Search Results (120)

This essay explores the question: can we have an objective ethics without God? This question is raised by James Sterba, who argues in the affirmative. As an atheistic ethicist, Sterba is motivated to maintain an objective morality that is not based in theism and that can withstand the problems with Darwinism. Sterba examines what he sees as one of the most popular theistic attempts to ground human morality, viz., divine command theory. In rejecting both divine command theory and theism, Sterba offers what he believes can offer objective morality: a basic moral norm that all people should adhere to. This article examines Sterba’s criticism of divine command theory along with his own efforts at establishing an objective morality in what he considers a universal abstract principle. In the end, this article argues that Sterba’s axiomatic principle is unclear as to its ontological foundation as well as its causal efficacy in attempting to obligate objective human ethics. It will be argued that Sterba is correct about human nature being the locus of morality, but that atheism fails at providing human teleology to account for such morality. Full article

This article argues that Thomas Aquinas’s exegesis of the parables in his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew contains—if only in skeletal form, with certain aspects more fully developed than others—the outline of a comprehensive treatise on Christian eschatology. Aquinas approaches parables with a nuanced perspective, acknowledging their inherent obscurity while also emphasizing their capacity to guide minds toward the truth. He understands their dual purpose as both concealing divine mysteries from the ill-intentioned and revealing them to the receptive. Distinguishing his approach from Albert the Great’s, Aquinas’s commentary features substantial eschatological components. Drawing on primary sources, this article examines these elements, starting with the unknowability of the end of time, which serves to promote vigilance. This article then treats death and particular judgment, the damned’s twofold punishment (the poena damni and the poena sensus), and the righteous’s varied, eternal reward, concluding with the Parousia, inseparably linked to the general resurrection, the final judgment, and the renewal of the world. Finally, this article shows how Aquinas’s engagement with these parables provides a robust, biblically-rooted exploration of the Last Things. Full article

St. Thomas Aquinas defines theology (sacra doctrina) as the communication of wisdom that comes from God and leads to Him. What is important here, according to Thomas, is to read the Bible as a whole and not as a cluster of random books. Revelation, and the testimony of it which is the Bible, cannot be reduced to a mere literal communication of divine truth. More fundamental than the biblical words (verba) themselves is the reality (res) to which they refer: the salvific truth communicated by God. The Thomistic approach to Scripture in theology is shaped by four complementary dimensions: auctoritas (power of authority), sensus (meaning), finis (purpose), and documentum (testimony). In this light, Scripture functions as the “alphabet” of theology—the foundational semantic structure through which revealed truth is expressed and transmitted. Full article

This article offers a Thomist response to Brian Leiter’s Why Tolerate Religion?, challenging his claim that religion does not merit distinct legal protection. While Leiter assumes religion to be epistemically irrational—defined by existential consolation, categorical demands, and insulation from evidence—this article draws on John Finnis’s interpretation of Saint Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) to reconstruct religion as a basic good of practical reason. It proposes a three-tiered model of religion—as human quest, natural religion, and revealed religion—which clarifies religion’s internal structure and civic relevance. Developing this model against Leiter’s critique, this article shows that religion, so understood, can be legally protected even on Leiter’s liberal terms, through both Rawlsian and Millian frameworks. The article also extends its argument to “second-wave” law-and-religion controversies, illustrating how a Thomist framework illuminates debates about ideological establishments, identity politics, and public reason. Through original syntheses and rigorous normative analysis, this article advances a conceptually fresh and publicly accessible model of religion for law and public policy. It also speaks to pressing constitutional debates in the U.S. and Europe, thus contributing to transatlantic jurisprudence on religious freedom and the moral purposes of law. Religion still matters—and must be understood—not as conscience, but qua religion. Full article

This article offers a contribution to the scientifically informed theological (Aristotelian–Thomistic) reflection on anthropogenesis, the original state of human nature and original sin. After introductory remarks on the historical-critical exegesis of Gen 1–11 and the Catholic view of the evolutionary and theological anthropogenesis, I develop a critical evaluation of the notion of praeternatural gifts given by God to the first human being(s) (i.e., physical immortality, high level of infused knowledge, impassibility, and freedom from concupiscence). In the next step, I present and discuss the difficulties of the received model of hereditary sin assuming the role of Adam as the “collective singular”, the “virtually multiple”, or the “fountainhead of mankind”. In continuation of this analysis, I refer to alternative models of hereditary sin that see Adam as “actually multiple” or a paradigm example of each human being (Adam as “everyman”). I also analyze the view of those who emphasize the communal aspect of hereditary sin and favor the notion of its transmission that brings together propagation and imitation (rather than seeing them as mutually exclusive). Finally, I offer some remarks on the return to the Irenaean notion of the original state of human nature and original sin in the circles of theologians attentive to the theory of evolution. Full article

From the Christian heartland of Europe emerged the techno-scientific culture borne from the Enlightenment movement. Prior to this cultural outlook that severed culture from its foundational roots in religion, it was the case that religion was not only a crucial agent in the shaping of culture, but in many ways, the heart of culture. With secular rationality and its underscoring of the techno-scientific mindset, a growing privatization of religion has become the acceptable ethos of contemporary Western culture. Secularism, largely understood in terms of a naked public sphere, is increasingly perceived to be the only form of rationality that can guarantee societal cohesion and the democratic spirit. But as Ratzinger pointed out in his 1993 Hong Kong Address to the Doctrinal Commissions of the Bishops Conferences of Asia, this Western understanding of culture that is governed by a hermeneutic of suspicion towards religion, and which seeks to replace the heart of culture with autonomous reason a la Kant, ends up leaving culture in a winter land of existential frostiness. By depriving culture of its roots in the transcendental dimensions of human experience, much of the wisdom and riches that have been accumulated in the pre-techno-scientific cultures—regarding fundamental questions such as “Who am I?”, “Why am I here?”, “What is the meaning of life?”, “What happens when I die?”, “Does life make sense?”, “Do I have a destiny?” and more—are now left to the manufactured logic of the techno-scientific with its anthropological reductionism that fails to offer the big picture of the cultural outlook that did not construe the scientific and the technological as antithetical to religion. This essay seeks to unpack the arguments Ratzinger made in this Address at Hong Kong, with the hope that this theological exegesis of the Hong Kong lecture could once again offer an invitation to the world of the techno-scientific, the world of secular rationality, to open up to the world of faith, so that together, the breadth and depth of the human culture would once again flourish in its greatness. Full article

The Inferno highlights many categories of sins and varieties of pains yet it has another unifying theme. From the earliest descriptions of Christian monastic discipline to the Benedictine Rule and beyond, “inner death” inspired contemplatives to confront the hell that awaits them if they succumb to pride, give way to sloth (acedia), or lack humility. Scholastic theologians (e.g., Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure) developed the notion, and mendicant preachers brought it to laypeople like Dante Alighieri. Inner death has ironic force in the Inferno because it contradicts the inscription on the gates of hell: “Abandon all hope you who enter”. Yes, one must abandon all hope upon entering hell unless, through the cultivation of inner death, one does so “nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita” (midway in the journey of our life—Singleton), while alive. Here is the irony; here is inner death. If living persons contemplate the consequences in hell of their faults in life, they transcend them and escape. Full article

Spanish Dominican Fernández de Navarrete played a pivotal role in the Chinese Rites Controversy. Not only did he bring the controversial manuscript by Nicolò Longobardi to wider attention, thereby intensifying the debate over Chinese rituals, but he also further interpreted and reinforced its contents, amplifying the manuscript’s influence. This, in turn, attracted both internal and external forces within the Church to challenging the Jesuits. In addressing the issue of Chinese rituals, Fernández de Navarrete relied on Thomas Aquinas’ theological framework to evaluate Confucian practices, categorizing the act of offering sacrifices to ancestors and to Confucius as idolatrous. He subsequently demanded that believers refrain from participating in Chinese ritual practices. Full article

Teachers require well-formed characters to practise their profession. Following previous research on the role of virtue in teachers’ professional practice, the author argues that teachers require patterns of wise action. Based on Aristotle’s cardinal virtues and Thomas Aquinas’s theological virtues, he elaborates on how such patterns can emerge in teachers’ professional formation. After considering the possibilities and limitations of practising virtuously and making patterns of wise action, the author proposes a model for empirical research on the role of virtues in teachers’ actions. Full article

St. Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine of God as ipsum esse subsistens is not easy to understand. Even some of his more informed interpreters appear to struggle with it. In this paper, I attempt to explain the doctrine in a way that I hope is intelligible to a fairly broad philosophical audience. I also respond to Norman Kretzmann’s interpretation of it, which I think is mistaken. The main problem with Kretzmann’s interpretation seems to be a failure to grasp what Thomas means by esse. Full article

As a contribution to the reflection on whether classic Greek philosophy gave priority either to Necessity and the Fatum or to freedom, this paper endeavors to prove three theses: (1) according to Aristotle, God caused the being of the world by an act of His will; (2) such an act of divine will was free and not necessary; (3) however, such causation is subject to the necessity of supposition. In order to do this, the paper delves into the interpretation of many passages contained in the Physics, the Metaphysics, De anima, Nicomachean Ethics, Eudemian Ethics as well as Politics, Topika, De generatione et corruptione, De coelo and De partibus animalium. This interpretation benefits from Aquinas’ acute analysis. In such passages, Aristotle holds that (1) God’s causal power must be exercised not in proportion to the magnitude of divine power, but to the requirements of the effect; (2) such a way of acting is similar to human power; (3) nature is subject to teleology because it is caused by an intellectual power; (4) God is the highest intelligible and the highest good, totally autarchic; and (5) just as the highest intelligible is simultaneously also intellect, so too is the highest good simultaneously also will. Full article

Virtue theory has occupied a place of relative prominence within the Christian intellectual tradition. But there is a problem facing it: how one contemplates the virtues and vices will ultimately depend upon deeper accounts of the good and the right. Accordingly, virtue theory is incomplete, at least when taken by itself. Our task in this paper is to show that neither of the standard approaches to explaining the metaphysical foundations of morality within the Christian tradition—natural law theory and divine command theory—are sufficient to fix this incompleteness. We thus propose a combination of natural law theory and divine command theory to remedy the matter. The upshot of our argument, then, is this: what counts as a virtue ultimately depends upon the natural law and divine commands. Full article

Is it possible for Aquinas’s moral theology to engage constructively with contemporary moral naturalism? The proposed question has already been a subject of scholarly interest, eliciting various responses. Some authors emphasize the difficulties and contradictions, while others identify potential affinities. This paper explores the extent to which Aquinas’s concept of Natural Law might align, albeit partially, with a form of moral non-reductive, non-non-cognitivist ethical naturalism. Specifically, it aims to assess how his view of Natural Law, rooted in practical reason and natural inclinations, incorporates a teleological understanding of nature, which provides a foundational basis for this consonance. Within this framework, moral virtue emerges as central in bridging bio-psychological facts with ethical principles. Aquinas’s assertion that gratia non tollit naturam, sed perficit “grace does not destroy nature but perfects it” (ST I. q1. a8) further underscores the continuity between nature and normativity, suggesting that while grace and revelation introduce true novelty, they enhance rather than supplant the natural moral order. Full article

In his Middle Commentary on Posterior Analytics, the great Aristotelian Commentator Ibn Rushd defines “knowledge” (scientific knowledge, epistemē, ‘ilm) as one of Aristotle’s five intellectual virtues and the faculty of reason, akin to the other virtues, in an Aristotelian way. Ibn Rushd defends the teleological argument, rooted in Aristotle’s teleological reading of nature, and supports the modal strong epistemic status of this argument, which is part of the concept of knowledge, in his early work (Short Commentary on Metaphysics), middle period work (al-Kashf) and late work (Long Commentary on Metaphysics), all in harmony with each other. Ibn Rushd, constructing the teleological argument based on the definition of knowledge, which fundamentally articulates the necessary or essential qualities inherent in objects in defense of de re modality, takes a step that seems quite radical within the context of the Aristotelian epistemic tradition to which he is affiliated: The teleological argument, strongly associated with the concept of knowledge—one of the five intellectual virtues—is presented as a form of deductive inference accessible not only to philosophers but also to ordinary public. In other words, according to him, the argument is both a philosophical and a religious way. This implies, for instance, that natural theology, typically viewed by Aquinas as an activity reserved for the higher epistemic class with talent and leisure, is seen by Ibn Rushd as a robust epistemic activity accessible to ordinary people. This new element, which can be referred to as common sense natural theology, contends that ordinary public knowledge and philosophers’ knowledge differ in details, such as whether it is a simple or complex deductive inference, while remaining the same in terms of their knowledge status. Full article

In this paper, I will argue that Aquinas provides a framework for why and how religious communities, specifically Christian religious communities, can minister to those who struggle with suicide. Aquinas thinks that charity makes us friends of God, and to be God’s friend is to love one’s neighbor and care for his needs. After examining what Aquinas has to say about suicide, I consider in some detail what he has to say about charity. In light of recent psychological research, I use what Aquinas has to say about charity to suggest ways in which the church should help those struggling with suicidal ideation. Full article