This collection of seventeen articles originates from a conference held in Ave Maria University in 2011, ‘Philosophy in Theological Education’. The editor, Matthew L. Lamb, notes in the introduction that some of the contributions honour Ralph McInerny's valuable legacy in the field of philosophy and theology (p. xv); who was due to attend the conference, but sadly died the previous year. Like McInerny most of the contributors to the volume write in the Aristotelian‐Thomistic tradition, and this is reflected in the content of the articles, which with one or two exceptions expound different aspects of Aquinas’ understanding of grace perfecting nature by the crowning of human reason in theology. To this end several contributors follow McInerny in emphasising the influence of Aristotle's philosophy on Aquinas's theology.
The articles cover a wide range of topics ranging from the metaphysics of nature to reason and revelation and are organised into five parts. The introductory article by Charles Morerod OP, ‘All Theologians Are Philosophers, Whether Knowingly or Not’ sets the wider scene for the volume, before John O'Callaghan's article on the legitimacy of philosophy as an autonomous discipline prepares the reader with what is next to come when he argues that not only does theology need philosophy, but that the Church is not neutral on which philosophical positons best express the truths of faith.
After these introductory contributions part two contains three articles on, ‘A Need for a Metaphysics of Nature in Theology’. Here Joseph Koterski SJ provides a more general overview of the how the concept of nature functions in theology, while Lawrence Dewan OP presents Aquinas's understanding of how theology and philosophy interact through the concept of creation. Steven A. Long's contribution enters into the question of how to understand Aquinas's use of philosophy, by defending the thesis that he owes a debt to Aristotle in his account of our natural knowledge of God.
Part three turns to the question of human reason and revelation. Here Brian Daley SJ's article on the Logos of reason and the Logos of tradition covers a wide historical sweep from Justin Martyr to the Second Vatican Council, to show how theologians have found a harmony between human reason and divine wisdom. Roger Nutt responds to the challenges to faith standard in modern thinkers such as Bertrand Russell, by using Aquinas to showing how faith is reasonable even if it cannot logically demonstrate all the truths of faith. The only article to deal directly with Scripture in this section is Timothy Bellamah OP's examination of the medieval understanding of how Scripture is to be known in its causes. Here Bellamah traces the influence of thirteenth‐century philosophical developments, notably the discovery of Aristotle's four causes and the distinction between primary and secondary causation, on changes in how theologians understood authorial intention and placed a greater emphasis on the literary sense of Scripture. The remaining article in this section by Kevin White provides a helpful overview of how the reason and order are central to the works of Aquinas, emphasising Aquinas's debt to Aristotle.
The use of philosophy in systematic theology forms the topic of part four. The first two articles, by Gilles Emery OP and John Boyle, take us again into Thomistic studies. Emery gives a summary of Aquinas's understanding of the category of relation, whereas Boyle shows how Aquinas draws our attention to the natural analogies which form the basis of our theological talk of how the Holy Spirit progresses. Guy Mansini OSB provides a different approach to the question of faith and reason by examining the phenomenological ‘Christology of Disclosure’ developed in the works of Robert Sokolowski. The final two in this section concern Mariology. Kevin Flannery SJ reflects on McInerny's Dante and the Blessed Virgin Mary, while Romanus Cessario OP sketches how the philosophy of nature is essential for understanding the workings of grace.
Cessario acknowledges his debt to Charles De Konnick, McInerny's teacher at Laval, Quebec and in part five De Konnick's influence again appears with Sebastian Walshe O Praem's article on De Konnick's analysis of the common good in Aquinas. This section concerns philosophy of moral theology, and the other two contributions also enter into interpretation of Aquinas. Marc D. Guerra examines Aquinas's debt to, but also distinction from, Aristotle in his understanding of the great souled man, whereas Christopher Kaczor takes the opportunity to develop his argument with Mark D. Jordan concerning whether Aquinas's commentaries on Aristotle should be read as reflecting his own opinions.
These seventeen articles provide a valuable overview of contemporary work being carried out by Catholic philosophers and theologians in the Aristotelian‐Thomist tradition. They do not provide a systematic or complete introduction to the topic of reason and faith of the kind a single author or a group of authors working on a more systematic project might provide. With the exception of Bellamah's article there is little specifically on reason and Scripture, nor do we find an article on Augustine (the references to Aristotle in the index far outweigh those of Augustine). This reflects the fact that the articles largely mirror the research interests of the contributors. In most volumes of this nature this would lead to a disjoined collection of articles, but here the common philosophical and theological starting points of the contributors ensure that despite the lack of systematic unity there is an underlying coherence to the arguments presented. This unity is in no small part due to the influence McInerny has exercised on the development of generations of Thomistic scholars, often writing against the currents of the age in both philosophy and theology, that despite the limitation of human reason philosophy is integral to the work of the theologian.
