I came to know Gareth Moore’s work, initially, by being asked to be the publisher’s reader for what was later published as Believing in God (T.&T. Clark 1988). The book presents one of the most masterly analyses of “belief in God” in the philosophy of religion. The original title of the manuscript was “God as Nothing,” in which it was argued that we cannot understand belief in God without understanding what it means to become nothing before him. I suggested, foolishly perhaps, that the title should be changed. On the one hand, given a culture that emphasizes rights more than obligations, I feared that talk of human beings as “nothing” would be mistaken for a denigration of them. On the other hand, I feared that the denial of God as a “something” would be misunderstood as reductionism, or even atheism. The change of title, while it makes central the author’s concern with belief in God, does not indicate the distinctiveness of its discussions. In any event, the book has not had the attention it deserves.

I invited Gareth Moore to the annual philosophy of religion conference at Claremont Graduate University more often than any other speaker. He read the following papers: “Tradition, Authority and the Hiddenness of God” published in Philosophy and the Grammar of Religious Belief ed. Timothy Tessin and Mario von der Ruhr (Macmillan 1995); “Death and Transcendence,” published in Religion without Transcendence? ed. D.Z Phillips and Timothy Tessin (Macmillan 1997); and “Hearing the Voice of God” to be published in Biblical Concepts and Our World ed. D.Z Phillips and Mario von der Ruhr (Palgrave).

The issue of hyper-specialization within the various academic fields has often been raised in the context of recent discussions concerning the purpose or end of the modern university. Theology, one such field in which continual specialization seems prevalent, is further complicated by questions regarding the relationship between faith and the scientific character of theology, as well as the role of the university with regard to that relationship. Though seemingly diverse, a resolution to both of these questions may be found by giving an account of how the sciences, like theology, are specified. It is the purpose of the present article to explore the classical Thomistic position on this subject, and to apply its principles to the case of theology. It is shown that the specification of a science can be understood in terms of both the “formal object which” is known in a given science and the “formal object under which” it is known. The former can provide a correct starting point for managing the multiplicity of “sub-fields” and various specializations within the science of theology, while the latter can help to answer the question of the interrelation between faith and theology as a science in a university setting.

There are a number of places in his works where Thomas Aquinas writes about teaching and learning. Following a summary account of his understanding of education, this paper presents and discusses a neglected source on these matters. The sermon Puer Iesus, probably preached in January 1271, contains thoughts on pedagogy that are, in the words of its Leonine editor, ‘original and of great interest’. The sermon offers a broad sketch of human development in which the adolescence of Christ, the ‘most excellent of teachers’, is appealed to as an inspiration and an example. It raises Christological and pedagogical questions and it is the latter that are considered here. Encouraging his student congregation to listen generously, enquire diligently, respond prudently and meditate attentively, Aquinas outlines for them a practical method of learning that is at once critical and contemplative.

‘Being as communion’ is a phrase that evokes the name of only one person, that of Bishop John D. Zizioulas. It is first and foremost within the context of the Trinity that Zizioulas elaborates his understanding of this concept. Moreover, from his trinitarian understanding of ‘being as communion’ Zizioulas has also elucidated a distinctive understanding of creation, Christology, Christian anthropology, ecclesiology, the Eucharist and eschatology. In so doing Zizioulas has made significant and insightful contributions to Christian theology. I cannot comment on the whole of Zizioulas’ thought in so short an essay, but I would like to examine briefly the topic that interests me the most — the Trinity. I want to highlight the strengths of Zizioulas’ conception of the Trinity as well as to note those aspects that I believe demand greater clarity. In attempting to clarify the ambiguities I will also offer a few suggestions as to how Zizioulas’ trinitarian thought might be further enriched. In the light of all of the above I will conclude by offering some thoughts on advancing ecumenical relations among Eastern and Western theologians.

In the nineteenth century there lived in Norway a theologian whose religious development shows a striking resemblance to that of Cardinal Newman. Although the Norwegian theologian could not well stand an exact comparison with John Henry Newman, for he lacked the Cardinal’s unique genius, there is, however, a psychological likeness between the two men. They belong to the same kind of religious type. Both went through a very slow process of conversion. Both began as clergymen in their national churches, and both ended after much study and mental toil in the Catholic Church.

The name of this Norwegian was Knud Karl Krogh-Tonning. Unlike Newman, he did not have much influence on his contemporaries or on later generations. Until the present day he has been of no importance to the history of the Norwegian Church. In a way this situation is strange, for he made some remarkable contributions to theological literature.

Krogh-Tonning (born in 1842) was brought up in a very happy and cultivated home. His parents belonged to the Evangelical- Lutheran Church, which is the State Church of Norway. His mother differed from the ordinary Protestants by attributing great importance to the sacraments, and by stressing the ethical aspect of Christianity. Krogh-Tonning has said that his mother was the first to turn his thoughts towards Catholicism.

When Krogh-Tonning had entered the University of Oslo to study theology, he soon came under the influence of two most powerful professors, Gisle Johnson and Carl Paul Caspari. The theological faculty was under the direction of these two professors. However, their influence was not limited to the university.

On March 24, 1958, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan sent a remarkable memo to a member of his Cabinet, Dr Charles Hill, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The memo read:

Introducing the hermeneutical problem

It is a pity that theological communication so often gets bogged down because a key concept is never satisfactorily and clearly explained. The key idea then degenerates to a kind of magical word, periodically invoked, temporarily perhaps exciting, but ultimately mystifying. A few years ago the word ‘existential’ underwent this process of degeneration. Although the word had a clear meaning in Heidegger’s early philosophy, and indeed, as ‘existential analysis’, signified an enduringly valuable method, the basic insight represented by it failed to shape and illuminate the popular theological discussion. (A fine example of the kind of communication that should have taken place on a much wider scale regarding this word is still Cornelius Ernst’s 1961 Introduction to Karl Rahner’s Theological Investigations.) Instead, the word ‘existential’ became used indiscriminately for anything remotely ‘relevant’ or ‘concrete’. This inflation ended by making the word worthless and unusable—where everything had to be ‘existential’, nothing could be any more. And the mystifying communicators and the befogged hearers concluded about the same time that the word had become meaningless. This need not have been the case: as so often before, a chance had been missed.

Perhaps something similar is happening now with the word ‘hermeneutical’. Wheareas ‘existential’ was used indiscriminately, ‘hermeneutical’ is often used in an almost gnostic fashion, as if allusion is being made to some arcane discipline allowing a privileged few access to philosophical and theological mysteries. And before the general meaning of the word has been assimilated within theological discussion and satisfactorily communicated, particular ‘hermeneutics’ have begun to proliferate, producing a situation at once labyrinthine and mystifying.

Denys Turner’s attractive argument for the compatibility, nay the virtual identity, of Marxism and Christianity (New Blackfriars, June 1975) is excellent as far as it goes, and I have little to quarrel with in it. But this is because it doesn’t go very far. So I’d like to press him to go on to the next step.

Marxism and Christianity are at one—indeed, are one—because each affirms that it is only by means of revolutionary socialist praxis that a community of human love can be attained, through the overturning of the capitalist system of human exploitation which for us in the present era is the incarnation of everything which is opposed to such love. All right: but then I have to ask myself am I a practising Marxist or only a sham Marxist? A practising Christian or only a sham Christian? Until some objective criteria have been established by which I can judge my own praxis, nothing has been done to help me except to juggle with words. Now it is at just this point, it seems to me, that Marxism fails because, unlike Christianity, it refuses to take the metaphysical basis of ethics seriously. Or, to put the point the other way round, it is at this point that Christianity, in going beyond Marxism, ceases to be wholly compatible with it.

This article reviews the church and culture relationship developed in Gaudium et Spes and Lumen Gentium and proposes a Catholic account of modernity as a way in which the contemporary mission of the church in today's culture can be creatively and faithfully carried forward. After an initial outlining of the definitions of church and culture proposed by the Vatican documents, I then go on to position my proposal of a Catholic modernity in relation to some important current accounts of the church and culture relationship that tend towards a rejection of secular culture. I argue that Protestant accounts of modernity have dominated in philosophical and sociological theories and draw on my previous work on Max Weber to illustrate the significance of this for developing a Catholic account of modernity. I conclude by sketching some of the important issues which would need to be addressed in formulating a systematic account of a Catholic modernity.

This paper argues that being there, actually existing, is a notion that cannot be explicated by formal logicians, cannot be defined in terms of conscious perception, and cannot be satisfactorily explained using the theories of mathematics or natural science. So, must we turn to theology to make up for the deficiencies of the methods so far canvassed? The paper concludes by considering the Thomistic identification of God with existence itself, but argues that it would be a mistake to suppose that the mystery of actual existence is thereby dispelled.

A contemporary of Dante’s, opening the Divine Comedy for the first time, would probably have expected to find St. Francis among le beate genti, or at least to hear his praises sung by them, and that independently of any particular interest in the Franciscan Order, such was the esteem in which ‘il santo d‘Assisi’ was held. St. Dominic, on the other hand, an incomparably less popular figure, is unlikely even to have crossed the mind of such a reader except, perhaps, in connection with the well-known confraternity he founded. For the average Catholic of those times, Dominic had already become what he has remained, one of those holy ‘founders’ about whom one knows or cares little, well-nigh obscured as they are by the universally accepted and venerated institutes which they founded. Even the Dominicans themselves seem, on the whole, not to have fully appreciated the extraordinary character of the man to whom they owed so much. Apart from the biographical sketch in the Libellus of Jordan of Saxony (d. 1237), Dominic’s immediate successor in the government of the Order—a sketch which was historical rather than hagiographical, written that is to describe ‘the origin of the Order of Preachers’—and from the depositions by the witnesses at the two Processes, at Bologna and Toulouse, prior to his canonization in 1234, biographical material concerning Dominic is sparse, or, rather, scattered piecemeal among conventional legendary accretions.

The purpose of this work is to explicate Thomas Aquinas' teaching regarding the nature of satisfaction, punishment, and the relation between the two in the Passion of Christ. This task is undertaken as a response to recent treatments of Aquinas' soteriology that misinterpret his understanding of the penal nature of Christ's work of satisfaction. I argue that Aquinas' explication of Christ's ‘satisfactory punishment’ on the cross does not reduce the salvific significance of the Passion to the mere endurance of a penalty in order to fulfill an arbitrary legal requirement, nor does it reflect a notion of God as wrathful and delighting in human suffering. Rather, the punishment that constitutes the Passion is a complex reality that is willed by God and chosen by Christ as a fitting means of attaining the end of his saving mission, namely, the healing and elevation of sinners.

Theorists with strongly communal understandings of the common good frequently criticize the modern liberal state for failing to provide for the common good and for interfering with local communities. These critics, however, are less clear about what role, if any, the state should play in modern life. In order to trace a middle ground between liberal attempts to justify the state and too hasty communitarian condemnations of it, I develop a two-tiered theory of political justification. All political justification is to be seen in relationship to the common good of a community. While only local communities have a common good and a direct claim to political authority, the state can still have an indirect and derivative authority. After examining how this theory applies to thinkers such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Sandel, and Charles Taylor, I propose an appropriate model for the relationship between local communities and the state.

Top Gun: Maverick is a film about the American Empire: its ethos and hopes, its illusions and contradictions. This essay considers the propaganda content of the movie, and reflects on what it reveals and conceals about the wider political and social context of America's imperial project. The film provides insights on the shifting expectations, and troubles facing the American Empire in 2022. In reflecting upon the sequel and comparing it with the original, it is possible to notice changes and new prerogatives in the self-perception of the United States, as well as an overall imperial fatigue and tension. In particular, this essay evaluates the use of missionary language and metaphors in the film, and considers that empires have a chronic incapacity, or maybe impossibility, in abdicating their power. Top Gun: Maverick shows that an empire, any empire, would simply cease to be such if it would not believe in its own myth of perennial youth. Ultimately, this essay considers the burden of the American Empire: its damnation is its immortality, its illusion of eternity.