Review of Dan Edelstein’s On the Spirit of Rights (part 2)

by Andrew Kuiper Any genealogy of modernity that fails to explain the development and dominance of political economy risks irrelevance. Economics is one of the master-discourses of our age and evaluating how and why it emerged has always been a site of bitter contestation. The framing of the narrative already includes certain models of human… Read More Review of Dan Edelstein’s On the Spirit of Rights (part 2)

“Third Party” Catholic Reformers of the Eighteenth-Century: Between Jansenists and the Zelanti

by Shaun Blanchard This article seeks to introduce an often-overlooked group of Catholic reformers of the eighteenth-century. Traditionally mistaken for quasi-Jansenists of some kind, the “Third Party” was a loosely affiliated network of like-minded, moderate Catholics who strove for the reform of the Church, sought peace and toleration during intra-Catholic theological wars, and displayed an… Read More “Third Party” Catholic Reformers of the Eighteenth-Century: Between Jansenists and the Zelanti

Jansenism and Augustinianism on the Irresistibility of Grace

by Matthew Gaetano Pierre Bayle (d. 1706), the rather enigmatic Huguenot writer who had a profound influence on the Enlightenment, expressed considerable frustration with the fine distinctions that often features in scholastic theology, whether Roman Catholic or Reformed. The Regensburg Forum seeks to take those details seriously, as it talks about those Calvinists, Thomists, Jansenists, and others… Read More Jansenism and Augustinianism on the Irresistibility of Grace

Jansenism: A Rough Sketch of a Complex Phenomenon

by Shaun Blanchard In different times and places and to different people (people with various polemical purposes!), “Jansenism” has meant various things. Originally the appellation was clear: it meant someone with an attachment to the strict predestinarian theology of Cornelius Jansen, as expounded in his posthumously published book Augustinus (1640). But even aside from issues… Read More Jansenism: A Rough Sketch of a Complex Phenomenon

The Neglect of Catholic Theology From Westphalia (1648) to the Bastille (1789)

by Shaun Blanchard In this article I will first attempt to offer an explanation for why the period between the Peace of Westphalia of 1648[i] and the storming of the Bastille in 1789[ii] (although I will focus more narrowly on the eighteenth century) is relatively neglected as a source for Catholic theology. Secondly, I want… Read More The Neglect of Catholic Theology From Westphalia (1648) to the Bastille (1789)