The Cleansing of the Heart

by Reginald Lynch
Thomistic ressourcement series ;
Catholic University of America Press, 2017
eISBN: 978-0-8132-2945-4, Cloth: 978-0-8132-2944-7

ABOUT THIS BOOK
Recalling the Biblical and Patristic roots of the Church's sacramental identity, the Second Vatican Council calls the Church the 'visible sacrament' of that unity offered through Christ (LG 9). 'Sacrament' in this sense not only describes who the Church is, but what she does. In this regard, the Council Fathers were careful to establish a strong connection between the symbolic nature of the Church's sacraments and their effect on those who received them.

Reginald Lynch is concerned with the cleansing of the heart—a phrase borrowed from St. Augustine and employed by Aquinas, which describes the effects that natural elements such as water or bread have on the human person when taken up by the Church as sacramental signs. Aquinas' approach to sacramental efficacy is unique for its integration of diverse theological topics such as Christology, merit, grace, creation and instrumentality. While all of these topics will be considered to some extent, the primary focus of The Cleansing of the Heart is the sacraments understood as instrumental causes of grace. This volume provides the historical context for understanding the development of sacramental causality as a theological topic in the scholastic period, emphasizing the unique features of Aquinas' response to this question. Following this, relevant texts from Aquinas' early and later work are examined, noting Aquinas' development and integration of the idea of sacramental causality in his later work. The Cleansing of the Heart concludes by contrasting alternatives to Aquinas' theory of sacramental causality that subsequently emerged. The rise of humanism introduced many changes within rhetoric and philosophy of language that had a profound effect on some theologians during the Modern period. This book provides historical context for understanding the most prominent of these theories in contrast to Aquinas, and examines some of their theological implications.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
The Victorine School
Lombard and Scholastic Causality
The Development of Interpretive Traditions: The Franciscan School
Aquinas and the Thomist Tradition
Moral Causality
The Tridentine Reform
Contemporary Implications
2. Creation, Artistry, and Dispositive Instrumental Causality in Aquinas’ Commentary on the Sentences
God and Creation
Sacraments as Dispositive Instrumental Causes of Grace
The Sacraments as Signs
The Received Tradition
Grace and Re-creation
Christological Instrumentality
3. From the Sentences to the Summa
De veritate and De Potentia Dei
Summa Theologiae
Grace, Instrumentality, and Obediential Potency
Sacramental Grace and Instrumentality: John of St. Thomas
4. Early Modern Approaches to the Sacraments: Melchior Cano
Humanism and Scholasticism
Cano and Renaissance Humanism
De Locis
Cano on the Sacraments: Moral Causality
Bañez
Merit
De Auxiliis and Modern Theology
Conclusion
Selected Bibliography
Index

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