The Promise of Christian Humanism Thomas Aquinas on Hope

by Dominic Doyle

Overview

This book explores and enriches the tradition of Christian humanism and will be of great interest to many readers, including secular intellectuals, students of modernity, and Christian theologians. Christian faith promotes human flourishing. Despite the suspicions voiced by modern atheism and secular humanism, God offers us something greater than what we could attain on our own. In this remarkable book, Dominic Doyle, in conversation with Charles Taylor, Nicholas Boyle, and Thomas Aquinas, shows how the Christian virtue of hope breathes new life into humanism, enabling believers to approach God as the human good—God fulfills what it means to be human.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780824524692
Publisher:	Herder & Herder
Publication date:	05/01/2012
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Dominic F. Doyle is an associate professor of theology at Boston College's School of Theology and Ministry. He holds degrees from Cambridge University, Harvard Divinity School, and Boston College and has received the Catherine LaCugna Award to New Scholars (CTSA) and the John Templeton Award for Theological Promise.

Table of Contents

Introduction Hope and Christian Humanism 1

The Question and an Overview of the Argument

Method

The Meaning of "Christian Humanism"

Chapter 1 The Renewal of Christian Humanism: Charles Taylor and Nicholas Boyle 6

The Christian Humanist Project in the Twentieth Century

Christian Humanisms: Past, Present, and Future Orientations

Jacques Maritain and the Quest for Synthesis

Charles Taylor and Nicholas Boyle

Taylor's and Boyle's Christian Humanisms

Taylor's and Boyle's Christian Humanist Interpretations of Modern Identity

Conclusion

Chapter 2 The Sources of Christian Humanism: The Problem and a Proposal 24

The Limitations of the Contemporary Renewal of Christian Humanism

The Limitations of Boyle's Christian Humanism

The Limitations of Taylor's Christian Humanism

A Partial Solution: Jacques Maritain and John Courtney Murray on Faith in the Incarnation

Jacques Maritain

John Courtney Murray

A Proposal: Thomistic Hope as Theological Source for Christian Humanism

Clarification by Contrast: Rowan Greer's via media

Objections to the Proposal

Gordon Kaufman

Jürgen Moltmann

Nicholas Wolterstorff

Conclusion

Chapter 3 Presuppositions of Aquinas's Doctrine of Hope 49

The Creator-Creation Relationship as Non-competing

Creation's Participation in the Creator as the Origin of Its Being

Creation's Return to God as the Ultimate Good

The Natural Desire for God

The Intellect's Desire for the Vision of God

The will's Desire for the Absolute Good

The "Need" for Grace

Grace Perfects Nature

Grace Moves Human Nature to Its End

Grace as Participation in God's Nature

Conclusion

Chapter 4 Aquinas on Hope 72

From Grace to Virtue

The Passion of Hope

Hope as an Infused, Theological Virtue

Hope Distinguished from Faith and Charity

Specification

Faith

Hope

Charity

Hope Related to Faith, and Charity

Conclusion

Chapter 5 Hope and Religious Transcendence 96

From Religious Transcendence to Theological Hope

Faith, Hope, and Charity as the Potency, Motion, and Act of Christian Humanism

The Meaning of Hope as motus

Hope's Motion as the Process of Actualizing the Humanistic Potency of Faith

Charity as the Act, or Culmination, of Christian Humanism

Benefits of Understanding Faith, Hope, Charity as the Potency, Motion, Act of Christian Humanism

The Existential Significance of Specifying Transcendence as Hope

The Way of Transcendence as Cruciform

The Goal of Transcendence as Eschatological

Conclusion

Chapter 6 Hope and the Present Human Good 119

Eschatological Hope Protects and Sustains Secular Hopes

Eschatological Hope Protects Secular Hopes

Eschatological Hope Sustains Secular Hopes

Despair Reveals Hope as the Underlying Modality of Secular Action

Secular Hopes Participate in Eschatological Hope as the Means of Its Realization

Clarification by Contrast: Spe salvi on the Relationship between Eschatological and Secular Hopes

Eschatological Hope Orders Secular Hopes to Their Transcendent Goal

Secular Hopes Constitute the Means of Eschatological Hope's Realization

How Secular Hopes Prepare the Person for God: Two Examples

The Fourth Commandment

The Fourth and Fifth Beatitudes

Hope in the World: Not Resignation but Re-Creation

Not Resignation …

… but Re-Creation

Conclusion

Conclusion The Humanism of Hope 145

Addressing the Conflict of Interpretation over Vatican II

Fundamentalism: Substituting Security for Hope

Select Bibliography 154

Notes 163

Index 226

Endcards 232

Editorial Reviews

"Does hope in a transcendent God help or hinder human flourishing in the world? In this impressively lucid and wide-ranging study, Dominic Doyle explores some of the ways in which contemporary Christian humanism, drawing on Thomas Aquinas' treatment of the virtue of hope, may respond to this question by seeking congruence between faith and reason, Christianity and culture."  —Nicholas Lash, Cambridge University

"Presents a lively and learned discussion of the most important topic of theological reflection in the present age—our understanding of God's relation to humanity. Doyle's reading of the Thomistic contribution to Christian humanism is at once deeply rooted in the theological tradition and at the same time conversant with contemporary intellectual currents in Europe and North America. Every reader will find instructive Doyle's incisive reading of hope as the virtue most needed today. His penetrating reading of the relation between "Christ and culture" is fair-minded, intellectually rigorous, and challenging to readers from a variety of intellectual perspectives. This is a book that is a must-read for serious theologians, philosophers, and ethicists."  —Stephen Pope, Boston College

From the Publisher