The long-term ecclesiological trajectory of Pope Francis is towards a synodal Church. He has chosen this topic for the next World Synod of Bishops in 2022. Though a key theme of his pontificate, synodality is a contested notion. In 2018 the International Theological Commission (ITC) published its reflections on synodality in the life and mission of the Church. This article traces the understanding of synodality in the ITC document, offers an appraisal, and looks at some of the challenges facing Francis’ synodal project.

This essay uses Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae to argue that a person living in what the Catholic tradition calls the “state of grace” has a greater capacity to appreciate sense pleasure than one who is not. Aquinas believes sense pleasures conduce to good if reason elevates them and integrates them into a Christian's life. However, heightened appreciation of sense pleasure requires three conditions. First, the Christian must seek licit, reasonable pleasures that both satisfy external criteria and leave the person internally well-ordered. Second, he must attempt continual purification through asceticism, since the sense appetite tends to rebel against the guidance of reason. However, asceticism is not an end in itself, but it rather assists the Christian in integration that ultimately allows for a full, rightly ordered appreciation of sense pleasures. Third, the Christian must not seek sense pleasure as an end in itself but receive it as a gift and pledge of higher joys. Ultimately, the Thomistic approach toward sense pleasure is one of appreciation and integration rather than distrust. While a Christian might experience quantitatively less sense pleasure, his more integrated, qualitative experience is better.

Robert Barry argues that man's condition in a state of pure nature and man's condition in the state of original sin are one and the same. This article aims to show that this thesis is false and is not the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas. The Angelic Doctor teaches that man in pure nature would be more capable of doing the good proportionate to his nature and would be able to love God above all things with a natural love. Important here is the truth posited by many in the Thomist commentatorial tradition, namely, that on account of sin man is directly averted from his supernatural end and at least indirectly averted from his natural end. Furthermore, this thesis has undesirable consequences, albeit consequences unintended by Barry, for Christology and soteriology. We must understand what pertains to human nature as such if we are to understand the various states in which we find human nature, including in Christ. If a natural analogue to supernatural charity cannot even in principle obtain, charity will be something alien to human nature. Christ came not only to elevate us to supernatural life and divine friendship, but to heal human nature.

This paper clarifies the full extent of the differences between Jacques Maritain and Dorothy Day on pacifism and anarchism in the light of their solidarity. I argue that their differences were primarily due to the particular challenges they faced in their specific vocation arising from the World War II context, and secondarily due to their different understandings of the relationship between nature and grace. While Day became drawn to a concrete heroic life of the supernatural virtues under the guidance of her spiritual director John Hugo, Maritain aimed to philosophically elucidate all the possible means available to modern Christians which may contribute to a historical realization of the Christian ideal. Their theological difference on nature and grace did not constitute a fundamental rift if taking into account the role of conscience as the essential element of a person's dignity, where the spiritual life takes shape and discernments are made. The pure means of the philosopher and the supernatural means of the saint are united in the Christian who is willing to give all for the object of their love.

Despite growing interest in Thomas Aquinas' biblical exegesis in general, and in his reading of Romans in particular, little attention has been given to the way Thomas actually uses scripture to do theology in his most enduring and influential work: the Summa theologiae. This article makes a preliminary attempt to remedy this neglect by exploring the role played by Romans 1:19-20 in the Summa. Given the deep connection of both Romans 1 and Aquinas to the perennial debates about natural theology, we might expect Thomas’ engagement with those verses to be concerned chiefly and resolutely with the questions animating these debates. But this is not at all the case. Far from being limited to arguments for philosophical knowledge of God, the Summa's more than twenty citations of Romans 1, I argue, re-present the whole drama of Christianity in microcosm. Even according to the letter, Paul's words have many senses for Thomas. The goal of this article is to draw out these many senses and demonstrate the creative interplay of scripture and theology in Thomas’ Summa.

The Third Man argument, as it originated in Plato's Parmenides, is unjustly read into Aristotle. The Parmenides argument is briefly examined, followed by an analysis of the relevant Aristotelian texts, with a special emphasis on the commentary of Thomas Aquinas. Three different versions of Aristotle's Third Man argument are identified, of which none contain the essential infinite regress that characterizes the Parmenides argument. Finally, current scholarship on the Third Man argument, especially as it pertains to Aristotle, is reviewed. In this respect, I note that the overwhelming tendency has been to identify Aristotle's Third Man argument with that of the Parmenides, in spite of the fact that Aristotle only once articulates his version of the Third Man argument, and that this articulation is vastly different from its Parmenides counterpart. I conclude that contemporary Third Man scholarship must take this into account.

This article introduces Bernard Lonergan to environmental ethics through a conversation with Willis Jenkins. Jenkins represents a ripe dialogue partner for Lonergan because of his attentiveness to methodological questions within environmental ethics, as in his incisive critique of Lynn White's influence. To pursue this conversation, this article examines Jenkins's critique of White and then turns to Lonergan's thought to supplement and refine this critique. From this engagement, the article identifies the need for a “practical cosmology”: an ongoing Christian practice that can affectively motivate care for creation. It proposes that the Christian liturgy, through its rich symbolism and distinct cosmology, offers one such practice and thus can weave that care seamlessly within Christian identity. To test this conclusion, the article briefly considers the import of this conversation for contemporary ecclesial responses to the ecological crisis, such as in Laudato si’.

Charity plays a crucial role in Thomas Aquinas's view of faith. However, there is a tension in his writings between this fact and some passages that suggest that there may be faith without charity and that faith may merely consist of an intellectual act. In this essay, I explore this tension, which has been neglected in the literature. My thesis is that, although there are tensions and lack of clarity that characterize Aquinas's treatment of this subject, it can be said that he believed that faith is impossible without the intervention of charity, however exiguous this intervention may be.

This article claims that the strict methodological considerations of contemporary philosophical naturalism do not hinder serious philosophical reference to the thought of Thomas Aquinas because his methodological principles are just as rigorous. The methodology of Thomas Aquinas is not explicitly stated in the Summa Theologiae. Therefore, the Summa contra Gentiles and On being and essence are referenced to clarify what Thomas seems to have thought about relationship between philosophy and theology. The work of Fiona Ellis is an example of how a contemporary philosopher can methodologically justify taking a position of qualified naturalism. Ellis calls this expansive naturalism. This methodology desires to accept a type of naturalistic philosophy. Yet, Ellis holds that expansive naturalism is able to employ theology as a resource for philosophy without falling into the trap of superstition. In order to arrive at this contemporary reflection, there is a very brief sketch of recent intellectual history concerning the relationship between philosophy and theology.