The Pinckaers Reader: Renewing Thomistic Moral Theology

by Pinckaers, Servais; Berkman, John; Titus, Craig Steven

• ISBN13: 9780813213941
• ISBN10: 0813213940
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-07-28
• Publisher: Catholic Univ of Amer Pr

Summary

Servais Pinckaers, O.P., is one of the preeminent Catholic moral theologians of his generation. His highly acclaimed works, among them The Sources of Christian Ethics, offer a thoroughly Thomistic and contemporary vision of the Christian moral life. They reflect the philosophical and spiritual prowess of a moral theologian who is estranged neither from philosophical ethics nor from dogmatic theology, neither from Scripture nor from spirituality. The first collection of its kind available in any language, this volume features the twenty most significant essays written by Pinckaers since his highly praised Sources. The essays offer profound reflections that are only possible by a contemporary moral theologian who knows the thought of Aquinas from lifelong study. Rather than taking a simply historical approach to Aquinas, Pinckaers seeks the basis of the intelligibility of the moral life, providing rich spiritual and theological insights along the way. He plumbs the depths of fundamental moral theology in these essays, where he treats Thomistic method and the renewal of moral theology, beatitude and Christian anthropology, moral agency, and passions and virtues, as well as law and grace. Such a detailed treatment of key issues in fundamental moral theology and Christian philosophical anthropology will certainly demand attention from every theologian and advanced student interested in Aquinas and in a virtue approach to Christian ethics. Pinckaers's work has been an important source for the revival of interest in virtue-oriented moral theology in recent years and will continue to be a major source for debates over the place of Scripture and the Holy Spirit in moraltheology. John Berkman is Associate Professor of Moral Theology and Area Director of Moral Theology/Ethics at The Catholic University of America. Craig Steven Titus is Research Fellow and Lecturer in the Department of Ethics and Moral Theology at the University of Fribourg and Visiting Professor at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences. The essays are translated by Sr. Mary Thomas Noble, O.P., Craig Steven Titus, Michael Sherwin, O.P., and Hugh Connelly.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations	vii
Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction by John Berkman	xi
Section I. Thomistic Method and the Renewal of Moral Theology
1. The Sources of the Ethics of St. Thomas Aquinas (2002)	3	(23)
2. The Body of Christ: The Eucharistic and Ecclesial Context of Aquinas's Ethics (2000)	26	(20)
3. Scripture and the Renewal of Moral Theology (1995)	46	(18)
4. The Place of Philosophy in Moral Theology (1999)	64	(9)
5. Dominican Moral Theology in the 20th Century (1993)	73	(20)
Section II. Beatitude and Christian Anthropology
6. Aquinas's Pursuit of Beatitude: From the Commentary on the Sentences to the Summa Theologiae (1993)	93	(22)
7. Beatitude and the Beatitudes in Aquinas's Summa Theologiae (1998)	115	(15)
8. Ethics and the Image of God (1989)	130	(14)
9. Aquinas on the Dignity of the Human Person (1987)	144
Section III. Moral Agency
10. Aquinas and Agency: Beyond Autonomy and Heteronomy? (1978)	167	(18)
11. A Historical Perspective on Intrinsically Evil Acts (1986)	185	(51)
12. Revisionist Understandings of Actions in the Wake of Vatican II (1982)	236	(37)
Section IV. Passions and Virtues
13. Reappropriating Aquinas's Account of the Passions (1990)	273	(15)
14. The Role of Virtue in Moral Theology (1996)	288	(16)
15. Capreolus's Defense of Aquinas: A Medieval Debate about the Virtues and Gifts (1997)	304	(17)
16. Conscience and Christian Tradition (1990)	321	(21)
17. Conscience and the Virtue of Prudence (1996)	342	(17)
Section V. Law and Grace
18. Aquinas on Nature and the Supernatural (1992)	359	(10)
19. The Return of the New Law to Moral Theology (1999)	369	(16)
20. Morality and the Movement of the Holy Spirit: Aquinas's Doctrine of Instinctus (1991)	385	(12)
Bibliography of Servais-Théodore Pinckaers	397	(16)
Index of Holy Scripture	413	(2)
Index of Patristic, Ancient, and Medieval Sources	415	(2)
Index of Proper Names	417	(4)
Index of Works of St. Thomas Aquinas	421