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Consequentialists oppose while absolutists and deontologists rely upon double-effect reasoning (DER) to address hard cases in which good inextricably binds with evil (such as destroying a legitimate military target while concomitantly and foreseeably killing innocents). This book addresses the history, application, and philosophical controversy concerning DER. It traces both the origin of DER in the thought of Aquinas and its development by subsequent ethicists. Considering consequentialist criticisms, proportionalism, and recent revisions of double effect, the book argues at length for the reasonableness of DER, particularly the intended/foreseen distinction. Intent is distinguished from foresight, and this distinction is applied to the classic cases of terror and tactical bombing. Most importantly, the book establishes the ethical relevance of this distinction, grounding its import both in broadly Aristotelian-Thomistic features of action as voluntary, and in a Kantian focus on the victim as an end in himself. The book also considers typically neglected albeit intriguing issues such as DER’s application to allowings and how constitutional legal systems that incorporate exceptionless norms employ a legal analogue to DER.

This book considers two basic questions: how can we live well in the face of death?; and when, if ever, is it legitimate deliberately to bring human life to an end? It does so by considering the distinct theological approaches to death shown by four outstanding Christian thinkers: Ambrose of Milan, Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, and Karl Rahner. These philosophers' thoughts constitute a single extended argument on the theology of death which can be set out in relation to the practical realities of grief, fear, and hope in the face of death. There is a rightful place for grief, a good grief, even for a Christian. Augustine teaches us that death is something with which we have to contend, and indeed that the difficult and painful process of contending with death is a means through which we are brought to our final joyful end. A key point for Thomas Aquinas is that, in itself, it is always wrong to kill a human being on account of the dignity of human nature. Rahner adds that it also stands in contradiction to the supernatural destiny of human beings. Rahner is at his most profound in describing how the need to surrender oneself to God in death is anticipated throughout life. The aim of this book is not primarily to make a contribution to the knowledge of the history of theology, but rather, through engagement with the thought of theologians of the past, to reflect on some of the practical and existential issues that the approach of death presents for us.

What is the meaning of the word ‘grace’? Can Wittgenstein's maxim that the meaning of a word is its usage help explicate the claims that Christians have made about grace? When Christians use the word, they reference within language the point of contact between humanity and the divine. This book suggests that grace is not an occult object but rather an insight, a moment when we perceive God to be active on our behalf. The book examines the biblical evidence that grace begins as a recognition of God's favour, before considering Augustine as the theologian who champions history rather than nature as the place of encounter with grace. Aquinas' work on grace is also explored, retrieving the saint's thought on three seminal concepts: nature, form, and the striving intellect. Overall, the book suggests that grace is the perception of a form, an awareness that the human person is being addressed by the world itself.

This book represents a study of the meaning of "the end" in the writings of Hans Urs von Balthasar, that highlights both the originality and the fruitfulness of his vision of a reciprocal drama between God and the world. The argument of the book can be summed up simply: being -creaturely being and trinitarian being -unveils its final countenance as love in the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. After setting forth three basic problems inherent in Christian eschatology, Healy introduces Balthasar's trinitarian perspective: eschatology is concerned with the life of the Trinity, as revealed by Jesus Christ, and as the origin and final destiny of the whole created cosmos. The book presupposes that a critical engagement with Balthasar's thought requires attending to the original way he uses philosophy within theology. Thomas Aquinas' analogy of being, fulfilled in the person of Christ, is both the abiding precondition of, and is ultimately disclosed in, the drama between God and the world whose form takes shape within Christ's return to the Father. The ultimate form of the end, and thus the measure of all that is meant by eschatology, is given in Christ's eucharistic and pneumatic gift of himself - gift that simultaneously lays bare the mystery of the Trinity and enables Christ to "return" to the Father in communion with the whole of creation. Insofar as Christ reveals the trinitarian life and the mystery of creation in their dramatic interplay, he establishes the form of eschatology as a participation in God's engagement with the world. Under the sign of the Holy Spirit and the Eucharist, Christian eschatology involves a sharing in Christ's double movement into the world and, together with the world, into God. By developing the metaphysical dimensions of Balthasar's doctrine of the last things, Healy shows that his writings on the eschaton contain unexpected resources for the ecclesial renewal envisaged by the Second Vatican Council and its missionary opening to the world.

This book examines the views on friendship of the great medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas. For Aquinas, friendship is the ideal type of relationship that rational beings should cultivate. The book argues that Aquinas fundamentally revised some of the main features of Aristotle's paradigmatic account of friendship so as to accommodate the case of friendship between radically unequal beings: man and God. As a result, Aquinas presented a broader view of friendship than Aristotle's, allowing for a higher extent of disagreement, lack of mutual understanding, and inequality between friends.

This book is the first to reconstruct the obscure origins of Heavenly Flesh Christology, examine its implications, and defend it from the charge of heresy. More importantly, this book uses this Christology to re‐examine theology's commitment to the metaphysics of immaterialism. After surveying ancient metaphysical debates and the contemporary insights of physics about the nature of matter, the author argues that theology needs to reconsider the relationship of spirit to matter, beginning with a new, post-Platonic understanding of the eternal body of Jesus Christ. The result is a defense of an anthropomorphic and corporeal understanding of the nature of God. This portrait of God is tested against the theologies of Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth. It is also put into dialogue with the metaphysical materialism of Mormonism. Along the way, the author shows how the thought of Duns Scotus and Caspar Schwenckfeld contribute to a new understanding of heavenly flesh, and how this Christology can enable a new way of appreciating the much-neglected position of Monophysitism.

This book offers an in-depth study of Saint Thomas Aquinas's thoughts on God and evil, revealing that Aquinas's thinking about God and evil can be traced through his metaphysical philosophy, his thoughts on God and creation, and his writings about Christian revelation and the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation. The book first gives an introduction to Aquinas's philosophical theology, as well as a nuanced analysis of the ways in which Aquinas's writings have been considered over time. For hundreds of years scholars have argued that Aquinas's views on God and evil were original and different from those of his contemporaries. The book shows that Aquinas's views were by modern standards very original, but that in their historical context they were more traditional than many scholars since have realized. The book also provides insight into what we can learn from Aquinas's philosophy.

This book examines 13th century views about time, particularly the views of Thomas Aquinas and his contemporaries in the middle of the century. As medieval thinkers considered time to be just another duration alongside the durations of aeviternity (the aevum) and eternity, the scope of the study covers all three durations, culminating in an examination of God’s relationship to time. Chapter 1 opens the discussion by examining some of the key language and terminology which 13th century thinkers used. Chapters 2-5 examine the topological properties of time: the properties that determine its shape and structure. Chapter 6 investigates the metrical properties of time: the properties pertaining to time when it is considered as a measure. Chapter 7 looks at the criteria, factors, and language which 13th century thinkers typically took as entailing that a particular would be in time. Chapter 8 explores how 13th century thinkers discussed existence outside of time, particularly as it was applied to aeviternity and aeviternal beings. Chapter 9 examines the content of the medieval concept of eternity, and how these ideas are best rendered in contemporary language. Chapter 10 examines the specific question of how 13th century thinkers viewed God’s relationship to time.

Investigates whether the claim that there is a God can be spelt out in a coherent way. Part 1 analyses how we can show some claim to be coherent or incoherent. God is supposed to be a personal being, omnipresent, perfectly free and creator of the universe, omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good, a source of moral obligation, and eternal. Part 2 analyses how these divine properties can be understood in a coherent and mutually consistent way. Part 3 considers divine necessity and claims that God's existence necessarily must be understood as this being the ultimate brute fact on which all else depends, but his having the divine properties necessarily must be understood as his having these properties being logically necessary for his existence. The final chapter argues that, if a God of the kind analysed in earlier chapters exists, he is worthy of worship.