Jonathan Lear's account of Aristotle and the human person as a systematic understander can shed light on how Thomas Aquinas sees the passage from contemplation of worldly things to the contemplation of the divine essence. In grasping the essences of mundane particulars, the systematic understander ‘spiritualizes’ them, and simultaneously comes to grasp both self and God. This account of contemplation can further help illuminate Aquinas's understanding of the nature of the theological task as an exercise of systematic understanding of the particulars from which the scriptural narrative of signs and examples is constructed. Finally, the theologian's own path as a systematic understander is retraced for his or her students in sharing the fruits of contemplation through teaching.

In this paper I intend to discuss the question in philosophy of mind called “Prior's Puzzle” within a hylomorphic, that is, a broadly Aristotelian-Thomistic, context. After laying the groundwork explaining hylomorphism in natural philosophy and basic psychology in Part I, I will examine Prior's puzzle about nonexistent mental objects in Part II. The connection between these two issues will become clear as the paper progresses, but the fundamental principle that will guide my presentation is that of intentionality, or “directedness.”

This article builds upon the analogical reflections of John Milbank – taking his work in a distinctly “projectionist” direction. It is argued that analogy (as Milbank understands it) allows us to talk of “projection” in theology without succumbing to Feuerbach's anthropological reductionism. In my discussion of Milbank's work, what is emphasized is the “poetic” nature of theological analogy, in which the divine and human creations intersect. God is revealed in and through the human, through the things we make. In its development of projectionist themes, Milbank's work, it is shown, demonstrates several potentials for feminist theology and philosophy of religion. In particular, his analogical vision helps to overcome any sort of dichotomy between human and divine, “projection” and “truth”. Crucially in this regard, Milbank's analogy stresses the importance, not only of our “makings”, but also of the divine initiative.

In recent decades, scholars have increasingly reached agreement on how to interpret Aquinas’ account of the rational grounding of faith. Drawing comparisons between Aquinas’ position and Alvin Plantinga's “Reformed Epistemology”, many commentators hold that according to Thomas, belief that the articles of faith are divinely revealed (and thus, true) can be rational even absent naturally perceptible evidence that the articles are so revealed. In Plantinga's terms, belief in the articles of faith is “properly basic”. Although this interpretation is plausible, its proponents have further argued or implied that Aquinas’ account only renders basic belief in the articles rationally justified in an “externalist” sense. Thomas’ observation that there is naturally perceptible evidence (e.g. miracles performed by prophets) that the articles are revealed is supposedly crucially important, because only the perception of such evidence renders belief in the articles justified in an internalist sense. In this article, I argue to the contrary that on Aquinas’ account, one with basic belief in the articles can have “internalist” justification for her belief without possessing naturally perceptible evidence that the articles are revealed. Thomas’ contention that basic belief in the articles of faith is rationally appropriate need not render him an “externalist” about epistemic justification.

The discovery that Neanderthals once existed raises the question of their relationship with homo sapiens. Neanderthals have been studied in various disciplines, giving rise to a range of opinions about them. This article raises the question in a theological perspective, asking what a Thomist should make of the status of Neanderthals, whether they were created in the image of God and Christ died for their sins. Having examined what light might be thrown on their status by that of angels and aliens, it is asked whether Neanderthals are part of the same human family as sapiens. Genetics has shown that sapiens and Neanderthals had offspring, leaving Eurasian sapiens with about two per cent Neanderthal DNA, including our Lady, and implying that, when the Word became flesh, the Word became partly Neanderthal. Since reconciling Catholic teaching on Monogenism with the results of population genetics implies interbreeding between humans properly defined by a subsistent immaterial soul and a wider population, there is reason to ask whether the meeting of Neanderthals and sapiens may also have been an example of interbreeding. Possible evidence for Neanderthals possessing a subsistent immaterial soul, and so being part of the same human family as sapiens, is assessed.

I examine Jacques Maritain's assertion that his godfather, the Catholic writer Léon Bloy, was both an artist and a mystic, capable of reaching the heights of mystical contemplation of God. First examining this assertion in light of Maritain's mystical theology and philosophy of creativity, I show that a conventional reading of their operative principles renders mystical experience and artistic experience essentially different in their respective modes and objects of knowledge. Drawing on Maritain's personal reflections on Bloy and recent developments in Maritain scholarship, however, I then make the case that by virtue of relatively unexplored elements in Maritain's testimony and theoretical principles, the Christian artist can also have the experience of the Christian mystic when they direct their work to the mysteries of the Christian faith. I call this convergence ‘Infused-Poetic Contemplation’.

The account of prudence found in Aquinas's Summa Theologiae and the Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics is bound up with his endorsement of Aristotle's notion of the Natural Slave in his Commentary on Aristotle's Politics. This connection not only hobbles his account of the virtue of prudence, but also weakens other areas of his theology, including his account of providence. A creative rereading of Aquinas's biblical commentaries, however, affords Aquinas the opportunity to correct himself. Aquinas's commentaries on Paul, especially the Commentary on Philippians, provide ample resources for doing so. The Christ hymn of Philippians 2:5-11 forms the cornerstone of a thoroughly Christological, even Apocalyptic, account of prudence, which overcomes the tensions in Aquinas's account of prudence resulting from his endorsement of natural slavery. This scriptural reformulation of prudence heightens the stress on exemplification even further and in so doing makes its exercise more conducive to peaceableness. Due to the political dimensions of prudence, these shifts have an ecclesiological dimension that reveals Aquinas's affinity with Giorgio Agamben's philosophical account of mendicant life.

Natural Law theory is the theory that nature has built within it a set of objective norms or laws which are universally applicable and can be discovered by reason. It is derived from nature rather than from the rules of society in determining an objectivist moral theory. It has a long history of tradition beginning with the ancient Greeks and Romans up to the present day.

The purpose of this essay is to argue Darwin's theory of natural law can be accommodated by Aquinas’ theory of natural law. The secondary literature of both figures is vast and changing, but this essay will mostly be restricted to looking at their primary texts on the topic. From this, it will be evident they shared many thoughts in common – the primary one being that morality begins with biology. There are objections to the compatibility of their theories, but space restricts me to addressing only two of them: teleology and immutability of species.