Friendship and Trinitarian Theology: Response to Karen Kilby

Abstract:  In a recent article, Karen Kilby expresses the concern that some contemporary Thomistic theologians have, despite themselves, fallen into a form of theological rationalism. Kilby suggests that in fact some statements, while necessary for trinitarian grammar, are as unintelligible to theologians as to common believers. In dialogue with Kilby's critique, the present article suggests that the theology of friendship illumines how Augustine and Aquinas, like many other patristic and medieval theologians, offer their trinitarian theology as a 'spiritual exercise', and thereby indicates why their approaches do not constitute trinitarian theologians as a particular elite above all others.     

DIONYSIUS AND SOME LATE MEDIEVAL MYSTICAL THEOLOGIANS OF NORTHERN EUROPE

Though the authority of Dionysius as a virtually apostolic theological source remains unchallenged in the late Middle Ages, ownership of his inheritance is much disputed, in connection with two issues of “mystical theology” principally. The first controversy (broadly between “Intellectualist” and “affectivist” readings of Dionysius' Mystical Theology) concerns whether the soul, united to God by grace, is made one with God principally by knowledge or by love. The second controversy is well exemplified by the disagreement between Jean Gerson and Denys the Carthusian as to whether Ruusbroec's account of the nature of that union of the soul with God amounts to a heretical extinction of the identity of the created soul. But both Gerson's critique of Ruusbroec and Denys the Carthusian's rebuttal of it are equally superficial, and the theologies of Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa show why: Eckhart and Cusa retained, while Gerson and Denys had lost, their grip on the “dialectics” of “sameness” and “difference” expounded in Mystical Theology.     

NATURALIZING DISSENSION

Abstract:  Mathematical naturalism forbids philosophical interventions in mathematical practice. This principle, strictly construed, places severe constraints on legitimate philosophizing about mathematics; it is also arguably incompatible with mathematical realism. One argument for the latter conclusion charges the realist with inability to take a truly naturalistic view of the Gödel Program in set theory. This argument founders on the disagreement among mathematicians about that program's prospects for success. It also turns out that when disagreements run this deep it is counterproductive to take too narrow a view of how philosophers of mathematics may legitimately proceed.     

INDIRECT CONSEQUENTIALISM,SUBOPTIMALITY, AND FRIENDSHIP1

Abstract: Critics have persistently charged that indirect consequentialism, despite the best efforts of its defenders, ultimately fails to appropriately account for friendship in the face of the alienation generated by the harsh demands of consequentialism. Robert F. Card has recently alleged that the dispositional emphasis of indirect consequentialism renders its defender incapable of rejecting problematic friendships that are seriously suboptimal. I argue that Card's criticism not only fails to undermine indirect consequentialism, but in fact provides considerations that both help us to better understand the theory and ultimately weigh in favor of it over Card's own brand of sophisticated consequentialism.