scholarly journals Theology as a Sacrament of Hope

Lumen et Vita ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Blume
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Good News ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Poetic Form ◽  
Summa Theologiae ◽  
The Tempest ◽  
Dramatic Structure ◽  
Ordinary Time ◽  
The Way

In his exegesis of the Transfiguration, Thomas Aquinas says that the vision of divine glory was given to Peter, James, and John in order to prepare them for Christ’s imminent Passion and Resurrection (Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, Q.45). The brilliance of Christ’s face shining like the sun (cf. Mt. 17:2) strengthened the apostles so that they would not lose heart during the darkness that would come, but would wait for Christ’s splendor to be revealed again after the Resurrection. The entire mystery is an icon of hope, for it shows that visions of glory are always given as part of a journey towards their fulfillment. “It is good for us to be here,” Peter recognized, but the apostles were not brought up to the mountain to remain there. The revelation sent them back down the mountain to fare forward in hope. In this paper, I would like to suggest that the work of theology is meant to share in the mystery of the Transfiguration, and thus cultivate the virtue of hope. In this task, theology can learn from literature, for the way of revealing is as important as the message to be revealed. I would like to propose Shakespeare’s The Tempest as a model. In its dramatic structure and wonder-inspiring poetic form, The Tempest participates in the mystery of the Transfiguration, sending the audience away from the strange island refreshed and reoriented, set on the way with Prospero towards freedom. The play challenges theology to present the Good News of the Gospel in a way that makes the glory of the Lord visible by the radiance of its form, and interrupts into ordinary time, like the storm with which The Tempest begins, so that the revelation is not an end in itself.  If theology is able to set human beings on a journey by cultivating patience and wonder in the very way it reveals, then it will effect the mysteries that it signifies, and truly impart Christian hope.

scholarly journals O AGIR SALVADOR DE JESUS SEGUNDO SANTO TOMÁS DE AQUINO

2010 ◽  
Vol 41 (113) ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
Juvenal Savian Filho
Keyword(s):  
Saint Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Summa Theologiae ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Efficient Cause ◽  
The Way

Este artigo investiga o modo como Santo Tomás de Aquino, na questão 48 da tertia pars da Summa theologiae, estuda o ato salvador de Jesus: sintetizando as expressões bíblicas em cinco categorias teológicas centrais, ele as relativiza (no sentido de que cada uma delas só faz sentido em relação com as outras) e dá certa preferência a uma delas, aquela que considera o agir salvador de Jesus ao modo de uma causa eficiente. Mas o que isso significa? Busca-se investigar também se, embora com sua linguagem típica do século XIII, esse texto tomasiano guarda ou não alguma atualidade para a soteriologia cristã.ABSTRACT: This article investigates the way Saint Thomas Aquinas studies the saving act of Jesus (at question 48 of his Summa theologiae, Tertia Pars). By sinthetizing the Biblical expressions in five central theological categories, he renders them relative because each only makes sense when related to the others, and he prefers that which considers the saving act of Jesus as an efficient cause. But, what does that mean? Finally, this article aims at finding out whether despite its typical 13th century language, this text of the Summa can be considered updated and important to Christian Soteriology.

Teaching Bodies

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark D. Jordan
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Moral Formation ◽  
Summa Theologiae ◽  
The Third ◽  
Original Reading

This book is an original reading of the Summa theologiae of Thomas Aquinas. It reads the main parts of the Summa backwards, starting from the conclusion, to discover Thomas’s purpose: the unification of persuasive Christian wisdom in a pattern of ongoing moral formation. The book is not another “synthesis” of Thomistic ethics. It argues instead that the Summa offers a series of exercises in evaluating the theological traditions that grew up around the original scenes of instruction: the incarnation, the Gospels, and the sacraments. God provided those scenes so that human beings might learn the most important moral lessons in ways they would find most compelling. The task of writing theology, as Thomas understands it, is to open a path through the inherited languages so that divine pedagogy can have its effect on the reader—in a memory of the original scenes but also in their present repetition. This understanding of moral formation determines the structure of the third part of the Summa, which moves from God’s choice of incarnation through the scriptural retelling of the life of Christ to the events of Christian sacraments. It also determines the structure of the Summa’s second part, which begins and ends with claims on the reader’s life.

scholarly journals Divine and angelic cognition in St. Thomas Aquinas

2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-38
Author(s):  
Predrag Milidrag
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Future Contingents ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Summa Theologiae ◽  
Structural Symmetry ◽  
The One ◽  
Active Intellect

In the first part of the Summa theologiae St. Thomas Aquinas analyzes the cognition in God, angels and human beings; he does that by comparing and juxtaposing them. On the one side, the questions concerning divine cognition, such as the identity of the divine cognition and the divine substance, its nondiscursivity, its scope or future contingents are considered in the articles dedicated to the angels. On the other side, the proper characteristics of the human cognition in the part of the Summa on human soul, such as the active intellect, lack of inborn intelligible species, the inductive procedure in the abstracting from sense cognition, the cognition of the particulars, those problems are analyzed in the part on angelic cognition too. So, there is a structural symmetry of corresponding questions in the Summa on divine, angelic and human cognition.

scholarly journals “I AM has sent me to you:” How Thomas Aquinas’ understanding of the divine names illuminates the way in which he reconciles impassibility and compassion in God

Lumen et Vita ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Bigelow Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Summa Theologiae ◽  
Divine Attributes ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
God's Love ◽  
Hebrew Scripture ◽  
The One ◽  
The Way

Contemporary debates on divine impassibility generally offer two options: either affirm a suffering God who loves and cares, or uphold an impassible God who turns a blind eye to the cries of his people. For Thomas Aquinas, divine impassibility (along with the other divine attributes: simplicity, infinity, immutability, etc.) is not inconsonant with divine compassion. God’s unchangeable nature affirms, not undermines, God’s ability to love. This paper, acknowledging the inadequacy of these two incomplete and dichotomous categorizations, will argue that Thomas’ understanding of the divine names in the Summa Theologiae, 1a, q. 13 illuminates the way in which he reconciles impassibility and compassion in God.It is not the goal of this paper to defend either the idea that God does or does not suffer, nor to affirm or deny the doctrine of divine impassibility on a scale any larger than the work of Thomas and selected contemporary scholars who assist in the project of unpacking and analyzing his thought. It is the goal of this paper to examine in as close a way as possible how Thomas’ defense of divine impassibility can be placed in dialogue with his understanding of the way that humans know and name God, ultimately revealing the inadequacy in the polarizing assumption that an immutable God cannot love.I will begin by analyzing the structure and implications of Thomas’ defense of divine impassibility in Question 9. This will be followed by an analysis of how, in Thomas’ understanding, human knowledge of God, including God’s attribute of impassibility, affects human capacity to name God, here drawing heavily on the insights David Burrell. I will then explore the theological and scriptural implications of Thomas’ assertion that “The One Who Is” is the most appropriate name for God, ultimately arguing that an understanding of the Hebrew scripture from which this name is drawn reveals that God’s love and compassion on behalf of his suffering people is not opposed to but rather relies upon his unchanging nature.

scholarly journals Sobre la simplicidad divina y la predicación de múltiples atributos en Avicena y Tomás de Aquino / On Divine Simplicity and the Predication of Multiple Attributes in Avicenna and Thomas Aquinas

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 147
Author(s):  
Luis Xavier LÓPEZ-FARJEAT
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Divine Simplicity ◽  
Summa Theologiae ◽  
Divine Attributes ◽  
Multiple Attributes ◽  
The Way

In In I Sent., d. 2, q. 1, aa. 1-3 Thomas Aquinas deals with divine simplicity and the predication of the divine attributes. There, he seems to take some distance from Avicenna, specifically when Avicenna avers that God lacks a quiddity. However, in the Summa theologiae Aquinas assumes, as he previously does both in In I Sent., d. 8, q. 1, a. 1 and in De ente et essentia, that there is an identity between the essentia/quiddity and the esse in God, while this statement would also be held by Avicenna. I will show how back to the Commentary on the Sentences Aquinas has detected the existing tension between the two thesis held by Avicenna, and I will also analyze the way in which he addresses both these theses.

Transforming Friendship: Thomas Aquinas on Charity as Friendship with God

2020 ◽  
Vol 85 (4) ◽  
pp. 370-388
Author(s):  
Jonathan Kanary
Keyword(s):  
Human Person ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Summa Theologiae ◽  
Significant Development ◽  
Spiritual Theology ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Friendship With God

This article argues that Thomas Aquinas’s definition of charity in the Summa Theologiae as ‘a kind of friendship’ represents a distinctive and theologically significant development of both the Aristotelian and the Christian monastic traditions on which he builds. By approaching his discussion of charity in the secunda secundae through the gateway of friendship, Thomas is able to characterize the spiritual vision of this portion of the Summa through a twofold movement of grace and participation. The shape of this twofold movement has an implicitly incarnational character, and thus points to the divine Subject of the Summa’s third and culminating volume. But the participatory aspect of this spiritual theology also reveals the indispensable role of the human person, and thus allows Thomas to offer a nuanced explanation of the ways that friendship with God relates to friendships with other human beings.

scholarly journals Thomas Aquinas on Human Beings as Image of God

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-46
Author(s):  
Henk J.M. Schoot
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Art ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Summa Theologiae ◽  
Christian Anthropology ◽  
Triune God

AbstractEmploying a work of modern conceptual art, a manipulated photograph entitled ‘The Missing Person’, the author studies Thomas Aquinas on the concept of human beings as image of (the Triune) God. Typical for Aquinas’ approach is the theocentric focus of his Christian anthropology. The threefold (nature, grace, glory) ‘image of God’, a central and dynamic concept in Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae, is both descriptive and prescriptive in nature, corresponding to an account of both analogical naming of the divine ánd living according to the vocation to become more and more image of the Triune God.

‘Counsel, Comfort, and Conscience’ in More’s Letters to Fellow Prisoner Nicholas Wilson

Moreana ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 46 (Number 176) (1) ◽  
pp. 49-64
Author(s):  
John F. Boyle
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Summa Theologiae ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
Tower Of London

This is a study of the two letters of Thomas More to Nicholas Wilson writ-ten while the two men were imprisoned in the Tower of London. The Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation illuminates the role of comfort and counsel in the two letters. An article of Thomas Aquinas’ Summa theologiae is used to probe More’s understanding of conscience in the letters.

Secondary-Cause Autonomy and Divine Motivation

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 75-92
Author(s):  
Christian Schröer
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Moral Autonomy ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Religious Motivation ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Theoretical View ◽  
Human Autonomy ◽  
The Voice

An act-theoretical view on the profile of responsibility discourse shows in what sense not only all kinds of technical, pragmatic and moral reason, but also all kinds of religious motivation cannot justify a human action sufficiently without acknowledgment to three basic principles of human autonomy as supreme limiting conditions that are human dignity, sense, and justifiability. According to Thomas Aquinas human beings ultimately owe their moral autonomy to a divine creator. So this autonomy can be considered as an expression of secondary-cause autonomy and as the voice of God in the enlightened conscience.

Chimeras In Time-Honored Societies

Think India ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 463-466
Author(s):  
TUMMALA. SAI MAMATA
Keyword(s):  
Major Elements ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Life Changes ◽  
Inner Self ◽  
The World ◽  
Nature And Nurture ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Right ◽  
Superstitious Beliefs

A river flows serenely accepting all the miseries and happiness that it comes across its journey. A tree releases oxygen for human beings despite its inner plights. The sun is never tired of its duty and gives sunlight without any interruption. Why are all these elements of nature so tuned to? Education is knowledge. Knowledge comes from learning. Learning happens through experience. Familiarity is the master of life that shapes the individual. Every individual learns from nature. Nature teaches how to sustain, withdraw and advocate the prevailing situations. Some dwell into the deep realities of nature and nurture as ideal human beings. Life is a puzzle. How to solve it is a million dollar question that can never be answered so easily. The perception of life changes from individual to individual making them either physically powerful or feeble. Society is not made of only individuals. Along with individuals it has nature, emotions, spiritual powers and superstitious beliefs which bind them. Among them the most crucial and alarming is the emotions which are interrelated to others. Alone the emotional intelligence is going to guide the life of an individual. For everyone there is an inner self which makes them conscious of their deeds. The guiding force should always force the individual to choose the right path.  Writers are the powerful people who have rightly guided the society through their ingenious pen outs.  The present article is going to focus on how the major elements bound together are dominating the individual’s self through Rabindranath Tagore’s Home and the World (1916)

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