The “existential inertia” thesis holds that, once in existence, the natural world tends to remain in existence without need of a divine conserving cause. Critics of the doctrine of divine conservation often allege that its defenders have not provided arguments in favor of it and against the rival doctrine of existential inertia. But in fact, when properly understood, the traditional theistic arguments summed up in Aquinas’s Five Ways can themselves be seen to be (or at least to imply) arguments against existential inertia and in favor of divine conservation. Moreover, they are challenging arguments, to which defenders of the existential inertia thesis have yet seriously to respond.

This paper offers a philosophical argument for the “fittingness” of the unusual order in which Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Trilogy articulates the transcendentalproperties of being: first beauty, then goodness, then truth. It begins with a presentation of the order Aquinas gives in De veritate, qu. 1, art. 1, in which truthfollows upon being and then goodness follows upon truth insofar as cognition for Aquinas precedes desire. The paper then explains the significance of the primacy Balthasar gives to beauty, in contrast to Aquinas, and how this primacy entails an interpretation of truth as the final fruit of the soul’s engagement with reality under the aspect of goodness. It is precisely the conception of truth that emerges as the final transcendental, rather than the first, that serves to open the human horizon to biblical theology, which is one of the ultimate aims of the Trilogy.

In Politics VIII, Aristotle contends that music has some influence over character and the soul. Nevertheless, it is not entirely clear what sort of influence music has. Does appropriate music cause someone to become virtuous, as Socrates seems to suggest (Rep. 401 d–402 a)? And if that is Aristotle’s claim, then is it noteasily refuted by examples of vicious lovers of excellent music, such as the Nazi soldiers who forced imprisoned Jewish musicians to perform Mozart concertos?But if appropriate music is not the principal cause of moral virtue, what sort of formative role does Aristotle think it has? In this paper, I investigate what Aristotlesays about music and the formation of character. I argue that, according to Aristotle, music is a universal, instrumental cause of moral virtue.

Aquinas’s eudaimonism is normally interpreted as twofold in the sense of it dividing into the imperfect, natural happiness of Aristotle and the perfect, supernatural happiness of Augustine. I argue in this work that Aquinas is logically committed to a third type of happiness that, in light of the standard view, rendershis eudaimonism threefold. The paper begins with an overview of the standard twofold model of Aquinas’s eudaimonism; it then turns to the model’s logicalproblem whose solution requires the postulation of a third type of happiness. In the second part of the paper, two clarificatory issues are addressed, several objections are considered, and in closing, I explain why Aquinas’s commitment to a third type of happiness offers the Christian wayfarer grounds for a new optimism.

The paper deals with the problem of the ratio of unity in the work of Thomas Aquinas. More specifically, it tries to answer the question wherein the ratio of unity consists: whether it is a “positive entity of being” or rather the “negative aspect of being undivided.” In order to answer the question properly the paper is divided into four main parts. In the first two parts the constitutive characteristics of unity are explained and attention is focused on the concepts division and negationof division. In the third part Aquinas’s statements that seem to reflect a negative conception of unity are expounded and the relationship of unity and goodness tothe “entitative principles” of being (essence and existence) are elucidated. Finally, in the fourth part the answer to the fundamental question of the article is givenand arguments for the “positive” conception of unity are presented.

This paper examines three arguments that are meant to show that all intentional false assertions are intrinsically evil. The first argument holds that lying is intrinsically evil, all false assertions are lies. The second argument is that all intentional deception is intrinsically evil, and all false assertions are attempteddeceptions. Finally, I explore the argument that false assertions are intrinsically evil because they are a violation of self-unity and unity with the community. Each ofthese arguments, I hold, fails to demonstrate the conclusion which, nevertheless, may be true for other reasons not examined in this paper.

This article addresses a difficult case at the intersection of philosophical theology and truthmaker theory. I show that three views, together, lead to difficultiesin providing truthmakers for truths of contingent predication, such as that the bread is white. These three views are: the Catholic dogma of transubstantiation, astandard truthmaker theory, and a trope (or accident) view of properties. I present and explain each of these three views, at each step noting their connections to the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. After presenting the three views, I show why they entail a difficulty for providing truthmakers for truths of contingent predication,drawing on two cases that are not impossible, for all we know. I then present four ways that one can respond to this difficulty, afterward noting some shortcomingsof those responses.

In this essay I will contend that there is something called holy fear, which expresses love for God. First I distinguish holy fear from certain types of unholy fear and from the type of fear regulated by the virtue of courage. Next, relying on the work of Thomas Aquinas, I consider the roles love and power play in holy and unholy fear and extend his analysis of the passion of fear by analogy to the capital vices. I conclude that this extension illuminates the moral significance of John PaulII’s call not to be afraid and shows how this theme of his pontificate is inextricably linked to another great theme of his teaching, that of love as a gift of oneself.

Recent events concerning the guerilla journalism group Live Action created controversy over the morality of lying for a good cause. In that controversy, I defended the absolutist view about lying, the view that lying, understood as assertion contrary to one’s belief, is always wrong. In this essay, I step back from the specifics of the Live Action case to look more closely at what St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas, had to say in defense of the absolute view. Their approaches, while rather different, are nevertheless, I believe, complementary, and cast light on both practical and principled reasons for thinking that lying is wrong, even for agood cause. In the final section of the paper, I discuss some of the challenges that a further defense of the absolute view would need to meet.

While it was not a main focus of his work, Ernan McMullin contributed to reflection on being human in the context of human evolutionary history. His work developed multiple strands for the formation of a systematic Christian evolutionary theism regarding human beings. The first theme concerns St. Augustine’sexplorations of “seed-like” principles in developing the idea that God brought forth humans in part through a natural process. Secondly, the paper discussesMcMullin’s response to the claim that evolutionary theory suggests humans to be the result of radical contingency, calling into question the Providential natureof human evolution. McMullin invokes Augustinian sensibilities about God’s eternality in his reply. Next, Fr. Ernan reflected on the concept of matter and howit can inform a response to dualistic conceptions of human being. Finally, in a characteristically even-handed tone, he defended emergentism as a viable optionto dualism, recognizing there to be serious philosophical and theological concerns about the emergentist picture. While McMullin did not solve the problems thatchallenge a synthesis of evolutionary theory and Christian anthropology, he offered a number of very helpful clues.

From the outset of scholarly research on Cusanus, the question concerning the historical status of his original philosophy has been a constant issue in thesecondary literature. One continuously encounters the question of whether he is a medieval or a modern thinker, with a number of conflicting interpretations. These viewpoints are, in many cases, less related to concrete historical arguments than to general considerations regarding what it is meant by “medieval” or “modern” from a theoretical point of view. Accordingly, scholarship on Cusanus’s position in the history of ideas has been strongly influenced by the unconscious historiographical attitude of his interpreters.

In developing his trademark use of “consonance” to prescribe a relationship between Christian faith and the natural sciences, Ernan McMullin drew on severaldistinctly Augustinian philosophical and theological themes during his fifty years of scholarship. Particularly prominent in McMullin’s work were an emphasis placed on Augustine’s biblical hermeneutic, which prioritized both literal and non-literal interpretive techniques, and Augustine’s epistemology of divine illumination. This paper examines several elements as part of an expository account of McMullin’s contribution toward the consonance between Christian faith and the natural sciences. It also outlines McMullin’s theory of retroduction and his account of scientific realism, both of which are philosophical positions that provide additional support for consonance from an epistemological perspective. I conclude that for McMullin, consonance is a differentiated term that hints at underlying metaphysical claims without necessarily delineating the nature of those claims.

If Christ, a single member of the human race, can pay the debt of sin for all of us, then there must be some principle uniting all humanity. Some scholarssuggest that, in Anselm’s theory of the atonement, the unity in question is similar to that of a corporation or that it derives from our shared participation in humannature. Neither of these proposals can be supported from Anselm’s text. Rather, there is considerable evidence that Anselm held that all the “children of Adam”belong to the same literal, biological family, and it is this which grounds the unity required for the efficacy of Christ’s work. If we understand family to be a naturalhuman institution, the concept of family unity is persuasive.

Fr. Ernan McMullin wrote at least five essays in which anthropic reasoning in cosmology was a prominent topic of discussion and evaluation. Unlike thewritings of many passionate advocates and hostile critics of the so-called “anthropic principle” (AP), they are all nuanced essays—very much in keeping with Fr. Ernan’s usual approach to difficult and controversial subjects. Supporters of that approach will praise what he has to say as properly cautious and circumspect; others will likely find him often indecisive. In this essay, I will indicate why, while I largely agree with the first group of readers, I am nevertheless sympathetic to the concerns of the latter group.

This essay examines a dialogue between Kierkegaard and the Aristotelian tradition on the topic of love and friendship. At stake in the dispute is whetherphilia or agape is the highest form of love and how we should understand the relation between the two loves. The essay contributes to the conversation by analyzing two kinds of deceptive love identified in Kierkegaard’s Works of Love, viewing each through the lens of a Shakespearian persona. Against the Aristotelian tradition, Kierkegaard defends the idiosyncratic view that Hamlet’s Ophelia is a villain and King Lear’s Cordelia is happy. Central to Kierkegaard’s argument is the contention that agape requires an epistemic attitude of charitable presumption towards one’s neighbor despite the possibility of error, an attitude found in Cordelia but not in Ophelia. The essay contrasts this Thomistic attitude with its Cartesian counterpart as well as their consequences for moral and religious life.

The article concerns the question of civic virtues, the aim being to present and argue for the personalist conception of citizenship. It consists of four parts. Inthe first part, following Will Kymlicka, I argue for the need of active citizenship; my claim is that personalism offers an attractive concept of such attitude. In thesecond part I make an outline of the personalist idea of authentic community, including the idea of authentic political community, and thus set the necessaryconceptual context for further considerations. In the third, central part I focus on characterizing authentic civic attitudes that constitute a true political community.In the fourth part I supplement the outline of civic attitudes with the characterization of unauthentic attitudes. In the conclusion, I briefly point out in what waythe personalist concept of authentic citizenship presented here may find a fruitful application to the contemporary debates in political philosophy.

In a posthumously published paper, Fr. W. Norris Clarke, S.J., declares that Thomistic personalism is the most creative and fruitful development in twenty-first century Thomism. I agree with Clarke, and I would also add that Thomistic personalism is the most creative and fruitful development in twenty-first centurymoral and political philosophy. Thus, in this paper—focusing on clarification and exhortation—I (i) identify the main commitments of personalism; (ii) identifyweak, moderate, and strong versions of Thomistic personalism; and (iii) suggest that Thomistic personalism is a vocation for the twenty-first century that requirescollaboration between specialists from diverse backgrounds.

The discussion between Ernan McMullin and Alvin Plantinga concerning evolution and religion, which first appeared in Christian Scholar’s Review in September 1991, is an enlightening airing of many of the issues that arise with regard to this complex, controversial topic. Overall, Plantinga favors a confrontational view of the relationship between religion and evolution, while McMullin favors a dialogue model. The two thinkers disagree about the evidence for evolution, about what Plantinga calls “theistic science,” about methodological naturalism, and about biblical interpretation. McMullin accepts a mainstream view in several important respects, holding that: (i) evolution is true; (ii) Genesis is not to be read literally; (iii) science should be separated from theology; (iv) we should accept “methodological naturalism”; and (v) we should reject “creation science.” Plantinga disagrees with all of these claims. This article explores the differences between the two thinkers by means of an exposition of the main points, and offers a few important critical observations on key questions.

Augustine believes that loving God is the proper end of human life. But what does it mean to love God? Following Anders Nygren’s influential critique, the common interpretation is that the central thrust of Augustine’s account of love for God is Platonic eros. However, I will argue that the main element of human love for God is not eros but philia, the desire for friendship with the beloved. Understanding Platonic eros as one element among others of human love for God allows us to reconcile the erotic aspects of Augustine’s account with the many texts in which he speaks of human love for God in self-forgetful, agapeistic terms. I will argue that we need to understand the erotic and agapeistic elements of Augustine’s position as essential but subservient to the major focus of our love for God, the desire for friendship with God.