This book offers a new reading of Aquinas’s views on faith. The author argues that the theological nature of faith is crucial to Aquinas’s thought, and that it gives rise to a particular and otherwise incomprehensible relationship with reason. The first part of the book examines various modern and contemporary accounts of the relationship between faith and reason in Aquinas’s thought. The author shows that these accounts are unconvincing because they exhibit what he calls a Lockean view of faith and reason, which maintains that the relationship between faith and reason should be treated only by way of evidence. In other words, the Lockean view ignores the specific nature of the Christian faith and the equally specific way it needs to relate to reason. The second part offers a comprehensive account of Aquinas’s view of faith. It focuses on the way the divine grace and charity shape the relationship between evidence and human will. The final part of the book ties these ideas together to show how Christian faith, with its specifically theological nature, is perfectly compatible with rational debate. It also argues that employing the specificity of faith may constitute the best way to promote autonomous and successful rational investigations. Aquinas on Faith, Reason, and Charity will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working on Aquinas, philosophy of religion, Christian theology, and medieval philosophy.

This book introduces Thomas Aquinas's moral, economic, and political thought, differentiating between philosophy (justice) and theology (charity) within each of the three branches of Aquinas's theory of human living. It shows how Aquinas's thought offers an integrated vision for Christian participation in the world, equipping readers to apply their faith to the complex moral, economic, and political problems of contemporary society. Written in an accessible style by an experienced educator, the book is well-suited for use in a variety of undergraduate courses and provides a foundation for understanding Catholic social teaching.

The selections included in this anthology, drawn from a variety of Aquinas' works, focus on the roles of reason and faith in philosophy and theology. Expanding on these themes are Aquinas' discussions of the nature and domain of theology; the knowledge of God and of God's attributes attainable through natural reason; the life of God, including God's will, justice, mercy, and providence; and the principal Christian mysteries treated in theology properly speaking--the Trinity and the Incarnation.

Thomas Aquinas has long been understood to have reconciled faith and reason. Typically, he is understood as having provided justification for faith by means of proof, particularly, that the Five Ways prove the existence of God. Under this interpretation, faith becomes a species of justified belief, and the justification for faith rests upon the success of the Five Ways (or, alternatively, on the success of other justificatory evidence). In this book, Creighton Rosental argues that Aquinas¿s account of faith is not one of justified belief, at least as it is understood in contemporary philosophy. Instead, Rosental argues, faith has its own basis for epistemic ¿reasonableness¿ ¿ a reasonableness that does not derive from ordinary evidence or proof. Rather than requiring evidence accessible to the natural light of reason, Aquinas holds that faith has its own sort of ¿evidence¿¿that which results from the light of faith. Aquinas ¿Aristotelianizes¿ faith and argues that faith has the Aristotelian epistemic virtue of certitude, and in so doing reconciles faith and Aristotelian reason, at least as Aristotle was understood by Medieval philosophers. This reconciliation resolves important tensions between Aristotelian science and Christian doctrine. Further, Rosental examines three contemporary accounts of what counts as an epistemically ¿responsible¿ belief (namely, justified belief, practical rationality, and warrant) and argue that under Aquinas¿s account, faith should be counted as rational, and in an important, though modified sense, as justified. Rosental¿s book is an erudite and accessible reading of this most fundamental issue in Thomistic studies.

By Knowledge and By Love represents a major contribution to Thomistic moral theology and philosophy by providing a thoughtful examination of Aquinas' psychology of action and his theology of charity.

Thomas Aquinas is widely recognized as one of history's most significant Christian theologians and one of the most powerful philosophical minds of the western tradition. But what has often not been sufficiently attended to is the fact that he carried out his theological and philosophical labours as a part of his vocation as a Dominican friar, dedicated to a life of preaching and the care of souls. Fererick Christian Bauerschmidt places Aquinas's thought within the context of that vocation, and argues that his views on issues of God, creation, Christology, soteriology, and the Christian life are both shaped by and in service to the distinctive goals of the Dominicans. What Aquinas says concerning both matters of faith and matters of reason, as well as his understanding of the relationship between the two, are illuminated by the particular Dominican call to serve God through handing on to others through preaching and teaching the fruits of one's own theological reflection.

A fresh translation of quaestiones from the Summa theologiae of Thomas Aquinas, edited by Robert Miner. This volume provides direct access to the medieval theologian’s deepest thinking about the supreme goal of human life—blessedness—and the virtue most intimately related to this goal—charity. The edition also contains Aquinas’s treatment of charity’s effects—love, joy, peace, and mercy—and the vices opposed to them, such as hatred, envy, and war. Featuring five supplementary essays by noted Aquinas scholars, the volume will enable readers to engage more thoroughly with the thought of Thomas Aquinas. (Publisher).