Hispanic Thomistic Bibliography of the year 2014
Continuing the repertoire started three years ago, in this issue of Espiritu we collect the Hispanic Thomistic bibliography of 2014 and in the next we will publish the one that appeared in 2015.
Issue 151
Year 65 | 2016 Artícles Natural appetite and the essential structure of mobile being Antonio Prevosti Monclús The Heart: An Analysis on Sensitive Affectivity and Spiritual Affectivity in the Psychology of Aquinas Martín Federico Echavarría The actuality of the...IN MEMORIAM Prof. Dr. Ángel Luis González García Professor of Metaphysics at the University of Navarra (1948-2016)
At noon on Saturday, April 16, Professor Dr. Ángel Luis González García, Professor of Metaphysics at the University of Navarra (Madrid, 1948), unexpectedly passed away. His high personality, his indefatigable work capacity and respectful and selfless service to other colleagues and students of the university are patent with the only enumeration of the following data.
The three loves of the Heart of Christ in light of some of the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas
The Heart of Jesus is the main symbol of the triple love with which the Redeemer loves God and men: the divine love that unites the Father and the Holy Spirit, spiritual human love and sensitive human love. When Pius XII explains this doctrine in the Encyclical Haurietis Aquas (1956) uses some teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas. The objective of this study is to present the teaching of Aquinas cited by Pius XII, show how that teaching illuminates the triple love’s doctrine of the Heart of Jesus and to suggest some perspectives for contemporary Christology
Charity as “ecclesial friendship” in Thomas Aquinas
This article proposes an analysis of the understanding of friendship in the ecclesial context as an expression of charity that unites the members of the Church and introduces a specific project of ecclesial life. The caritatis amicitia establishes the coordinates of life ad intra of the Church. In the first part of the article will be described the elements of friendship, especially important for the ecclesial friendship as communicatio, benevolentia (benefecientia) and this form of expression of unity that Thomas calls the consensus Ecclesiae. In the second part, we will explore the expressions of ecclesial friendship that becomes visible in attitudes (such as empathy, consolation, confidence) and fraternal language (the famous question of fraternal correction). All of this factors conduces to a kind of “ecclesial perichoresis”, following the example of the Trinity.
Grace and Charity. Participation in the Divine Nature and Union with God: The Surpassing Contemporary Significance of Thomas Aquinas’s Doctrine of Divinization
One of the overarching motivations for the modern turn from theocentrism to anthropocentrism was the attempt to achieve the full realization of human subjectivity and, indeed, sovereignty. Yet the dialectic between a gnostic angelism and a materialistic animalism that necessarily ensues from isolating the human being from its transcendent origin and end destroys what the anthropocentric turn set out to achieve. In his expansive philosophy and theology of participation and deification Aquinas has a lesson of surpassing contemporary significance to offer: The genuine realization of subjectivity comes about only in what is best called a self-less self-realization in the twofold participation of the human being in the origin and end of all things (1) qua rational creature through intellect and will in the First Truth and Sovereign Good and (2) qua created dynamic image in the conformation with the divine exemplar in an everlasting union of vision and love with the Triune God. The former is the creaturely condition of the possibility for the latter and the latter is the surpassing fulfillment of the former. The quasi-ontological foundation for this self-less self-realization in the union with God is sanctifying grace and its inchoative realization are operations of the infused habitus of charity.
Love, relationship and person. Critical observations
This paper reflects on the concept of the person through the notions of love and relationship. It seeks dialogue with contemporary philosophies of personalistic court and with origins in the nineteenth-century idealism, to cope with some relevant mistakes. 1. Against the claim that a personal life is dumped in the love of others, a vital and ethically acceptable sense of self-love is defended. 2. The alternative substance-relationship is approached and the boethian concept of person as rational livelihood is reaffirmed towards the idea of the person as a relationship. 3. It is discussed the meaning of the statement that the person is “end in itself “, which some authors understands in the sense of an absolute autonomy of man.
How can the Law be kind? A matter of nature
Refer to a kindly Law, in our immediate sociopolitical situation, it may seem ironic, an antithetical relationship or even an idle question. This is due to the disaffection produced by the legal system for the society and for the concrete citizen. If this disaffection of contemporary society to the legal system is increasingly clear and growing, it is therefore very important to delve into the underlying causes of this problem. This paper briefly explores the real possibility of a friendly Law according to the intrinsic sociability of the human nature.
Political Friendship in Saint Thomas Aquinas: Between Justice and Mercy
The political philosophy of St. Thomas integrates the inclination to the “union” or “friendship” in a more perfect vocation, which is the result of the virtue of Charity. In the Thomistic corpus, Charity is the superior supernatural virtue, the form of any other virtue. But, also charity means friendship. This intimate connection or identity between charity and friendship, highlights its social and political importance. From this new supernatural dimension, the Aristotelian-Roman conception of justice will be perfected by Charity and its fruits, such as peace and the virtue of mercy. Only under this perspective, life arises in the political community and the unity desired by humans ensues.
Love and beauty, contemplation and complacence. Reflections on the basis of saint Thomas Aquinas’ thought
The experience of beauty is placed at the beginning of the understanding of the truth and loving the good: it is in some sense the principle of these actions. At the source of the diversity of human experience, we find its essential unity, which is the unity of the object, experienced as beauty. In the later stages of personal experience, the beauty manifests itself as a source of persistent relationships between cognitive and appetitive acts. The original experience of beauty consists of a primary contemplation of being and of love as complacency (complacentia). In the final part of the article, it is considered love as a principle dynamising the appetition, and also the dynamics of the relationship between love and cognition.
The actuality of the understanding and of the indeterminate love that the soul has for itself and for God
In the Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, saint Thomas affirms that the soul always understands itself and God in an indeterminate way and that an indeterminate love follows this knowledge. To comprehend these affirmations in coherence with the rest of Aquinas’ philosophy, the sentence has to be read in line with what has been affirmed in De Veritate, q. 10, a. 8: distinguishing between an existential knowledge and an essential knowledge. The knowledge that the soul always has of itself and of God is in the order of the act of being not of the essence and that’s why this indeterminate character doesn’t entail potentiality.
The Heart: An Analysis on Sensitive Affectivity and Spiritual Affectivity in the Psychology of Aquinas
Haecker and Hildebrand refer to “feeling” or “heart” as a new faculty different from will, whose existence should ensue from the existence of a spiritual affectivity. Neither the ancient pagan philosophy nor Christian thought, including saint Augustine and saint Thomas would have succeeded in recognizing this faculty. This paper seeks to show the fault of these statements with respect to Aquinas. Thus, it is noticed the linkage between the notions of affection and appetite elicited; the notion of passion is differentiated from that of affection; it is demonstrated the existence -in Thomas Aquinas-, of a spiritual affection and even the use of the word “heart” to refer to it. It is shown the close and complex relationship between spiritual and sensitive affection in Thomas Aquinas, who by the concept of “redundantia” makes “one heart”
from both species of affection.
Natural appetite and the essential structure of mobile being
This paper discusses the doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas on the natural appetite attributed to all beings, including those lacking knowledge, in the framework of his finalist conception of nature. The purpose of the study is to clarify the epistemological status of Aquinas’ theses, and in particular, to what extent is the philosophical thesis of natural appetite based on data of experience, and in what sense is it a necessary truth, or is it based on Thomistic metaphysics of the good.
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