Wednesday, March 24, 2010

A Shocker from Ignatius Press

I got an Ignatius Press catalogue in the mail yesterday, and was quite surprised at what I found. Normally I only leaf through them quickly and don't buy, as while they are traditional orthodox catholic publishers for them this means they publish books on the fathers, Aquinas, and nouvelle theologie and not much else. Surely no mention of other scholastics to break down their picture of the golden medieval unity that existed prior to protestantism. But the surprise: they are carrying a book from Ave Maria press (surely a bastion of the most tedious kind of thomism: ecstatic participatory exegisis), on Aquinas' view of the natural desire for God (an issue long a battleground between Scotist and Thomist), and actually mention Scotus in the book description. I know nothing of the book, and so cannot say how accurate it depicts Scotus, but perhaps that renewal of theology I've heard so much about is actually starting to happen, and maybe it will mean more than swinging the pendulum back to authoritarian thomism after all. So here is the book information, and kudos to the author!

Faith and Reason: Studies in Catholic Theology and Philosophy

The Natural Desire to See God according to St. Thomas Aquinas and his Interpreters, by Lawrence Feingold. paperback, 528 pages, $34.95.

"The work examines the argument of St. Thomas Aquinas that the desire to see God is naturally formed by the human mind when we consider the existence of a First Cause. It examines the thought of St. Thomas and some of his most prominent interpreters, including Scotus, Cajetan, Suarez, and Henri de Lubac."

Odd, that. It makes Scotus sound like a member of the thomist school. But, as Fr. Z. says, "brick by brick."

5 comments:

Michael Sullivan said...

they publish books on the fathers, Aquinas, and nouvelle theologie and not much else.

This isn't really fair. Ignatius publishes lots of good stuff, e.g. the Chesterton opera omnia.

berenike said...

"ecstatic participatory exegisis"

rofl :)

X-Cathedra said...

The "Feingold Book" has been much talked about and much expected. The Thomists I run with are shouting from the rooftops that it's now in print.

You might enjoy the fact that in his de Lubac book, Milbank refers to him mistakenly as "Feinberg" more than once. That careful eye of his...

Pax Christi,

Aquinas3000 said...

The book is a defense of St Thomas' position. Or more precisely that and a sustained argument against de Lubac's interpretation thereof.

Aquinas3000 said...

I have the book now.

It says this on p xxxiii in the Introduction in footnote 54:

"Although Scotus and jansenius are not interpreters of St. Thomas, they are discussed here insofar as their thought bears on the interpretation of the natural desire to see God."

So in reality that error isn't made.