Book contents
- Virtue and Grace in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas
- Virtue and Grace in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations of Aquinas’s Works
- Introduction
- Part I Virtue and the Developments in Grace
- Part II The Conditions of Virtue Simpliciter
- 4 The Conditions for the Beginning of Virtue Simpliciter
- 5 The Conditions for Perseverance in Virtue Simpliciter
- 6 The Conditions for the End of Virtue Simpliciter
- Part III The Conditions of Virtue Secundum Quid
- Part IV Confirmations and Conclusions
- Conclusion
- Selected Works Cited
- Index
4 - The Conditions for the Beginning of Virtue Simpliciter
from Part II - The Conditions of Virtue Simpliciter
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 September 2020
- Virtue and Grace in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas
- Virtue and Grace in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations of Aquinas’s Works
- Introduction
- Part I Virtue and the Developments in Grace
- Part II The Conditions of Virtue Simpliciter
- 4 The Conditions for the Beginning of Virtue Simpliciter
- 5 The Conditions for Perseverance in Virtue Simpliciter
- 6 The Conditions for the End of Virtue Simpliciter
- Part III The Conditions of Virtue Secundum Quid
- Part IV Confirmations and Conclusions
- Conclusion
- Selected Works Cited
- Index
Summary
The themes of grace and nature were in a phase of development even in the years preceding Thomas Aquinas. This was, in part, due to the innovations within and between speculative frameworks involving the categories of both nature and the supernatural. These developments both were Aquinas’s inheritance and would become the subject of his own innovations. Scholars of Aquinas’s writings throughout the centuries, including Bouillard, Lonergan, and Wawrykow, have gestured toward systematic developments in Aquinas’s theology of grace. While each of these voices has made use of Thomas’s transformations for his own purpose, I have found no study throughout this history that traces the impacts of these shifts on Aquinas’s account of virtue. This is a major aspect of our challenge. Both the dynamic situation occurring in the mid-thirteenth century, combined with Aquinas’s own textual discoveries in the early 1260s, moved his theology of grace in such a manner that one can worthily examine his account of God’s grace for clues to how he understood virtue to act in our moral lives.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Virtue and Grace in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas , pp. 111 - 136Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020