Thomistic News

Website Thomistica.net has recently paid attention to the new book on predestination, grace and free will in St. Thomas Aquinas: Dieu joueur d’échecs? Prédestination, grâce et libre arbitre. Relecture de saint Thomas d’Aquin, by fr. Basile Valuet O.S.B. (Abbaye Sainte Madeleine du Barroux 2018). It is a second volume in the book series generally devoted to the issue of the relation between God’s causality and man’s free will. This publication thoroughly discusses the way in which Aquinas developed this issue …

As website Thomistica.net informs, almost all issues of the journal most commonly known as „Divus Thomas” (Fribourg) are already available online. They have been digitalized by the platform E-periodica, run by the Library of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, which shares the journals issued in Switzerland or concerning this country. The journal „Divus Thomas” established in 1887, originally under the title of „Jahrbuch für Philosophie und spekulative Theologie” (it was thus named until 1913). From the very …

Cerf Publishing House has recently issued a book by Eunsil Son, Miséricorde n’est pas défaut de justice. Savoirs humains, révélation évangélique et justice divine chez Thomas d’Aquin. It concerns Aquinas’ understanding of divine justice – as it is presented in Biblical commentaries and great theological synthesis – and confronts it with the thought of Martin Luther. Eunsil Son is currently a professor in theology at the Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary in Seoul. In 2006 she defended her doctoral thesis …

The latest issue of „New Blackfriars” is already available. Numerous articles are devoted to the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. The following texts especially deserve attention: Anthony Fisher O.P. (Archdiocese of Sydney), Imperfect Persons in States of Perfection: Aquinas on Vocations (we recommend also a podcast with Fisher, where he discusses precisely Aquinas’ teaching on vocations); Edmund Michael Lazzari (The Fellowship of Catholic University Students), Would St. Thomas Aquinas baptize an Extraterrestial? (in relation to this issue we encourage you also …

Catholic University of America Press has just released yet another book on the thought by St. Thomas Aquinas. This time it is A Gift of Presence: The Theology and Poetry of the Eucharist in Thomas Aquinas by Jan-Heiner Tück — a theologian specialized in dogmatics and a vice-dean of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Vienna. It is an English translation of the book Gabe der Gegenwart: Theologie und Dichtung der Eucharistie bei Thomas von Aquin (Herder 2014), …

Already two issues of volume 92 of “American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly” has been published in 2018 (92/1 and 92/2). As usual, quite a few papers concern Aquinas’ thought or Thomism in general. Especially the following articles are worth to be noticed from our point of view: Ambrose Little O.P. (Providence College), Are You What You Eat or More?; Steven J. Jensen (University of St. Thomas, Houston), Aquinas’s Original Discovery: A Reply to Barnwell (Jensen recently published a book Sin. A …

Catholic University of America Press has just published a book by Steven J. Jensens, Sin. A Thomistic Psychology. The publication concerns Aquinas’ approach to the issue of sin and takes as its starting point Thomas’ assumption that human will always desires good. How is sin possible then? Is it only an intellectual blunder, mistaking evil for good, not a deviation of will? Jensen, after Aquinas, argues that at the heart of mortal sin there is always elevation of some created …

Cambridge University Press has recently published a book Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae: A Critical Guide, edited by Jeffrey Hause. It is an anthology of newly-commissioned essays on various issues undertaken in Summa, such as God’s essence, Trinity, Christology, evil, soul, natural and practical reason, natural law, as well as reception of Summa until the end of the 20th century. Among the authors there are renown Thomists and philosophers, such as Stephen L. Brock (Pontifical University of the Holy Cross), Brian Davies …

At Project Muse you may finally find the latest issue of „The Thomist” (81/4, 2017). Among the papers published in the volume there are: Which Essence Is Brought into Being by the Existential Act by Thomas Michael Osborne (University of St. Thomas); How Theology Judges the Principles of Other Sciences by Gregory F. LaNave (Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception); „The Two Heads of the Eagle”: Aquinas and Rousseau on Civil Religion, by William McCormick SJ (Saint Louis University).

In April the Thomistic Institute (Washington) organized a lecture Aquinas on Sin, Suffering and Evil by Jennifer Frey – a professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina. The recording of the lecture has recently been published at SoundCloud. The main topic of the lecture was Aquinas’ approach to the issue of sin: the analysis of its nature, three main causes (ignorance, weakness and malice) and the way it distorts human reason and happiness. Main outlines of this speech …