Shadow Sophia

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Celia E. Deane-Drummond
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Theological Ethics ◽  
Psychological Literature ◽  
Capacity To Act ◽  
Classic Theory ◽  
Moral Nature ◽  
Shadow Side

Why do humans who seem to be exemplars of virtue also have the capacity to act in atrocious ways? What are the roots of tendencies for sin and evil? A popular assumption is that it is our animalistic natures that are responsible for human immorality and sin, while our moral nature curtails and contains such tendencies through human powers of freedom and higher reason. This book challenges such assumptions as being far too simplistic. Through a careful engagement with evolutionary and psychological literature, it argues that tendencies towards vice are, more often than not, distortions of the very virtues that are capable of making us good. After beginning with Augustine’s classic theory of original sin, the book probes the philosophical implications of sin’s origins in dialogue with the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur. Different vices are treated in both individual and collective settings in keeping with a multispecies approach. Areas covered include selfishness, pride, violence, anger, injustice, greed, envy, gluttony, deception, lying, lust, despair, anxiety, and sloth. The work of Thomas Aquinas helps to illuminate and clarify much of this discussion on vice, including those vices which are more distinctive for human persons in community with other beings. Such an approach amounts to a search for the shadow side of human nature, shadow sophia. Facing that shadow is part of a fuller understanding of what makes us human and thus this book is a contribution to both theological anthropology and theological ethics.

Regarding the Theological Anthropology of Theodore of Mopsuestia

1964 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur Vööbus
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Theodore Of Mopsuestia ◽  
The Status

In the research on Theodore's theology, a complication has arisen. Certain Conclusions which place Theodore's ideas in quite different perspective than the traditional have been drawn. The monograph produced by R. Devreesse established the thesis that the views which have been repeated about Theodore's convictions concerning man are erroneous and need to be corrected. The alleged deviations from the established positions as affirmed by tradition must upon closer examination be regarded as no more than myth which has gained the status of established truth. Theodore's thinking is in fact entirely within the line of orthodox tradition. He taught both the immortal status given to Adam by creation and original sin and its effects on human nature.

scholarly journals Grace Presupposes Nature: The Structure of the Summa and an Illustration by the Virtue of Patience in Light of Christ

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-78
Author(s):  
Tyler Pellegrin
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Summa Theologiae ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
Natural Virtues

Abstract The first part of this essay argues that the very structure and ordering of Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae manifests a departure from the typical theological position of his time regarding natural acquired virtues. Resting on a conviction that grace presupposes nature, Aquinas uniquely holds that natural virtues perfective of human nature can be acquired prior to grace, which can be elevated and incorporated by grace into the properly Christian life. The second part of this essay offers a case study of the virtue of patience that illustrates the argument of the first part of the paper.

Freedom and Responsibility

2020 ◽  
pp. 137-184
Author(s):  
Thomas H. McCall ◽  
Keith D. Stanglin
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Trinitarian Theology ◽  
Reformed Theology ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Freedom And Responsibility

In Chapter 4, we survey how claims to knowledge of God were defended in the nineteenth-century Methodist context; we look both at the theological methods that were employed and how apologetic impulses functioned within those prolegomena. Turning to the doctrine of God, we trace some of the momentous changes that took place as Wesleyan theology wrestled with modern challenges in relation to its classical inheritance (especially in relation to classical doctrines of perfection, simplicity, aseity, immutability, and omniscience as well as Trinitarian theology). With regard to theological anthropology, we see how the major Methodist theologians wrestled not only with long-standing disputes (for example, the mind–body relation) but also with current debates (for example, race and ethnicity). We trace the Wesleyan debates (both internally, and against traditional Reformed theology as well as revisionism and modernism) over the doctrine of original sin.

scholarly journals The Unsuitability of “Unsubstitutability” in Theological Anthropology

2020 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-62
Author(s):  
Joshua R. Farris
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Significant Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
As If

When we wait for a significant other, it is not as if we are waiting for someone who looks like her, talks like her, or even walks like her. Instead, what we want is her. And, the same goes for the afterlife: if there is an afterlife, we long to see our loved ones. Not those who look like our loved ones, who sound like them, or even smell like them, but we actually want them. In the study of human nature, this is, arguably, one of the modern insights on humanity. The question of the “particularity” of human beings matters. In technical philosophical studies, the question of “particularity” is a question of thisness (i.e., the fact that objects are countable as discrete in virtue of some property or feature that makes an object what it is). What makes one person this person rather than that person? By showing how the concept of thisness is important in modern and contemporary theology, I will argue for a specific view as that which accurately captures both the historical consensus and the modern emphasis of personhood.

The Rudeness and Reverence of Geoffrey Hill’s Mariology

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-165
Author(s):  
Jesse Russell
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
British History ◽  
Blessed Virgin Mary ◽  
The World ◽  
Simone Weil ◽  
Geoffrey Hill

Abstract Due to his seemingly reactionary politics and theology, the recently deceased English lyricist Geoffrey Hill has courted controversy throughout his life. However, while Hill’s work is replete with qualified nostalgia for premodern British history, and he does treat a number of Christian themes in his work, the great British poet defies easy categorisation. Moreover, drawing from the theology of Simone Weil, Rowan Williams, and others, Hill’s work is saturated with a profound awareness of the fallen state of human nature. One of the most profound tropes Hill uses as a representative of what could be called Original Sin is the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary. As a tormented believer and a poet very aware of the fallenness of the world, Hill’s depiction of Mary reveals that Hill is a Christian poet who does not fall into ready categories.

Thomas Aquinas' Eco-Theological Ethics of Anthropocentric Conservation

Horizons ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Patrick McLaughlin
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Ethical Concern ◽  
Natural Order ◽  
Moral Concern ◽  
Theological Ethics ◽  
Nonhuman Animals

This essay explores the much-debated question regarding the extent and viability of Thomas Aquinas as a theological source for expanding Christian ethical concern for the nonhuman creation, particularly nonhuman animals. This exploration focuses on the intersection of two foundational issues in Aquinas' theological framework, nature and teleology, as well as the effects of this intersection in Aquinas' work concerning nonhuman creation. From these examinations, I suggest that Aquinas can provide significant contributions for augmenting concern for the welfare of nonhuman animals because his theological framework demands that humans preserve the natural order through conservation. However, Aquinas' ecotheological ethics of conservation is foundationally anthropocentric and only permits indirect moral concern for the nonhuman world.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabella Image
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
The Will ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Contemporary Context ◽  
Psalm 118

This chapter sets Hilary in his contemporary context, firstly presenting his life and then examining the currents of thought of his time. In particular, the circumstances and issues of the Trinitarian controversy in the 350s are presented, as well as an assessment of the impact of Origen’s thought. The chapter then looks at Hilary’s theological anthropology, presenting a literature review and explaining the book’s methodology, which is to compare Hilary’s commentaries on Matthew and on Psalm 118 in particular. Lastly, key research questions are presented: what are the characteristics of Hilary’s theological anthropology and how novel is it? In particular, the book will examine his theologies of the will and original sin, and locate him on the trajectory of thought between Origen and Augustine.

The Reception of Aquinas’ Ethics

2021 ◽  
pp. 553-564
Author(s):  
Angela Knobel
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Definitive Solution

In this chapter I argue that the most productive way to approach long-standing, apparently ‘insoluble’ interpretive questions about Aquinas is to focus not on finding a definitive solution, but on the question of how Aquinas’ fundamental commitments ‘constrain’ the various solutions that can be offered. As an example of how this might be helpful, I apply this method to the long-standing debate over whether or not Aquinas recognized the possibility of so-called ‘pagan’ virtue. I argue that while Aquinas’ text can sustain multiple answers to this question, his most fundamental commitments regarding the good commensurate to human nature, man’s inherent capacity to pursue that good, and the effects of original sin create important limits on the different solutions that can be offered.

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