Christopher J. Malloy’s Aquinas on Beatific Charity and the Problem of Love examines the relationship between the desire for happiness and the love of another, chiefly, the love of God for His own sake. Great thinkers judge the matters connected with this problem differently. Aristotle and others contend that the desire for happiness grounds ethical activity. Others contend that a pure love of God (or of the “other”) is not founded on desire for happiness. The former charge the latter with leaving love groundless, and the latter charge the former with reducing love to egoism. Aquinas’s appreciation of the Aristotelian tradition is forefront in his classic treatment of human action, which begins with the desire for happiness. Accordingly, many readers, proponents and critics, read Aquinas as simply “eudaimonistic.” There are, however, other principles at work in his thought; these suggest a simple but profound difficulty in his thought, one reflective of the subtlety of real life. Are the two sets of principles contradictory? Juxtaposed? Considering beatific charity as the ultimate lens for this problem, Malloy proposes that Aquinas’s texts and principles are hierarchically harmonious while developmentally complex. They indicate that love of happiness has a foundational role in human action and that love of God for His own sake has priority in the order of finality. This ordered balance depends upon a conception of the common good in accord with a metaphysics of participation: as having existence and formal perfection from and in likeness to the One Who Is, created persons incline to love God more than and more intensely than themselves. Thus, love of the Divine Other, while indeed the supreme love, especially as deified through charity, does not demand “disinterested” love. God truly is man’s good: His true lover longs to be with Him.

This book is an introduction to three questions on love according to St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae I?II, qq. 26?28). These three questions reflect on the nature of love (q. 26), the causes of love (q. 27), and the effects of love (q. 28). It is thus an introduction to the entire phenomenon of love, both as a bodily passion and an act of the will. The purpose is to present the Thomistic and broadly scholastic account of human and divine love from a philosophical and theological perspective. It aims to be a theological and philosophical study of the topic, useful both for a graduate/professional audience, as part of an undergraduate or graduate course, and perhaps for the educated reader. The thesis of the book is that, contrary to contemporary conceptions, not all loves are created equal. Some loves perfect us and some loves corrupt us. The worth of a love depends on its object and end. St. Thomas thus presents an objective and teleological account of human and divine love that is of philosophical and theological interest. The method is broadly exegetical, presenting a careful reading of the text and supplying the philosophical and theological background which the text of Aquinas assumes. The scope of the work is limited to three questions (ST I?II, qq. 26?28). References to interpretative disputes of Aquinas and references to further resources in the secondary literature will be mostly limited to the footnotes, making the body of the text accessible to more readers.

Those interested in the concept of ecstasy would be forgiven for assuming that a sober scholastic like St. Thomas Aquinas had little place for the idea. Yet in this groundbreaking study, sure to refine our understanding of the Angelic Doctor, Peter Kwasniewski shows that St. Thomas contemplates the nature of ecstasy at key stages in the development of his thought and that it plays a crucial role in his doctrine of love. After a stimulating study of treatments of ecstasy in ancient philosophy, Sacred Scripture, and the medieval tradition prior to Aquinas, Kwasniewski finds that he can be seen as breathing new life into the concept. While his contemporary, St. Bonaventure, for example, tended to restrict ecstasy to the soul’s union with God, St. Thomas admitted the place of ecstasy in a variety of human activities. Furthermore, St. Thomas recognized that all love involves ecstatic transcendence, whether it be the creature’s self-oblation to the Creator, the reverence of an inferior for a superior, a superior’s generosity toward an inferior, or the mutual affection and help of equals joined in friendship. Love of persons for their own sake generates an ecstatic love in which the self is borne as a gift to another subject by sharing a common life aspiring to common goods. Kwasniewski also examines Aquinas on the question of whether or not God experiences ecstasy, and if so, in what ways. The Ecstasy of Love in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the doctrine of love and to the interpretation of the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. It is more than an analysis of key texts; it is an illuminating guide to the grammar of ecstasy.

What is the relationship between the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the action of grace? John Meinert’s The Love of God Poured Out enters into the major positions and debates within Thomism to forge a new synthesis on this topic within the greater body of scholarship existing today. Meinert reads Aquinas’s thought on the gifts of the Holy Spirit and grace in an integral and analogous way. Not only does The Love of God Poured Out aid scholars in understanding Aquinas’s thought on these two issues, it also once more clarifies the truth that the Holy Spirit and his gifts are neither a devout appendix to moral theology nor a pious nod to tradition. They are the heart and height of the moral life, a life lived subditus Deo.

What does it mean to love? What are the traits of character that support love’s activity? How does the economy of grace—the mission of Christ and the action of the Holy Spirit—elevate and transform human love, virtue, and the desire for happiness? In On Love and Virtue: Theological Essays, the eminent Dominican theologian Michael Sherwin considers how the Catholic tradition has addressed these questions. Fr. Sherwin places this tradition in dialogue with contemporary questions. Taking St. Thomas Aquinas as his primary guide, Fr. Sherwin reads St. Thomas in light of his biblical and patristic sources (especially St. Augustine) and engages contemporary developments in philosophy in order to deepen our understanding of how grace both heals and elevates human nature. Along the way, Fr. Sherwin considers the vocation of the theologian and the biblical and patristic understanding of the Christian call to moral apprenticeship and friendship with God.

"This comprehensive exploration of Thomas Aquinas's theology of habit takes habits in general as a prism for understanding human action and its influences and provides a unique synthesis of Thomistic virtue theory, modern science of habits, and best practices for eliminating bad habits and living good habits"--

The problem of eternal damnation is one that should trouble all believers and impels many to seek answers to fundamental questions outside of the Church. For this reason, theologians with a missionary heart of the last century or more from across the ecclesial spectrum have sought to refashion the gospel in our own estranged image. In dialogue with one of the leading figures of this movement, Joshua Brotherton tackles the question of the plausibility that all will be saved. Sympathetic to their cause, this volume seeks to revise the way in which they envision the reconciliation of divine love and moral evil.