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A central tenet of classical theism is that God is Pure Act. Among other things, this indicates that while God can act on creatures, he cannot be acted on by those creatures, for there is no receptivity in God. Yet this seems to imply that God cannot enter into interpersonal relationships with human persons, for such relationships are intrinsically reciprocal and therefore require activity and receptivity from all participants. Since the Christian faith is ostensibly committed to the claim that God can and does engage humans in interpersonal relationship, classical theism appears to be incompatible with Christianity. Nevertheless, in this paper I propose a Thomistic version of classical theism that avoids this apparent tension. Drawing on a Thomistic philosophical anthropology, as well as recent work on the second-person relation, I suggest that there is, in fact, receptivity in God. However, I argue that God's receptivity is a feature of his Pure Activity, and thus the claim that God engages humans in interpersonal relationship proves to be consistent with the doctrines of classical theism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most important topics that Thomas Aquinas discusses in his extensive corpus is the love of friendship, which is a unique form of love aimed at persons. Yet Aquinas's teachings on this are perplexing, for he claims that this love always produces union between lover and beloved, and that it is always a mutual love. This implies that one's love depends on reciprocation from the beloved, which seems implausible given the possibility of phenomena such as unrequited love. A common interpretation of Aquinas's account of the love of friendship maintains that it is enough that one desires union and mutuality for such love to obtain even if such desires remain unrealized, but in this paper I reject this reading and argue that achieving union and mutuality is essential to this form of love. This novel interpretation ultimately reveals that the love of friendship is an intrinsically interpersonal act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing number of scholars have suggested that there is a unique I-You relation that obtains between persons in face-to-face encounters, but while the increased attention paid to the second-person has led to many important insights regarding the nature of this relation, there is still much work to be done to clarify what makes the second-person relation distinct. In this paper we wish to develop recent scholarship on the second-person by means of a phenomenological analysis of a doctor-patient interaction. In such an interaction the doctor and patient continuously shift between the observational I-It and the interactive I-You, and recognizing the difference between observation and interaction not only helps to defend the claim that this relation is sui generis, but also uncovers the co-constitution of experience from within this relation. As we argue, engaging another second-personally involves a shared experience that is a result of incorporating the other’s mental states into one’s own while standing in the second-person relation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central to a theory of the atonement is one's position on forgiveness and satisfaction. These two issues are interrelated, but it is unclear whether one takes precedence over the other. Specifically, must one make satisfaction to remove the guilt incurred by sin prior to forgiveness, or can a victim forgive a wrongdoer independently of any work of satisfaction? Richard Swinburne argues that satisfaction must precede forgiveness, but I defend the view that forgiveness is a manifestation of love, and as such satisfaction is not required prior to forgiveness. Instead, I argue that forgiveness can and should precede satisfaction, and I highlight important implications of this view for a theory of the atonement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thomas Aquinas argues that the agent intellect's function is to abstract an intelligible species from a phantasm. However, insofar as he claims that the intelligible species is not present in the phantasm, it is unclear how the agent intellect accomplishes this task. In this paper I explore two models of abstraction - the extraction model and the production model - suggesting that each fails to capture Aquinas' understanding of abstraction. I then offer my own interpretation of the function of the agent intellect - the illumination model - by employing Aquinas' comparison of the agent intellect to light. I argue that the agent intellect neither extracts nor produces an intelligible species, but rather makes the nature that is already present in the object intelligible by actualizing its passive power of intelligibility. This involves the co-actualization of partner powers in the intellect and in the intelligible object, and ultimately makes it possible to cognize a particular, material object in a universal way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aristotle famously asserted that the mind is identical with its object in an act of cognition. This "identity doctrine" has caused much confusion and controversy, with many seeking to avoid a literal interpretation in favor of one that suggests that "identity" refers to a formal isomorphism between the mind and its object. However, in this paper I suggest that Aristotle's identity doctrine is not an epistemological claim about an isomorphism between a representation of an object and the object itself, but is a phenomenological claim about the character of human cognition and intelligible being. Drawing on texts from Edmund Husserl and Aristotle, I offer a phenomenological interpretation of Aristotle's identity doctrine. I ultimately argue that, for Aristotle, mind and being are essentially unified, for intelligible being is partially constitutive of the mind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]