Theology

This paper by Charles Cardinal Journet examines the sacramentality of Christ, the Church, and the seven sacramental mysteries. It is an important work that shows three analogical realizations of sacramentality in a clear, systematic way. The translated article begins with my introduction and contains notes throughout.

Not only does God protect and govern all things by his providence, but He also, by an internal power, impels to motion and action whatever moves and acts, and this in such a manner that, although He excludes not, He yet precedes the agency of secondary causes.

This essay attempts concisely to articulate the necessary role played within moral theology in general-and within the moral theology of grace in particular-by the metaphysics and natural philosophy of human agency. It argues for the priority of the speculative with respect to the practical inasmuch as speculative knowledge precedes desire, and desire precedes intention; for the centrality of unified normative teleology; for the primacy of being over relation; and for the primacy of sound doctrine regarding the divine causal providence for the moral theology of grace and freedom.

An imperfect (because of interposed dashes in words, etc.) but accurate PDF of my original work for The Thomist in 1999 considering the relation of the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas to the teaching of Evangelium Vitae regarding the death penalty.  It is also available in html format at <http:www.thomist.org>.

A response--published on the website thomistica.net at the address <https://thomistica.squarespace.com/config#/|/commentary/2015/4/10/intention-death-and-doctrinal-mutation-universal-tradition-and-the-death-penalty>--to the argument of Tollefsen (to be found at <http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/03/14652/>) that the death penalty is intrinsically wrong.

Engages philosophy of nature, metaphysics, and revelation in considering the question of man's relation to the cosmos and the nature of stewardship.  This is a speculative treatment published in 2012, & does not address  either the recent papal encyclical Laudato si' or the controversies pertaining to the hypothesis of humanly caused global warming.

A paper published responding to  criticisms offered by a genuinely great luminary of Thomistic thought, Fr. Lawrence Dewan, O.P, and including also response to the objections posed to some of my work by the serious Thomistic scholar  Kevin Keiser.

Some moralists think that natural law is essentially a doctrine of practical reason-the reason concerned with making and doing rather than with contemplation and speculative knowledge-and that practical reason is sufficient to itself apart from metaphysical and theological truth. As a result, natural law frequently is assigned the role of being a common minimal moral lexicon for diverse cultures and legal systems, for religious adherents and nonbelievers alike, in the hope of solving major ethical conflicts without engaging ultimate loyalties. While there is some foundation for these viewpoints, they are misleading.

This essay attempts to show that three things often thought to be opposed—the dynamism, relationality, and teleology of the image of God in man toward grace and glory; a strict distinction between nature and grace; and the doctrine that man has an obediential potency to friendship with God and supernatural beatitude—are not only not opposed but are actually necessarily related elements of a coherent and true theological synthesis.

A brief review engaging Jean Porter's remarkable work Nature as Reason, acknowledging significant strength of the work in its regard for aspects of natural teleological order for practical knowledge, and focusing upon remaining points of dispute:  chiefly, the import of proximate natural teleology for moral understanding, in sexual ethics and elsewhere; and difficulties regarding the nature of "rights," which seem to be derivative vis a vis the understanding of the nature of the good. This was published way back in 2008, in Nova et Vetera.

The introduction to the second edition of The Teleological Grammar of the Moral Act.  This responds to a variety of objections, criticisms, and what seem to the author to be particular misunderstandings of the thesis argued. Among the latter category of seeming misunderstandings might be counted the proposition that what Thomas means by "per se" order of object of the external act to the end necessarily or usually implies a unique and exclusive relation to the end.  This is something that I am inclined to deny:  the same casuality that can render anaesthesia to be per se ordained to an intention of surgical repair for the sake of health, can make it to be per se ordained to an intention of kidnapping.  The analysis of Summa theologiae II-II, q. 64, art. 7 regarding killing in defense is also extended. The introduction responds to a variety of other foundational criticisms of the analysis provided in the book, and indicates also some minor precisions/revisions. New appendices were added to the second edition that are pertinent to understanding cooperation with evil, and the role of prudence in cases of double effect, but these are not here included.