Title
Natura Pura : On the Recovery of Nature in the Doctrine of Grace / Steven A. Long.
ISBN
9780823292196
Published
New York, NY : Fordham University Press, [2022]
Copyright
©2010
Language
English
Language Note
In English.
Description
1 online resource (294 p.)
Other Standard Identifiers
10.1515/9780823292196 doi
Summary
From speculative theology to the exegesis of Aquinas, to contemporary North American philosophy and Catholic social and ethical thought, to the thought of Benedict XVI, this work argues the crucial importance of the proportionate natural end within the context of grace and supernatural beatitude. Long argues that, in the effort to avoid naturalism, Henri de Lubac unwittingly consummated the loss of nature as a normative principle within theology, both doctrinally and exegetically with respect to the teaching of Aquinas. The author argues that this constitutes an understandable but grave error. De Lubac's view of the matter was adopted and extended by Hans Urs von Balthasar in The Theology of Karl Barth, in which Balthasar argues that Aquinas could not even consider pure nature because it was "impossible for him even to make the conceptual distinction implied by this problem," a view contradicted by Aquinas's text. Long argues that in The Theology of Karl Barth, Balthasar's account evacuates nature of its specific ontological density and treats it as "mere createdness as such," a kind of dimensionless point terminating the line of grace. Given the loss of natura within theological method, its recovery requires philosophic instrumentalities. In its third chapter this book argues that by reason of its lack of any unified philosophy of nature or metaphysics, the analytic thought so widespread in Anglophone circles is merely a partial metaphilosophy and so cannot replace the role of classical Thomism within theology. The fourth chapter argues against those who construe affirmation of a proportionate natural end as equivalent to social Pelagianism or minimalism in the public square, engaging the work of Jacques Maritain, Jean Porter, and David Schindler, Sr. In an appendix, the author examines the early thought of Cardinal Ratzinger / Pope Benedict XVI, and its development toward the Regensburg Lecture.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics
text file PDF
Source of Description
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 03. Jan 2023)
Series
Moral Philosophy and Moral Theology
Available in Other Form
print 9780823231058
Frontmatter
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter One: On the Loss, and the Recovery, of Nature as a Theonomic Principle: Reflections on the Nature/Grace Controversy
Chapter Two: A Criticism of Nature as Vacuole for Grace
Chapter Three: On the Impropriety of Treating Theology's Handmaiden like an Analytic
Chapter Four: Why Natura Pura Is Not the Theological Stalking Horse for Secularist Minimalism or Pelagianism
Chapter Five: Conclusion
Appendix: Cardinal Ratzinger and Pope Benedict XVI
Notes
Index
