Thomas Aquinas is celebrated for many things in the history of Christian theology, but one is the revolutionary place he gives to the thesis that Christ acquired knowledge by way of empirical experience. That his claim should be so revolutionary strikes us today as odd. Any reflection on Christ's knowledge ordinarily begins today by stressing how the Word of God assumed our ordinary human limited ways of knowing. In medieval times, however, theologians found it extremely difficult to accept that Christ acquired knowledge by the normal empirical, experiential route. A crucial role in Aquinas's theological advance beyond this position was played by his philosophical commitments, within the wider context of the soteriological character of his Christology. However, there are problems involved in Aquinas's particular theological position on Christ's acquired knowledge and his wider picture of Christ's knowledge. The same philosophical means that enabled Aquinas to recognise the reality of Christ's acquiring knowledge also led him into an overall picture of the perfection of Christ's knowledge that was not so satisfactory. Part of the solution to the difficulties into which Aquinas gets himself can be found in a philosophical position already employed by him in his mature account of Christ's knowledge.

What the late Stephen J Gould baptized ultra-Darwinism is anti-evolutionary. In so being, it leads to the undermining of science, rationality, and, lastly, to ethical nihilism, wherein any notion of humanism is impossible, and this for one simple reason – there is now no such thing as a human. In addition, we argue that ultra-Darwinism is a progeny of crass philosophical dualism, and this leads it to despise matter and the material world, even though, paradoxically, it espouses materialism. We conclude that the theory of evolution invalidates ultra-Darwinism.

In a recent contribution to this journal Loughlin (2011) reflected on the place of wonder in Newman's education. This instructive piece followed a pattern in which Newman is regarded as having made positive contributions to educational debates. It is this pattern or assumption about Newman's contribution to education, particularly for the theory or philosophy of Catholic education that will be the focus in this article. It will be explained that there is some ambiguity over how much Newman's arguments for liberal education are actually grounded in more general theological arguments about the distinctive nature of Catholic education. In what follows it will be argued that a more general analysis of Newman on education draws attention to a wider issue concerning what ought to be the relationship between theology and the theory or philosophy of education. It will be proposed that Newman down played the role of theology in defending liberal education and this has implications for those who might want to appeal to him now in terms of guiding debates about the philosophy of Catholic education.

Developments in technology and communications have enhanced the status and role of imaging. They have resulted not just in the excellent quality of images but also in the speed and ease of distributing or communicating them. But with the welcome advances have also come undesirable and even threatening consequences for both individuals and society generally. These have presented challenges and issues which need to be addressed urgently. The essay considers these from a philosophical perspective. Focusing first on the tension between image and reality, it provides a philosophical background to the debate. It then discusses the question of truth and the related issues of the right to know, freedom of speech and privacy. It provides the foundation for these fundamental rights but also examines the tensions or conflicts in their exercise. The essay then offers and discusses some guidelines to deal with these challenges and issues; namely, the criteria of appropriateness and acceptability and the importance of accountability. It suggests that in addition, given the frailty of human nature and the lessons of history, society also needs the support of laws and policies.

This essay supports William Cavanaugh's thesis in The Myth of Religious Violence that the distinction between the “religious” and the “secular” is arbitrary. This essay also accepts the claim that this arbitrary distinction can be used to form unhelpful inversely-valued dichotomies for the sake of ideological or sectarian ends. However, the current essay seeks to show that this binary goes in the opposite direction as well. Sectarian outlooks of various kinds also postulate a strict and inversely valued dichotomy between the believing community and the world, where the former is the locus of truth and life and the latter, falsehood and death. Instead of this model of ethics, I commend an approach that upholds the prospect of concord between the believing community and the world, of the religious and the secular, even if these are somewhat inevitably arbitrary categories. In this approach, religious and civil loyalties are not pitted against each other, but rather exist on a continuum of provenance and perfection.

The Catholic Church claims that its ethical teaching, especially on sex, is based upon natural law. I first show that natural law theories prior to the Middle Ages provide no authority for the Church's teaching on sex. I then examine Aquinas's teaching on natural functions and natural law in the two Summae. I suggest that he partly anticipates Enlightenment thinking about law and morals. I compare his theory of natural law with that of Germain Grisez and John Finnis. Finally, I examine the notion of a principle of practical reasoning and indicate how such principles could be formulated to correspond to elements in human nature.