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This article contrasts natural theology’s vicissitudes in recent centuries with its more promising prospects in contemporary philosophy and theology. It interrogates certain genres of theology regarding their relation to natural theology, focusing on feminist theology, eco-theology, apologetics and the theology of natural law. It concludes with a reflection on the aspects of natural theology that are particularly prominent at present, and asks if the degree of revival currently enjoyed by natural theology may even be the precursor of a greater role in the academy.

The late great James Hal Cone (1938–2018) challenged white Christians to confront the sin of white supremacy. This article contends that white Catholic theologians collectively have yet to accept Cone’s righteous challenge. A scrutiny of the programming of the annual meetings of the Catholic Theological Society of America and publications in Theological Studies provides the evidence. Having made the case that white US Catholic theologians have not adequately processed Cone’s challenge, the article argues that an important reason for this failure is fear and proposes specific, concrete action steps for professional societies and scholars.

Though the Catholic Church has become more mindful of the role that mental illness, especially depression, often plays in suicide, this greater awareness needs development so that Catholic theology can de-stigmatize suicidal people without normalizing suicide. To this end, the article draws upon recent psychological work on suicide to highlight the deep suffering of suicidal people and to indicate that they are, generally, victims of severe mental illness. Furthermore, attention is drawn to a group who is especially stigmatized: those who have already died by suicide. In response, Johann Baptist Metz’s emphasis on anamnestic solidarity with the dead provides an important corrective to this forgetting. Lastly, this revised understanding of suicide decedents helps Catholics develop the doctrine of the communion of saints for today.

The eighty years of Theological Studies bear witness to the birth of American Catholic theology. This article traces that development through five stages. During its first two decades scholasticism reigned and authority was watchful. Vatican II then introduced a period of change, followed by a thirty-five-year creative phase in which a modern consciousness discussed new issues. By the final period corresponding to Francis’s papacy, an American Catholic theology was in place.

The purpose of this article is to explore an aspect of the Catholic theology of the 19th century which is relatively unknown: namely the Roman School and Carlo Passaglia’s position within it. This contribution is focused on presenting the main theological treatise of Carlo Passaglia (1812–87), De Ecclesia Christi (1853–56), an unprecedented work in the context of 19th-century theology, from which a Trinitarian ecclesiology, rooted in the economy of salvation, emerges. The article will be divided into three parts: the first will provide a brief outline of the Roman School, which played a significant role in the theology of the 19th century; the second will offer a biography of Passaglia; finally, the third will focus on the De Ecclesia and will present a basic survey of the whole monograph in order to highlight the most significant aspects of Passaglia’s ecclesiology. Moreover, this contribution will seek to emphasize that several aspects of Passaglia’s Trinitarian ecclesiology went on to be developed by the Second Vatican Council, particularly in Lumen Gentium.

Nostra Aetate initiated a revolutionary shift in Catholic theology, opposing supersessionism and affirming that Jews remain in a salvific covenantal relationship with God. However, this shift raises for Catholics a deep tension regarding the value of this “Old Covenant” vis-à-vis the “New Covenant,” as this article illustrates using the statements of Walter Kasper and The Gifts and the Calling of God Are Irrevocable. While speaking positively about the Old Covenant, both deem it essential to maintain the superiority of the New Covenant as universalistic, fulfilling the promises in the Old Covenant and transcending its limitations. The author demonstrates how they seek to reduce this tension by characterizing the two covenants as good and better covenants, rather than as bad and good covenants, thereby avoiding a lapse into supersessionism.

Catholic teaching is emphatic on the need to “guarantee adequate [health] care to all,” as Pope Benedict XVI has stated. America has been slower than other advanced countries in progressing towards this goal. Reasons for this delay can be found in certain attitudes that have long been present in American culture, and have been reinforced by the wave of libertarianism (free-market ideology) that swept the world in the late twentieth century. Catholic theology and social/economic teaching can help us understand the flaws in these attitudes, which involve fundamental philosophical and theological principles, but which are far from academic, since they have serious and very practical consequences. In the light of Catholic teaching, we can look towards a sounder understanding of healthcare needs and effective ways of meeting them. Lay Summary: This article argues that access to healthcare, at least up to the level of basic necessity, falls under the heading of distributive justice. It is a human right owed by the community to each of its citizens. And since rights entail obligations, this right entails an obligation upon each citizen to contribute, as circumstances permit, to the costs, which need to be shared equitably; they cannot be met simply by each individual providing solely for oneself. Also discussed are the problems of excessive costs in healthcare administration and in pharmacological research, as well as harmful tendencies in private-sector firms to over-reward top management and to target maximum (rather than adequate) profits.

Vito Mancuso is an Italian theologian and philosopher of religion, who deflects from traditional Catholic theology with the intention to draft a new perspective on how theology should be understood, not only in the academy but also in public and private life. This is why he resorts to Hegelian concepts, which redefine most of what traditional theology has held dear throughout history, with a specific focus on how to turn theology from ideas defined by divinity to notions explained by anthropology. A prolific writer, Mancuso has written almost one book per year for the past decade or so, while he is also very active in the media by giving interviews and writing short articles for famous Italian newspapers, such as La repubblica. In all his endeavors, Mancuso attempts to provide contemporary society with a view of God which is essentially human and profoundly anthropologic in nature in the hope that such an understanding of God will make sense of humanity’s current issues and struggles. Despite the rather controversial fame he acquired in Italy, Mancuso is virtually unknown to the English-speaking public, so this paper is an attempt to present him to those who are not only versed in English theology and philosophy of religion, but also to those who still believe that theology and philosophy of religion may be valuable instruments for the information and transformation of today’s society.

Revelation has traditionally been understood either as a propositional phenomenon or as a matter of the creation of a relationship with God. This article argues that, while there is truth in both views, revelation's central purpose is the manifestation of divine love, and the calling forth of love (for God and other humans) in response. To make its case, the article considers ‘special’ revelation in the Old and New Testaments and, finally, briefly examines the implications of this view for fundamental theology in general.

The article analyzes Jewish–Catholic relations with respect to New Testament interpretation, the apostle Paul, and theology. In the New Testament era, Paul promoted God’s openness to Gentiles. In recent decades, increasing numbers of Jewish scholars have engaged the New Testament and specifically Paul’s letters. This has called forth, for the most part, Christian hospitality toward Jewish interpretations. But the opportunities of this renewed relationship also bring new challenges for cultivating respect; the latter part of this article addresses four of these contemporary biblical, liturgical, legal, and theological topics.

The Suspended Middle: Henri de Lubac and the Renewed Split in Modern Catholic Theology. By John Milbank. Second edition. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing, 2014. xiii + 120 pp. $25.00 (paper).In this second edition of The Suspended Middle, not enough has changed substantively so as to suggest that readers familiar with Milbank's position should update their copy. Apart from the new subtitle, other amendments to the text include the addition of a few more historical and contextual qualifiers (like the paragraph about de Lubac's involvement in the Nijmegen Declaration on pp. 7-8), and the insertion of further textual support (like the paragraph about de Lubac's book Brief Catechesis on Nature and Grace on pp. 53-54). Nevertheless, the event of the text's publication affords the opportunity for a renewed recommendation to read it. This is a short yet explosive book on Henri de Lubac, which engages and challenges from start to finish.As a text of fewer than 150 pages, the book is not intended as a fulsome historical or theoretical introduction to de Lubac or to the Ressourcement movement (loosely defined) with which he was associated. Yet for the professional who is not a specialist in twentieth-century Catholic thought, and likewise for the graduate student, the book will serve to whet the appetite for further study of a thinker whose thought has been neglected in the Anglophone world: de Lubac's study Surnaturel-which Milbank hails as "arguably the key theological text of the twentieth century" (p. 3)-has still not been translated into English. And as Milbank highlights the paradoxical quality of de Lubac's ideas about the operation of divine grace within creation, the Thomistic notion of the "natural desire for the supernatural," and the doctrine of the imago Dei, readers are of course also afforded a lucid treatment of significant aspects to Milbanks own theological approach and agenda.The books opening chapter establishes de Lubac as a distinctive Catholic voice in wartom Europe who by 1950 and the publication of the encyclical Humani Generis had aroused enough papal suspicion to earn him a temporary ban on teaching and pubhshing. We meet him as a critic of neoScholasticism and commentarial Thomism, and a theologian whose mode of study and argumentation favored a deep attention to history-the tracing out of "event and sign in continuous process" (p. 13)-rather than an atemporal attention to specific issues and themes. In this note about de Lubac s patient historical method, the reader locates a significant point of divergence between him and Milbank. For as Adam G. Cooper has suggested in his recent book Naturally Human, Supematurally God: Deification in Pre-Conciliar Catholicism ( Fortress Press, 2014), Milbanks references to the evolution of the "Christian understanding of salvation as deification" (p. …

Growth in Christianity has spurred the appearance of the subfield of world Christianity, whose assumptions increasingly shape scholarship on Christianity. What I term the world-Christian turn, which is often linked to mission studies, yields more comprehensive approaches to the Christian past, connecting local histories of Christian communities to larger-scale historical movements and producing innovative comparative perspectives on Christianity past and present. In Catholic theology, this turn has encouraged new comparative and contextual theologies. Yet support for Christian mission and the world-Christian turn need not go together. Two cases in point: comparative theology tends to eschew mission while the work of Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, is suspicious of some impulses behind the world-Christian turn and their potential for undermining Christian mission. Such cases notwithstanding, I argue that missiology is a promising resource for the field of world Christianity.

The author addresses the doctrinal affirmations of the universality of God’s salvific will and the necessity of the church for salvation. Jacques Dupuis and Gavin D’Costa propose distinct ways of reconciling them; comparing their proposals illustrates the challenge that contemporary Catholic theology faces in its current context of religious pluralism. The author appeals to Bernard Lonergan’s work to suggest an alternative that both anticipates the presence of God outside the church and simultaneously affirms the necessity of the church for the salvation of all.

The author asks whether the criteria for Catholic theology presented by the International Theological Commission's Theology Today (2011) are meant to constitute “walls” that seal out or “windows” that open to the rich reality of God's dialogue with humanity through creation and history. Careful exegesis leads the author to conclude that the document, while including restrictive paragraphs, intends to open up perspectives for a legitimate plurality of theologies within the living tradition of the Catholic Church. The article ends with a nuanced evaluation and highlighting of the document's strong and weak points.

Conventional Catholic interpretations of Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure often pose them as dialectical opposites representing two distinct theological traditions. This article calls these interpretations into question, and, after offering an alternative sketch of each thinker's theological accomplishment, argues for a Catholic theology of history and tradition that can admit plurality without resorting to binary opposition.

Pope John Paul II’s March 2004 Allocution on ‘Life Sustaining Treatments and Vegetative State’ invigorated the discussion of end-of-life issues in Catholic moral theology. Missing from both the affirmative and negative responses to the Allocution was any discussion of a Catholic theology of dying and death. In this article, we seek to remedy that lack by articulating both a Catholic theology of dying and death and its implications for the care of Permanent Vegetative State (PVS) patients. We argue that John Paul’s Allocution and the CDF’s Responses and Commentary that followed it give priority to dying as a physical, biological event and thus threaten both a patient’s corporeal-spiritual reality and the essential freedom to determine dying and death as an act of personal freedom. Substantive implications for the treatment of permanent vegetative state patients flow from our analysis of these documents and their relationship to the traditional Catholic principles guiding end-of-life treatment.

This article considers the nature and genesis of the ressourcement movement and argues that its leading exponents inspired a renaissance in twentieth-century Catholic theology that culminated in the reforms of Vatican II. It attempts to shed light on the complex question of terminology, the interpretation of which still engenders controversy in analyses of ressourcement and nouvelle théologie. It offers insights into the role of the ressourcement theologians in the struggle against Nazism and asserts that the movement possesses an enduring relevance for the Christian Churches and for modern society.

The concept of ‘person’ ( hypostasis) demands a theological reformulation in the emerging context of inculturation and interreligious dialogue. Especially in Asia, there has been a remarkable growth in theological reflection on this concept in these past 40 years. Asian Catholic theology has been seriously committed to the dialogue with Eastern religions and in the promotion of justice. In revisiting the concept ‘person / hypostasis,’ we are called to redefine basic theological categories: identity, kenosis, divine sonship, corporate personality and mediation. The contribution of Asian theologians—particularly Raimon Panikkar, Masao Abe, Aloysius Pieris and Peter Phan—is crucial for the reappraisal of Western theology and for the renewal of Christology in the name of the oppressed and the marginalized.

The author mines William Spohn's notion of the grace of indirection as it relates to the potential impact of the arts on the moral imagination. The article moves beyond exposition of Spohn's idea, first, by showing how the grace of indirection is a concept with deep connections to long-standing Christian convictions about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit; and second, by offering an extended example of what the grace of indirection might look like relative to a contemporary short story by Tim Gautreaux.

How can Christian hope transform ecclesial life and in turn illumine contemporary culture? The articles by Richard Lennan and Dominic Doyle address this question from different perspectives. Lennan develops and spells out the implications of an ecclesiology based on the church as a sacrament of hope. Doyle examines the nature of hope with particular attention to Aquinas's view, finding resources therein to reflect critically about the clergy sexual abuse crisis, the "trauma of modernity," and contemporary ecclesiology's focus on the local church. Responding to these articles, James McEvoy reflects on their authors' views of hope in order to address an issue raised by Doyle. Earlier versions of Lennan's and Doyle's articles were presented at the 2010 annual meeting of the Catholic Theological Society of America at a session entitled "Hope: The Church's Prophetic Challenge. ".

Cardinal Newman's understanding and interpretation of Papal Infallibility has had a lasting influence on Catholic belief in regard to the doctrine, defined at the First Vatican Council (1869–1870). The definition of the doctrine, and the Council which was its catalyst, created the context for the tension that Newman encountered in the church of his time, and indeed within himself, between doctrinal authority and the freedom to explore the boundaries of doctrine that he believed to be essential for its development. This study considers the issue, not so much from Newman's formal scholarly works, but mainly from his letters, where Newman may be the more easily discovered in his natural form.

Catholic emphasis on Mary's role in the Christian story of salvation and on the unique privileges given her by God to accomplish that salvation for humanity continues to trouble some Protestants and seems to distract from the Church's central preaching. This article attempts to show the continuity between Catholic and Orthodox liturgical and theological traditions on Mary, despite apparent differences in terminology and image, and draws on the works of Sergei Bulgakov and Karl Rahner to reflect on the fundamental meaning of Mary for both Eastern and Western forms of Christian faith.

Avery Dulles' postconciliar theology must be placed historically in the broad context of what he called postcriticism. His models approach to theology, moreover, attempted to address the theological pluralism of the postconciliar era in a way that contributed to the unity of the faith. His nearly lifelong Ignatian commitment to thinking with the Church, his openness to development, his ecumenical stance, and his respect for diverse theological constructions made him a major representative of postconciliar currents in Catholic theology.

This article examines two distinct responses to the reception of Aristotle in the thirteenth century: the Bonaventurean and the Thomist.The outcome of this debate (and the Condemnations of 1277) led to the modern separation of faith and reason. Rather than seeing voluntarism and nominalism as the cause of the modern separation of faith and reason, and theology and philosophy, it will be suggested that it is actually the other way around: the Bonaventurean response indirectly resulted in the growing separation of faith and reason, which led, in turn, to voluntarism. It is important not to confuse the Thomist and Franciscan responses, as sometimes happens in recent scholarship, including in the work of Gavin D’Costa, as will be shown. Both the Thomist and the Bonaventurean approaches are legitimate resources to respond to the (post)-secular context in which we find ourselves, and the former should not be reduced to the latter.

The celebration of the Centenary of the Melbourne College of Divinity generated an occasion for reflection on one of the reasons for the existence of Christianity: the restless and never-ending proclamation of, and response to, the Word in the world. In the “then” of the not-too-distant past the major Christian traditions of Catholicism and Protestantism faced this challenge with a renewed enthusiasm. The Catholic Tradition entered a new era with the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), and the Protestant Tradition was urged to rediscover Luther's overwhelming concern for the Word in the World, especially in and through the lives and work of Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann. Where are we “now”? This study suggests that both of these movements from the Twentieth Century have “run out of steam”. Reflection upon our new context, if the first decades of the Third Christian Millennium, requires new strategies and ever-deeper convictions to render the Word relevant in the contemporary world

Fruitful interreligious encounter is the meeting of human beings, and calls for a metaphysics, a common humanum in order to proceed to dialogue. Rahner's transcendental method could serve as an important tool for entering into interreligious encounter. It offers a metaphysics that in its apophatic aspects has resonances with some forms of postmetaphysical thought, particularly the notion of gift. The author here pursues this idea but only after considering some critiques of Rahner's transcendental project.

The historiography of Modernism has concentrated on the doctrinal issues raised by partisans of reform and their condemnation, to the relative neglect of social and political aspects. Where such connections have been made the linkage has often been extrinsic: those involved in social and political reform subscribed to theses articulated by historical critics and critical philosophers. The connections, however, run deeper, reaching into issues surrounding authority and autonomy, ecclesiastical control of not only Catholic intellectual life but also Catholic political and social activity. This article revisits the Oath against Modernism and brings these connections into sharper resolution.

For Bernard Lonergan and Karl Rahner, grace is a reality that can be not only professed in worship or inferred through metaphysical analysis but also experienced in the depths of consciousness. Here the author uses a Lonerganian hermeneutic to study the evolution of the theology of grace from the writings of Augustine through the Scholastic work of Aquinas to the theology of Lonergan. His analysis demonstrates that the transition to an account that expresses grace in terms of human experience represents a development in the Catholic theology of grace.

The article presents interventions by certain expert-consultants (periti) just before and during Vatican II's opening weeks in 1962. Discovering mediocrity in passages of the prepared schemas on God's revelation, Joseph Ratzinger, Pieter Smulders, Karl Rahner, and Jean Daniélou formulated criticisms and framed alternatives that this article reviews. In time, several key conceptions of their alternative texts, such as the soteriological centering of revelation, found a place in Dei Verbum nos. 1–6.

Recent provocative reinterpretations of Karl Rahner's theology illustrate the hermeneutical challenge of retrieving his achievement for a new era. The spectrum of positions is exemplified by Karen Kilby, Patrick Burke, and Philip Endean. The essay proposes an alternative interpretive scheme attentive to Rahner's metaphoric logic.

More detailed than preceding social encyclicals, Pope Benedict XVI's Caritas in veritate appears to supply a theological foundation for the Catholic Church's social doctrine. The article argues that the theological anthropology contained in the encyclical (which leads to a notable revaluation of the role of grace) complements Joseph Ratzinger's life-long reflections on the relationship between faith and reason, and provides a key to understanding choices the pope makes in his effort to offer a reliable Catholic orientation in a rapidly changing world.

The author argues that the intention of the theological commission in proposing the change from “is” to “subsists in” was no longer to affirm full identity between the church of Christ and the Catholic Church, for the reason that such full identity contradicted the tradition followed by the popes and Western councils of recognizing the separated Eastern communities as churches. He supports his case with two statements by Joseph Ratzinger: one made as a professor of theology, the other as cardinal prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Jean-Luc Marion’s debt to Henri de Lubac is significant, particularly regarding his theology of the Eucharist. However, de Lubac’s ecclesiology, I believe, can also be substantially enriched by coming into contact with the philosophical categories of Marion’s thought, particularly his notion of the saturated phenomena. The purpose of this article is to explore what this enrichment would look like, and how the wedding of these minds in the field of ecclesiology offers a new contribution to contemporary thinking about the Church. The article begins with an analysis of de Lubac’s rich theological thought, and then turns to Marion in order to explore the contribution of his new philosophical categories for de Lubac’s theological thought.

The author argues that the Christian historical realism of Ignacio Ellacuría and the “saving history” Christology of Jon Sobrino form a post-Vatican II contextual theology unified by two fundamental claims: the historical reality of Jesus is the real sign of the Word made flesh, and the analogatum princeps of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is to be found today among the “crucified peoples” victimized by various forms of oppression around the globe. Sobrino and Ellacuría are situated as important interpreters of Rahner, Ignatius Loyola, Augustine, Medellín, and key European phenomenologists.

This article looks at the current revival of trinitarian theology and takes Catherine LaCugna's pioneering, if controversial, work God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life as dialogue partner. The article explores how many themes in current trinitarian theology, e.g., Trinity as the structure of theology, the doctrine of God as a relational and dynamic concept, and the spiritual, political, and social implications of the doctrine, find a resonance in key figures of the tradition such as the Cappadocians and Augustine. Critical and sympathetic assessments of LaCugna's work are presented and discussed. An underlying question emerges as to how theology can appropriate patristic resources without projecting contemporary concerns and biases—epistemological, theological, or political—back onto earlier theological texts and cultures. The article concludes by critically examining how the doctrine has been developed as a symbol of inclusive communion where the values of mutuality, equality, and reciprocity are paramount.

The central problem posed in this article concerns the coexistence in Christ of both divine freedom and human freedom. Drawing on the thought of Bernard Lonergan the article first considers the problem against the background of the difference between intellectualist and voluntarist tendencies. Human freedom arises in considering means to an end, but only in so far as the will is necessitated with regard to the end. This fits in well with the notion of the unshakeable commitment of Christ's human will to that of his Father. When this is treated in terms of Lonergan's account of how God stands outside the order of past, present and future, and in a sense outside the order of the necessary and the contingent, we have some basis for resolving the antinomies which arise from the coexistence of two freedoms in the one person.

Theological ethicists around the world are turning toward history to comment on the method and arguments of earlier authoritative voices. The intent of this turn to the tradition is precisely to liberate theologians so as to find grounds for Roman Catholics to enter into greater dialogue with others around the world. To examine this development, the Note reviews recent research in narrative, responsibility, and virtue ethics, as well as related works on Christology and ethics and on globalization.

The authors, replying to criticisms of the Catholic Church's teaching on homosexual acts presented by Todd Salzman and Michael Lawler in an article in this journal, argue that marriage is a multi-leveled personal union, essentially including the bodily as well as the emotional and volitional levels of the human self. Only sexual acts between a man and a woman who have consented to the kind of union that would be fulfilled by conceiving, bearing, and raising children together (that is, marriage) can consummate or actualize marital communion.