The twentieth century has seen a dramatic shift even within Catholic theology when it comes to how the Church understands divine revelation and her own historical reception of it. The Second Vatican Council was a pivotal point in which contrasting views of doctrinal truth seemed to meet head-to-head. But while it might seem that the now popular understanding of revelation as an event, rather than a set of propositions, represents a victory for modernism, there is no contradiction between this personalistic paradigm and the propositional, which reigned in the neo-scholastic era. Rather, there are points of contact between the traditional Thomistic approach of an early-twentieth century Dominican theologian, Francisco Marin-Sola, and the understanding of revelation, particularly, the nature of doctrinal truth, that has risen to prominence thanks to the so-called nouvelle theologie. It is especially evident in the work of Yves Congar and Joseph Ratzinger that it is possible to reconcile the Tubingen approach to reality, which inspired the new school, and the (Augustinian-)Thomistic insistence on the immutability of truth.

One of the treasures of Thomas’ theology of the Trinity is his attention to the mission of the Spirit, to the gift of the Spirit (and not just to the gifts of the Spirit). In this slightly modified version of the 2016 Aquinas Lecture Oxford, three texts are read that show the richness of his attention to the Spirit and that show, too, that often repeated criticism that Thomas forgets the Spirit is incorrect. First, Thomas’ remark that the knowledge of the divine persons is necessary for a correct understanding of creation and salvation (STh I q. 32, a.1 ad 3m). Second, his commentary on the opening verse of ps 50, (‘the great mercy of God’). Third, two articles on the mission of the Spirit (STh 1, q. 43, a.3 and 5, especially the ad 2m).

This opening paper seeks to situate discussions about the academic status of “softer”, more practical disciplines within wider contexts. The most important and most distinctively theological of these is conditioned by the particular claims of Christian tradition about the saving revelation of a God who yet remains unseen and transcendent. Also relevant are ethical and political questions about the nature of education, and speculative questions about theoretical and practical reason.

While “praying in the Spirit” may evoke “charismatic” prayer, this paper argues that from a scriptural point of view it defines all Christian prayer as having the Holy Spirit as main subject, who leads us to pray and prays in us, by showing us to whom, how and for what we should pray. This has implications for spirituality and pneumatology. On the one hand, prayer is to be understood as much more than the extension of our human desire towards God: it means entering into the divine will, the divine life, and the relations between Father, Son and Spirit – and relating to each in a different way. This actually helps to catch the essence of charismatic prayer as well, which is precisely letting the Spirit pray in us: charisms and “enthusiasm” are an expression of this and are in their right place when they are referred to it. On the other hand, the Holy Spirit manifests itself as a unique type of divine person, which acts and speaks in and through others. The paper contends that this economical specificity needs to be re-elaborated on the level of the immanent Trinity in a novel way: the divine names of Ruah and Pneuma allow us to conceive the Spirit as the most intimate Breath which the Father breathes (spires) into the depths of the Son.

It has been shown that the thirteenth-century Dominican friar, St Thomas Aquinas, was an important theological influence on John Owen, the seventeenth-century English puritan theologian, chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, especially in the areas of the divine being, grace and Chalcedonian Christology. Suzanne McDonald has argued that, while Aquinas is unmistakably a source for Owen's doctrine of the beatific vision, Owen surpassed Aquinas's doctrine in a manner she judges to be correct, theologically speaking, and which exposes the deficiency of Aquinas's account. Owen achieved this particular ‘Reforming’ or rather ‘re-forming’ of Aquinas's doctrine, she argues, by way of a ‘Christological re-orientation of the doctrine’ in terms of what is seen in the beatific vision and how it is seen, that is, its content and means. This article replies to McDonald from a Catholic and Thomist perspective, in response to her suggestion that Owen's account of the beatific vision opens up possibilities for ecumenical dialogue. The article attempts to achieve this first by reassessing the Christological contrasts McDonald draws between Owen and Aquinas in terms of content and means, and then by offering several suggestions as to why one might want to prefer Aquinas's account over Owen's.