Books by Reginald Lynch, OP
Oxford University Press, 2023
This book is focused on the reception history of Thomas Aquinas' account of Eucharistic sacrifice... more This book is focused on the reception history of Thomas Aquinas' account of Eucharistic sacrifice during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Although the sacrificial character of the Eucharist has been of interest to theologians throughout the Church's history, during the early sixteenth century renewed attention was given to this subject, in part because of disputes that arose between Reformed and Catholic theologians about the relationship between the Eucharistic liturgy and Christ's sacrifice on the cross. Does the Eucharistic presence itself have a sacrificial quality? Can aspects of the liturgy or dimensions of the moral life be considered a sacrifice, and if so in what way?
The emergence of these and other new questions in Eucharistic theology at the beginning of the sixteenth century coincided with a shift within the practice of theology in universities that began to emphasize Aquinas' Summa theologiae as the standard text of theological instruction, in place of Peter Lombard's Sentences.
Because of the Summa's relatively late ascendency as a text of commentary and instruction, studying the Summa's reception history involves the interpreter in a complex textuality. Although itself a product of the middle ages, as a received text the Summa is in many ways a creature of the early modern period. Interpreting the reception of this text therefore requires one to consider not only the Summa in its original environment, but the life of this same text as it was received in new interpretive contexts.
This book presents a Thomistic account of sacramental efficacy from a historical and systematic p... more This book presents a Thomistic account of sacramental efficacy from a historical and systematic perspective. The excerpt available here includes the book's introduction, table of contents and some of the front matter. The book is currently available from The Catholic University of America Press (2017).
Published articles and book chapters by Reginald Lynch, OP
Nova et Vetera (English), 2023
This article begins by examining the origins of the doctrine of sacramental character in Latin th... more This article begins by examining the origins of the doctrine of sacramental character in Latin theology in Augustine’s baptismal theology. Building on this foundation, our attention will turn to Peter Lombard’s reception of Augustine’s as the context in which thirteenth-century Scholastic debates about sacramental character would develop. Although the specific metaphysical questions that Scholastics like Aquinas and Bonaventure would entertain do not form part of Augustine’s approach to this issue, Lombard’s particular articulation of Augustine’s sacramental theology would provide the textual and conceptual backdrop against which these later Scholastic conversations would develop. Accordingly, the second section of this article will build on the first, beginning with a consideration of Aquinas and Bonaventure in conversation with each other in their commentaries on the Sentences, and closing with a consideration of Aquinas’s later treatment of this same subject in the wider context of his quidditative approach to the theological life in the Summa theologiae. In the final section of this article, a selection of important Renaissance and early modern interlocutors will be considered who each engage both Aquinas’s and Bonaventure’s positions in different ways. Beginning with John Capreolus, John Duns Scotus, and Thomas Cajetan, this final section will conclude with a consideration of Francisco Suárez, whose own approach to the metaphysics of sacramental character reflects the influence of both Bonaventure and Scotus, even as he engages aspects of Aquinas’s arguments in his textual commentary on the Summa.
Harvard Theological Review (HTR), 2023
This article examines the way in which Manuel Kalekas describes the procession of the trinitarian... more This article examines the way in which Manuel Kalekas describes the procession of the trinitarian persons in one of his earliest systematic treatises. As a member of so-called "Kydones circle," Kalekas was part of a fourteenth-century group of Latinophrone Byzantine theologians who were interested in ecclesial union with the Latin West and in Latin theological sources. In addition to certain texts from Augustine, during the fourteenth century several works by Thomas Aquinas became available in Greek translation. Kalekas's De fide is of interest because it integrates conceptual and structural insights from Aquinas even as it draws on Greek traditions from Cappadocia and Byzantium. Although the importance of Aquinas's Summa contra gentiles for the work of the Kydones circle is often cited, this article argues that Aquinas's Summa theologiae was also a significant influence for Kalekas.
Theological Studies, 2021
This article examines the influence of Augustine’s De Trinitate 9–14 on the concept of foolishnes... more This article examines the influence of Augustine’s De Trinitate 9–14 on the concept of foolishness that Anselm develops in the Monologion and Proslogion. Building on Augustine’s understanding of the soul as trinitarian image, I argue that Anselm effectively extends the implications of Augustine’s theological anthropology in such a way that foolishness appears as a denial of the necessary teleological implications of this same trinitarian psychology.
“Cajetan on Christ’s Priestly Sacrifice: Ressourcement Thomism in the Sixteenth Century,” in Thom... more “Cajetan on Christ’s Priestly Sacrifice: Ressourcement Thomism in the Sixteenth Century,” in Thomas Aquinas and the Crisis of Christology, Roger Nutt, Michael Dauphinais and Andrew Hofer, eds. (Naples: Ave Maria Press, 2021).
Oxford Handbook of the Reception of Aquinas , 2021
The eighteenth century was a time of intellectual innovation, political change, and social upheav... more The eighteenth century was a time of intellectual innovation, political change, and social upheaval. After the close of the second scholastic period and the age of the great Thomistic commentaries, philosophers and theologians were confronted with the challenge of interpreting Aquinas in light of the many new intellectual paradigms that had become so powerful during the European Enlightenment. Although textual commentary continued in some places, in many ways the reception of Aquinas in this century was defined by the need to navigate pressing questions in dogmatic and moral theology. Rationalism posed new challenges for Catholic systematic and dogmatic theology, either as a foil or as an aid, and moral theologians continued to confront the tension between rigorism and laxism that had divided Catholic approaches to graced human action since the late sixteenth century.
Beyond Dordt and De Auxiliis: The Dynamics of Protestant and Catholic Soteriology in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, 2019
This chapter provides context for the doctrine of premotion by emphasizing the importance of div... more This chapter provides context for the doctrine of premotion by emphasizing the importance of divine exemplarity in relation to created causes and the connection between Aristotelian approaches to nature and the Christian doctrine of creation in the thought of Thomas Aquinas and the reception of these ideas by Domingo Bañez. Subsequently, this chapter examines the adoption of some of these concepts by Gisbertus Voetius.
As a whole, this edited volume focuses on the relationship between Catholic and Protestant theologies of grace and human freedom in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries: "Beyond Dordt and ‘De Auxiliis’ explores post-Reformation inter-confessional theological exchange on soteriological topics including predestination, grace, and free choice. These doctrines remained controversial within confessional traditions after the Reformation, as Dominicans and Jesuits and later Calvinists and Arminians argued about these critical issues in the Augustinian theological heritage. Some of those involved in condemning Arminianism at the Synod of Dordt (1618-1619) were inspired by Dominican followers of Thomas Aquinas in Spain who had recently opposed the vigorous defense of free choice by Jesuit Molinists in the Congregatio de auxiliis (1598-1607). This volume, appearing on the 400th anniversary of the closing of the Synod of Dordt, brings together a group of scholars working in fields that only rarely speak to one another to address these theological debates that cross geographical and confessional boundaries." (see https://brill.com/view/title/38929?lang=en)
This article deals with the thought of Thomas de Vio Cajetan on sacramental instrumentality, in c... more This article deals with the thought of Thomas de Vio Cajetan on sacramental instrumentality, in conversation with Sylvester de Ferrara and Louis-Marie Chauvet.
This paper is concerned with the response of Domingo Bañez to specific issues that arose in sacra... more This paper is concerned with the response of Domingo Bañez to specific issues that arose in sacramental theology during the sixteenth century. Melchior Cano, who denied that the sacraments were physical causes of grace, argued instead that they were "moral" causes. Because of his strong humanist influences, Cano consistently describes the causal dimension of the sacraments in the language of moral persuasion. Bañez responds by questioning the causal capacity of moral persuasion, effectively reducing "moral causality" to the level of sacramental occasionalism. Beyond this, however, Cano's reliance on merit in this context raises questions about the nature of Christic merit in relation to physical potency. Because Aquinas' approach to the sacraments as instrumental efficient causes is closely tied to his Christology, Bañez is able to articulate the implications of Aquinas' doctrine of efficient instrumentality in relation to Christic merit. The Thomist school has consistently defended the intrinsic nature of merit, both in the case of Christ's own humanity and those in who are members of his body and exercise the theological virtue of charity. The problems that developed within moral theology in the modern period are well known, and many Thomists have gone to great lengths to explain the value of Aquinas' understanding of virtue and grace, contrasting these concepts with the legalism and extrinsicism of other theories. Bañez himself engaged many of these issues during De Auxiliis, and his approach to moral causality from within the Thomist tradition highlights the importance of sacramental theology for those discussions of grace, potency, and anthropology that have emerged in our own as well.
This article studies the development of sacramental causality from Augustine to the modern period... more This article studies the development of sacramental causality from Augustine to the modern period, emphasizing the scholastic period and Aquinas in particular.
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Books by Reginald Lynch, OP
The emergence of these and other new questions in Eucharistic theology at the beginning of the sixteenth century coincided with a shift within the practice of theology in universities that began to emphasize Aquinas' Summa theologiae as the standard text of theological instruction, in place of Peter Lombard's Sentences.
Because of the Summa's relatively late ascendency as a text of commentary and instruction, studying the Summa's reception history involves the interpreter in a complex textuality. Although itself a product of the middle ages, as a received text the Summa is in many ways a creature of the early modern period. Interpreting the reception of this text therefore requires one to consider not only the Summa in its original environment, but the life of this same text as it was received in new interpretive contexts.
Published articles and book chapters by Reginald Lynch, OP
As a whole, this edited volume focuses on the relationship between Catholic and Protestant theologies of grace and human freedom in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries: "Beyond Dordt and ‘De Auxiliis’ explores post-Reformation inter-confessional theological exchange on soteriological topics including predestination, grace, and free choice. These doctrines remained controversial within confessional traditions after the Reformation, as Dominicans and Jesuits and later Calvinists and Arminians argued about these critical issues in the Augustinian theological heritage. Some of those involved in condemning Arminianism at the Synod of Dordt (1618-1619) were inspired by Dominican followers of Thomas Aquinas in Spain who had recently opposed the vigorous defense of free choice by Jesuit Molinists in the Congregatio de auxiliis (1598-1607). This volume, appearing on the 400th anniversary of the closing of the Synod of Dordt, brings together a group of scholars working in fields that only rarely speak to one another to address these theological debates that cross geographical and confessional boundaries." (see https://brill.com/view/title/38929?lang=en)
The emergence of these and other new questions in Eucharistic theology at the beginning of the sixteenth century coincided with a shift within the practice of theology in universities that began to emphasize Aquinas' Summa theologiae as the standard text of theological instruction, in place of Peter Lombard's Sentences.
Because of the Summa's relatively late ascendency as a text of commentary and instruction, studying the Summa's reception history involves the interpreter in a complex textuality. Although itself a product of the middle ages, as a received text the Summa is in many ways a creature of the early modern period. Interpreting the reception of this text therefore requires one to consider not only the Summa in its original environment, but the life of this same text as it was received in new interpretive contexts.
As a whole, this edited volume focuses on the relationship between Catholic and Protestant theologies of grace and human freedom in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries: "Beyond Dordt and ‘De Auxiliis’ explores post-Reformation inter-confessional theological exchange on soteriological topics including predestination, grace, and free choice. These doctrines remained controversial within confessional traditions after the Reformation, as Dominicans and Jesuits and later Calvinists and Arminians argued about these critical issues in the Augustinian theological heritage. Some of those involved in condemning Arminianism at the Synod of Dordt (1618-1619) were inspired by Dominican followers of Thomas Aquinas in Spain who had recently opposed the vigorous defense of free choice by Jesuit Molinists in the Congregatio de auxiliis (1598-1607). This volume, appearing on the 400th anniversary of the closing of the Synod of Dordt, brings together a group of scholars working in fields that only rarely speak to one another to address these theological debates that cross geographical and confessional boundaries." (see https://brill.com/view/title/38929?lang=en)