The Submission of Christ

2021 ◽  
pp. 114-136
Author(s):  
Thomas H. McCall
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Theological Debate

Chapter 4 addresses the issue of the Son’s submission to his Father, that has been the subject of intense theological debate in recent decades. Oddly, Hebrews 5:7-10 has not figured prominently in that debate. This chapter looks at the relevance of this passage for this issue in Christology. It does so in close conversation with two prominent theologians: Karl Barth and Thomas Aquinas. Accordingly, the chapter offers a summary of their views on this issue, investigates their interpretations of this passage, canvasses and evaluates some common criticisms of their respective positions, and then revisits the question of how a viable interpretation of Hebrews might impact these debates.

2. Natural law and morality

2020 ◽  
pp. 20-73
Author(s):  
Raymond Wacks
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Moral Realism ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
Law And Morality ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter discusses the relationship between the ancient classical theory of natural law and its application to contemporary moral questions. It considers the role of natural law in political philosophy, the decline of the theory of natural law, and its revival in the twentieth century. The principal focus is on John Finnis’s natural law theory based largely on the works of St Thomas Aquinas. The chapter posits a distinction between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ natural law, examines the notion of moral realism, and examines the tension between law and morality; and the subject of the moral dilemmas facing judges in unjust societies.

The Cloud or the Raindrops?

2019 ◽  
pp. 73-94
Author(s):  
Palle Yourgrau
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Peter Geach

The birth and death of a person constitute (existential) changes in that individual. This idea is challenged, however, by Thomas Aquinas—supported by Peter Geach—who believes that no change can involve the very existence of the subject of that change. It is argued, however, that Aquinas’s position is indefensible, since it involves denying that before Socrates existed, it was a fact that he didn’t exist. Another challenge, however, arises from the thesis of C. S. Peirce—supported by A. N. Prior—that before Socrates was born, there was not even the possibility of his existence, since possibility is always general, individuality arising only from existence itself. An argument is presented, however, that Peirce’s thesis cannot be accepted. More generally, attention is drawn to the importance of the commonsense notion of individuals.

Karl Barth and the Future of Theology

1970 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. L. Lehmann
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Summa Theologiae ◽  
Massive Structure ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Church

Karl Barth has often been compared to Thomas Aquinas. The principal reasons for the comparison have been the systematic power and massive structure of the Kirchliche Dogmatik, with its illuminating interior conversation of the Church with itself, and Barth's searching and vigorous attempt to displace the ontological fulcrum of the Summa Theologiae by a christocentric analysis of God's freedom in revelation to be God for man in the world.

Many (= All) are Called, But Few (= Not All) are Chosen

1990 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben F. Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Main Thrust ◽  
Universal Salvation

The conviction that God is good, that he takes ‘no pleasure in the death of the wicked’ (Ezek 18. 23), that he ‘desires all men to be saved’ (1 Tim 2. 4), and that Christ ‘gave himself as a ransom for all’ (1 Tim 2. 4), belongs to the main thrust of Christian soteriology. Although there have been soteriological pessimists (Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, was an optimist on the salvation of the angels, but a pessimist on the salvation of human beings) and optimists (Karl Barth construed Paul's universalist teleology as a flat guarantee of universal salvation), most Christians have had to content themselves with an affirmation of God's at least antecedently universal salvific will, with the hope for the salvation of many and even of all, and with a straightforward agnosticism respecting whether the finally lost will be ‘any’ or ‘many’ or something in between. But, in the word of Matt 22.14 (l.v. 20. 16), Jesus himself speaks, and he seems (a) to evoke election = predestination = salvation, (b) to reduce the number of the elect = predestined = saved to ‘few’, and (c) to suggest that the differentiation between the called and the elect is not the outcome of human acts but of divine decision. All three factors — final salvation is at stake, few are saved, and this by God's sovereign decision — say why this word has been a crux interpretum.

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