by Revista Espíritu | 164-2022, Uncategorized
According to Aquinas, the appropriate way in which the free will can be induced to act is by presenting it a persuasive good. This is relevant to Christian culture, which introduces the value of argumentation as an effective tool for persuasion. Thomas Aquinas was convinced that one could not be persuaded to believe except by argument, seeing the theology as argumentative. Against later voluntarism, the intellectualist position promotes a culture of persuasion on rationale, from which the tradition of disputation and Summa Theologiae grows. While the first studies of persuasion in the context of Aquinas’s anthropology and the gift of counsel as a persuasive goal-directing gift have appeared, this article will present three ways in which persuasion is present in God, angels and humans.
by Revista Espíritu | 164-2022, Uncategorized
St. Thomas, Kant and Crusius are three of the great objectors to the ontological argument. However, the metaphysical assumptions of their criticisms are very different. Therefore, in this paper I propose to analyze the objections of St. Thomas, Kant and Crusius against the ontological argument and to show that the objections of St. Thomas and Crusius are more similar to each other than to that of Kant.
by Revista Espíritu | 164-2022, Uncategorized
I go through the main lines of Aquinas’s De Ente argument for the existence of God and show how it can be fortified using contemporary arguments in favor of causal finitism. Aquinas limits himself to arguing that per se causal series need a first member, but with causal finitism in place we can defend the same for per accidens causal series, removing a way out for the critic of the argument.
by Revista Espíritu | 164-2022, Uncategorized
This paper aims to offer a reconstruction of the First Way (Prima Via) proposed by Thomas Aquinas to demonstrate the existence of God in the Summa Theologiae. The Thomist argument in that work explains, first, what kind of rational discourse can be articulated to talk about God’s existence and essence. After he elaborates on the previous point, Aquinas proposes a series of arguments intended to resolve the question of the existence of a divine being and his attributes In what concerns this present text, we will focus on the first way proposed there in favour of the thesis “God exists” and we will also talk about the discursive context in which this proof appears. Thomas refers to it as the first and clearest proof of them all.
by Revista Espíritu | 164-2022, Uncategorized
This article offers a metaphysical interpretation of the first way of St. Thomas Aquinas, according to which this argument is in itself sufficient to conclude the existence of a first Cause of being, which is itself pure Actuality. The interpretation offered rests fundamentally on the idea that the hierarchical chain of moved movers that leads to the first Unmoved Mover must be explained in such a way that the reasoning moves from more particular and less fundamental modes of actuality to others that are more universal and fundamental, until one arrives at the ultimate actuality of being.
by Revista Espíritu | 163-2022, Uncategorized
On May 5, 2021, the presentation of the book in question took place in the auditorium of the Ateneo Barcelonés, in which Norbert Miracle, professor at the Faculty of Theology of Catalonia, Ramón Alcoberro, philosopher and university professor took part. and who signs this review.
by Revista Espíritu | 163-2022, Uncategorized
Aristotle wrote in the Eudemian Ethics that “Socrates the elder thought that the end is to come to know virtue, and he pursued an investigation into the nature of justice and courage and each of the divisions of virtue.
by Revista Espíritu | 163-2022, Uncategorized
Mn. Jordi Gayà Estelrich is, without a doubt, one of the most outstanding Lullists in existence today. He has a doctorate in theology from the University of Freiburg im Breisgau, and already in his dissertation he specialized in the question of Lull’s theory of correlatives.
by Revista Espíritu | 163-2022, Uncategorized
In his early treatise De Ente et Essentia (1250-1256), Thomas Aquinas briefly sketches an argument for the existence of God that begins with the real distinction of essence and existence (esse) in the things of our experience. From there, the argument says that a cause is needed to explain the esse of said things, and that such a cause ultimately needs to be something whose essence is identical to its existence (aka. God).
by Revista Espíritu | 163-2022, Uncategorized
The scholastic treatise De iustitia et iure of Domingo de Soto is one of the most important milestones in the history of juridical philosophy. In this work, in addition to considering justice and right (ius), our author tackles the subject of law from the very first pages. The purpose of this article is to analyze the definition that Soto makes of law (essentia legis), with the finality of applying it to the concrete juridical needs of his time, while demonstrating a homogeneous evolution and doctrinal continuity with respect to Thomas Aquinas.
by Revista Espíritu | 163-2022, Uncategorized
The serious debate of the 16th century between the humanist and the scholastic sector is exposed here, on the need to go to the original sources of Sacred Scripture (Hebrew and Greek) in theological argumentation. The humanists disqualified scholastic theology for working on a translation of biblical texts (the “Vulgata” of Saint Jerome), and not on the sources. Cano defends the value of the “Vulgata” Bible, whose dogmatic authority was approved in Trent, arguing the underlying reasons for the matter. However, he also approves the convenience and usefulness of going to the original sources (as instruments), but not the absolute necessity. In fact, from here on, the self-respecting theologian must sufficiently know, and use in his theological work, the original biblical languages (Hebrew and Greek).
by Revista Espíritu | 163-2022, Uncategorized
This paper approaches to the concept of voluntarism in the School of Salamanca. For this end, it is necessary study the origins of this concept, particularly in the Franciscan scholasticism, showing the implications it had in relation to the plenitudo potestatis, particularly with the use to the nominalism. In a second moment, it deals with how the Parisian masters of the XVth Century enter the path defined by William of Ockham, to later address the contribution of the authors from Salamanca, in direct reference to the problems of their time. Finally, some conclusions are presented on what would be more specific to said school and its evolution.
by Revista Espíritu | 163-2022, Uncategorized
The harmonious conjunction between nature and grace constitutes one of the most delicate points of Catholic theology. The work of Domingo Soto, an important Dominican theologian of the 16th century, is an admirable effort to show, following the Tridentine magisterium, the possible configurations of both elements, bearing in mind the first creation, the sin of our first parents and redemption. In this paper we will analyze these diverse states or stable modes of being in relation to the ultimate end, relying on his work De natura et gratia.
by Revista Espíritu | 163-2022, Uncategorized
The aim of this article is to analyze Francisco Suárez’s position regarding Peter’s power of government and his successors in the Third Part of the Defensio fidei. The author wrote this work to refute the oath of fidelity of James I and his apology. Doctor Eximio did a complete exposition of the Catholic doctrine of this institution, basing his study mainly on Sacred Scripture and the Fathers of the Church. The conclusions he reached turned out to be valid nowadays. .
by Revista Espíritu | 163-2022, Uncategorized
Grotius’ interpretation of natural law as well as of human sociability places him in the long Aristotelian tradition. Grotius persistently discusses with the Scholastic thinkers, who had invoked since the Middle Ages the ‘hypothesis of the non-existent God’ and contractual logic to explain and illustrate both the validity of natural law and the relationship binding the ruler and the ruled together. Emphasizing the scholastic roots of Grotius’ philosophy, this paper sets out to examine both problems, i.e., the question of sociability and social contract and the nature and use of the ‘etiamsi daremus’ hypothesis.
by Revista Espíritu | 163-2022, Uncategorized
This article seeks to interrogate the interpretation of Francisco Suárez as a voluntarist author. To do so, we will examine Suárez’s approach to legislative action, taking the concept of potentia or power, which will be analysed in the different normative orders in which it can be found. Thus, we will follow the demands of explanatory completeness that the Suarist system presupposes, devoting a section to the power of the people, another to the power of the political authority, and, finally, a section devoted to the question of divine power; whether divine omnipotence is over the order of reality, and whether God can command the absurd, or whether, rather, reason is to the last instance the soul of the law.
by Revista Espíritu | 163-2022, Uncategorized
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.
by Revista Espíritu | Uncategorized
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.
by Revista Espíritu | Uncategorized
We are not dealing with a conventional book, but rather with the fruit of a great joint and interdisciplinary investigation on the relationship and influence of desire on personal growth.
by Revista Espíritu | Uncategorized
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.
