Francisco Carrasquillo

The study examines the end or purpose of the acts of the virtue of religion within Thomas Aquinas' ethics of human action. What is the end of religious worship? Is it God, or is it the worshippers themselves? On the one hand, one would presume that God cannot be the end of religion because, from the perspective of Classical Theism, God cannot benefit from the activity of creatures. But on the other hand, if the worshipper is the end of religious acts, would not worship be a self-centered or an egotistic act? The standard Thomistic account of the problem, first laid out by Cajetan and later adopted by countless followers, is that God is the finis cuius of the acts of the virtue of religion, whereas the religious worshipper is the finis quo of the acts. I argue that this solution, which is based on a single text of Aquinas, is insufficient. After examining Aquinas' theory of action, I show how the object of a particular human act can be interpreted as the finis operis. Utilizing this principle of the identity between the object and the finis operis, I argue that the finis operis of religion can be summed up as a threefold sequence of ends: the honor, reverence, and glory of God. As a result, the ultimate beneficiary of acts of religious worship is neither God nor the individual worshipper, but rather the totality of the universe, encapsulated by Aquinas in his notion of divine "glory," that is, the extrinsic manifestation of God's intrinsic goodness within the universe

As is well known, in his Summa theologiae Thomas Aquinas defends from an Aristotelian perspective the scientific nature of sacra doctrina, arguing that it is a science that is subaltern to the knowledge that God has of Himself. Thomas’ interpretation of the Aristotelian doctrine on science allows him to argue that the conclusions of sacra doctrina are reducible to the articles of the faith as to its first principles. What is not well known, however, is that St. Thomas in other texts modifies his view on the way in which sacra doctrinafulfills the requirements for a science. This has been made evident in part by certain recent critical editions, such as Boyle›s edition of the Lectura Romana, and especially by Oliva’s edition of the prologue to the Commentary on the Sentences. Although the articles of the faith are evident in themselves, these texts, seen chronologically, show that throughout his career Aquinas hesitates in acknowledging that from our perspective the articles of the faith are neither evident nor demonstrable, but are objects of religious faith. Throughout these texts Aquinas progressively admits that there exists an imperfection in the mode in which we know sacra doctrina in this life ; therefore, sacra doctrina in a certain way falls short of the perfect ratio of science, at least quoad nos.

En Dionisio, la procesión de las cosas del ‘Uno’ y su reversión al mismo, lejos de ser eventos distintos y separados, pueden entenderse como ‘momentos’ entrelazados, simultáneos, y coeternos de la misma realidad cósmica, a través de la cual una cosa oscila entre la unidad y la multiplicidad. Además, el itinerario místico de Dionisio es un caso especial de su metafísica de procesión-reversión: el misticismo es la reversión del alma al ‘Uno’. Esto explica por qué la mente también entrelaza discursos místicos apofáticos y catafáticos según oscila entre la unidad y la multiplicidad. Este análisis añade coherencia y realismo a las doctrinas metafísicas y místicas de Dionisio.

En su Comentario al De Trinitate de Boecio 3.1, Tomás de Aquino cita a Maimónides, de quien afi rma que presenta cinco razones a favor de la necesidad de la fe. Los intérpretes suelen ver a Tomás de Aquino como si “hubiera puesto a Maimónides de cabeza”. En el presente artículo se retoma el texto de Maimónides, y se sitúa en el contexto de su misticismo racional. Comparándolo con el pensamiento místico cristiano de Tomás de Aquino, se muestra cómo éste no está citando erróneamente, ni invirtiendo ni violentando el texto de Maimónides; más bien, Tomás de Aquino complementa el misticismo natural y racional de Maimónides con lo que él concibe como la perfección sobrenatural de la virtud teologal de la fe.

Thomists have have traditionally presented philosophy and theology in St. Thomas Aquinas’ own native scholastic methodology. This methodology allowed philosophical and theological disciplines to advance objectively and in a scientific manner for centuries—understanding ‘science' in the Aristotelian sense. Hugon’s multi-volume work uses this methodology, offering formal arguments with clearly identifiable premises and conclusions and formal objections with clearly identifiable distinctions, etc., covering practically all the parts of speculative philosophy. The manual is a true work of synthesis of seven centuries of Thomistic tradition. This translation thus puts into print and at the reach of English speakers an introduction to Thomistic philosophy that follows the scholastic scientific methodology faithfully, thus providing them with a solid means of learning the all-but-forgotten art of scholastic disputation. This Cosmology volume covers the first part of natural philosophy, considering the physical world from the point of view of its efficient, material, formal, and final causes.

The oft-rehearsed, seldom-contested story of Aquinas’s account of sacra doctrina has him holding that revealed theology counts as a demonstrative science, along Aristotelian lines, because it is subaltern to God’s self-knowledge. This paper seeks to question this assessment of the matter by comparing Aquinas’s view to that of another great Aristotelian commentator, Averroes, who holds the contrary position, insofar as he considered religious discourse to be dialectical, and not scientific, in nature. The paper argues that, although both of these thinkers strive to present faithfully Aristotelian solutions to the problem of the epistemological status of religious discourse and in both accounts religious discourse somehow ends up being less than something naturally scientific, ultimately their approaches have widely divergent starting points and foundations that lead to distinctively different approaches and conclusions

Aquinas has been accused of being a sexist for making the following four claims about woman: (1) woman is a deficient male; (2) woman was created only for the purpose of procreation; (3) woman is inferior to man; (4) woman must submit to man. Some scholars, notably Michael Nolan, have attempted to defend Thomas, and a few have even gone so far as calling him a feminist. The aim of this paper is to show that Aquinas did hold these four claims throughout his career, and to show in what sense he held them, thus revealing how well-founded the accusations remain, given the assumptions of feminism. Finally, the authors propose that any future attempt to exonerate Aquinas from the charge of sexism must grapple with the question of how these claims are compatible with a gender-equality view.

En este ensayo se examina de manera crítica el desarrollo de la filosofía analítica y, en particular, de la filosofía analítica latinoamericana. Se propone que esta última adopte un giro político y uno pedagógico con el fin de recuperar su espíritu original y reconectarse con la tradición intelectual latinoamericana. This essay is a critical examination of the development of analytic philosophy and, in particular, of Latin American analytic philosophy. It is argued that the latter ought to adopt a political and pedagogical turn in order to recover its original spirit and to be reconnected to Latin American intelectual tradition

This paper is an attempt to introduce the issue of the finality of religious worship into the analytical Thomist tradition. It aims to develop a response, based on an analysis of St. Thomas Aquinas’s texts, to the following questions: What is the end of worship? Why do we worship God? What benefit does God derive from our worship? Alternatively, perhaps, is it not ourselves, rather than God, who are the beneficiaries of our own worship? The paper aims to develop what may be called the ‘Standard Thomistic Account’ as a solution to this problem. In the first part, the paper examines the problem of the finality of worship within the context of Classical Theism. Part II presents the current state of the problem in the contemporary secondary literature concerning this issue. In the third part, the paper focuses on Cajetan’s version of the Standard Thomistic Account, and shows in which aspects it is in need of more nuance to be able to portray Aquinas’ complete solution. Finally, Part IV proposes a careful and faithful reading of the texts and lays out the foundations for a new and more nuanced solution to the problem.