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”.
by Revista Espíritu | 168-2024
“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.
by Revista Espíritu | 168-2024
This work exposes three theses on the concept of idea that, from the “rosmi- nian platonism” of Giuseppe Buroni, can be maintained as genuine from saint Thomas.
The first is that the esse commune has an ideal existence, namely, it exists in the mind of God. The second is that the idea of being is not a mental act or product, but the na- tural object of intelligence; it has its seat in eternity and, from the augustinian–thomist perspective, corresponds to rationes.
The third thesis, more problematic, is the constant distinction between the ideal plane, which corresponds to being, and that of the real, which corresponds to entities.
by Revista Espíritu | 168-2024
The year was 1256. The chancellor of the University of Paris, Heimericus, had ordered a young bachelor sententiary to prepare to receive the “licentia docendi” or doctorate, which was to incorporate him with full rights into the cloister of the university.
by Revista Espíritu | 168-2024
Espíritu 168 Year 73 | 2024 Articles St. Thomas Aquinas and the intellectual apostolate for today’s priest Juan Roig Gironella The concept of idea in saint Thomas from a rosminian platonism Jacob Buganza Church and political community in Thomas Aquinas, axis of...
