Thomist Advice to Christian Philosophers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto Di Ceglie
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
Christian Philosophy ◽  
The Relationship

In Advice to Christian philosophers (1984) Alvin Plantinga suggested that Christians who propose to be philosophers should not limit themselves to being philosophers who happen, incidentally, to be Christians. Instead, they should develop a Christian philosophy. From this, however, a problem followed, which is still seen as a reason to deny that a Christian philosophy is possible. It seems implausible that the outcome of the interaction between faith and philosophy is, really, philosophy and not merely theology. Plantinga did not deal with this problem. Unlike him, thinkers of various orientations, especially scholars of Thomas Aquinas, had discussed it during the French querelle in the 1930s. In this article, I argue that they did not solve this problem because they did not examine the relationship between faith and philosophy by considering what faith requires in order to relate to reason. Instead, this consideration was suggested by Plantinga’s Advice and, long before, it had been developed in detail by Thomas Aquinas. It is, therefore, time to propose Thomist Advice to Christian Philosophers.

What Is Jewish Philosophy?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. M. Rudavsky
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Western Thought ◽  
Christian Philosophy ◽  
Faith And Reason ◽  
The World ◽  
Jewish Philosophy ◽  
Medieval Jewish Philosophy ◽  
The Relationship

Medieval Jewish philosophy, like Islamic and Christian philosophy, is fundamentally focused on the relationship between “faith and reason.” Arising as an effort toward harmonizing the tenets of Judaism with current philosophic teachings, medieval Jewish philosophy deals with problems in which there appears to be a conflict between philosophical speculation and acceptance of dogmas of the Judaic faith. This chapter reviews the nature of Jewish philosophy as well as the tension between Judaism and Science. It positions Jewish philosophy within the broader context of Western thought, and distinguishes philosophy from the world of the Rabbis. It then provides an overview of the major themes of the work, which include issues of omniscience, providence, reason, and moral theory.

Faith and Goodness

1989 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 167-191
Author(s):  
Eleonore Stump
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
The Other ◽  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Richard Swinburne ◽  
The Relationship

Recent work on the subject of faith has tended to focus on the epistemology of religious belief, considering such issues as whether beliefs held in faith are rational and how they may be justified. Richard Swinburne, for example, has developed an intricate explanation of the relationship between the propositions of faith and the evidence for them. Alvin Plantinga, on the other hand, has maintained that belief in God may be properly basic, that is, that a belief that God exists can be part of the foundation of a rational noetic structure. This sort of work has been useful in drawing attention to significant issues in the epistemology of religion, but these approaches to faith seem to me also to deepen some long-standing perplexities about traditional Christian views of faith.

The Enduring Interim

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Kenneth Galbraith
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Saint Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Middle Ages

This chapter discusses the basic economic life in the Middle Ages, noting the absence of trade or a market during the period. It first considers the legacy of the Romans with respect to economic and political life, including their commitment to the sanctity of private property and Christianity. In particular, it describes Christian attitudes toward wealth and the link between morality and the market. It also examines the ideas of Saint Thomas Aquinas and Nicole Oresme before turning to the role of markets in the Middle Ages, along with their special characteristics. Finally, it looks at other aspects of economic life during the medieval period, such as the intrusion of ethics on economics—the fairness or justice of the relationship between master and slave, lord and serf, landlord and sharecropper.

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.

scholarly journals The Aristotelian Context of the Existence-Essence Distinction in De Ente Et Essentia

Metaphysica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-173
Author(s):  
Angus Brook
Keyword(s):  
Causal Explanation ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
The Real ◽  
Analogous Relation ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This paper explores the Aristotelian context of the real distinction between existence and essence thought to be posited in Thomas Aquinas’ early work De Ente Et Essentia. In doing so, the paper situates its own position in the context of contemporary scholarship and in relation to the contemporary trend to downplay Aristotle’s influence in Thomas Aquinas’ philosophy. The paper argues that re-reading De Ente Et Essentia in this way sheds new light on some of the crucial debates in contemporary Thomist scholarship, particularly with respect to the analogous relation between potency and act: essence and existence, the distinction between conceptual and causal explanation, and the relationship between philosophy and theology in the thought of Thomas Aquinas.

5. Institutions and literary forms

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Marenbon
Keyword(s):  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
The Other ◽  
Christian Philosophy ◽  
Literary Forms ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

‘Institutions and literary forms’ explains how the history of Latin Christian philosophy is strikingly different from the other three traditions, because so much of the best work took place in, and was shaped by, institutions dedicated to teaching and learning. In Islamic lands, the focus of teaching and learning was on the relationship between teacher and pupil. In all four traditions, medieval philosophizing centred around commentary, but there was also a tendency for thinkers to try to bring together in a single work (summa or treatise) their understanding of the whole of philosophy or theology. Dialogues and other literary forms, such as versification and novels, were also used.

Spiritual Exercise in the Proem to Augustine’s Confessions

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mateusz Stróżyński ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Recent Literature ◽  
Spiritual Exercises ◽  
Complex Dynamic ◽  
Spiritual Exercise ◽  
Christian Philosophy ◽  
The Relationship

This article investigates the relationship between Neoplatonism and Christianity in Augustine’s conception of spiritual exercises. It focuses on the proem to the Confessions, where, in nuce, Augustine mentions many of the great themes of his work. The relationship between Neoplatonism and Christianity in this section seems to be complex, dynamic, and far from “either / or,” a detail which confirms some trends in the recent literature. This article contributes to better understanding of Augustine’s spiritual exercises as well as to the long-running dispute about the role played by Neoplatonism within Augustine’s Christian philosophy.

scholarly journals The Christian Philosophy of St Thomas Aquinas.

1995 ◽  
Vol 45 (181) ◽  
pp. 518
Author(s):  
Albert Wingell ◽  
Etienne Gilson
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Christian Philosophy

Lust (delectatio) und Freude (gaudium) bei Thomas von Aquin

2002 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Hubert Benz
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
The Self ◽  
Moral Norm ◽  
Good Person ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Looking Back

Thomas Aquinas’s theory of pleasure and joy has many implications of Plato’s thinking, that pleasure must have a certain measure and different degrees, and especially of Aristotle’s teaching about the relationship between pleasure and affection, pleasure and action. Thomas holds pleasure to be given, when a present good is comprehended as attractive, when a soul turns to it and reaches the point of rest in it. Thomas is convicted, that the delectationes intelligibiles are superior to the delectationes sensibiles by reason of their higher union with the intelligible. Looking back to Aristotle Thomas sees the causae delectationis in operation (related to natural love of the self) and in motion. The pleasure of the good person is for Thomas a moral norm of acting: Good is, who has joy to act virtuous. Generally we can speak of a renaissance of pleasure as a category of ethics in the thought of Thomas Aquinas.

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