by Revista Espíritu | 169-2025
The study of sixteenth-century Spanish scholastic authors has progressed considerably during the last hundred years, not only through the analysis of primary sources, but also through the transcription of many of the innumerable manuscript materials of this period. However, no less a contribution to our knowledge of this period has been made by the careful review of the archives and the identification of these manuscripts.
by Revista Espíritu | 169-2025
The present work corresponds to the doctoral thesis of Professor David Torrijos defended at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Navarra. His author exposes in this successful text some very important contributions of Pedro de Ledesma in the framework of the discussions about the efficacy of grace. As in other works by Professor David Torrijos, a very rigorous historical study of the sources goes hand in hand with a speculative interest that shows the value of the texts studied. In addition, this book has an interesting presentation by Father Bonino.
by Revista Espíritu | 169-2025
Aaron Zubia’s book on Hume’s political thought delivers much more than what the title promises. It is a thorough investigation on the roots and fruits of Hume’s political views, which means that it demonstrates the deep connection between his metaphysics, his theology, his ethics, on the one hand, and his political philosophy and his historical researches, on the other. Based on the established connection, the book criticizes the liberal idea of “public reason” and demonstrates that we need to go back to the classical roots or our civilization.
by Revista Espíritu | 169-2025
This book gathers a series of articles on the subject of friendship written by a group of international, but mainly Spanish, scholars. The book opens with a prologue written by Lydia Jiménez González, followed by an article by the auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Madrid, Juan Antonio Martínez Camino, who presents the importance of the notion of friendship with Christ in the Christian life.
by Revista Espíritu | 169-2025
Francisco Canals’ political thought occupies an important place in his inte- llectual work, although it is perhaps the least known. Much of this doctrinal corpus has been compiled in countless newspaper articles or in journals such as Cristiandad and Verbo. One of the most compelling aspects of his political analysis is his study of moderan- tism, or political centrism. Within the context of the Spanish history, this was a political current that sought to draw traditionalist Catholics towards liberalism. Canals does not limit himself to a purely historical analysis, rather, informed by his Thomist formation, he aims to show how these political dynamics lead to the secularisation of society.
by Revista Espíritu | 169-2025
In this work we investigate a trait of religiosity in the Golden Age. We refer to a common belief in the inconsistence of human action. The awareness about the dete- rioration of willingness causes a religiosity of personal inadequacy. This kind of religiosity splits into different cultural, philosophical and theological manifestations. Considering the own moral inadecuacy, we can better understand some characteristics of Golden mind, as the intellectualism, the insistence in theological virtues over the moral ones, or the primacy of Grace.
by Revista Espíritu | 169-2025
St Thomas brings together in the crucifixion the double mission of Jesus Christ as Saviour and Master. His spirituality is marked by an intense devotion to the Crucified One, manifested in his synthetic and catechetical works, but above all in his biblical commentaries. The Crucified is Master because the crucifixion reveals the divine power and the fully human life of Christ noticeable in his virtues. In this way, the Cruci- fied One is presented as doctrine and as doctor: he is the best book in which to contempla- te the mystery of God and he is the Master who teaches from the chair of the cross.
by Revista Espíritu | 169-2025
The aim of this article is to present the theory of Pedro de Ledesma on the relation between God’s infinite perfection and the perfections of creatures. Its main thesis states that Ledesma, in an effort to preserve God’s infinity, embraces ideas usually associated with pantheism. Nevertheless, in order to maintain the distinction between God and creatures, he develops a complex conceptual apparatus grounded in Scholastic philosophy, mainly that of Thomas Aquinas’ metaphysics of being, which results in a form of Thomistic panentheism.
by Revista Espíritu | 169-2025
Due to its rational modality and to its commun object, the human un- derstandig is deeply marked by a resolutive dynamic. Its nature cannot escape this one. Humanly, this dynamic finds its supreme expression in the metaphysical science. Under the imperatif of the being, the latter grants to the understandig acces to the subsisting being itself, through an analogical knowledge, but it does not seem sufficient to quiet this dynamic. The stillness of this dynamic could only be verified if the subsisting being itself is reached in itself. For this to happen, it is necessary that the subsisting being itself takes the initiative.
by Revista Espíritu | 169-2025
This article examines Thomas Aquinas’ inaugural lecture Rigans Montes with the aim not only of understanding his early reflections on the master and its value but also of exploring whether his doctrine on the act of teaching—later developed in works such as De Veritate and the Summa Theologiae—is already present in this work, where his thought is more mature.
by Revista Espíritu | 168-2024
Aristotle’s Politics is an incomplete set of teaching materials used by the genius of Stagira in the various courses he taught throughout his life in Athens and also in other cities such as Asos and Mytilene. The transmission of the Aristotelian corpus has bequeathed us eight books, of which St. Thomas Aquinas completed the commentary on the first two and left the commentary incomplete about halfway through the third book.
by Revista Espíritu | 168-2024
Salvador González offers us a volume about the iconography of the Virgin Mary with a broad basis in theological literature. In previous works, this scholar has dealt with the Christian literature on Mary while studying Marian iconography, making him one of the most authoritative authors in this field. In the present work, among the different defining features of this female figure, the focus is on that of “mediator”.
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“For a man to grow in wisdom, it is necessary for him to hear willingly, because wisdom is so profound that no man is sufficient by himself to contemplate. […] We must hear not only from one, but from many […]. But where should you seek wisdom, and from whom? […] First from the teacher, or from those who are wisest, as it is said in Deut 32:7: question your father…, that is, the teacher, for, just as your father begot you physically, the teacher begot you spiritually, …and he will tell you; question the elders…, that is, the wise men, … and they will tell you”. In these words, taken from the collatio of the sermon Puer Iesus of St. Thomas, we can appreciate the raison d’être and profound intention of this work that comes with joy to our hands.
by Revista Espíritu | 168-2024
The 2023-2024 academic year was the eighty-fifth in the history of Fundación Balmesiana -now the “Fundación Institución Balmesiana”- and the twenty-first in the history of Instituto Santo Tomás.
by Revista Espíritu | 168-2024
St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that baptism could have eliminated not only sin but also the primitive effects of sin, such as suffering, sickness, moral struggle and death, “because the gift of Christ is more powerful than the sin of Adam.” So why doesn’t baptism restore us to something like Eden? He holds to Aristotle’s insight that, just as we do not crown the strongest athlete, but the athlete who trains and wins, so we do not identify happiness simply with having virtue, but with realizing and living virtue.
by Revista Espíritu | 168-2024
In order to confront the intellectualist interpretation that has often been offered of the Thomistic doctrine of the ultimate end of man, it is useful to pay attention to a little-studied concept of his master Albert the Great, that of “affective science”. This article will analyze this Albertine concept, which can be applied to both Metaphysics and Theology, paying special attention to the role of love in the operation that constitutes the ultimate end of man, namely, the contemplative act.
by Revista Espíritu | 168-2024
Benedict XVI teaches that the current crisis of faith would originate from the replacement of Christian hope in the kingdom of God with worldly hope in the kingdom of man.
In the language of Thomas Aquinas, this process of despair involves aversion (aversio) from the formal object of Christian hope and conversion (conversio) towards created goods.
This conversion –which seeks the reestablishment of earthly pa- radise– is eventually caused by the loss of faith but is immediately caused by the vice of acedia.
To this connection drawn up by Saint Thomas, we must add the role that the German Pontiff attributes to suffering in the origin of theological despair.
by Revista Espíritu | 168-2024
According to a statement by Thomas Aquinas in his Commentary on De caelo, the study of philosophy does not consist in knowing the opinions of men, but rather in penetrating the truth of things.
An absolute interpretation of this idea would undoub- tedly lead to a distorted image of its author: a medieval master indifferent to the history of thought, who maintains that direct access to the real is the only way for philosophy to reach its goal.
Our work attempts to specify the way in which Thomas integrates the opinions of men within a traditional conception of philosophical knowledge, whose main intention is to know veritas rerum.
by Revista Espíritu | 168-2024
Aquinas holds that soul and body are substantially united as form and matter, following Aristotle.
At the same time, he asserts that the human soul is subsistent.
This position has been criticized as incoherent.
Some argue that St. Thomas is an in- consistent materialist, for the internal logic of hylomorphism should have led him away from dualistic theses.
Others, like Swinburne, claim that Aquinas is a substantial dua- list, whose thesis would be very close to that of Descartes.
We respond to these two positions by showing that the thomistic answer is coherent and realistic.
by Revista Espíritu | 168-2024
This is an exegesis of the texts of saint Thomas Aquinas on the objectively challenging issue of the relations between ecclesiastical power and temporal power in po- litical society, above all in Christian society.
The article aims to analyse Aquinas’ thought within the history of Catholic doctrine on the subject, therefore allusions will be made to medieval hierocratic positions and to a few positions and texts linked to the thesis of potestas indirecta and to contemporary times.
