New Blackfriars, Volume 103, Issue 1106, Page 470-482, July 2022.

Given the authority accorded to Hilary of Poitiers by ecumenical councils of the 1st millennium, it is of interest to determine his teaching about the disputed question of the eternal relation of the Son and the Holy Spirit. The question is complex, partly because it is one that Hilary in most cases touches upon only indirectly, when arguing for the divinity of the Son, and partly because the meaning of the relevant passages, even on the level of Latin syntax, is (...) often hard to determine, and a matter of disagreement between different translators or editors. Y. Congar and A. E. Siecienski, in their surveys of the discussions of the inter-trinitarian relations of the Son and the Holy Spirit in the patristic age do not examine all these textual difficulties, nor do they discuss the Opus Historicum, which contains a highly relevant passage on this subject. The present article attempts to throw light on the question by examining the key texts and suggesting answers to the problems of translation and interpretation that they present. It concludes that Hilary’s position is substantially identical to that which would later be agreed by the Greek and Latin churches at the council of Florence, and enshrined in the decree Laetentur caeli. (shrink)

New Blackfriars, Volume 103, Issue 1107, Page 662-677, September 2022.

It has been shown that the thirteenth-century Dominican friar, St Thomas Aquinas, was an important theological influence on John Owen, the seventeenth-century English puritan theologian, chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, especially in the areas of the divine being, grace and Chalcedonian Christology. Suzanne McDonald has argued that, while Aquinas is unmistakably a source for Owen's doctrine of the beatific vision, Owen surpassed Aquinas's doctrine in a manner she judges to be correct, theologically speaking, and which (...) exposes the deficiency of Aquinas's account. Owen achieved this particular ‘Reforming’ or rather ‘re-forming’ of Aquinas's doctrine, she argues, by way of a ‘Christological re-orientation of the doctrine’ in terms of what is seen in the beatific vision and how it is seen, that is, its content and means. This article replies to McDonald from a Catholic and Thomist perspective, in response to her suggestion that Owen's account of the beatific vision opens up possibilities for ecumenical dialogue. The article attempts to achieve this first by reassessing the Christological contrasts McDonald draws between Owen and Aquinas in terms of content and means, and then by offering several suggestions as to why one might want to prefer Aquinas's account over Owen's. (shrink)

A presentation of one of the most important Thomistic institutions, the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas, founded by Pope Leo XIII in 1879, and renewed in 1999 by John Paul II. The article covers the origins of the project, its long history, and its recent reform.

A historical and systematic introduction to what the medieval philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote about the Trinity. By focusing on the thought of one of the greatest defenders of the doctrine of the Trinity, Gilles Emery OP elucidates the classical Christian understanding of God.

Prompted by questions raised in the public arena concerning the validity of arguments for the existence of God based on “design” in the universe, I explore a traditional teleological argument for the existence of God. Using the arguments offered by Thomas Aquinas as fairly representative of this classical line of argumentation going back to Aristotle, I attempt to uncover the hidden premises and construct arguments for the existence of God which are deductive in nature. To justify the premises of (...) Aquinas’s argument, I begin by presenting an argument to justify the existence of “final causes,” with a focus on answering questions about the biological implications of these causes for evolutionary theory. Then, I attempt to construct two teleological proofs for the existence of God. Finally, I offer some implications of this reasoning for the contemporary disputes over ID/evolution in education. (shrink)

It is widely assumed by scholars that Christ was in error on such matters as an expectation that the final judgement and its accompanying events would occur within the timeframe of a generation. While accepting that Christ did indeed prophesy his return within this timeframe, a recent co-authored work When the Son of Man Didn't Come aims to defend the veracity of his prophecy by drawing on the same historical-critical method that has given rise to doubts about it. The authors (...) propose a distinction between Mosaic and Jeremianic prophecy, arguing that Christ's was of the latter kind, which was present in the Ancient Near East, the Old and New Testaments, and other Jewish and Christian authors. Their argument, however, is at risk of reducing the truthfulness of a prophecy to its success. Hence this article explores a further distinction between two kinds of prophecy made in Thomas Aquinas's account of the truthfulness of prophecy, mapping it onto the Mosaic-Jeremianic distinction, and arguing that, in view of this linking of Aquinas's understanding of prophecy to the argument of the book, the book certainly adds to the set of proposed theological explanations of how Christ's prophecy of his return was true. (shrink)

It is widely assumed by scholars that Christ was in error on such matters as an expectation that the final judgement and its accompanying events would occur within the timeframe of a generation. While accepting that Christ did indeed prophesy his return within this timeframe, a recent co-authored work When the Son of Man Didn't Come aims to defend the veracity of his prophecy by drawing on the same historical-critical method that has given rise to doubts about it. The authors (...) propose a distinction between Mosaic and Jeremianic prophecy, arguing that Christ's was of the latter kind, which was present in the Ancient Near East, the Old and New Testaments, and other Jewish and Christian authors. Their argument, however, is at risk of reducing the truthfulness of a prophecy to its success. Hence this article explores a further distinction between two kinds of prophecy made in Thomas Aquinas's account of the truthfulness of prophecy, mapping it onto the Mosaic-Jeremianic distinction, and arguing that, in view of this linking of Aquinas's understanding of prophecy to the argument of the book, the book certainly adds to the set of proposed theological explanations of how Christ's prophecy of his return was true. (shrink)

The article offers a critical biography, description and characteristic of method, fonts and doctrine of Master Paul of Soncino († 5 August 1495), friar of the Dominican Order, in particular his Acutissimae Quaestiones Metaphysicales. The life and work of this philosopher falls within the ambit of Italian Thomism of the 15th century. Between his masters we commemorate Peter Maldura of Bergamo and Dominic of Flanders. His exposition of Aristotle’s Metaphysic proceeds from a peculiar synthesis of Arabic Commentator Averroes and (...) class='Hi'>Thomas Aquinas. Soncinas’ work and position was frequently discussed up to the 15th century. (shrink)

The origin, historical development and current projects of the Leonine Commission, which is in charge of the critical edition of the complete works of St. Thomas Aquinas.

The article offers a critical biography, description and characteristic of method, fonts and doctrine of Master Paul of Soncino († 5 August 1495), friar of the Dominican Order, in particular his Acutissimae Quaestiones Metaphysicales. The life and work of this philosopher falls within the ambit of Italian Thomism of the 15th century. Between his masters we commemorate Peter Maldura of Bergamo and Dominic of Flanders. His exposition of Aristotle’s Metaphysic proceeds from a peculiar synthesis of Arabic Commentator Averroes and (...) class='Hi'>Thomas Aquinas. Soncinas’ work and position was frequently discussed up to the 15th century. (shrink)

The scholarly works of Jürgen Habermas and Michel Foucault have been subject to ongoing scrutiny for a number of decades. However, less attention has been given to their activities as public intellectuals and the relation between these and their philosophical and theoretical projects. Drawing on their own conceptualization of the role of the intellectual, the article aims to illuminate these issues by examining Habermas’ advocacy of a ‘Core Europe’ and his defense of NATO bombardments in Kosovo in 1999 as well (...) as Foucault’s involvement with the Groupe d’Information des Prisons (GIP) and a wide variety of his interviews, op-ed articles, etc. In showing that the intellectuals’ views differ in important ways from those of the scholars but nevertheless inhabit a crucial position in the overall edifice of their oeuvres, the article concludes that the practices of theorists deserve more attention for a comprehensive and more nuanced account of their thought. (shrink)

Het is niet eenvoudig om door te dringen in het veelzijdige cultuurkritische denken van Strauss. Conservatisme speelt een sleutelrol in zijn verdediging van geestelijke waarden.

Stippen in de verte. Wat zijn dat? Het zijn kanoeten. Onderweg naar Mauritanië, maar nu op zoek naar eten op het wad. Nieuwe vragen: waarom naar Mauritanië? Waar komen ze vandaan? Wat zoeken ze in de modder? Als er één wetenschap is die meer vragen stelt dan beantwoordt, dan is het wel de biologie. Elke nieuwe ontdekking maakt het leven onbekender, complexer en fascinerender. Hoe meer kennis, hoe meer vragen. Voor onze kenniseconomie zijn de antwoorden uit biologische kennis vaak als (...) een knik in een tuinslang. En dat wordt alleen maar erger van al die nieuwe vragen. Kun je nog een plan uitvoeren als je niet weet wat het aanricht? Dit boek is een ontdekkingsreis door de complexiteit van de natuur. Een lange tocht die begint bij trekvogels, van de geulen en platen van onze eigen Waddenzee naar de tropische wadvlaktes in West-Afrika. In die wildernis vinden we nieuwe kennis, en dus nieuwe, betere vragen. Het gaat over onze verwondering over de natuur - inclusief de natuur van de mens - die we dankzij noest wetenschappelijk werk steeds beter leren begrijpen. Over het fabeltje van de genen die eigenschappen coderen. Over de evolutie van schoonheid en liefde. De dynamiek van seksisme en racisme. Over de gevaren van landbouw met oogkleppen, van efficiënte visserij, en van windmolens als zogenaamde oplossing. Over de waarde van een individu, over de waarde van een ecosysteem. (shrink)

In August 2017, a group of activists erected in Ottawa's downtown a tent as a first overdose prevention site as a response to what the public and the activists perceived as an epidemic—a devastating wave of opioid and fentanyl overdoses in Canada. The Ontario premier was urged to declare an emergency that would provide increased funding for harm reduction and also send a message to survivors and families that the lives of their loved ones mattered. Thus, the discourses around the (...) so‐called opioid crisis used a language of moral sentiments to legitimate political action. This “new humanitarianism” is considered a priori as good, but in this article, I ask what is politically at stake if we base our actions on the logic of humanitarian reason. The new universalism of humanitarian organizations is based on the individualism of human rights and thus on a moral imperative that replaces the political. Initiatives like the OPS movement often fill the gaps in social services in the absence of the state and address social problems as emergencies and public health issues, thereby transforming them into medical problems—performing the medicalization of sociopolitical problems. This is what I call the NGOization of the opioid crisis. This form of humanitarianism is a universalism of the temporal present without any universal promise for a better future or the amelioration of human conditions—it is a humanitarianism of emergency. What characterizes new humanitarianism is that it responds to situations of suffering that are the result of increasing inequality and injustices without addressing the root causes of this suffering. Not addressing these causes means to be complicit in perpetuating the inequalities and to restrict visions of possible alternatives. (shrink)

The rising number of non-status migrants is one of the central political issues of our time. This essay argues that if we want to understand the political and philosophical importance of this phenomenon, the contributions of Alain Badiou, his militant group L'Organisation politique, and the struggle of the sans-papiers movement in France are absolutely crucial. This is the case because, I will argue, Badiou, the OP, and the sans-papiers created a new kind of migrant justice struggle in the mid-1990s that (...) in many ways remains at the practical and theoretical roots of much of non-status migrant organizing today. However, this essay also argues that Badiou's theoretical and political work with the sans-papiers also needs to be revised and updated in light of certain developments in more recent migrant justice struggles. (shrink)

‘In tegenstelling tot het spinozistische liberalisme, is het liberalisme van Locke en Montesquieu niet langer gericht op het hogere en het spirituele, maar meer op het lagere en materiële [...]Het is dan ook niet verwonderlijk dat onze liberale traditie, die overheerst wordt door de ideeën van Locke en Montesquieu, steeds meer gekweld wordt door het bange vermoeden dat de prijs die moet worden betaald voor onze alsmaar indrukwekkender prestaties [...] bestaat uit een geestelijke uitholling en een verwording van de burgerlijke (...) samenleving’. (shrink)

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