In this paper, I defend Gareth Moore from the charge that he espoused some kind of crypto-atheism in Believing in God. I do so by examining the case against Gareth outlined in Howard Robinson's New Blackfriars article “Gareth Moore's Radical Wittgensteinianism”. I examine both the directly textual arguments Robinson presents, as well as his claim that Gareth adhered to a kind of “radical Wittgensteinianism” that involves, among other things, a commitment to materialism. More importantly, I emphasize the true integrity of Believing in God. By this I mean two things: like any worthwhile exercise in philosophy, the book has to be read as forming an integral whole. This requires both an appreciation of Gareth's philosophical and religious motives in writing it and a sense of how it hangs together as a “seamless garment”. In addition, I mean the forthrightness of Gareth's efforts to be faithful to Christianity, not a Christianity of mere – or as he puts it “empty” – belief, but a Christianity that is to be lived out truthfully in thought, word, and deed.

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.

Thomas Aquinas, like many other, but by no means all medieval theologians and philosophers, espoused a theory of truth by identity. Truth exists primarily in the mind, but insofar as it realises the truth of things, truth exists in things also. Both truth and meaning are inherent to form, which shines forth in things to render them as things, or as exemplars of universal essences. In the event and act of knowledge, form as species migrates from things into one's mind by a process involving at once passive stamping, active abstraction, and imaginative mediation. To know in this manner is to manifest, and express further the truth of things which is intrinsic to their very being. It is not merely to think logically or coherently, or to judge correctly as to evidence, though these things are certainly involved. Nor is it to ‘represent’ in a detached fashion a supposedly objective reality that is in itself alien to meaning or truthfulness.

In the nineteen sixties, when the author became a Dominican, the province went through a profound crisis. This article asks how it was able to survive this crisis and find new life and vigour. It did so because the brethren were usually able to engage in constructive dialogue. This was due to three characteristics of the province. As British, it embraced diversity in its core; the intellectual tradition of the province, an open Thomism, pushed it beyond any simplistic opposition between the tradition and progress. There is a tradition of brotherhood often overflowing into friendship which held the brethren together in times of crisis.

This article aims at reinstating an older interpretation (offered e.g. by R. H. Lightfoot) of the astonishment, fear, and silent flight with which three women responded to the message they heard from the angel in Jesus's open and empty tomb. It was an appropriate reaction to the astonishing revelation of the resurrection. The article argues that this reaction is not to be reckoned as an unexpected failure on the part of the women. Throughout Mark's Gospel they proved exemplary in their following of Jesus, right through to being present at his crucifixion. Mary Magdalene and her two companions remained temporarily silent until they could deliver the angel's message to the appropriate audience, the male disciples.

The long-term ecclesiological trajectory of Pope Francis is towards a synodal Church. He has chosen this topic for the next World Synod of Bishops in 2022. Though a key theme of his pontificate, synodality is a contested notion. In 2018 the International Theological Commission (ITC) published its reflections on synodality in the life and mission of the Church. This article traces the understanding of synodality in the ITC document, offers an appraisal, and looks at some of the challenges facing Francis’ synodal project.

This essay uses Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae to argue that a person living in what the Catholic tradition calls the “state of grace” has a greater capacity to appreciate sense pleasure than one who is not. Aquinas believes sense pleasures conduce to good if reason elevates them and integrates them into a Christian's life. However, heightened appreciation of sense pleasure requires three conditions. First, the Christian must seek licit, reasonable pleasures that both satisfy external criteria and leave the person internally well-ordered. Second, he must attempt continual purification through asceticism, since the sense appetite tends to rebel against the guidance of reason. However, asceticism is not an end in itself, but it rather assists the Christian in integration that ultimately allows for a full, rightly ordered appreciation of sense pleasures. Third, the Christian must not seek sense pleasure as an end in itself but receive it as a gift and pledge of higher joys. Ultimately, the Thomistic approach toward sense pleasure is one of appreciation and integration rather than distrust. While a Christian might experience quantitatively less sense pleasure, his more integrated, qualitative experience is better.

Hinton's defence of Gareth's philosophy is welcome - but I don't think it works. This is because he does not show how, on Gareth's theory, ‘God’ can be referential, and, if it is not referential, then ‘belief in God’ cannot be taken in any literal sense. Sadly, I stand by my original claim that the radical, Phillipsian Wittgensteinianism that Gareth adopts is a form of informal positivism that only allows an expressivist sense to religious, and, indeed, all metaphysical language.

On January 6th, 2021 following a ‘Save America’ rally held by President Donald Trump, supporters violently attacked the U.S. Capitol with the aim to stop Congress’ verification of election results certifying President elect Joe Biden. The subsequent press coverage on this tragedy provided a variety of labels for the violence: insurrection, rebellion, riot, protest, etc. To understand what type of act this was, I utilize Thomas Aquinas distinction of ‘sedition’ and ‘rebellion’ as a conceptual model. I argue that the attack on the Capitol was a form of political sedition, which Aquinas held to be an immoral and unjustified attack on proper political authority. In connection with this claim, I discuss Aquinas’ political theory and his criteria of a justified armed rebellion against political tyranny as a way to understand the events at the U.S. Capitol and to help us think clearer about legitimate and illegitimate civilian political violence in the future.

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 essay considers possible answers to the question, 'When will Christ come again?', and argues that the Second Coming is most intelligible not as an arbitrary arrest of history but as an act of mercy in circumstances which cry out for it.

In this text, I explore the contribution of the Dominican, Osmund Lewry, to medieval scholarship by focusing on his work on the medieval Dominican, Robert Kilwardby (1215-1279). I examine in some detail one area of Kilwardby's thought that was first noted by Lewry: the question of how the principles of scientific knowledge are acquired. In order to do so, I will briefly connect Kilwardby's answer to this question with those of his two more famous Dominican contemporaries, Albert the Great (ca. 1200-1280) and Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274). The aim of this paper is to give to provide a glimpse of the outstanding contribution of both Kilwardby and Lewry to the development of medieval philosophy and the scholarship on medieval philosophy.

Howard Robinson believes, and would have the rest of us believe, that Gareth Moore was the equivalent of an atheist. To which I say, once again: there is not a single good reason to believe that Gareth was any such thing. I begin with a reminder about our duty to think of Gareth as innocent until proven guilty. I then argue that Gareth's insistence that there is no such thing as an invisible person named ‘God’ did not commit him to atheism. I show that people such as Herbert McCabe, whose orthodoxy is unimpeachable, say the same sort of thing. I then demonstrate that Gareth said nothing that would imply that, on his view, ‘God’ is not a referring expression. I end by explaining that Gareth embraced a theory of truth fully consistent with moderate expressivism.

Robert Barry argues that man's condition in a state of pure nature and man's condition in the state of original sin are one and the same. This article aims to show that this thesis is false and is not the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas. The Angelic Doctor teaches that man in pure nature would be more capable of doing the good proportionate to his nature and would be able to love God above all things with a natural love. Important here is the truth posited by many in the Thomist commentatorial tradition, namely, that on account of sin man is directly averted from his supernatural end and at least indirectly averted from his natural end. Furthermore, this thesis has undesirable consequences, albeit consequences unintended by Barry, for Christology and soteriology. We must understand what pertains to human nature as such if we are to understand the various states in which we find human nature, including in Christ. If a natural analogue to supernatural charity cannot even in principle obtain, charity will be something alien to human nature. Christ came not only to elevate us to supernatural life and divine friendship, but to heal human nature.