This book offers a philosophical analysis of the main themes and problems of Aquinas' metaphysics of creation, centred on the concept of participation, the systematical meaning of which is examined in a critical discussion of the prevailing views of contemporary Thomas scholars.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dei Filius I:On God, Creation, and ProvidenceRudi A. Te VeldeIn this essay, I want to share my impressions of the first chapter of the dogmatic constitution Dei Filius of Vatican I. It begins its declaration of the basic truths of Christian faith in a language which is similar, and probably intended to be similar, to that of a solemn confession of faith: "The holy, catholic, apostolic, and Roman church (...) believes and acknowledges that there is one true living God, creator and lord of heaven and earth."1 It reminds one, in some of its formulations, of the Nicene Creed, but with a remarkable difference: here, in the text of the constitution, the object of the confession is formulated as a proposition about God's existence.2 What is said is not, for example, "I believe in one God, the Father almighty"; but the Church believes and holds it to be true that there exists a God. One can notice a subtle shift from a confession of faith to the proclamation of a (rational) truth. The Pope, gathered with all the bishops of the Church, declares that there exists a God, the one and true living God, a doctrinal statement directed, by implication, against those who dare to deny the existence of God. The opening sentence of chapter 1 corresponds with its canon, which says that, "if anyone denies the one true God, creator and [End Page 823] lord of things visible and invisible: let him be anathema."3 Thus the constitution says that the "one, true living God" of the biblical faith exists, that this is a truth, and that, as consequence, the opposed thesis of atheism is false and must be rejected.Who is asserting this truth? Who is speaking and with which authority? The text leaves no doubt about the speaking subject. It is the Church, entitled to speak with authority about matters of faith, because it is the Roman Church, holy, catholic, and apostolic. The Church speaks, in the person of the pope, the legitimate successor of St. Peter, with authority granted to her by God himself through his Son Jesus Christ. In the preface preceding chapter 1 of the constitution, it is said that the Church is appointed by God to be "mother and mistress of nations." Hence:She can never cease from witnessing to the truth of God... and from declaring it, for she knows that these words were directed to her: "My spirit which is upon you, and my words I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth from this time forth and for evermore"(Is 59:21).4This gives the pope, sitting in the chair of Peter, the authority of "teaching and defending Catholic truth and condemning erroneous doctrines."5 And the first thing to be declared, as part of the Church's task to proclaim the Catholic truth to all the nations, is to assert the existence of God against the error of atheism.It is important to understand the genre of a dogmatic constitution. It is a document in which the Church, by mouth of the pope together with the bishops, expounds the basic tenets of Christian teaching. The purpose of a dogmatic constitution is to reaffirm the basic truths of Christian doctrine, to clarify the fundamentals of faith in a message to the world. A constitution may be occasioned by actual developments in the world and society, but it speaks as it were from the standpoint of eternity. In case of the constitution Dei Filius, the addressee is the world of the mid-nineteenth century, a time of dominance of scientific reason, of materialism, naturalism, atheism, and not unimportantly, of current forms of idealistic pantheism (Georg Hegel, Friedrich Schelling, the influence of German Idealism in general); what the constitution especially stands opposed to [End Page 824] is the view of supernatural religion as being irrational. For this purpose it wants to reclaim reason and to overcome the disastrous gap between faith and (modern) rationality.The double program underlying the constitution—teaching the Catholic truth and condemning erroneous doctrines—reminds one of the Summa contra gentiles [SCG] of Thomas Aquinas.6 The... (shrink)

According to Thomas Aquinas, both logic and metaphysics are characterized by the same universal scope. The consideration of metaphysics extends to everthing which is, as its subject is being insofar as it is being. And the science of logic too considers everything which is, not as it exists in reality but insofar as the whole of being falls under the consideration of reason. Because of the equivalence between the logical sphere of reason and the real sphere of being metaphysics has (...) an affinity with logic. This similarity is mentioned by Aquinas in order to explain the legitimate use of a logical mode of reasoning within metaphysics. Metaphysics is not identical with logic, but the modus logicus, the logical mode of reasoning, is to a certain extent useful for the philosopher in his inquiry into metaphysical matters. In his Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics Thomas refers frequently to this ‘modus logicus' by which Aristotle is said to proceed in his investigation into substance. However, it is not altogether clear what this method consists in and how the similarity between logic and metaphysics, on which the modus logicus is based, should be understood. In this article I want to clarify the meaning of the modus logicusin Aquinas and its revelance for metaphysics. This might help us to understand better how according to Thomas logic and metaphysics are related to one another and in what sense they are different. (shrink)

This paper examines critically Kretzmann's reconstruction of the project of natural theology as exemplified by Aquinas's Summa Contra Gentiles. It is argued that the notion of natural theology, as understood and advocated by Kretzmann, is particularly indebted to the epistemologically biased natural theology of modernity with its focus on rational justification of theistic belief. As a consequence, Kretzmann's view of the arguments for the existence of God and their place within Aquinas's theological project is insufficiently sensitive to the ontological conception (...) of truth and intelligibility which underlies the argumentation. From his epistemological point of view Kretzmann differs from Aquinas in two aspects. First, he contends that it is not necessary to establish the existence of God with absolute certainty at the outset; one may begin with the hypothesis that there is a God. Second, the arguments do not yet conclude to the existence of God in the specific theistic sense; they show at most the existence of a primary explanatory entity, which may be identified with God later on. Both claims are criticized in the light of a discussion of Aquinas's theological method. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Grace is defined by Thomas as a participation of the divine nature. By the gift of grace man is said to become a „god by participation”. In this study an interpretation is proposed of the meaning of participation as applied to grace. Grace, according to Thomas, is the free gift of God himself to man by which man becomes united with God in knowledge and love. It is through the gift of grace that man achieves his ultimate perfection which consists (...) in the vision of God. Why must grace be understood as a matter of participation, so it is asked? Does the notion of participation befit the Christian experience of grace as a personal encounter between man and God? It appears that the expression participation of the divine nature is intended as a solution to the following problem: how can man be understood to attain his ultimate perfection of seeing God's infinite essence, if this vision is only connatural to an infinite intellect? Because the act of seeing God is proper to the divine nature, it is not a desirable good for man precisely insofar as he is a man. This means that human nature as such cannot be understood as the subject of the act of faith by which the vision of God is anticipated within the context of human life on earth. The only way open to man to be subject of faith, thus to attain God in his divinity, is by becoming a god himself, while remaining a human being. Since the act of faith is properly a divine act, this act cannot perfect man in relation to his human nature, but only in relation to the divine nature as participated in him by grace. Only in this way, by receiving a participated likeness of God, is the human intellect capable of an act with respect to God himself, which is nevertheless a free and spontaneous act of man himself as it proceeds from an intrinsic principle. The conclusion is that participation provides an answer to the question of how man must be understood if a personal encounter between man and God, between creature and creator, should be possible. (shrink)

Contemporary theology commonly rejects the traditional 'Greek' reading of Exodus 3:14, according to which God reveals himself to Moses by the name of 'being' in favour of a more religious interpretation which sees in the name a confirmation of Gods enduring and liberating presence to his people. By means of an interpretation of Thomas Aquinas' reading of the Exodus-name in the Summa the author intends to show that Aquinas' account of the name is not guided by an exegetical and hermeneutical (...) interest but by a propoer speculative way of questioning, which can be formulated as follows: given the fact that God reveals himself to Moses under the name of being, how can this name - in what it signifies and how it signifies - be understood as a suitable medium by which God reveals himself to man. In the Summa-text Thomas gives three arguments why the name 'being' is the most appropriate name of God. It is argued that each of these arguments relates to a different aspect of the complex structure of God-in-his-revelation-to-man. Aquinas' account of the name of being is in accord with his analysis of the divine names, in which the tension between the res significata, the reality which is signified by a name, and the modus significandi, the human way of signifying, stands central. This tension returns in his analysis of the name 'being', where it clarifies the structure of revelation as a concealing presence of God to man. The implications of Thomas' reading for the notion of revelation exhibit some interesting similarities with the modern reading of Exodus inspite of the fundamental difference in theological method. (shrink)

Contemporary theology commonly rejects the traditional 'Greek' reading of Exodus 3:14, according to which God reveals himself to Moses by the name of 'being' in favour of a more religious interpretation which sees in the name a confirmation of Gods enduring and liberating presence to his people. By means of an interpretation of Thomas Aquinas' reading of the Exodus-name in the Summa the author intends to show that Aquinas' account of the name is not guided by an exegetical and hermeneutical (...) interest but by a propoer speculative way of questioning, which can be formulated as follows: given the fact that God reveals himself to Moses under the name of being, how can this name - in what it signifies and how it signifies - be understood as a suitable medium by which God reveals himself to man. In the Summa-text Thomas gives three arguments why the name 'being' is the most appropriate name of God. It is argued that each of these arguments relates to a different aspect of the complex structure of God-in-his-revelation-to-man. Aquinas' account of the name of being is in accord with his analysis of the divine names, in which the tension between the res significata, the reality which is signified by a name, and the modus significandi, the human way of signifying, stands central. This tension returns in his analysis of the name 'being', where it clarifies the structure of revelation as a concealing presence of God to man. The implications of Thomas' reading for the notion of revelation exhibit some interesting similarities with the modern reading of Exodus inspite of the fundamental difference in theological method. (shrink)

De uitvoerige reactie van Sarot en Van den Brink waarin ze hun ‘Utrechtse’ positie in de wijsgerige theologie verduidelijken en verdedigen tegenover mijn vragen en scepsis, zou een uitvoerige beantwoording verdienen, uitvoeriger en grondiger dan het mij op deze plaats mogelijk is. Ik zal, ten eerste, ingaan op de kwestie van het realisme en, ten tweede, op het verwijt van ‘agnosticisme’ aan mijn adres.

The results of an empirical study intoperceptions of the treatment of farm animals inthe Netherlands are presented. A qualitativeapproach, based on in-depth interviews withmeat livestock farmers and consumers was chosenin order to assess motivations behindperceptions and to gain insight into the waypeople deal with possible discrepancies betweentheir perceptions and their daily practices.Perceptions are analyzed with the help of aframe of reference, which consists ofvalues, norms, convictions, interests, andknowledge.

This article examines how Reformed scholasticism can be relevant for systematic theology today. ‘Reformed Scholasticism’ denotes the academic practice in which the doctrines of the Reformation are expounded, explained, and defended. It is primarily a method and attitude in search of the truth, based on a careful reading of Scripture, drawing on patristic and medieval traditions, and interacting with philosophy and other academic disciplines. In addition to these methodological features, important contributions on various doctrinal topics can be discovered. The doctrine (...) of God has a foundational role in the sense that God is the primary subject of the other topics. Reformed scholastic theology not only examines God’s inner essence, but also the concrete relation and operation of God toward his world. In a Trinitarian understanding of God’s essence, a distinction is maintained between God’s immanent relatedness as three divine Persons, and his outward relation to created reality. The doctrines of creation and providence gave occasion for Reformed scholastics to engage in debates with the emerging natural sciences, and also articulated important theological insights concerning the involvement of God in creaturely affairs. In Christology, the Reformed orthodox maintained the classic doctrine of the two natures of Jesus Christ, against Socinians and other opponents. These ontological statements are the necessary conditions for a proper understanding of the salvation by Christ. While the doctrinal positions of Reformed scholastic theology cannot be automatically transmitted to contemporary discussions, we can profit from this tradition on several levels of method and content. (shrink)

SummaryIntense, sustained nursing lengthens inter-birth intervals and is causally linked with low natural fertility. However, in traditional settings, the effects of such nursing on fertility are difficult to disentangle from those of nutrition. Results from an prospective, direct observational study of reproductive function in well-nourished Amele women who nurse intensively and persistently but who also have high fertility are here presented. Endocrine measures show that ovarian activity resumes by median 11·0 months postpartum. Median duration of postpartum amenorrhoea is 11·3 months, (...) time to next conception is 19·0 months, and the inter-birth interval is 28·0 months. Average life time fertility is 6·8. High fertility in Amele women is due both to refractoriness of reproductive function to suckling stimuli, and to maintenance of equivalent age-specific fertility rates across the reproductive life span. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Metaphysics between Experience and Transcendence: Thomas Aquinas on Metaphysics as a Science by Rudi A. te VeldeO.P. Philip-Neri ReeseVELDE, Rudi A. te. Metaphysics between Experience and Transcendence: Thomas Aquinas on Metaphysics as a Science. Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2021. vii + 246 pp. 38,00€In the opening chapter of Metaphysics 4, Aristotle states not only that there is a science of being as being and its per se (...) properties but also that it is the task of the metaphysician to investigate the principles and causes of such being. Does this mean that metaphysics comes in two parts—namely, an ontology that investigates being and its properties, followed by a theology that investigates the first principle of being? Or does it mean that the very investigation into being and its properties involves an investigation into the first principle of being—that is, that ontology in some sense is theology? The central purpose of Rudi A. te Velde's newest book is to show that, at least for Thomas Aquinas and those who would follow him, the answer is emphatically the latter: Thomistic metaphysics is essentially the resolutio, or tracing-back, of common being (ens commune) to divine being (ens divinum). This process of resolution situates Aquinas's metaphysics "between experience and transcendence." Unlike natural philosophy, metaphysics is not focused on reality as it is given to us in and through sensory experience. Unlike Christian theology, metaphysics is not focused on God as revealed to us in and through supernatural faith. Rather, it is focused on what both of these—experience and transcendence—presuppose, namely, the fundamental truth that all of reality comes from, and points back to, God as its principle and source. For te Velde, Aquinas's metaphysics is etiology or, as he puts it, "the science of presuppositions."Chapter 1 offers the reader a synoptic view of the basic outlines and contours of Aquinas's metaphysics, both positively and negatively. Positively, te Velde points out that Aquinas understands metaphysics to be an Aristotelian science, that is, a discipline unified around its subject. For the properties of a subject are what we aim to demonstrate when we engage in Aristotelian science, and its principles are what we appeal to when doing so. Negatively, te Velde contrasts Aquinas's view of metaphysics with that of his contemporary, Siger of Brabant, and that of our contemporary, John Haldane. Unlike the former, Aquinas's metaphysics takes common being, which is participated and created (and so does not include God), as its subject. Unlike the latter, Aquinas's [End Page 162] metaphysics is unified by the intelligibility of being in light of its principles.In chapters 2 through 5, te Velde focuses in on particular themes that are of central importance to Aquinas's account of metaphysics. Chapter 2 examines the role of separatio in distinguishing metaphysics from physics and mathematics. Where physics considers things that require matter both to be and to be understood, and mathematics considers things that require matter to be but not to be understood, metaphysics considers things that require matter neither to be nor to be understood. It does so by means of a judgment of separation—a judgment that something (for example, substance, form, and so on) can be without matter. Chapter 3 turns to the topic of resolutio, wherein the mind moves "from the concrete particular to its intelligible ground." Aquinas's metaphysics is marked by a twofold resolution: one in which being and its attributes are grasped as the intrinsic principles of all things, and a second in which God and separate substances are grasped as the extrinsic principles of all things. Chapter 4 then investigates the notion of transcendentality, which arises in the first of those two resolutive processes—for insofar as being and its attributes are common to all things, they are not limited to just one of the ten categories (that is, they are transcendental). Nevertheless, the way in which predicates like "one," "true," and "good" cut across the categories that divide common being is different from the way that they cut across the divide between God and creatures. This difference ushers in chapter 5's discussion... (shrink)

De uitvoerige reactie van Sarot en Van den Brink waarin ze hun ‘Utrechtse’ positie in de wijsgerige theologie verduidelijken en verdedigen tegenover mijn vragen en scepsis, zou een uitvoerige beantwoording verdienen, uitvoeriger en grondiger dan het mij op deze plaats mogelijk is. Ik zal, ten eerste, ingaan op de kwestie van het realisme en, ten tweede, op het verwijt van ‘agnosticisme’ aan mijn adres.

In The Doctrine of God Dolf te Velde examines the interaction of method and content in three historically important accounts of the doctrine of God.

This article discusses Thomas Aquinas's view on the ‘utility’ of prayer in the light of the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. ‘Creatio ex nihilo’ means, among other things, that nothing can exist that is not caused by the universal power of God. The universal causality of creation implies that God cannot receive from the world or react to any activity on our part. This claim of divine immutability throws into question the intelligibility of prayer: does it make sense to pray (...) to God when his providence is certain and immutable? I argue that the God Thomas conceives is not the God of the ancient régime, the sovereign deity of absolute power who is in charge of everything; on the contrary, it is a God who grants the secondary causes within the world their own power and operation. The human activity of prayer belongs to this sphere of ‘second causes’, through which God realizes his providential plan. God's providence provides good things to us, one of which is the fulfillment of our prayers. (shrink)

The historiography of European liberalism has been dominated by large countries; this contribution focuses on the successful tradition of liberalism in the Netherlands. Just like German liberalism, the spirit of Dutch 19th-century liberalism was constitutional. It assumed that constitutional rules in a certain sense produced liberty, because liberty was not possible without a legally guaranteed context. Today the Dutch liberal party tries to combine classical liberalism with a mild populism, but recently the Pim Fortuyn upsurge of populism has hurt the (...) liberal party. A direct democratic style of politics has become popular among more right-wing liberals. Perhaps it is time to re-evaluate the 19th-century doctrinaire liberal traditions. Their anti-democratic ideas have been superseded, but the constitutional organization of liberty is as important as ever. (shrink)

The results of an empirical study intoperceptions of the treatment of farm animals inthe Netherlands are presented. A qualitativeapproach, based on in-depth interviews withmeat livestock farmers and consumers was chosenin order to assess motivations behindperceptions and to gain insight into the waypeople deal with possible discrepancies betweentheir perceptions and their daily practices.Perceptions are analyzed with the help of aframe of reference, which consists ofvalues, norms, convictions, interests, andknowledge.The perceptions of the interviewed farmersare quite consistent and without exceptionpositive: according to them, (...) nothing is wrongwith animal welfare in livestock breeding. Theperceptions of the consumers we interviewed aremore divergent, but generally negative. Bothgroups show ambivalence as a result ofdiscrepancies between perceptions and behavior.Although the consumers share the impressionthat the living conditions of livestock animalsare far from optimal, most of them still buyand eat meat from the meat industry. Thefarmers believe the welfare of their animals isgood, but, as frequent defensive utterancesshow, they feel uncomfortable with expressed orunexpressed accusations of mistreating animals.The ways the respondents deal with thisambivalence were analysed by drawing ontheories of dissonance reduction and distancing devices. (shrink)

Confronted with the face of the Other, the subject according to Levinas loses all its titles. But by the same token it also reaches its truest and most proper core. Indeed, what properly constitutes a subject cannot be understood outside the horizon ofthat ('initial') dispossession. A horizon which for Levinas ultimately refers to the Good which has chosen us before we could choose it: it is thanks to this prior unfreedom that we can at all be free. But what if (...) there would be more than one 'Good' and hence more than one 'dispossession'? Through an analysis of the concepts of 'face' and 'form', I will show why Levinas cannot raise that question and in what sense there is a price to be paid for that omission. (shrink)

The invocation and necessity of a forgiveness process have become complicated and multifaceted within the South African society with its realities of crime, poverty, racism, injustice and abuse. The rhythms of forgiveness compel us to identify our present situation. Individuals, as well as larger social groups, should begin to reflect on the importance of forgiveness to deal with transgression, violence, revenge and bitterness. I suggest that forgiveness within the Christian doctrine needs to be situated and embodied in specific habits and (...) practices of Christian life within the South African society. In response, people in South Africa are called to remember past transgressions while pursuing the repairing and healing of the brokenness and separations in relationships by embodying forgiveness. It directs the importance of the Church’s prophetic task to proclaim the boundless gift of a constructive and transformative relationship with God, one another and God’s creation. Practising forgiveness includes a process of seeking to embody Christian forgiveness that involves the transformation of people’s lives, their world and their capability to restore communion within the field of social relations. (shrink)

The article describes the development of adolescents for a sense of self in a lesbian home, in order to compile guidelines for lesbian parents as well as pastoral counsellors to help and guide adolescents to develop a healthy sense of self. From the research results, it appears that there are certain positive and negative aspects of a lesbian home that influence adolescents’ sense of self. Where both parents are involved with the adolescents, share household duties equally and have a quality (...) relationship with each other and the adolescents, the adolescents are generally well-adapted, happy and able to handle challenges in order to develop a healthy sense of self. The positive influence that Christian religious certainty has on the overall development of the adolescents was also confirmed by this study. On the other hand, adolescents experience particular aspects as challenging and impeding in their development of a healthy sense of self: Conflict and criticism from the companion parents are humiliating and destructive. Stigmatising, teasing and rejection from the hetero-normative society, as a result of their parents’ sexual orientation, appear to be the largest obstacles in their psychosocial development. They react in a shy, negative and evasive way to the stigmatisation and withdraw themselves from situations that could be painful and humiliating. It also appears that the absence of a father figure and financial tension in lesbian families are impeding the adolescents’ healthy development of a sense of self. (shrink)