While the First Vatican Council (1869–70) decreed that for Catholics it is a dogma of faith that we can have certain knowledge of God by the natural light of reason it was only in the Anti-Modernist Oath (1910) that this knowledge was defined as rationally demonstrable by cosmological arguments.

At this juncture in history, viewed as either the dusk of modernity or the dawn of its overcoming, questions of faith and reason are continually cast up anew. The questioning of faith and reason raise familiar binaries and oppositions: Is faith for or against, internal or external, before or after, above or below reason? Does faith perfect or overcome, complete or destroy, add or subtract from reason? This essay will pass through two figures representative of the contested field of Thomistic scholarship en route to a discussion of how the French philosopher Alain Badiou might intervene within the contemporary discussions of faith and reason. It will first engage Denys Turner's recent work which could be characterized as a dogmatic faith in reason attempting to repel the dispositional faith which he attributes to Fergus Kerr. These competing conceptions of faith will set the backdrop for a presentation and application of Badiou's understanding of faith as discerning fidelity.

Ethics has captured the attention of many today—for a variety of reasons. However, different conceptions and expectations of what is involved in addressing the ethical challenge have also arisen. Clarifying the nature of the ethical task, this essay argues for the need to think through the judgments we make and the decisions we take on ethical situations and to investigate more critically the basis of such judgments and decisions. Furthermore, it claims that in ethics, as well as in other areas of life, it is important to have an overall vision that should ground, inform and support any judgment or decision we make. Maintaining that ethics is a rational activity undertaken by rational agents, it shows how ethical thinking, particularly when it draws on philosophy, can help one to develop a moral sense and enable one to take a moral stance.

Theological, historical and sociological factors help explain the evangelical turn in contemporary Catholicism. Theological factors considered here are an emphasis on evangelization as something of the Church's very nature and not just an activity that it does. This sits well with an ecclesiology that stresses the Church as a communion of disciples of Jesus. Three historical factors are raised all of which result in a more evangelical expression of Catholicism. These are a greater tension between the culture of the Church and wider culture. A renewed emphasis on conversion with a Christological focus and a greater emphasis on scripture in the life of the church. In sociological terms, a more evangelical Catholicism is evident in the movement away from a socialization model of religious affiliation to one which emphasizes choice, the religious consumer and a range of options. In this environment the Church must put more emphasis on evangelical proclamation as a way of pastoral outreach. A more evangelical Catholicism is seen as a general principle without being closed to other types of expression.

This paper offers a survey and proposal concerning Catholic ecclesiology in the post-Vatican II context. As a survey, it addresses the attempts by four major Catholic thinkers, de Lubac, Congar, Rahner and Balthasar to articulate dual dimensions of the Church. In the last century, the surge in biblical studies and empirical methodologies has wrought numerous ecclesial images, dimensions and models for understanding the various aspects of the Church. While many of these attempts are descriptive, or even symbolic, there is a need to move to an explanatory method for a more systematic apprehension of the various dimensions of the Church. The proposal of this paper will argue that such an explanation lies in how the Church understands itself with respect to each of the missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit as developed from the thought of Bernard Lonergan on the two dimensions of the Church. This will allow for a plethora of images, but simultaneously it will provide for some normative control of meaning over these various dimensions.

The essay examines the Catholic Church's theology of work, as revealed specifically by two influential encyclicals on human work, Rerum Novarum (1891) and Laborem Exercens (1981). Both documents attracted approval for their espousal of the dignity of the worker, and Laborem Exercens in particular is said to have expounded the establishment of a dynamic new form of economic personalism in which John Paul II attempts to analyse the moral ramifications of economic activity in light of a theological vision of the human person. For all their good intentions of rationalising human materiality, both encyclicals served primarily to redress the imbalances of the employer/employee relationship, rather than to fundamentally question the philosophical and biblical anthropology of the increasingly dysfunctional nature of human work.

The Catholic Land Movement (1929 – 1939), an English agrarian community initiative that embraced the principles of Rerum Novarum, attempted in to create an entirely new theology of human work, around the principles of Distributism, Dominicanism and the arts-and-crafts movement. The ideological progress of the land colonies, and their increasing antipathy to industrialism, led them to challenge fundamentally the presumption of the need for mass employment - a position that significantly undermined the primacy of Rerum Novarum, and consequently compromised hierarchy support for their initiative, leading to the organisation's rapid decline. Despite its failure, the Catholic Land Movement nonetheless gave voice to the theologically significant possibility that the message of Genesis might not be that Man is destined for a lifetime's arduous toil.

Catholic moral theology today, especially virtue ethics, often bears little connection to the sacraments; Catholic ethicists largely do not discuss the sacramental life when they address issues of morality or concepts of virtue. Given this disconnect, Thomas Aquinas's consideration of penance in the Summa Theologiae provides an important way to reconnect virtue to sacrament, as well as to emphasize virtue in relation to God. Penance is both a virtue and a sacrament inasmuch as it involves acts of the will. As a virtue, penance is a species of justice, an act of the will choosing according to right reason in aiming to amend for offenses against God. The acts of the virtue of penance, especially contrition, confession and satisfaction, constitute the matter of the sacrament of penance. Hence the sacrament presupposes the virtue even though the sacrament is a cause of grace whereas the virtue is an effect of grace. Penance as sacrament and virtue are virtually inseparable. A reclamation of penance as virtue and sacrament in the field of Catholic moral theology highlights the role of grace and hence connection of virtue to God, while also re-grounding virtue ethics in the sacramental life, especially through the sacrament of penance.

John Zizioulas is not only a prolific writer but arguably one of the most original and influential Orthodox scholars of our present time. His originality can be most clearly observed in his development of a personal and relational ontology. Central to this approach is his assertion that the Father as cause should be understood as the one God rather than the divine ousia. Zizioulas subsequently asserts that the divine ousia should be understood in terms of divine communion. While this approach might be original, it is not without its difficulties, not least the possible implication that there are two different Gods. It is our contention that this problem arises out of a failure by Zizioulas to adequately distinguish between two distinct types of divine unity particularly located in the writings of the Cappadocian Fathers. The first is located solely in the ousia and ensures the ontological oneness of God, the second may be observed in the relational role of the Father as a point of reference for the Son and the Spirit. Finally, although these two forms of unity are identified by the Cappadocians we will suggest that the second is more adequately located with the Spirit by Augustine.