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In sixteenth-century Germany, a particular financial operation called widerkaufflicher Zins or five percent contract sparked massive legal and theological controversies. This contract produced effects like a loan and therefore countered the interest-taking prohibition. Martin Luther (1483-1546), Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560), Johannes Brenz (1499-1570), Johannes Aepinus (1499-1553), Urbanus Rhegius (1489-1541), Martin Chemnitz (1522-1586), Aegidius Hunnius (1550-1603), and Johann Gerhard (1582-1637) addressed this issue. They ended up reformulating the prohibition on interest and mapping out a set of rules for the right use of this contract. This article will survey their opinions paying attention to the points where their teachings resembled the Catholics or where they took a different path.

Aquinas's thoughts about the human soul present us with a puzzle. On the one hand, Thomas has been applauded within the analytic tradition as an anti‐dualistic thinker, who emphasises the animal nature of human beings and denies that there could be disembodied human persons. Yet on the other hand he holds, as a faithful Catholic theologian, that the human soul survives death, and maintains that the post‐mortem soul, prior to its reunification with the body is the subject of characteristically personal intellectual activities. This paper reviews the state of the debate regarding whether these commitments of Aquinas's can be reconciled, and concludes that they cannot in his own terms. However, a recognisably thomist approach to the post‐mortem survival of the soul is available, proceeding on the basis that to be rationally ensouled is to have a life‐story. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent article in Theology (Vol. 125, no. 1, pp. 3–11), Professors Trevor Cooling and Robert A. Bowie discussed the Final Report of the Commission on Religious Education (CoRE) and identified two ways in which Christian theology can become a 'conversation partner' with a worldview approach to religious education: first, through theological interaction with the concept of worldview; and second, by showing the potential of biblical hermeneutics to teaching about a Christian worldview. It is argued that the concept of a worldview finds its origins outside Christian theology and fails to capture the nature of Christianity and that the highly abstract, philosophical character of the concept of worldview makes it an unsuitable vehicle for religious education in schools. It is accepted, however, that biblical hermeneutics has a contribution to make to religious education, albeit as a component within the broader subject of (general) hermeneutics, although this positive contribution is not supported or anticipated by CoRE, but rather expresses the views of Cooling and Bowie, who are contributing to a long-running debate on the role and form of hermeneutics in religious education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Renaissance & Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme is the property of Iter Canada and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Catholic and Protestant theologians believe that the resemblance between Christian and non-Christian ethics is due not only to desecration, but also to the fact that we live in the same historical order. Gustavo Gutierrez insists that there are no two histories, one profane and one sacred, juxtaposed and intimately connected, but a single history of human destiny, irrevocably assumed by Christ, the Lord of history. The naive optimism of a moral theology that does not consider human limits, and that considers human actions as if the eschatology had already been achieved, has led to an improper methodology, based exclusively on natural reason. Bernard Häring insisted, however, on the need for moral theology to be based on Scripture and grace, and not just on reason and human nature. Charles E. Curran expressed his right to disagree with the non-infallible teaching of the authority of the Catholic Church, emphasizing that Catholics could in theory and practice disapprove of papal teaching and remain faithful to the Catholic Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The virtue of religion should be practiced by individuals and societies. Catholic theologians have disagreed about how religion can be practiced in the U.S. Msgr. John A. Ryan believed it could be practiced by the state, while John Courtney Murray, S.J., believed it could only be practiced by American civil society. Scott Hahn and Brandon McGinley are chiefly concerned with showing how the virtue of religion can be practiced in civil society by individuals, families, and the Church. Only then will it be possible to reconsider liberal politics. But what comes next? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studia Histórica: Historia Moderna is the property of Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The secularization of the doctrine about Ethics was not a result of the protestant mentalities, but a work of much of the Catholic theologians during the late Middle Ages. Those men were faced with the need to fight against the pelagian and semipelagian doctrines which, since not distinguishing between the natural and supernatural world, so easily led to Pantheism. This task (let us call it apologetic) was not carried out by the Aristotelians, but by those who we now call Nominalists though, perhaps, we should better call them Nominals. Their solution consisted in heavily separating the natural world from the supernatural one, so that the natural, including the Natural Law, as it is natural, is part of what already is or exists, in the same way as the rest of Nature, and its compliance is morally irrelevant. Momentarily they moved away from Pelagius, but they contributed to spread the idea of a natural ethics which would exist out of Theology and would have a «rational» force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Johann Michael Sailer was a Catholic theologian and philosopher whose career spanned the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Still relatively unknown outside of Catholic historiography, Sailer was a major contributor to the Catholic Enlightenment, and a significant touchstone for the Catholic revival movement. This essay explores his contribution to the Catholic reception of Kantian philosophy and, more specifically, analyzes how Sailer offered a critique of everyday reason for people "as they are". This critique stressed the deeply constitutive role of everyday experience in the formation of reason and evolved as part of a broader concern to secure the foundations of popular Enlightenment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Second Vatican Council was not only a meeting of bishops from around the world, it was also an assembly of theologians. Prominent among those gathered were the Dominican theologian Yves Congar and the Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner. Both offered a positive theology of grace outside of Christianity, an embrace of true inculturation within the church, and both saw the council as a beginning in opening up the church to theological variety appropriate to become a global presence in a new era. During the council, Congar and Rahner worked together, developed a friendship, and found that they had harmonious theological perspectives that allowed them to become valuable allies in shaping the final outcome of the council. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights the history of sociology in Belgium. Topics include the conflict between the sociologists and the Catholic theologians; the history of colonialism in the nation, the relations between these elements of sociology and various international organizations in the twentieth century; and the relationship between sociology and the nation-state and the need of the revival of the social sciences courses in the university system that would allow gradual political development in the nation.

In the twilight of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first century, Catholic theologians and journalists who identified as members of the neoconservative political movement crafted a narrative of John Paul II's encyclical Centesimus Annus as a representing a sea-change in Catholic social teaching. In this neoconservative reading, the Catholic Church embraced a specifically American style of late twentieth century laissez-faire capitalism. However, an examination of Centesimus Annus reveals that the text is consonant with the teaching of twentieth century popes. What is more, recent publications enable us to get a clearer view of how neoconservatives were able to craft their narrative of the encyclical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pentecostals can be understood as contemporary Christian mystics, and doing so can aid one in both understanding and caring for them. The task of understanding them is facilitated by this category in that it allows one to inhabit a different mindset from what is typical in contemporary settings. Pentecostalism and charismatic movements work out of distinct, fundamental claims that together work as a kind of worldview, one that operates from a hyperawareness of God's presence and a sensed empowerment of the mystic's self. The task of caring for them should honor these claims all the while being open to the Spirit's presence and work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the mysticism, metaphysics and the theology of theologist Martin Luther. Topics include Luther speaking about biblical foolishness; his theology about a desire to learn and more concerning God, Christ, man, and what all things are; and seeing the god by Luther where he had revealed himself as per his theology.

The article discusses the three catholic views on curiositas. Topics include catholic tradition seeing curiositas as a serious sin a person needed to resist; the medieval theologians reviving the juxtaposition of curiositas and its corrective virtue studiositas; and the Roman Catholic moral theology for the same.

Pedagogy in moral theology follows some of the particular concerns Catholic theologians have had since the Second Vatican Council as well as the aftermath of John Paul II's encyclical on moral theology, Veritatis splendor. Most of the textbooks reviewed here teach virtue, Christian practice, and Thomas Aquinas's theology, as largely positive responses to the Council and John Paul II. Catholic moral theology thus appears as a relatively stable field, though the authors use multiple approaches. There are, however, some moral theologians offering alternative perspectives on moral theology. One book reviewed here contends with Humanae vitae and resists both Thomas Aquinas's authoritative voice and Veritatis splendor 's argument against proportionalist thought. The textbooks offer a range of pedagogical tools for varying student levels. Two of the overall gaps in the field, as indicated by these textbooks, might be more direct engagement with Scripture, and a proper locating of Catholic social teaching within moral theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This response to the above seven articles engages with some of the significant ways in which each takes forward the theological discussion of grace. While some areas of disagreement arise, the overall sense is of a conversation that is moving beyond Paul and the Gift, using its contribution to open fresh avenues for understanding between Catholic and Protestant theologians on this deeply controversial topic, and new possibilities for conversation between biblical exegesis and theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Poznan Theological Studies / Poznanskie Studia Teologiczne is the property of Adam Mickiewicz University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Poznan Theological Studies / Poznanskie Studia Teologiczne is the property of Adam Mickiewicz University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article uses the work of Dorothy L. Sayers to look for hints towards appropriate apologetics in our own time. The range of engagement and modes of communication she uses are instructive and her work invites us to ponder the lines (or lack of them) between restatement and reformulation in theology, along with questions about the categorizing of theology and theologians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout history there have been theological tensions between official church teachers and church theologians, creating at times a divide between both the magisterium and theologians and also between theologians of different methodological approaches. We offer as examples of tension the declarations by the USCCB's Committee on Doctrine (CD) on the "inadequacies in the theological methodology and conclusions" of our book and of the books of three other contemporary theologians. These examples afford us the opportunity both to consider the theological tensions in general and to propose a solution to them. We establish some ecclesial context for dialogue with the CD, calling attention to four factors in this context: first, recent patterns of discourse between theologians and the magisterium in statements issued against particular theologians; second, an important change in the Catholic concept of church; third, an equally important change in how Catholic theologians set about doing theological ethics; and fourth, the reaffirmation of the importance of conscience by the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s and, more recently, by Pope Francis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A hundred years after the publication of the first edition of the commentary to the Epistle of the Romans (1919), the famous Barthian consideration of the analogia entis as «an invention of the Antichrist» and «the reason why I cannot become a Catholic» regains its prevalence. Nonetheless, this assertion has evolved as time goes by. In this article, we will study the answers given by Catholic thinkers as Erich Przywara, Gottlieb Söhngen, Jérôme Hamer, Henri Bouillard, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Hans Küng, and some more recent authors of the Italian and Anglo-Saxon areas. The opposition between analogia entis and analogia relationis, concretized in analogia fidei, has developed several interpretations in different directions. This article will suggest the continuity between both dimensions –which are inseparably united to charity– by alluding to their Trinitarian origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the involvement of Thomas of Bailly (d. 1328), secular master of theology and penitentiary of the diocese of Paris, in the examination of extracts taken from Marguerite Porete's "Mirror of Simple Souls." To date, no one has examined the precise theological formulations that led Thomas and twenty other theologians to recommend that the Mirror be consigned to the flames. By examining Thomas's career and writings, this article unearths the theological scaffolding that the extracts brushed aside, enriching our understanding of one of the most famous heresy trials of the Middle Ages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1968, Mary Daly published The Church and the Second Sex, one of the first monographs in the field of Catholic feminist theology. On the fiftieth anniversary of its release, this article remembers the book not only as an important historical milestone in Catholic theology, but also as an early and still-resonant articulation of issues that have concerned US Catholic feminist theologians since. This return to 1968 also puts into focus how the field has moved beyond Daly’s original project, clarifying important characteristics of the current discourse and its trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the evolutionary genetics and human origin. Topics mentioned include the human origin based on theological narratives, the perception of Catholic theologians on the genetic evidence of human origin, and the genetic traits of human ancestors. Also mentioned was the biblical teaching on the creation of Adam and Eve by God.

The ecofeminist cosmologies of Indian scientist Vandana Shiva and Catholic theologian Ivone Gebara are examined. At the centre of each author’s discourse is their feminist epistemology that occasion a new way of knowing, incorporating each thinker’s social locations as nexus for authority. For Shiva, the feminine principle of Prakriti, or the awareness of nature as a living, interdependent force, is realized through the inclusion of women as sources of expertise and knowledge. Gebara rejects classical theology and philosophy as androcentric, anthropocentric, and hierarchical. Instead Gebara envisions a revised epistemology of inclusivity with emphasis on multiplicity and unity initiated by an ecofeminist Trinitarian cosmology. Taken together Shiva and Gebara provide an epistemology that privileges the paradox of unity through diversity and difference as a solution to society’s current ecological crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1530s, when the popes were reluctant to convene a general council, Emperor Charles V and his brother Ferdinand corresponded several times about how to arrange discussions with the German Protestant estates. Their aim was to regain a unified Christendom and so ensure peace in the Empire. The political result of their considerations was the conference at Haguenau in the summer of 1540, which was presided over by Ferdinand. The brothers' intention was to take the preliminary results reached by some committees during the Imperial diet of 1530 in Augsburg as the starting point for the conference, but to discuss only those problems that did not touch on fundamental positions of the Roman Catholic church. This strategy was endorsed by several Catholic theologians. The Habsburgs succeeded in getting the support of several Catholic princes, but the Protestant estates refused to cooperate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some Catholic theologians are redefining the meaning of "direct" and "indirect" by including only the agent's intention in defining the moral object, while simultaneously excluding the physical actions that the agent consciously and deliberately chooses. The net effect is that these theologians now approve of many kinds of abortions traditionally understood to be morally evil in situations of maternal-fetal vital conflict. Such an error has grave implications for Catholic bioethics and health care. When the intentionalist method is applied to other disputed questions in bioethics, however, it becomes clear that its ideology is fundamentally erroneous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a transcript of an interview conducted by Susan Ross on 12 January, 2017, with Professor Bryan Massingale. Following the election of Donald Trump to the US Presidency, there was a surge in the number of racial and ethnic attacks on minorities across the country, and an increased concern over the place of minorities in the United States. During the previous two years, a number of shootings of black men and women had attracted much attention and protest, particularly around the Black Lives Matter movement which began after the killing of Michael Brown in the summer of 2014. Massingale is a leading voice among Catholic theologians and has spoken widely on the situation of African-Americans in the US and particularly in the US Catholic Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]