Project MUSE®: The Thomist: A Speculative Quarterly Review - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/694
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in The Thomist: A Speculative Quarterly Review.daily12026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 3 (1941) through current issue.Latest Articles: The Thomist: A Speculative Quarterly ReviewTWOProject MUSE®The Thomist: A Speculative Quarterly Review2473-37250040-6325Latest articles in The Thomist: A Speculative Quarterly Review. Feed provided by Project MUSE®Aquinas's Implicit Use of Proclus in De substantiis separatis 1-4
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986040
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THE CLAIM THAT certain Neoplatonic influences and themes can be found in the works of Thomas Aquinas is nothing new. For example, M.-D. Chenu's theory of a socalled exitus-reditus scheme in the Summa theologiae––whether true or not––has become a commonplace in presentations on Aquinas.1 Discussions abound concerning the degree to which Aquinas's metaphysics of participation is derivative from Platonic sources.2 After surveying the literature on Platonism and Aquinas, it is my conviction that the scholarly discussion regarding Aquinas and Platonism could benefit from a closer consideration of exactly how Platonic notions were transmitted to Aquinas, that is, when he read certain texts and where the reception of
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/694/image/coversmallAquinas's Implicit Use of Proclus in De substantiis separatis 1-42026-03-31text/htmlen-USAquinas's Implicit Use of Proclus in De substantiis separatis 1-42026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®1180622026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31Reasonable Commandments: The Decalogue as Natural Law in Aquinas
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986041
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THERE CAN BE NO QUESTION that St. Thomas Aquinas identifies the Decalogue with the natural law: "The precepts of the decalogue are the first precepts of the Law: and the natural reason assents to them at once, as to something most evident" (ST II-II, q. 122, a. 1).1 Christian theologians who are critical of natural law theory will, of course, reject Aquinas's claim altogether. But what about theologians who are sympathetic to natural law theory? Is Aquinas's claim plausible? Their agreement with Aquinas's claim will hinge on the meaning of the term "precepts of the Decalogue."What are the precepts of the Decalogue? The answer is not as obvious as it might seem. After all, the so-called Ten Commandments found in
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/694/image/coversmallReasonable Commandments: The Decalogue as Natural Law in Aquinas2026-03-31text/htmlen-USReasonable Commandments: The Decalogue as Natural Law in Aquinas2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®851022026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31The Suffering of Poverty and the Moral Life: A Thomistic Perspective
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986042
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AGAINST THE BACKDROP of widespread interest in practices such as therapeutic abortion and assisted suicide—both of which deem present death preferable to future suffering—the alternative view that suffering could benefit the individual sufferer (not to mention other individuals with whom he or she is associated) seems improbable, if not unthinkable. And yet, as Pope John Paul II explains in his 1984 apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris, the fact that Christ redeems us by voluntarily suffering on our behalf implies that "human suffering itself has been redeemed." More precisely, "in bringing about the Redemption through suffering, Christ has also raised human suffering to the level of the Redemption." Consequently
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/694/image/coversmallThe Suffering of Poverty and the Moral Life: A Thomistic Perspective2026-03-31text/htmlen-USThe Suffering of Poverty and the Moral Life: A Thomistic Perspective2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®1367822026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31Reforming Thomistic Ethics: The partes virtutum and Ecological Virtue
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986043
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THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT and Thomas Aquinas have had an ambivalent relationship. On the one hand, Aquinas's thought has been blamed for inspiring environmental degradation,1 and judged to be completely irredeemable.2 On the other hand, more recent scholarship has shown that Aquinas's metaphysics and theology are a much better fit for the environmental movement than was previously thought.3 Nevertheless, this "Green Thomism" has (mostly) been the work of metaphysics and systematic theology.4 Can we go further and conceive of a Thomistic ecological ethic? In other words, can Thomism adopt ecological virtues and vices? This question is important not only for answering some of the pressing questions of our day, but
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/694/image/coversmallReforming Thomistic Ethics: The partes virtutum and Ecological Virtue2026-03-31text/htmlen-USReforming Thomistic Ethics: The partes virtutum and Ecological Virtue2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®1597102026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31Thomism, Tradition, and Theology
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986044
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THERE HAS BEEN a remarkable revival of interest in medieval and early modern Thomism in the past fifteen years, perhaps in part due to the wider availability of digital texts. Moreover, twentieth-century Thomism is being reevaluated by theologians and philosophers. This new historical research and reappraisal raise unresolved difficulties concerning the nature of theology as a science, the relationship of theology to philosophy, and the way to understand the history of theology. Two recent books directly address these difficulties.In Thomas and the Thomists: The Achievement of Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters,1 Romanus Cessario and Cajetan Cuddy present for a broad audience the distinctive features of the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/694/image/coversmallThomism, Tradition, and Theology2026-03-31text/htmlen-USThomism, Tradition, and Theology2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®674262026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31L'apostolicité des Écritures: Au fondement d'une exégèse catholique by Gabriel Rougevin-Baville (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986045
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If ever there was a need to demonstrate that Thomism, duly restored to its primarily theological nature and renewed by serious historical-doctrinal studies, can make a significant contribution to contemporary theological reflection, Fr. Gabriel Rougevin-Baville's [=GRB] fine work would be equal to this task. Through an in-depth exegesis of the entire Thomasian corpus, a precise analysis of the vocabulary and concepts used, and many insightful interpretations, GRB succeeds in drawing out the main lines of thought that are capable of shedding light today on questions as fundamental as the theological status of the Bible or the relationship between Scripture and the Church. In this respect, the book is part of the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/694/image/coversmallL'apostolicité des Écritures: Au fondement d'une exégèse catholique by Gabriel Rougevin-Baville (review)2026-03-31text/htmlen-USL'apostolicité des Écritures: Au fondement d'une exégèse catholique by Gabriel Rougevin-Baville (review)2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®162222026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31Law from Below: How the Thought of Francisco Suárez, SJ, Can Renew Contemporary Legal Engagement by Elisabeth Rain Kincaid (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986046
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Anglophone political theology for some time has lacked serious engagement with jurisprudence. Moral theologians know something of natural law but rarely civil law. Elisabeth Rain Kincaid, an Anglican scholar with expertise in both, has thus made a notable contribution with Law from Below. Her revised dissertation considers the import of Francisco Suárez's theology of law for American jurisprudence, political theology, and Christian social action. Her main theme is that Christian ethics should recover by way of Suárez a role for "the people" to modify human law. For Kincaid, Suárez's approach unlocks options for "legal engagement" beyond civil disobedience, which Kincaid claims is useful only when a law is clearly
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/694/image/coversmallLaw from Below: How the Thought of Francisco Suárez, SJ, Can Renew Contemporary Legal Engagement by Elisabeth Rain Kincaid (review)2026-03-31text/htmlen-USLaw from Below: How the Thought of Francisco Suárez, SJ, Can Renew Contemporary Legal Engagement by Elisabeth Rain Kincaid (review)2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®155612026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31Compassion-Justice Conflicts and Christian Ethics by Albino Barrera (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986047
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Albino Barrera has established himself among the top rung of Catholic theologians who work at the intersection of ethics and economics. He achieved a Licentiate in Sacred Theology at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., and a Ph.D. in economics from Yale University. Rather than remain in the domain of theory, he displays a consistent interest in the moral challenges of real life. His latest monograph follows this pattern in its focus on the various ways in which our desire to act compassionately, both interpersonally and collectively, is at times at odds with our commitment to justice. While the analogical sensibility of Catholicism leads us to expect compassion and justice to be generally
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/694/image/coversmallCompassion-Justice Conflicts and Christian Ethics by Albino Barrera (review)2026-03-31text/htmlen-USCompassion-Justice Conflicts and Christian Ethics by Albino Barrera (review)2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®146882026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31Being Another Way: The Copula and Arabic Philosophy of Language, 900-1500 by Dustin D. Klinger (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986048
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This monograph reconstructs a millennium-long "problem history" of a deceptively small word: the copula ("is"). In Arabic, where nominal sentences typically lack an overt "is," the copula's semantic role became a crucible in which logicians, grammarians, and theologians forged sophisticated accounts of predication, judgment, and truth. Klinger's central thesis is twofold. First, he argues that from the translation movement through the Timurid and early Safavid periods, there is a continuous, creative history of debate on the copula and predication—far from any narrative of postclassical "decline." Second, he shows that these debates matured into a recognizable philosophy of language embedded within Arabic logic
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/694/image/coversmallBeing Another Way: The Copula and Arabic Philosophy of Language, 900-1500 by Dustin D. Klinger (review)2026-03-31text/htmlen-USBeing Another Way: The Copula and Arabic Philosophy of Language, 900-1500 by Dustin D. Klinger (review)2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®178072026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31Contemplation and the Cross: A Catholic Introduction to the Spiritual Life by Thomas Joseph White, O.P. (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986049
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This book would be a welcome addition to any Catholic theological library. It is a sequel to the author's The Light of Christ: An Introduction to Catholicism and claims to be "a theological introduction to the Catholic spiritual life." With its roots in a retreat given to members of a Catholic religious order, it is a look at the Catholic spiritual life through a Thomistic lens. As such, it examines the various causes and consequences of the spiritual life. The author states that the book can be read on two levels. Readers interested in delving more deeply into the Thomistic underpinnings of the spiritual life can use the annotated footnotes as "a reference guide to key elements in Aquinas's moral action theory
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/694/image/coversmallContemplation and the Cross: A Catholic Introduction to the Spiritual Life by Thomas Joseph White, O.P. (review)2026-03-31text/htmlen-USContemplation and the Cross: A Catholic Introduction to the Spiritual Life by Thomas Joseph White, O.P. (review)2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®119612026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31Bible Missals and the Medieval Dominican Liturgy by Innocent Smith, O.P. (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986050
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This masterful study by Fr. Innocent Smith, O.P., is dedicated to a category of medieval manuscripts that has not received sufficient attention from liturgical historians: the Bible missal, "a hybrid volume that integrated both the bible and the missal in a single codex" (2). The monograph builds on the groundbreaking work of Laura Light, published in a succession of articles between 2011 and 2016, which explored the presence of liturgical texts in medieval biblical manuscripts. Smith offers a systematic analysis of forty extant Bible missals—all but one from the second quarter or middle of the thirteenth century—as witnesses to liturgical development. His research focuses on the thirteen Bible missals from the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/694/image/coversmallBible Missals and the Medieval Dominican Liturgy by Innocent Smith, O.P. (review)2026-03-31text/htmlen-USBible Missals and the Medieval Dominican Liturgy by Innocent Smith, O.P. (review)2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®106402026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31Proclus on Whole and Part: A Reappraisal of Mereology in Neoplatonic Metaphysics by Arthur Oosthout (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986051
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The present monograph is based on a 2022 dissertation submitted at KU Leuven. It is focused on a central issue in metaphysics and the contribution made by Proclus to it. It is a dense and detailed work. As the author himself concedes (13-14), a solid background in Plato's cosmology and metaphysics is essential for evaluating Proclus's doctrines. In addition, basic knowledge of Neoplatonism before and after Proclus is also required. So, this is not a book for beginners. All the same, it is generally lucid in the presentation of the material, well-structured, and exegetically meticulous. It stands as a solid contribution to the growing philosophically informed literature on the writings of the greatest and most
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/694/image/coversmallProclus on Whole and Part: A Reappraisal of Mereology in Neoplatonic Metaphysics by Arthur Oosthout (review)2026-03-31text/htmlen-USProclus on Whole and Part: A Reappraisal of Mereology in Neoplatonic Metaphysics by Arthur Oosthout (review)2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®153502026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31Al-Ghazālī & the Ideal of Godlikeness by Sophia Vasalou (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986052
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Sophia Vasalou has recently made several contributions on al-Ghazālī and on virtue ethics in Islam that may not have received the attention they deserve. After Virtues of Greatness in the Arabic Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2019) and Al-Ghazālī and the Ideal of Moral Beauty (London and New York: Routledge, 2022), she has now produced a monograph that deals with the ideal of godlikeness in the Islamic ethical tradition, again anchored in the writings of al-Ghazālī but also looking beyond. Al-Ghazālī is an important figure in the development of an Islamic virtue ethics, because he sits at the crossroads of two traditions. On the one hand, he is an Ashʿarite mutakallim who throughout his oeuvre never
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/694/image/coversmallAl-Ghazālī & the Ideal of Godlikeness by Sophia Vasalou (review)2026-03-31text/htmlen-USAl-Ghazālī & the Ideal of Godlikeness by Sophia Vasalou (review)2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®166102026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31Plotinus on the Contemplation of the Intelligible World: Faces of Being and Mirrors of Intellect by Mateusz Stróżyński (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986053
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The impact of Plotinus on the Western intellectual tradition has been immense. The Enneads have generated ripples of influence that have shaped the perspective of thinkers in such areas as metaphysics, psychology, aesthetical theory, and interpretations of mysticism and religious experience. If there is one topic that provides a means of unifying the various aspects of Plotinus's vision of reality, however, it appears to lie in the significance he attributes to contemplation in his system as a whole. As one notable commentator put it, "In the equation between contemplation and action lies the very centre of Plotinus' metaphysics; here beats 'the very heart of his system'" (Paul Henry, S.J., "The Place of Plotinus
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/694/image/coversmallPlotinus on the Contemplation of the Intelligible World: Faces of Being and Mirrors of Intellect by Mateusz Stróżyński (review)2026-03-31text/htmlen-USPlotinus on the Contemplation of the Intelligible World: Faces of Being and Mirrors of Intellect by Mateusz Stróżyński (review)2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®169532026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31The Interpretation of Kenosis from Origen to Cyril of Alexandria: Dimensions of Self-Emptying in the Reception of Philippians 2:7 by Michael C. Magree, S.J. (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986054
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The book is a revised version of the author's doctoral thesis, defended at the University of Notre Dame in 2019 under the supervision of Khaled Anatolios. The central theme of the book revolves around the concept of kenosis, Christ's "self-emptying," a fundamental theological notion drawn from the famous Christological hymn in the Letter to the Philippians. The subtitle sets the tone for this extensive study: on the one hand, the scriptural basis for this term (Philippians 2:7); on the other hand, by referring to the "dimensions of self-emptying" (according to a formula taken from Cyril of Alexandria), the author indicates both the limits of his work, which analyzes the interpretation of Christ's self-emptying in a
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/694/image/coversmallThe Interpretation of Kenosis from Origen to Cyril of Alexandria: Dimensions of Self-Emptying in the Reception of Philippians 2:7 by Michael C. Magree, S.J. (review)2026-03-31text/htmlen-USThe Interpretation of Kenosis from Origen to Cyril of Alexandria: Dimensions of Self-Emptying in the Reception of Philippians 2:7 by Michael C. Magree, S.J. (review)2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®172462026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31