Three unpublished manuscripts on grace and free will by Báñez

This article transcribes three unpublished manuscripts by Domingo Báñez. The first is a review on the opuscule by Chrysostom Javelli on predestination. Báñez believes that this writing is Pelagian and advances several arguments which he will later use against Luis de Molina and the Molinists. The second is the last preserved writing by Báñez: a letter to the Master General of the Dominicans where he mentions his hope of seeing an end to the dispute on grace and free will. The third is the account of Báñez’s death including his last words, in which he mentions the famous controversy de auxiliis.

RIK VAN NIEUWENHOVE. Thomas Aquinas and Contemplation

No scholar of Thomas Aquinas questions the centrality that contemplation had in his life. “Homo magnae contemplationis et orationis”, maintained one of the witnesses in the process of canonization. Evidently, the theology of contemplation that Thomas developed early in his career is rooted in his own personal experience. However, this essential fact has not been taken advantage of by Thomist research in recent decades.

GAVEN KERR. Aquinas and the Metaphysics of Creation

Some time ago Gaven Kerr, an Irish Dominican Tertiary, published an admirable work on the proof of God’s existence as formulated in De ente et essentia, the early work of Thomas Aquinas (cf. Aquinas’s way to God. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). Although little studied, this proof is perhaps one of the most solid metaphysically speaking, since it is based on the real composition of being and essence in every finite entity to go back by way of causality (and participation) to a first absolutely uncaused agent, that is to say , al esse subsistens.

CHRISTOPHER SCOTT SEVIER. Aquinas on Beauty

Academic attention to the place of beauty within the Thomist edifice has been revived in the last century. Christopher Scott Sevier begins Aquinas on Beauty by pointing out that, despite revived interest, St. Thomas Aquinas’s thought about it has not been explored and expounded in systematic depth, evidenced by the few books devoted to beauty in Thomas exclusively.

In memoriam R.P. Pedro SUÑER PUIG, S.I. 1930 – 2021

On Saturday, June 12, 2021, Fr. Pedro Suñer Puig, of the Society of Jesus, died in the early afternoon, at the age of 91, 72 years of religious life and 59 years of priesthood. That day the Immaculate Heart of Mary was commemorated, after the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The corpore insepulto funeral was held on Monday 21 in the chapel of the Borja Center of Sant Cugat, at the foot of the image of the Immaculate Conception, and was subsequently buried in the cemetery of the PP. Jesuits.

William James’ moral argument

The objective of this paper is to elucidate the content of the argument presented by the American philosopher William James (1842-1910) in his “Is Life Worthliving?”, a lecture given in 1895 at the Harvard Young Men’s Christian Association and published a few years later, in 1897, in the compilation entitled The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy [La voluntad de creer y otros ensayos en filosofía popular].

New revised bibliography of Antonio Millán-Puelles

The researcher interested in the figure of Antonio Millán-Puelles needs to have a rigorous and agile bibliographic tool. The most recent was published in 2006 by J. Mª Garrido and J. J. Escandell, but it is now obsolete. The time that has passed since then and, in particular, the investigations derived from the preparation of the Complete Works of the Cadiz philosopher, have led to the discovery of some writings that did not appear in it, as well as to detect errors in that 2006 list.

Hispanic Thomist bibliography of the year 2020

Continuing the repertoire started eight years ago, in this issue of Spirit we collect the Hispanic Thomistic bibliography of 2020. With the adjective “Hispanic” we specify that this catalog includes publications in any of the languages born in ancient Hispania: Spanish, Portuguese and Galician, Catalan and Basque

Status naturae purae. Edith Stein’s reflections on Thomas Aquinas’ De veritate in the context of anthropological-theological questions

The objective of this article is to show the influence of Thomas Aquinas’ De veritate on the reflections of E. Stein on theological anthropology, developed especially in the lessons she prepared on this subject between February and May 1933. Although the use of De veritate is observed to explain the philosophical basis of the statements of the Magisterium of the Church, its influence is also shown in the personal reflection of E. Stein on the theological-dogmatic problem of the status naturae purae.

The Unavoidability of Love. Stanley Cavell, King Lear and accidie

The rejection of the genuine love of his daughter Cordelia and the preference for an inappropriate love of himself, explain the surprising behavior of King Lear at the beginning of the great Shakespearean play and the subsequent tragedy. This hermeneutical approach is based on the reflections of Stanley Cavell and the consideration by Thomas Aquinas of accidie (at the base of which there is an unbalanced love of oneself) as a vice opposed to charity (love of friendship with God).

Kant’s Two-World System and Aquinas’s Metaphysics of Participation: Clarifying the ambiguity between logic and physics in transcendental philosophy

As academic debate over Kant’s transcendental philosophy continues, important ambiguities remain to be addressed. His Critique of Pure Reason is focused on presenting only the formal conditions for the possibility of knowledge in experience, and yet in the Third Analogy of Experience he inserts a material condition. The drafts of the Opus postumum reveal a Kant struggling to reconcile his physics with his transcendental philosophy, with positions that go directly against the first Critique. These ambiguities are inherent to Kant’s view of reality, while Fabro’s presentation of Aquinas’s philosophy of participation allows for a clearer explanation of our knowledge.

The difficulties of Neo-mechanism in Philosophy of neuroscience

In this paper, after a brief definition of mechanistic materialism, six difficulties are explained that neo-mechanism seems to be unable to solve and that, in consequence, seems to require its abandonment. Such are: (1) the unity of the human being, (2) the unity of consciousness, (3) the distinction between the cause and that without which the cause could not be a cause, (4) that thought and perception are not in the neurons, (5) that concepts –because of their immateriality– cannot be found in a material organ, and (6) free will.

Science and Metaphysics in Juan Zaragüeta Bengoechea’s (1883-1974) Neoscholastic Psychology

From the end of the 19th century and practically until the end of Francoist regime, Neoscholastic psychology that emerged from the Catholic University of Louvain had a notable influence in Spain. One of the main Spanish Neoscholastics was Juan Zaragüeta Bengoechea (1883-1974), who had a prominent role in the University of Madrid during the first half of the 20th century and made interesting contributions to psychology from Aristotelian-Thomistic keys. In the present work, some aspects related to his conception of psychology from such keys are exposed: its hilemorphic anthropological foundation, its two-faced nature, and the soul-body relationships.

The locutionary character of the intellect according to Joan Poinsot In I STh, q. 27, D. 32, a. 4 et 5

The ontology of knowledge a faithful expression of the thought of Aquinas remained present as a philosophically perennial truth in the work of Joan Poinsot. Knowledge is conceived by the portuguese commentator, as a vital emanation of an interior verb as an understood term in which everything that is undertood is undetood. This verb arises from the intimacy of the knower in act ex abundantia as act of act and in way as an expression of a weakness or indigence of the knower.

Canals and Juan de Santo Tomás: some gnoseological questions

The article analyzes some fundamental themes of Canals’s gnoseology that have their inspiration in the thought of John Poinsot (John of St. Thomas). In his mature work Sobre la esencia del conocimiento, Canals highlights the locutionary character of knowledge, as a consequence of the communicative nature of the act. The article examines the communicability and immanence of cognition, and attempts to develop a correct understanding of the notion of representation. This study is supplemented with a brief mention of Polo and Sanguineti in their explanations of intentionality and habit, respectively.

Life in Christ. The neccesity of Grace for Moral Life

Starting from the text of the Letter of St. Paul to the Philippians where the apostle affirms that for him to live is Christ, we reflect on the scope of this affirmation in the light of the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas regarding the necessity of grace for the moral life and for understanding the dynamism of human life. The New Law, which is the grace of the Holy Spirit, transforms man into the image of the Word of God and inserts him into the Trinitarian dynamism, so that the total personality can only be understood when considered from this higher perspective.