Eleonore Stump

Virtually no one would deny the extent and intensity of suffering in the world. Can one also consistently hold that there is an omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good God? In Wandering in Darkness, Eleonore Stump argues that the difficult questions raised by the problem of suffering can be considered best in the context of biblical narratives.

Narrative and the Problem of Suffering

Wandering in Darkness

The concept of the atonement is one of the defining doctrine of Christianity. Over the course of many centuries, theologians, church forefathers, philosophers and more have proposed a huge expanse of interpretations of Christ's sacrifice for humanity, each different to the next. In this ambitious study, Eleonore Stump uses the context of this history of interpretation to reconsider the doctrine afresh with philosophical care. Whatever exactly the atonement is, it is supposed to include a solution to the problems of the human condition, especially its guilt and shame. Stump canvasses the major interpretations of the doctrine, highlighting their shortcomings as an explanation for this solution. In their place, she argues for an interpretation that is both novel whilst still using traditional theology, including Anselm's well-known account of the doctrine. Atonement is a rich exploration of the doctrine and all that it covers: love, union, guilt, shame, forgiveness, retribution, punishment, shared attention, mind-reading, empathy, and various other issues in moral psychology and ethics.

Atonement

Norman Kretzmann

Among the great philosophers of the Middle Ages Aquinas is unique in pursuing two apparently disparate projects. On the one hand he developed a philosophical understanding of Christian doctrine in a fully integrated system encompassing all natural and supernatural reality. On the other hand, he was convinced that Aristotle's philosophy afforded the best available philosophical component of such a system. In a relatively brief career Aquinas developed these projects in great detail and with an astonishing degree of success. In this volume ten leading scholars introduce all the important aspects of Aquinas' thought, ranging from its historical background and dependence on Greek, Islamic, and Jewish philosophy and theology, through the metaphysics, epistemology and ethics, to the philosophical approach to Biblical commentary.

The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas

Brian Davies

Thomas Aquinas (1224/6-1274) lived an active, demanding academic and ecclesiastical life that ended while he was still comparatively young. He nonetheless produced many works, varying in length from a few pages to a few volumes. The present book is an introduction to this influential author and a guide to his thought on almost all the major topics on which he wrote. The book begins with an account of Aquinas's life and works. The next section contains a series of essays that set Aquinas in his intellectual context. They focus on the philosophical sources that are likely to have influenced his thinking, the most prominent of which were certain Greek philosophers (chiefly Aristotle), Latin Christian writers (such as Augustine), and Jewish and Islamic authors (such as Maimonides and Avicenna). The subsequent sections of the book address topics that Aquinas himself discussed. These include metaphysics, the existence and nature of God, ethics and action theory, epistemology, philosophy of mind and human nature, the nature of language, and an array of theological topics, including Trinity, Incarnation, sacraments, resurrection, and the problem of evil, among others. These sections include more than thirty contributions on topics central to Aquinas's own worldview. The final sections of the volume address the development of Aquinas's thought and its historical influence. Any attempt to present the views of a philosopher in an earlier historical period that is meant to foster reflection on that thinker's views needs to be both historically faithful and also philosophically engaged. The present book combines both exposition and evaluation insofar as its contributors have space to engage in both. This Handbook is therefore meant to be useful to someone wanting to learn about Aquinas's philosophy and theology while also looking for help in philosophical interaction with it.

The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas

The problem of evil has generated varying attempts at theodicy. To show that suffering is defeated for a sufferer, a theodicy argues that there is an outweighing benefit which could not have been gotten without the suffering. Typically, this condition has the tacit presupposition given that this is a post-Fall world. Consequently, there is a sense in which human suffering would not be shown to be defeated even if there were a successful theodicy because a theodicy typically implies that the benefit in question could have been gotten without the suffering if there had not been a Fall. There is a part of the problem of evil that would remain, then, even if there were a successful theodicy. This is the problem of mourning: even defeated suffering in the post-Fall world merits mourning. How is this warranted mourning compatible with the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good God? The traditional response to this problem is the felix culpa view, which maintains that the original sin was fortunate because there is an outweighing benefit to sufferers that could not be gotten in a world without suffering. The felix culpa view presupposes an object of evaluation, namely, the true self of a human being, and a standard of evaluation for human lives. This book explores these and a variety of other topics in philosophical theology in order to explain and evaluate the role of suffering in human lives.

The Problem of Evil and the Problem of Mourning

The Image of God

Few philosophers or theologians exerted as much influence on the shape of medieval thought as Thomas Aquinas. He ranks amongst the most famous of the Western philosophers and was responsible for almost single-handedly bringing the philosophy of Aristotle into harmony with Christianity. He was also one of the first philosophers to argue that philosophy and theology could support each other. The shape of metaphysics, theology, and Aristotelian thought today still bears the imprint of Aquinas' work. In this extensive and deeply researched study, Eleonore Stump examines Aquinas' major works, Summa Theologiae and Summa Contra Gentiles, and clearly assesses the vast range of Aquinas' thought. Philosophers, theologians, and students of the medieval period alike will find this unrivalled study an indispensable resource in researching and teaching Aquinas.

Aquinas

Thomas Joseph White

A detailed, historically informed examination of the major areas of Aquinas's thought, for both scholars and students.

The New Cambridge Companion to Aquinas

David Vincent Meconi

David Meconi, Sj

This second edition of the Companion has been thoroughly revised and updated with eleven new chapters and a new bibliography.

The Cambridge Companion to Augustine

This volume presents an introduction to Aquinas and a guide to his thinking on almost all the major topics on which he wrote. The book begins with an account of Aquinas's life and the historical context of his thought. The subsequent sections address topics that Aquinas himself discussed.

Scott MacDonald

Aquinas's discussions of moral issues are extensive, and range well beyond the narrowly defined set of issues in the modern tradition of moral philosophy. This volume explores the ethical dimensions of a wide selection of philosophical and theological topics in Aquinas's texts. It covers topics central to ethics, such as happiness, moral virtue, and natural law, as well as related topics pertaining to the metaphysical basis of Aquinas's account of goodness, the ramifications of his ethical concerns for his philosophy of language, and the significance of his philosophical psychology for his ethics. The volume is divided into three sections focusing, respectively, on issues concerning moral theory and moral theology, moral psychology and practical reason, and moral theory in philosophy of language and metaphysics. The authors—distinguished scholars of medieval philosophy—bring to these issues a variety of approaches and viewpoints. By creatively sampling the breadth of Aquinas's reflections on ethical issues and exploring some of the significant connections that tie his moral thought to other parts of his philosophical and theological system, they display the richness and depth of Aquinas's moral thinking.

Essays in Honor of Norman Kretzmann

Aquinas's Moral Theory

This work argues that Christ's atonement disarms human resistance to God's love and so brings about acceptance of divine forgiveness.

Anthony Kenny

Jan Pinborg

A history of philosophy from 1100-1600 concentrating on the Aristotelian tradition in the Latin Christian West. "will long remain the major guide to later medieval philosophy and related topics. Most of the essays are exciting and challenging, some of them truly brilliant." --Speculum

From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism, 1100-1600

The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy

Adam Green

This collection of new essays written by an international team of scholars is a groundbreaking examination of the problem of divine hiddenness, one of the most dynamic areas in current philosophy of religion. Together, the essays constitute a wide-ranging dialogue on the problem. They balance atheistic and theistic standpoints, and they bring to bear not only on the standard philosophical perspectives but also on insights from Jewish, Muslim, and Eastern Orthodox traditions. The apophatic and the mystical are well-represented too. As a result, the volume throws fresh light on this familiar but important topic in the philosophy of religion. In the process, the volume incorporates contemporary work in epistemology, philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. For all these reasons, this book will be of great interest to researchers and advanced students in philosophy of religion and theology.

New Perspectives

Hidden Divinity and Religious Belief

The Robert J Henle Sj Professor of Philosophy at Saint Louis University Eleonore Stump

Susan Linn Sage Professor Emeritus of Philosophy Norman Kretzmann

eonore Stump

Introduction 1 AquinasÆs philosophy in its historical setting Jan A. Aertsen 2 Aristotle and Aquinas Joseph Owens 3 Aquinas and Islamic and Jewish thinkers David B. Burrell 4 Metaphysics John F. Wippel 5 Philosophy of mind Norman Kretzmann 6 Theory of knowledge Scott MacDonald 7 Ethics Ralph McInerny 8 Law and politics Paul E. Sigmund 9 Theology and philosophy Mark D. Jordan 10 Biblical commentary and philosophy Eleonore Stump

Virtually no one would deny the extent and intensity of suffering in the world. Can one also consistently hold that there is an omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good God? This book argues that the difficult questions raised by the problem of suffering can be considered best in the context of biblical narratives.

"The doctrine of the Atonement is the distinctive doctrine of Christianity. Over the course of many centuries of reflection, highly diverse interpretations of the doctrine have been proposed. In the context of this history of interpretation, Eleonore Stump considers the doctrine afresh with philosophical care. Whatever exactly the Atonement is, it is supposed to include a solution to the problems of the human condition, especially its guilt and shame. Stump canvasses the major interpretations of the doctrine that attempt to explain this solution and argues that all of them have serious shortcomings. In their place, she argues for an interpretation that is both novel and yet traditional and that has significant advantages over other interpretations, including Anselm's well-known account of the doctrine. In the process, she also discusses love, union, guilt, shame, forgiveness, retribution, punishment, shared attention, mind-reading, empathy, and various other issues in moral psychology and ethics."--

Eleonore Stump

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