by Matthew Gaetano I’m continuing the series on Contenson’s seventeenth-century Thomist meditations on Christ’s Passion. Part 1 is here. Speculation 1: The Fourfold Excess in the Passion of Christ: Of Sadness, Dejection, Pain, and Love The human race labors in a threefold disease: the lust (concupiscentia) of the eyes, that is, vain pleasure; the pride… Read More Contenson and the Passion of Christ
by Matthew Gaetano As we anticipate Holy Week, I thought that it might be of some interest to present Vincent Contenson’s (1641-1674) remarks on the Passion and Death of Christ from his Theology of the Mind and the Heart. Despite his death at the early age of 33, Contenson was a famous Dominican preacher, Thomist… Read More Baroque Thomism and the Passion of Christ
by Matthew Gaetano After a rich conversation with a good friend, I decided to post something about a remarkable passage in Cardinal Cajetan’s defense of the sacrifice of the Mass. Cajetan (d. 1534), a major Thomist theologian, was one of the earliest opponents of Luther, though, as Jared Wicks argues quite effectively in his introduction… Read More The Eucharist and the Atonement in Cardinal Cajetan
by Jonathan Tomes Trevor does not say anything very controversial in his criticism of Pierced for Our Transgressions, not according to scholarship, but I hope in what follows to raise significant concerns about the state of relevant scholarship on Aquinas’s doctrine of atonement. I will not argue for a model or theory of penal substitutionary… Read More What Exactly is Satisfaction in Aquinas? A short essay on a long note
by Trevor Anderson Elsewhere I’ve discussed two aspirations of New Calvinist theology: a commitment to clear thinking and argumentation, and competent engagement with relevant conversations (viz., “scholarship”). Here I’d like to note an instance in one prominent New Calvinist resource that falls short of these two ideals and so illustrates the need for more promising modes of inquiry and argument. Steve… Read More A Note on Aquinas and Penal Atonement
by Eric Demeuse Few theological texts garner the cross-confessional praise won by Fleming Rutledge’s The Crucifixion (Eerdmans, 2015). With accolades from George Hunsinger, David Bentley Hart, Stanley Hauerwas, John Witvliet, Marilyn McCord Adams, and Bishop Robert Barron, to name just a few, the book certainly lives up to the hype. Rutledge writes unabashedly from the… Read More Substitution and Liberation: A Review of Fleming Rutledge’s The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ
Charles Raith II is Director of the Paradosis Center for Theology and Scripture and Assistant Professor of Religion and Philosophy at John Brown University. He received his PhD from Ave Maria University. He is author of the book Aquinas and Calvin on Romans: God’s Justification and Our Participation (Oxford University Press), and the forthcoming After Merit: John Calvin’s… Read More An Interview with Charles Raith on Aquinas, Calvin, and Ecumenism: Part 1