transformation of the elect in order to illuminate how these figures conceive the afterlife. The angelologies (and demonologies) of Augustine and Anselm help one to understand the heavenly goal of human life, how the redeemed state of human beings differs from their original condition in Eden, and why there is no redemption for the fallen angels. (shrink)

Leo Strauss is known primarily for reviving classical political philosophy. Strauss recovered that great tradition of thought largely lost to the West by beginning his study of classical thought with its teaching on politics rather than its metaphysics. What brought Strauss to this way of reading the classics, however, was a discovery he made as a young political scientist studying the obscure texts of Islamic and Jewish medieval political thought. In this volume, Joshua Parens examines Strauss's investigations of medieval political (...) philosophy, offering interpretations of his writings on the great thinkers of that tradition, including interpretations of his most difficult writings on Alfarabi and Maimonides. In addition Parens explicates Strauss's statements on Christian medieval thought and his argument for rejecting the Scholastic paradigm as a method for interpreting Islamic and Jewish thought. Contrasting Scholasticism with Islamic and Jewish medieval political philosophy, Parens clarifies the theme of Strauss's thought, what Strauss calls the "theologico-political problem," and reveals the significance of medieval political philosophy in the Western tradition. (shrink)

In these pages, we expose the main traits of St. Albert the Great’s doctrine of providence and fate, considered by Palazzo the keystone of his philosophical system. To describe it we examine his systematic works, primarily his Summa of Theology. His discussion follows clearly the guidelines of the Summa of Alexander of Hales, in order to delve into the set of problems faced over the centuries by theological tradition. Albert also restates the reflections of different authors like Boethius or Saint (...) John of Damascus but, in his Summa he incorporates to his reflections also the noteworthy book of Nemesius of Emesa, De natura hominis, which includes some pages on providence. Albert gives his personal solution to the complex questions of providence, destiny and contingency of the world. His conception of providence is developed in the frame of the creative power of the almighty God. God’s knowledge is necessary and inerrant and his providential purposes are infallible, but that does not mean that every event is necessary. He does not communicate His own proprieties to the creatures. In order to understand this problem, Albert recalls the notion of hypothetical necessity coined by Boethius in an Aristotelian framework and the difference between 'necessitas consequentis' and 'necessitas consequentiae' proposed by Alexander of Hales. He also develops his account of providence, closely linked to the topic of fate. However, it would be exaggerated to deem his position deterministic. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a new approach to Henry of Ghent's argument for divine illumination. Normally, Henry is criticized for adhering to a theory of divine illumination and failing to accept rediscovered Aristotelian approaches to cognition and epistemology. I argue that these critiques are mistaken. On my view, Henry was a proponent of Aristotelianism. But Henry discovered a tension between Aristotle's views on teleology and the nature of knowledge, on the one hand, and various components of the Christian worldview, (...) on the other. I argue that Henry's adherence to a theory of divine illumination was an attempt to preserve various components of the Aristotelian system, not an attempt to reject Aristotelianism. (shrink)

Is it necessary for all Christians – including Christians who are metaphysicians with demonstrative knowledge of God’s existence – to hold by faith that God exists? I shall approach this apparently straightforward question by investigating two opposing lines of interpretation of Thomas Aquinas’s own response to this question. I shall begin with two texts from Thomas that motivate two incompatible theses concerning Thomas’s doctrine of the harmony of faith and reason with respect to the existence of God. Next, I shall (...) clarify the salient points of disagreement between these two interpretations of faith and reason in Thomas Aquinas before examining dialectically a number of arguments in favor and against the respective theses of these two interpretations. In the final section I shall argue that the results of our dialectical inquiry reveal that the initial disagreement between the two positions is not irresolvable. Accordingly, I shall conclude by proposing two revised versions of the initial theses that emphasize the compatibility of these two interpretations of Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine of the harmony of faith and reason. (shrink)

The article is dedicated to the study of the origins of Christian cosmogony. Christian authors of the 2nd century are known for their enigmatic or ambiguous positions on the issue. The problem concerns mainly the apologists, but it first appears in Ignatius of Antioch and continues in Bardesanes. Although they all confess God as the Creator, their ways of presenting the act of creation are strongly marked by philosophical doctrines, primarily by Platonism, or by Stoicism in the case of Bardesanes. (...) The Christian Creator receives the characteristics of a demiurge and an artisan. This approach has implications for the notions of universe and matter. But first and foremost, the idea of God as a demiurge and an artisan determines the role assigned to the Logos in the act of creation. Those concepts are later abandoned in favour of a doctrine based more on the Bible, but they give us a better understanding of the relationship between young Christianity and Platonism. (shrink)

Genesis 16 tells of Abraham conceiving Ishmael with his wife Sarai's servant Hagar. Dominican Friar Richard Fishacre (ca. 1200-1248) used this Biblical narrative to explore the relationship of the natural and Divine sciences. Fishacre believed that the theologian must first study the world, before he could be fruitful as a theologian. How do the natural sciences, in short, help us better understand the Scriptures? Fishacre, like his contemporaries Albert the Great (ca. 1200-1280) and Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) looked at ways that (...) the newly-translated natural philosophy of Aristotle, with its empirical emphasis and a belief that knowledge begins in sense perception, could supplement the more otherworldly Neoplatonic approach to philosophy and the sciences inherited from St. Augustine. Hagar's Vocation is a collection of fifteen essays which focus on the contributions of Richard Fishacre, the first Dominican theologian at Oxford to have left a written legacy. The questions addressed by Fishacre include his arguments for God's existence, the multi-faceted problem of the human soul, the eternity of the world, the nature of light, the free choice of the will, angels and "spiritual matter," interiority and self-knowledge, undoing the past and God's absolute power, the magical arts, and the role of philosophy in a theology of creation. R. James Long, the world's leading authority on Fishacre, in this volume promises to establish this hitherto little studied English friar as a major figure in the development of a learned or philosophically grounded theology that remains the great achievement of High Scholasticism. (shrink)