Jesus - \u27Our Wisest and Dearest Friend\u27: Aquinas and Moral Transformation

This article joins others in assessing the role of Christ in the moral theology of Thomas Aquinas. It investigates one specific phrase in the Summa Theologiae in four stages. First, there are some foundational considerations of Aquinas’s overall framework. Second, I examine the evidence supporting Aquinas’s original description of Jesus as our ‘dearest friend’ and as further disclosed in the Tertia Pars, specifically in His Passion and in His role as Teacher. Third, this leads to a consideration of Jesus as ‘wisest’ as the Incarnate Word and Wisdom. Fourth, I probe this sapiential aspect further in terms of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, specifically, that of wisdom, and, in particular, as construed in recent work on the second person perspective and Joint Attention. By investigating this phrase of Aquinas, it emerges that its sapiential, soteriological and inter-personal character is illuminated further by its Christological and ecclesial dimensions

Book Review: Tracey Rowland, Catholic Theology (UK: T and T Clark International, 2017), pp 256, Paperback AUD $37.00.

Book Review. No abstract available for this paper

Book Reviews: Struggle, Condemnation, Vindication: John Courtenay Murray’s Journey toward Vatican II, Barry Hudock

Book Review - no abstract available

Declaration on Religious Freedom: Three Developmental Aspects

This article considers key aspects of the Vatican II declaration on religious freedom Dignitatis Humanae and John Courtney Murray’s role in its formulation. This will be done with concern for the broader theological context as exemplified in Thomas Aquinas. After a brief outline of the difficulties Murray faced and their resolution, the discussion moves in four stages: a summary of the key ideas in the document on the relationship between truth and freedom from which the following three ideas receive a focus; the person (dignity and conscience); rights and their evolving context; historical consciousness and its role as a mode and locus of theological reflection. Here, a suggestion is offered about the interrelationship of speculative and practical reason in doctrinal development