The Creative Retrieval of Saint Thomas Aquinas


Book Description

Norris Clarke has chosen the 15 articles in this collection as the most significant of the more than 70 articles he has written over the course of a long career.




The Creative Retrieval of Saint Thomas Aquinas


Book Description

W. Norris Clarke has chosen the fifteen essays in this collection, five of which appear here for the first time, as the most significant of the more than seventy he has written over the course of a long career. Clarke is known for his development of a Thomistic personalism. To be a person, according to Saint Thomas, is to take conscious self-possession of one's own being, to be master of oneself. But our incarnate mode of being human involves living in a body whose life unfolds across time, and is inevitably dispersed across time. If we wish to know fully who we are, we need to assimilate and integrate this dispersal, so that our lives become a coherent story. In addition to the existentialist thought of Etienne Gilson and others, Clarke draws on the Neoplatonic dimension of participation. Existence as act and participation have been the central pillars of his metaphysical thought, especially in its unique manifestation in the human person. The essays collected here cover a wide range of philosophical, ethical, religious, and aesthetic topics. Through them sounds a very personal voice, one that has inspired generations of students and scholars.




Person and Being


Book Description

These are the Aquinas Lectures for 1993 given at Marquette University by Jesuit priest W. Norris Clarke. There is an Introduction, two main sections, and ten chapters, including "The Meaning of Person" and "The Problem of Evil".




Explorations in Metaphysics


Book Description

This collection of essays is a compilation of the thought and work of W. Norris Clarke, S.J., a philosopher inspired by the Thomistic tradition, who in 45 years of teaching and writing has delved into many of the central problems of perennial philosophy and made a significant contribution to the ongoing history of American Thomism. The essays presented here reflect an internal unity-each essay deliberately building on the positions put forth in the preceding ones-as they progress systematically through the themes of metaphysics and philosophy of God. Clarke begins with an overall survey of what in Aquinas's metaphysics is most relevant for today, and then suggests the most fruitful starting point for a contemporary presentation of such a metaphysics. The next five essays discuss key positions in metaphysics and are followed by two essays on the philosophy of God. The final essay illuminates key themes in Clarke's most recent work on the human person. Clarke's examination of topics in all these areas is especially concerned with the notions of action and participation in existence as being central to the metaphysical study of reality. This then leads to a close study of the often misunderstood Thomistic doctrine of analogy and how it functions in the construction of a viable philosophy of God. The overall spirit that permeates the volume is Clarke's firm conviction that the philosophical thought of St. Thomas Aquinas is an inexhaustibly rich and profound resource, and his purpose is to share this conviction with contemporary philosophers. In so doing Clarke both reflects and triggers significant new directions in contemporary Thomistic thought.




Thomas Aquinas and the Greek Fathers


Book Description

Papers presented at an international conference held in early 2018 on the campus of Ave Maria University in Florida.







The One and the Many


Book Description

When it is taught today, metaphysics is often presented as a fragmented view of philosophy that ignores the fundamental issues of its classical precedents. Eschewing these postmodern approaches, W. Norris Clarke finds an integrated vision of reality in the wisdom of Aquinas and here offers a contemporary version of systematic metaphysics in the Thomistic tradition. The One and the Many presents metaphysics as an integrated whole which draws on Aquinas' themes, structure, and insight without attempting to summarize his work. Although its primary inspiration is the philosophy of St. Thomas himself, it also takes into account significant contributions not only of later philosophers but also of those developments in modern science that have philosophical bearing, from the Big Bang to evolution.




Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple


Book Description

Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple is a concise introduction to the Christian theology of salvation in light of the contributions of Thomas Aquinas. In this cogent study, Matthew Levering identifies six important aspects of soteriology, each of which corresponds to an individual chapter in the book. Levering focuses on human history understood in light of the divine law and covenants, Jesus the Incarnate Son of God and Messiah of Israel, Jesus’ cross, transformation in the image of God, the Mystical Body of Christ into which all human beings are called, and eternal life. Taking the doctrines of faith as his starting point, Levering’s objective is to answer the questions of both Christians and non-Christians who desire to learn how and for what end Jesus “saves” humankind. Levering’s work also speaks directly to contemporary systematic theologians. In contrast to widespread assumptions that Aquinas’s theology of salvation is overly abstract or juridical, Levering demonstrates that Aquinas’s theology of salvation flows from his reading of Scripture and deserves a central place in contemporary discussions. Thomas Aquinas’s theology of salvation employs and develops the concepts of satisfaction and merit in light of his theology of the Old Testament. For Aquinas, Christ fulfills Israel’s Torah and Temple, law and liturgy. These two aspects of Israel’s religion provide the central categories for understanding salvation. The Torah expresses God’s Wisdom, incarnated in Jesus Christ. Christ’s passion, then, fulfills and transforms the moral, juridical, and ceremonial precepts of the Torah, which correspond to the three “offices” of ancient Israel—prophet, king, and priest. The New Law in Christ Jesus is also the fulfillment of the Temple, Israel’s worship. Christ offers the Father the perfect worship, participated in by all members of his Mystical Body through faith, charity, and the sacraments. Old Law and New Law are fulfilled in the perfect knowing and loving (perfect law and liturgy) of eternal life, the Heavenly Jerusalem. As a Thomistic contribution to contemporary theology, this fruitful study develops a theology of salvation in accord with contemporary canonical readings of Scripture and with the teachings of the Second Vatican Council on the fulfillment and permanence of God’s covenants.




The Promise of Christian Humanism


Book Description

Christian faith promotes human flourishing. Despite the suspicions voiced by modern atheism and secular humanism, God offers us something greater than what we could attain on our own. In this remarkable book, Dominic Doyle, in conversation with Charles Taylor, Nicholas Boyle, and Thomas Aquinas, shows how the Christian virtue of hope breathes new life into humanism, enabling believers to approach God as the human good--God fulfills what it means to be human. This book, honored by the John Templeton Foundation, explores and enriches the tradition of Christian humanism and will be of great interest to many readers, including secular intellectuals, students of modernity, and Christian theologians. (back cover).




Theology After Postmodernity


Book Description

Engaging the theology of Thomas Aquinas with the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, Tina Beattie shows how Thomism exerted a formative influence on Lacan, and how a Lacanian approach can bring new insights to Thomas's theology. Lacan makes possible a renewed Thomism which offers a rich theology of creation, incarnation, and redemption.