The Primacy of God: The Virtue of Religion in Catholic Theology

The Primacy of God: The Virtue of Religion in Catholic Theology
Author: R. Jared Staudt
Publisher: Emmaus Academic
Total Pages: 450
Release: 2022-02-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1645851699

To contemporary minds, the notion of justice toward God is seldom considered and often foreign. Far more discussed is how God might either undermine or motivate social justice. The Primacy of God by R. Jared Staudt offers an important intervention. With the aid of St. Thomas Aquinas, Staudt argues that it is vital for both contemporary society and contemporary Catholic theology to return to the traditional view of God as the one to whom all human and social action must be ordered and to recover the virtue of religion as the virtue which orders all other virtues to God. Not only does Staudt helpfully remind readers of the ancient philosophical and biblical notion of worship as a dictate of the natural law, he also illuminates the way in which Christian liturgy, as an enactment of Christ’s high priesthood, is the great fulfillment of natural and biblical worship. Accordingly, Staudt secures religion as essential for the virtue of love. This brings Staudt to criticize modern theologians like Karl Barth, who claimed that religion is inherently idolatrous, as well as Karl Rahner, who claimed that love of neighbor is the highest moral act. Staudt also considers the question of religious truth in light of the plurality of religions, soliciting the assistance of Hans Urs von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger, as well as the way in which religion relates to the development of culture, engaging the great Catholic social historian Christopher Dawson. The Primacy of God is a much-needed work that ought to set the agenda for Catholic theology in the twenty-first century.

The Primacy of God

The Primacy of God
Author: R. Jared Staudt
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2022
Genre: God (Christianity)
ISBN: 9781645851684

"The Primacy of God, the notion of justice toward God is seldom considered and often foreign. Far more discussed is how God might either undermine or motivate social justice. The Primacy of God by R. Jared Staudt offers an important intervention. With the aid of St. Thomas Aquinas, Staudt argues that it is vital for both contemporary society and contemporary Catholic theology to return to the traditional view of God as the one to whom all human and social action must be ordered and to recover the virtue of religion as the virtue which orders all other virtues to God. Not only does Staudt helpfully remind readers of the ancient philosophical and biblical notion of worship as a dictate of the natural law, he also illuminates the way in which Christian liturgy, as an enactment of Christ's high priesthood, is the great fulfillment of natural and biblical worship. Accordingly, Staudt secures religion as essential for the virtue of love. This brings Staudt to criticize modern theologians like Karl Barth, who claimed that religion is inherently idolatrous, as well as Karl Rahner, who claimed that love of neighbor is the highest moral act. Staudt also considers the question of religious truth in light of the plurality of religions, soliciting the assistance of Hans Urs von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger, as well as the way in which religion relates to the development of culture, engaging the great Catholic social historian Christopher Dawson. The Primacy of God is a much-needed work that ought to set the agenda for Catholic theology in the twenty-first century"--

The Territories of Science and Religion

The Territories of Science and Religion
Author: Peter Harrison
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2015-04-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 022618448X

Peter Harrison takes what we think we know about science and religion, dismantles it, and puts it back together again in a provocative new way. It is a mistake to assume, as most do, that the activities and achievements that are usually labeled religious and scientific have been more or less enduring features of the cultural landscape of the West. Harrison, by setting out the history of science and religion to see when and where they come into being and to trace their mutations over timereveals how distinctively Western and modern they are. Only in the past few hundred years have religious beliefs and practices been bounded by a common notion and set apart from the secular. And the idea of the natural sciences as discrete activities conducted in isolation from religious and moral concerns is even more recent, dating from the nineteenth century. Putting the so-called opposition between religion and science into historical perspective, as Harrison does here for the first time, has profound implications for our understanding of the present and future relations between them. "

Free for Christ: Religious Obedience and Thomistic Moral Theology

Free for Christ: Religious Obedience and Thomistic Moral Theology
Author: Mother Mary Christa Nutt, R.S.M.
Publisher: Emmaus Academic
Total Pages: 447
Release: 2024-08-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1645853926

What is it about the practice of obedience to God that makes it significant for human happiness and sanctity? And how should the obedience proper to vowed religious life be understood relative to the responsibilities of conscience and personal freedom? In the present day, religious obedience is often viewed either as a negative cramping of personal autonomy by an external authority, or as a positive submission to law that somehow assures one’s fidelity, but the common thread for both perspectives is a distinctly modern approach to obedience characterized by legalism and voluntarism. In Free for Christ, Mother Mary Christa Nutt, R.S.M., proposes a different approach to religious obedience that foregrounds virtue-based moral agency rooted in metaphysics and the mystery of God, examining obedience not simply in relation to commands and laws but as a spiritual, philosophical, and theological reality—one that situates the human person in relation to God, the Church, and those others who share this religious life. Taking her starting point from Thomas Aquinas, Nutt examines obedience as a dimension of prudence and worship, that is, as a way that the human being can become relative to God as first source and final end, and thus as a way that the grace of Christ can take deeper root as a path to authentic freedom and interiority. From this ground of Thomistic metaphysics and ethics emerges a theological anthropology of obedience closely tied to Aquinas’s teaching on providence and religion.

My Catholic Faith

My Catholic Faith
Author: Louis LaRavoire Morrow
Publisher: Ravenio Books
Total Pages: 339
Release: 2015-08-27
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

In My Catholic Faith, Louis LaRavoire Morrow presents a comprehensive guide to the beliefs, practices, and traditions of the Catholic Church. This book serves as a valuable resource for both newcomers to the faith and lifelong Catholics seeking to deepen their understanding of their religious heritage. Morrow explores the core tenets of Catholicism, offering insights into the sacraments, prayer, and the role of the Church in daily life.

Compendium

Compendium
Author: Catholic Church
Publisher: USCCB Publishing
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2006
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781574557251

As hunger for the faith continues to grow, Pope Benedict XVI gives the Catholic Church the food it seeks with 598 questions and answers in the

The Trinitarian Wisdom of God: Louis Bouyer’s Theology of the God-World Relationship

The Trinitarian Wisdom of God: Louis Bouyer’s Theology of the God-World Relationship
Author: Keith Lemna
Publisher: Emmaus Academic
Total Pages: 494
Release: 2022-12-16
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1645852482

Christian theology in recent decades has seen an explosion in the number of books published seeking a renewal of Trinitarian ontology. There has also been a proliferation of studies dedicated to the theology of Wisdom. Few if any of these books on the Trinity or on Wisdom have drawn for inspiration on the comprehensive vision of French Oratorian priest Louis Bouyer (1913–2004), one of the greatest theologians of the modern age. Bouyer produced a comprehensive work of theology that integrated these two seminal concerns based on a vast “re-sourcing” of the Christian tradition. Dr. Keith Lemna explores Bouyer’s achievement in depth, showing that at the heart of his venture was a deep, contemplative penetration into God’s mediation to the world—his creation, sustenance, and redemption of creation in the Wisdom of the Eternal Son. Bouyer is a decisive resource for theologians wanting to develop the Christian understanding of the Trinity and creation based on tradition but in dialogue with modern cosmological thought. The Trinitarian Wisdom of God: Louis Bouyer’s Theology of the God-World Relationship gets to the heart of Louis Bouyer’s theology of the God-World relationship more deeply than any other has done before. In doing so, Lemna recovers a great theologian at his best.

Religious Liberty and the Hermeneutic of Continuity: Conservation and Development of Doctrine at Vatican II

Religious Liberty and the Hermeneutic of Continuity: Conservation and Development of Doctrine at Vatican II
Author: R. Michael Dunnigan
Publisher: Emmaus Academic
Total Pages: 511
Release: 2023-10-24
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1645853349

The Second Vatican Council’s declaration Dignitatis Humanae marks a significant advance over prior magisterial teaching about the right to religious liberty, yet the nature of this advance has long been subject to controversy. Is it a true development, conserving and extending what came before? Or does it instead chart a new course entirely, rejecting and replacing the older teaching? In Religious Liberty and the Hermeneutic of Continuity, R. Michael Dunnigan takes up these pressing questions and offers a careful examination of how the claims of Dignitatis Humanae relate to the magisterial precedents set by the papacy in the nineteenth century. With precision and nuance, Dunnigan analyzes the object, scope, and foundation of the right to religious liberty itself, and his analysis culminates in the proposal that the “right” endorsed by Vatican II is not identical with the “rights” condemned by previous popes. Beyond establishing the claims of Dignitatis Humanae as a true development of prior teaching, Dunnigan shows that its contribution to the question of religious liberty has not yet received full appreciation. Indeed, Dunnigan demonstrates how the Vatican II declaration reaffirms, reinforces, and even revivifies prior magisterial teaching on religious liberty through its emphasis on human integrity, which emerges as a foundational but often overlooked principle of continuity.

A Bride Adorned: Mary–Church Perichoresis in Modern Catholic Theology

A Bride Adorned: Mary–Church Perichoresis in Modern Catholic Theology
Author: John L. Nepil
Publisher: Emmaus Academic
Total Pages: 379
Release: 2023-09-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1645853314

Starting in the early to mid-nineteenth century, Catholic theology witnessed a profound retrieval of patristic reflection on the interrelationship of the Virgin Mary and the Church. This dynamic reached a doctrinal high point with the declarations of Vatican II and Pope Paul VI concerning Mary as “type of the Church” and “Mother of the Church,” and it also provided the impetus for further theological exploration of the deeper unity of the Mother of Christ and his mystical body. In A Bride Adorned, John L. Nepil examines how this interrelationship has been formulated in modern theology in terms of perichoresis, a notion of unconfused reciprocity or interpenetration drawn from Christology and Trinitarian theology first applied to Mary and the Church by the nineteenth-century German theologian Matthias Scheeben. In the first part of the study, Nepil treats the foundations of this formulation, outlining its historical background and creative articulation by Scheeben. The second part tracks developments of Scheeben’s insight in the thought of twentieth-century theological luminaries Charles Journet, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Louis Bouyer, and Leo Scheffczyk, each of whom distinctively articulate the shared conviction that neither Mary nor the Church can be understood apart from each other. The third part draws out the far-reaching doctrinal and pastoral implications of this deepened account of the Mary–Church relation, establishing its vital importance for ongoing theological and ecclesial renewal. Through his careful engagement with these figures, Nepil shows how Mary and the Church are to be understood as two realizations of a single mystery. This vantage on Mary and the Church sheds new light on the vision of the Council Fathers at Vatican II, and it charts a course for the Church’s flourishing via a return to her Marian heart.