THE CHRISTIAN VIRTUE OF MERCY: AQUINAS' TRANSFORMATION OF ARISTOTELIAN PITY

In his discussion of the virtue of mercy (ST, II-II.30), Thomas Aquinas draws upon two seemingly opposed sources. On the one hand, Thomas takes Aristotle as an authority on the subject of compassion. Aristotle maintains in his discussion of pity in the Rhetoric that pity is felt for those who suffer undeservedly since we do not pity but rather blame those who suffer as a result of their own wicked actions. On the other hand, Jesus in Matthew's gospel feels pity for the crowds. 'At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them for they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd' (Matt.9:36). In his commentary on this text from Matthew, Thomas identifies two possible interpretations for the troubled and abandoned condition of the crowd. The crowd is said to be troubled in so far as it is vexed by demons and abandoned in so far as it lies prostrate because of infirmities. The crowd can also be said to be troubled in so far as it is vexed by errors and to be abandoned in so far as it is fallen because of sin. ¹ Jesus, then, according to Thomas and contrary to Aristotle's claim, feels pity for the crowds as a result of the crowd's misery brought on by their own sinful deeds.
In this paper, I examine how Thomas harmonizes these conflicting sources. More specifically, I hope to show both how Thomas uses Aristotle's observations on pity and at the same time transforms those observations in light of Christ's mercy on sinners. Thomas' use and transformation of Aristotle's account of pity provides an enlightening perspective from which to interpret Thomas' initially troubling claim that God feels no pity over the suffering of creatures, which we will consider briefly by way of a conclusion to this paper.     

Sexless Piety or a Man's Man? Notes on the cinematic representation of Jesus

The cinematic representation of Jesus reflects issues current in both popular piety and contemporary theology. However most critiques fail to engage with the portrait of Jesus that arises if one considers and takes seriously the notion of Jesus as ‘leading man’. This article seeks to engage with three issues that arose out of teaching a ‘Jesus at the Movies’ course: What does the choice of ‘Jesus actor’ signify? Does he succeed as a traditional ‘leading man'? How do you represent the incarnation? These three issues are discussed in relation to the five films studied and the problem of ‘representing Jesus’ is critiqued.     

The Extended Body: The Social Body of Jesus according to Luke1

Abstract : Informed by body phenomenology and contemporary concepts of the social body, this article aims to interpret the particular movements and transformations of Jesus’ body as presented in the Gospel of Luke. From the outset Jesus’ body is inscribed in a Jewish genealogy. Likewise, the Gospel depicts the character of Jesus via the various landscapes he passes through as well as through the social interactions of which he is a part. While Jesus’ body is initially described as being energized by the mobile presence of the Spirit, it increasingly closes in and, at the end, simply disappears. Luke describes Jesus’ ascension and resurrection as radical transformations of Jesus’ body, by which Jesus’ body‐and‐mind (Leib) extends into a social body, at home in God as well as among his followers. This social body also crosses the genetic and cultural boundaries between Jews and Gentiles. Only through this extensiveness can Jesus’ body become accessible worldwide.     

BOOK REVIEWS

The Garden of Eden and the Hope of Immortality. By James Barr. Text and Concept in Leviticus I:1-9 (Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2). By Rolf P. Knierim. Revelation: Vision of a Just World. By Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. The Temple of Jesus: His Sacrificial Program within a Cultural History of Sacrifice. By Bruce Chilton. The Christology of Jesus. By Ben Witherington III. Did Jesus Know He was God? By François Dreyfus. Jesus: The Unanswered Questions. By John Bowden. The Saga of God Incarnate, with Critical Dialogue (Studia Originalia 9). By Robert G. Crawford. Christian Origins and the Question of God, Volume 1: The New Testament and the People of God. By N.T. Wright. Social Reality and the Early Christians: Theology, Ethics and the World of the New Testament. By Gerd Theissen. The Spirit ofLife. By Jiirgen Moltmann. Plotinus: An Introduction to the ‘Enneads’. By Dominic J. O'Meara. The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate. By Elizabeth A. Clark. The Lives of Simeon Stylites (Cistercian Studies Series, 112). By Robert Doran. C.P. Cavafy, Passions and Ancient Days, edited by E. Keeley and G. Savidis The East Syrian Lectionary: An Historico-Liturgical Study. By Pauly Kannookadan. The Bridling of Desire: Views of Sex in the Later Middle Ages. By Pierre J. Payer. Cornelius Agrippa, ‘De occulta philosophia libri tres’. Edited by V. Perrone Compagni. Reformierte Scholastik undpatristische Theologie: Die Bedeutung des Vaterbeweises in der ‘Institutio Theologiae Elencticae’ F. Turretins unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Gotreslehre und Christologie (Bibliotheca Humanistica et Reformatorica 50). By E. P. Meijering. The Church of the East and the Church of England: A History of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Assyrian Mission. By J. F.Coakley. The English Religious Tradition and the Genius of Anglicanism. Edited by Geoffrey Rowell. Evangelicals in the Church of England 1734-1984. By Kenneth Hylson-Smith. Law and Modernization in the Church of England: Charles II to the Welfare State. By Robert E. Rodes, Jr. Social Catholicism in Europe: From the Onset of Industrialization to the First World War. By Paul Misner. The Passing of Barchester: A Real Life Version of Trollope. By Clive Dewey. For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest against Hitler. By Victoria Barnett. ‘Pfarrer, Christen und Katholiken’: Das Ministerium fur Stautssicherheit der ehemaligen DDR und die Kirchen. Edited by Gerhard Besier and Stephan Wolf. English and Welsh Jesuits: Catalogues (1555-1629), Catalogues (1630-1640) (Monumenta Historica Societatis Jesu 142-143: Monumenta Angliae I-II). Collected and edited by Thomas M. McCoog, S. J. The Ethics of Authenticity. By Charles Taylor. The Defence of Natural Law. By Charles Covell. Prospects for a Common Morality. Edited by Gene Outka and John P. Reeder, Jr. Ethics, Religion and the Good Society: New Directions in a Pluralistic World. Edited by Joseph Runzo. The Priority of Prudence: Virtue and Natural Law in Thomas Aquinas and the Implications for Modern Ethics. By Daniel Mark Nelson. The Primacy of Love: An Introduction to the Ethics of Thomas Aquinas. By Paul J. Wadell. Theories of Truth: A Critical Introduction. By Richard L. Kirkham. Frege and Other Philosophers. By Michael Dummett. The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger. Edited by Charles Guignon. Science as Salvation: A Modern Myth and its Meaning. By Mary Midgley. Marxian and Christian Utopianism: Toward a Socialist Political Theology. By John Marsden. Religious Policy in the Soviet Union. Edited by Sabrina Petra Ramet. Discernment and Commitment. Edited by J. Wiersma. Community and the Economy: The Theory of Public Co-operation. By Jonathan Boswell, Foreword by Bernard Crick.     

Aquinas on the Role of Another in Perfect Self-Knowledge

Aquinas is clear that human intellect can only know itself through knowing others. Yet he seems to treat this need for others as a mark of imperfection: both angels and God can know themselves through themselves, and their intellects seem therefore to be more perfect than ours. In this article, however, I focus first on Thomas’s teaching on angels’ morning and evening knowledge, where he suggests that angels only know themselves perfectly if they know themselves in Another. Second, I turn to his theology of the Word, where he suggests that the Father only ever knows Himself in knowing another Person. By exploring these areas of Thomas’s thought, I argue that to know oneself perfectly is to know oneself in another.     

Paving the Way? Penalty and Atonement in Thomas Aquinas's Soteriology

This article explores the soteriology of Thomas Aquinas. In particular, it considers recent debates over whether Thomas altered Anselm's satisfaction theory in a way which opened the door to the later theory of penal substitution. The article argues that Thomas did indeed alter Anselm's atonement theory in this way insofar as he incorporates punishment within his concept of satisfaction; however, it further contends that his use of ‘placation’ or ‘appeasement’ language does not contribute to such an alteration.     

Plato,Thomas and the Daring Ethics of Friendship

Abstract

Fergus Kerr observed that Thomas Aquinas inaugurates a new way of doing Christian ethics focused on human flourishing. It is based on a daring model of Christian friendship that has, though, found little success. Why? Because it stems from Aristotle's model of friendship which is, in turn, based upon self-love and exclusivity. Augustine, in particular, is a figure who portrays such friendship as antithetical to God's selfless and universal love: friendship, for him, needs to be ‘triangulated’ in divine love. However, Thomas suggests charity as friendship because he recognizes that friendship is the best ‘school of love’ for human beings: within the ambivalences of friendship, Christians can practise the habits of divine love so that it becomes an overarching principle in their lives. But, there is an irony in Thomas turning to Aristotle for a model of love that embraces rather than transcends human experience, since Aristotle too cannot quite shake off a vision of the ideal life that is uneasy with friendship. For that, we must turn to the work of Plato on friendship, in his dialogue the Lysis, which not only offers a model of friendship wholly committed to it as a school of love, philosophy and the good life, but does so recognizing the ‘in between’ status of human beings similar to that with which Thomas was concerned.     

'NOLI ME TANGERE': WHY JOHN MEIER WON'T TOUCH THE RISEN LORD

John Meier distinguishes ‘the real Jesus’ from ‘the historical Jesus’. Meier claims that whatever happened to the real Jesus after his death, his resurrection cannot belong to the historical Jesus because that event is in principle not open to the observation of any observer. But why think that the resurrection is not observable in this way? Meier finds justification in Gerald O'Collins' view that although the resurrection of Jesus is a real event, it is not an event in space and time and hence should not be called historical, since a necessary condition of historical occurrences is that they are known to have happened in our space‐time continuum. Is this a good argument for the resurrection's being in principle excludable from the historical Jesus? A close examination of the argument reveals that it is not and that Meier's adoption of such a procedure contradicts Meier's own historical methodology.     

On Getting away with It: Jesus and the Temptation in the Desert

The experience of getting away with something is a well-known personal dynamic, yet it is relatively unexplored by psychodynamic theorists, even though such experiences impact both persons and society in significant ways. In reading the Gospels, one is left with the perception that Jesus got away with desire—that is, he withstood Satan’s temptations. The essay explores “getting away with it” in light of Jesus’ temptation in the desert. Ways this experience might have formed the person and ministry of Jesus are suggested.     

Faith and belief in The Anti-Christ: A re-evaluation of Nietzsche’s relation to Jesus

This paper re-evaluates the significance of Jesus for Nietzsche by looking at The Anti-Christ. Specifically we will ask whether a re-evaluation of this relation can shed new light on Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity. And we will do this first by surveying the standard interpretations of this issue, as well as the existing literature on The Anti-Christ. Arguing that the latter picks out nothing new regarding a critique of Christianity, we nonetheless suggest that a new criticism can be developed via the discussion of Jesus there. Further, this can be done by looking at the account given of faith and belief in that text. That is, we will explore the status of Jesus for Nietzsche by looking at the origins and development of “faith” as a mode of belief. In particular, we trace the former’s development as a type from a basic mode of faith. As such, we begin by looking at the psychological origins of this kind of belief in “decadence”, and why Nietzsche is critical of this. However, we will then discuss the emergence of a more positive faith in the form of Buddhism, and see how this represents an analogue for Jesus’s faith. Continuing, we will see how Jesus signifies a similar problematic development, but also “overcoming”, of initial decadence faith. And we will argue, also, that this overcoming is rooted in his emphasis on the immediacy of lived experience. Finally though, we will look at how Christianity returns Jesus’s more productive relation to the world again to a primitive mode of faith. In other words, we will see how Christianity converts the fluid, lived, “faith” of Jesus into something again based on transcendent belief. And lastly, we will ask what new light this point sheds on Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity, and his affinity with Jesus the man.     

White Jesus and Antisemitism: Toward an Antiracist and Decolonial Christology

This article argues that traditional Christology is intimately bound up with a triumphalist agenda that denies Jesus’ Jewishness and is structurally antisemitic. Taking an antiracist stance, the article argues that systemic rethinking of Christianity’s theological resources is needed, which must be anti-antisemitic and antiracist. This involves reconfiguring how we take on board Jesus’ Jewishness in a post-Holocaust context and recognizing Jesus as a Jewish prophet. From this, it is tentatively suggested that rethinking the role of the Messiah involves understanding a Levinasian Messiah who does not come, but rather calls upon us to act in a Messianic role before the Other as an ethical imperative.     

A Comparison of Christians’ Concepts of Jesus Christ and God

In the god concept literature, little research has been conducted on how people think about and relate specifically to Jesus Christ. This study addresses the extent to which Christians distinguish between Jesus and God in terms of their concepts of Jesus and God, the pathways they use to connect with Jesus and God, and the benefits they seek and receive from Jesus and God. The study also tests whether participants’ concepts of Jesus have unique predictive power for psychological, social, and spiritual criterion variables after controlling for their concepts of God. The sample includes 165 college students and 107 church attendees who self-identified as Christians. Results indicate that although most participants view Jesus and God as being similar to each other, they perceive Jesus to be warmer but less transcendent and stern than God. Including participants’ concepts of Jesus in hierarchical multiple regressions accounted for significant additional variance after controlling for their concepts of God in predicting participants’ negative affect, social justice attitudes, spiritual emotions, and Christian orthodoxy. Participants generally used various pathways more to connect with God than with Jesus, and they reported seeking and receiving many benefits more from God than from Jesus. These results suggest that future research on god concepts among Christians ought to include separate measures of Jesus concepts and God concepts.     

Jesus and the Play of Imagination: The Role of His Stories and Parables in Faith Formation

Jesus’ stories and parables—the products of his own imagination—are at the core of Christian religious education. Christian religious educators are to encourage their audience to engage their imagination to let Jesus’ stories retain their power to form and transform them. Although imagination operates imperceptibly, it is essential to faith formation. Religious educators are to befriend imagination and employ it as an efficacious means to form their audiences in the faith. This article aims to describe the “obvious” dynamics involved in the act of imagining. The first part of this essay examines the multifaceted nature of imagination. The second part suggests ways how religious educators may develop the imagining skills of their audience.     

Vermigli Replicating Aquinas: An Overlooked Continuity in the Doctrine of Predestination

Although Peter Martyr Vermigli is well recognized for his integration of Thomism with Reformed theology, there is no consensus on whether to consider Thomas Aquinas a dominant influence on his doctrine of predestination. Recent scholarship argues that Gregory of Rimini’s influence is greater than Aquinas. This essay provides strong evidence to the contrary for the influence of Aquinas on Vermigli’s early exposition of predestination as a Reformer. Vermigli not only drew upon Aquinas’s doctrine in general, as he does elsewhere, but reproduced the details of Aquinas’s article in the Summa on whether foreknowledge of merits is the cause of predestination. This finding has significance for understanding the development of Vermigli’s thought, his relation to Thomist scholasticism, and his mature writings on predestination. In general, this evidence increases the importance of Thomas as a formative influence on Vermigli’s thought.     

Memories,or attempts to dream undreamt traumas? Souvenirs dormants (Sleeping memories) by Patrick Modiano,under the gaze of Thomas Ogden

Abstract

In “Sleeping memories”(2017), French writer Patrick Modiano confronts the past and his memories in a different way compared with his previous novels, as he keeps trying to revisit and reprocess them. In this book he adds a new method, the dreaming revision of memories, especially traumatic ones, turning to the work of Marquis d’Hervey de Saint-Denys, “Les rêves et les moyens de les diriger: Observations pratiques.” I would suggest that in this way he dreams undreamt traumas, thereby transforming them. In doing so, Modiano meets Thomas Ogden’s art of psychoanalysis.     

„Ich möchte an Sie glauben können!“

During daily psychoanalytic treatment something happens that can be described with a term from the Old Testament: “to know”, giving psychoanalytic praxis a religious dimension. The author illustrates this thesis with a case report. First he tries to show how an interpretation of the casuistic material appears in the scope of the well-known concept of religion as an expression of dissoluble narcissistic conflicts. Then he applies Winnicott’s idea of “potential space” as a new scope for interpretation of the case. The conception of the “destruction of the object” according to Winnicott will be related exemplarily to the history of Jesus’ death on the cross and the miracle of his survival. By heeding the world of ideas of Klein and Bion, the author comes to the conclusion that religiosity is an anthropological constant, which cannot be reduced to a pathologic narcissistic event.     

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
Arvin Vos, Aquinas, Calvin, and Contemporary Protestant Thought: A Critique of Protestant Views on the Thought of Thomas Aquinas
Aylward Shorter Jesus and the Witchdoctor: An Approach to Healing and Wholeness
Elisbeth Moltmann-Wendel A Land Flowing With Milk and Honey     

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: The Origins of Satan, Elaine Pagels Lydia's Impatient Sisters: A Feminist History of Early Christianity, Luise Schottroff LAKierkegaard as Religious Thinker, David J. Gouwens LAThe Consecrated Life: Crossroads and Directions, Marcello Azevedo SJ LATertullian and the Church, David Rankin Judaism in the New Testament: Practices and Beliefs, Bruce Chilton and Jacob Neusner The Image of God: A Theology for Pastoral Care and Counseling, Leroy T. Howe Systematic Theology Volume 2: Doctrine, James W. McClendon Jr Journey into Truth: Spiritual Direction in the Anglican Tradition, Peter Ball Dictionary of Feminist Theologies, Letty M. Russell and J. Shannon Clarkson Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom - Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop, J.N.D. Keily The Kingdom of God: The Message of Jesus for Today, John Fuellenbach University of Birmingham The Religion of the People: Methodism and Popular Religion c. 1750–1900, David Hempton Religion and Political Culture in Britain and Ireland: From the Glorious Revolution to the Decline of Empire, David Hempton Nineteenth-Century English Religious Traditions: Retrospect and Propect, D.G. Paz Old Testament Theology Volume 1, Horst Dietrich Preuss Revelation and Reconciliation: A Window on Modernity, Stephen N. Williams Jesus Framed: Biblical Limits, George Aichele Women in the Presence: Constructing and Seeking Spirituality in Mainline Protestantism, Jody Shapiro Davie In Search of a Calling: The College's Role in Shaping Identity, Thomas O. Buford University of Birmingham Judges 1–5: A New Translation and Commentary, Barnabas Lindars SSF, edited by A.D.H. Mayes Escape from Paradise: Evil and Tragedy in Feminist Theology, Kathleen M. Sands Worship in Transition: The Twentieth-Century Liturgical Movement, John Fenwick and Bryan Spinks Encountering Illness: Voices in Pastoral and Theological Perspective, James Woodward Divine Meaning: Studies in Patristic Hermeneutics, Thomas F. Torrance Christian-Jewish Dialogue: A Reader, Helen P. Fry University of Birmingham From Women's Experience to Feminist Theology, Linda Hogan Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized, John Rist     

Dynamic Reciprocity and Ontological Affinity in the Pauline Account of Solidarity

This article suggests that the dynamic elements of gift‐giving and reciprocity, which are incisively re‐evaluated in John Barclay's study Paul and the Gift, might fruitfully be combined with the classical incarnational understanding of the union of natures to better our understanding of Paul's soteriology. Setting Paul's account of salvation within the framework of the wider New Testament, the article highlights the presence of key elements that might best be articulated in terms of the dual kinship of Jesus with both God and humanity and that require some discussion of the ontology of the one who saves. When Paul speaks of the solidarity that exists within the Christian community, he does so in a way that links it to the presence of the Spirit, by whom we participate in the oneness of God through the one mediator; his development of this emphasis draws heavily upon the Shema, which Jewish traditions associate with the distinctive ‘being’ of God.     

A diptych reading of Christ’s transfiguration: trans and intersex aesthetics reveal baptismal identity

ABSTRACT

The synoptic Gospels describe Jesus Christ’s transfiguration not as a mode of ontological change, but rather as a means of revelation – that he is the second person of the Trinity. Through a diptych reading of Christ’s transfiguration and crucifixion, I argue that those who experience hate crimes share in Christ’s misrecognition in the midst of revealing truth, which can result in violence and death. Additionally, I offer a constructive, biblical theology of trans and intersex aesthetics that runs counter to neoliberal identity politics by illuminating how the bodily presentation of trans and intersex persons of faith reveal a baptismal truth – that through Christ humanity is adopted as co-heirs with him.