Drawing upon the timeless wisdom of Thomas Aquinas, The Natural Law offers clear insights into perplexing ethical dilemmas. The compelling conclusions of Aquinas emerge through a critical examination of contemporary ethical frameworks including moral relativism, utilitarianism, and Machiavellian politics. In part one, which elucidates the core principles of natural law ethics, the reader will discover fundamental truths underpinning the concepts of right and wrong, which are rooted in the very fabric of our humanity. Part two navigates the ethics of harm, grappling with contentious issues such as capital punishment, just war, and self-defense, while at the same time addressing moral quandaries like sacrificing one life in order to save another. This section also resolves thorny practical questions surrounding human actions. How can we tell the difference between an action and its consequences? How do we determine exactly what it means to kill another person? Part three ventures into the intricacies of human societies. The reader will explore the importance of authority and rules in guiding social interactions, from the nurturing bonds of the family to the shifting complexities of political society. The principles examined will shed light upon controversial topics within sexual ethics, such as transgenderism, faithful spousal intimacy, and cloning. The Natural Law invites readers on an engaging journey of critical inquiry. By challenging prevailing assumptions and provoking self-reflection, it will reshape your understanding of ethics and human nature, ultimately revealing your role and purpose within the universe.

This book proposes a rather novel legal-philosophical approach to understanding the intersection between law and morality. It does so by analyzing the conditions for the existence of a juridical domain of natural law from the perspective of the tradition of Thomistic juridical realism. In order to highlight the need to reconnect with this tradition in the context of contemporary legal philosophy, the book presents various other recent jurisprudential positions regarding the overlap between law and morality. While most authors either exclude a conceptual necessity for the inclusion of moral principles in the nature of law or refer to the purely moral status of natural law at the foundations of the legal phenomenon, the book seeks to elucidate the essential properties of the juridical status of natural law. In order to establish the juridicity of natural law, the book explores the relevant arguments of Thomas Aquinas and some of his main commentators on this issue, above all Michel Villey and Javier Hervada. It establishes that Thomistic juridical realism observes the juridical phenomenon not only from the perspective of legal norms or subjective individual rights, but also from the perspective of the primary meaning of the concept of right (ius), namely, the just thing itself as the object of justice. In this perspective, natural rights already possess a fully juridical status and can be described as natural juridical goods. In addition, from the viewpoint of Thomistic juridical realism, we can identify certain natural norms or principles of justice as the juridical title of these rights or goods. The book includes an assessment of the prospective points of dialogue with the other trends in Thomistic legal philosophy as well as with various accounts of the nature of law in contemporary legal theory.

Natural Law Ethics in Theory and Practice brings together a selection of essays of the late Joseph Boyle. Boyle was, with Germain Grisez and John Finnis, a founder and developer of the New Classical Natural Law Theory, arguably the most important development in Catholic moral philosophy of the twentieth century. While this theory is indebted to the work of St. Thomas Aquinas, it incorporates an understanding and assessment of that work that is different from that found in other statements of natural law. Boyle made crucial contributions to a wide variety of aspects of this theory, and the volume is divided into two parts.

Part One: Articulating a Theory of Natural Law contains three sections in which Boyle defends the reality of free choice and the view that the basic reasons for action, or first principles of natural law, are incommensurable in goodness. Boyle identifies the basic moral standard for choice and action, and develops an account of human action that elucidates the important role played by intention and double effect in their moral evaluation.

The essays in Part Two: Natural Law Theory and Contemporary Moral Problems demonstrate the strength and scope of Boyle’s natural law account, as he brings it to bear upon just war theory, property and welfare rights, and issues in bioethics. The essays in bioethics address the difficult question of whether it is appropriate to tube-feed patients in persistent vegetative state, and include an unpublished essay, “Against Assisted Death,” which he delivered as the Anscombe Lecture at The Anscombe Bioethics Centre in Oxford about a year before he died.

This volume also includes a Foreword by Princeton’s Robert P. George; an Introduction by the editors that highlights Boyle’s contribution to the development of the new classical natural law theory; and a bibliography of Boyle’s publications.

Aquinas’ first proof for God’s existence is usually interpreted as a metaphysical argument immune to any objections coming from empirical science. Connections to Aquinas’ own historical understanding of physics and cosmology are ignored or downplayed. Nature and Nature's God proposes a natural philosophical interpretation of Aquinas’ argument more sensitive to the broader context of Aquinas’ work and yielding a more historically accurate account of the argument. Paradoxically, the book also shows that, on such an interpretation, Aquinas’ argument is not only consistent with modern science, but actually confirmed by the history of science, from classical mechanics through 19th century thermodynamics to contemporary cosmology. The first part of the book considers Aquinas’ argument in its historical context, exploring the key principles that everything in motion is moved by something else and that an infinite regress of causes is impossible. The structure of the First Way is analyzed and the argument is connected both with Aquinas’ Third Way—a new interpretation of which is also proposed—and Aquinas’ second proof from motion in the Summa contra Gentiles. To complete the account of what natural philosophy—prior to metaphysics—can demonstrate about God, a chapter on Aquinas’ teleological argument (the Fifth Way) is also included. The second part of the book tracks the history of modern science from Copernicus to today, showing how Aquinas’ argument fared at each major turn. The first chapter shows how Newton’s understanding of inertia and conservation of momentum supports the idea that motion cannot continue forever without God’s causality, and integrates a modern understanding of inertia and gravity with the principles of Thomistic natural philosophy. The second chapter considers the first and second laws of thermodynamics, showing how they too support Aquinas’ contention that motion cannot continue forever without God’s causality. This chapter also discusses statistical mechanics and contemporary cosmology, demonstrating that science continues to support Aquinas’ unmoved mover argument. The final chapter turns to modern biology as well as cosmological fine-tuning to show that modern science also continues to support Aquinas’ teleological argument. The result is not only a satisfying defense of Aquinas’ natural philosophical proofs for God’s existence, but a primer on the broader project of integrating Thomistic natural philosophy with modern science.

Wittgenstein influenced a generation of philosophers and theologians, with works such as Fergus Kerr’s Theology After Wittgenstein showing the relevance of Wittgenstein’s philosophy for contemporary questions in theology. Nature as Guide follows many of the insights of this earlier generation of Wittgenstein influenced scholars, to bring Wittgenstein into conversation with contemporary Catholic moral theology. The first four chapters of the book provides a reading of key themes in Wittgenstein’s philosophy, and draw among others on G.E.M. Anscombe to situate Wittgenstein in relation to the Platonic tradition. Understanding the relationship between grammar, metaphysics and nature is central to this tradition and these themes are examined through an account of Wittgenstein’s philosophical development. These four chapters also provides a critical perspective on Wittgenstein’s thought, engaging with the criticisms of Wittgenstein offered by philosophers such as Rhees Rush and William Charlton. Chapter five lays the groundwork for a dialogue between Wittgenstein and moral theology. Firstly, by examining how open Wittgenstein’s philosophy is to dialogue with theology, and secondly through proposing the use of Servais Pinckaers’ definition of moral theology to structure the conversation developed in subsequent chapters. Pinckaers’ definition is based upon St Thomas Aquinas’ presentation of the principles of human acts in the Prima Secundae of the Summa Theologiae and the final three chapters focus on the question of human acts and their basis in human nature. The reading of Wittgenstein developed in the first part of the book is brought into dialogue with the tradition of Catholic moral theology represented by Pinckaers and other students of St Thomas, such as Anscombe, Josef Pieper, Herbert McCabe, Jean Porter and Alasdair MacIntyre. The book finishes with McCabe’s account of the transformation of human nature through God’s Word, showing how Wittgenstein’s understanding of human practices can shed light on the life of grace.

In his final collection of essays, Father Schall explores the life of faith across a dazzling array of subjects, from Martin Luther to bioethics. With his characteristic patience, brilliance, and careful tenacity, Father Schall interrogates profoundly what it means to try to be a citizen of the Kingdom of God in the city of Man. Never shying away from controversy, across 14 articles and 4 book reviews Father Schall investigates the critical themes of his life and scholarship: reason and revelation; the nature of modernity; literature and salvation; metaphysics and politics; and much more. Whether the reader is new to Father Schall or a longtime student, this posthumously-published collection of essays offers a profound meditation on the nature of political philosophy, and particularly what it would mean for Catholicism to offer a political philosophy. From such fundamental considerations, Schall explores ethical, literary and legal themes, displaying his typical breadth and depth of engagement with all that is real. Ultimately, Father Schall leads one on a Socratic enterprise, an education whereby one comes to question for oneself basic assumptions, and to dig deeper into the first principles as they are recalled in the orders of knowledge and being. While Father Schall has passed on to his reward, this collection of essays helps ensure that his lessons continue to guide, challenge and enrich students for generations to come.

Today, we perceive Gothic cathedrals as light-filled forms representing the sacred. The colored light projected from brightly-colored stained glass windows onto the walls and floors of these buildings suggests the presence of divinity. Suger (1081–1151CE), the abbot of the monastery of Saint-Denis, is credited with originating Gothic architecture. However, focus on form and structure has elided attention to the material out of which medieval churches were made. When Suger describes the early church he was replacing, he says that the gold and gems it contained beamed outwardly with a gleaming light that filled the eye. When he restored his church and filled it with the shining souls of his ecclesia, he repeated God’s divine act of creation. His restored church imitated the precious stones that could be shaped and polished to reveal divine light. By crafting stone, Suger fulfilled the divine plan to make heaven on earth.

We see the word “religion” everywhere, yet do we understand what it means, and is there a consistent worldwide understanding? Who discovered religion and in what context? In A New Science, Guy Stroumsa offers an innovative and powerful argument that the comparative study of religion finds its origin in early modern Europe. The world in which this new category emerged was marked by three major historical and intellectual phenomena: the rise of European empires, that gave birth to ethnological curiosity; the Reformation, which permanently altered Christianity; and the invention of philology, a discipline that transformed Western intellectual thought. Against this complex historical backdrop, Stroumsa guides us through the lives and writings of the men who came to define the word “religion.” As Stroumsa boldly argues, the modern study of religion, a new science, was made possible through a dialectical process between Catholic and Protestant scholars. Ancient Israelite religion, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Manichaeanism, Zoroastrianism, the sacred beliefs of the New World, and those of Greece, Rome, India, and China, composed the complex ground upon which “religion,” a most modern category, was discovered.

The mid-nineteenth century was a period of extraordinary intellectual excitement and tension and nowhere is this more vividly illustrated than in the divergent careers of Cardinal Newman and his brother Francis. Both were men of considerable mental powers and high moral purpose. They shared a devotion to the search for religious truth and spiritual values, yet their intellectual development drove them further and further apart until they came to represent the two opposing philosophical positions of their age.

Professor Robbins' study of the brothers reveals in a new and striking way the master currents of the period which carried these symbolical figures in such different directions. With considerable psychological insight he traces their early lives from the common evangelical zeal of their adolescence through their striking careers at Oxford. He then follows the famous story of John Henry Newman's difficult and hesitating journey of conscience which led him to break with the Church of England and embrace the rigid dogma of Rome. He contrasts it with the almost unknown progress of Francis Newman from the life of an evangelical and missionary to become an apostle of all those liberal, rationalist ideas which his brother had rejected with such vehemence and to doubt the very bases of the christian faith.

Cardinal Newman's life has already been explored in many books but Professor Robbins draws on illuminating new material. He quotes from many unpublished letters between the brothers and from the works of Francis which few but he have read for two generations.

The weight of scholarship behind this book makes it an important study for students of nineteenth-century literature, philosophy and religion, while the general reader should find this a lucid and compelling account of the interplay of sharply contrasting ideas and personalities.

The first-ever account of the historic relationship between the church and early architecture in Dublin.

Newman University Church, Dublin charts the first ever analysis of University Church’s significance within the history of Victorian revivalist architecture. Author Niamh Bhalla explores the relationship between the church’s context as the first Catholic university in Ireland and the ambiguity of its “early Christian” style, providing an effective lens to understand the architectural revivalism of the nineteenth century, particularly basilican and Byzantine revivalist architectures in the British Isles.

This translation of Erich Meuthen's well-known biography of Nicholas of Cusa presents the foremost summary of Cusanus's life and thought. F

This is the first commentary to have been written on Nicholas of Cusa's most famous work, On Learned Ignorance. This fact testifies to the difficulty of what has long been recognized to be the most significant philosophical text produced by the Renaissance. While there are many passages in the work that can be cited in support of Cassirer's celebration of Cusanus as the first modern philosopher, that judgment is challenged by the way his work is rooted in a faith and a tradition likely to strike us as thoroughly medieval. This commentary shows how closely the two are linked. Despite the many ways in which what the cardinal has to say belongs to a past that the progress of reason would seem to have left irrecoverably behind, it yet provides us with a continuing challenge. Key to On Learned Ignorance is the incommensurability of the infinite and the finite, of God and creation. Cusanus lets us recognize the essential transcendence of reality, so different from the ontology implied by Descartes' insistence on clear and distinct understanding, which has presided over the progress of science and has helped shape our world. What makes Cusanus’ thought important is not the way it anticipates modernity, but the way it challenges often taken-for-granted presuppositions of our worldview, most importantly a distinctly modern self-assertion or self-elevation that has made our human reason the measure of reality. If it is impossible to deny the countless ways in which our science and technology have given us ever deeper insights into the mysteries of nature and improved our lives, it is equally impossible to deny that this very progress today endangers this fragile earth and the quality of our lives. Cusanus can help us preserve our humanity.

Conventional portraits of Neo-Confucianism in China are built on studies of scholars active in the south, yet Xue Xuan (1389–1464), the first Ming Neo-Confucian to be enshrined in the Temple to Confucius, was a northerner. Why has Xue been so overlooked in the history of Neo-Confucianism? In this first systematic study in English of the highly influential thinker, author Khee Heong Koh seeks to redress Xue’s marginalization while showing how a study interested mainly in “ideas” can integrate social and intellectual history to offer a broader picture of history.

Significant in its attention to Xue as well as its approach, the book situates the ideas of Xue and his Hedong School in comparative perspective. Koh first provides in-depth analysis of Xue’s philosophy, as well as his ideas on kinship organizations, educational institutions, and intellectual networks, and then places them in the context of Xue’s life and the actual practices of his descendants and students. Through this new approach to intellectual history, Koh demonstrates the complexity of the Neo-Confucian tradition and gives voice to a group of northern scholars who identified themselves as Neo-Confucians but had a vision that was distinctly different from their southern counterparts.