The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas and His Interpreters (Faith and Reason: Studies in Catholic Theology and Philosophy) 2nd Edition

by Lawrence Feingold (Author)

7 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-1932589542

ISBN-10: 1932589546

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What kind of natural desire is this? How can there be a natural desire for what can only be supernaturally obtained? How can such a desire be reconciled with the gratuitousness of grace and glory? What are its implications for apologetics? These and similar questions have caused a debate to rage for centuries over the proper interpretation of the natural desire to see God. This work seeks to determine the nature of this desire and its relationship with the supernatural order through an examination of the thought of St. Thomas and some of his most prominent interpreters, including Scotus, Cajetan, Suárez, and Henri de Lubac.

The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas and His Interpreters (Faith and Reason: Studies in Catholic Theology and Philosophy)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

This is a stunning book, on many counts: the sheer toil it represents, the amount of information it offers, the force of its arguments, and above all, the significance of its conclusions. Much of recent Catholic theology turns on the relation between the natural and the supernatural, and this deep and careful investigation sets the issue in a new light. Theologians and philosophers alike can benefit greatly from it. --Stephan L. Brock, Pontifical University of the Holy Cross

Lawrence Feingold has performed an invaluable service to all who seek to understand the profound and difficult question of the character of the natural desire to see God. His magisterial command of the doctrinal tradition, exegetic care, and capacity to unfold an argument while appreciating all the delicate reticulations of commentatorial interpretation, highly commend this book. The sheer scope of the book, treating all the principal commentators engaged with this question, up to and including Laporta and de Lubac, combined with its speculative penetration, render it far and away the finest of the historico-doctrinal works addressing this issue. This is a tour de force: a book whose implications for the future of theology, and for a just appreciation and assessment of its past, truly need to be drawn. --Steven A. Long, Ave Maria University

About the Author

Lawrence Feingold converted to Catholicism in 1989 together with his wife, while engaged in realist marble sculpture in Pietrasanta, Italy. He studied Philosophy and Theology at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome from 1990 to 1999, earning a doctorate in Dogmatic Theology. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Theology in the Institute for Pastoral Theology of Ave Maria University.

Paperback: 528 pages
Publisher: Sapientia Press Ave Maria Univ; 2 edition (October 1, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1932589546
ISBN-13: 978-1932589542
Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.5 x 8.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 7 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,336,014 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #513 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Theology > Anthropology
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- #26599 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies > Theology

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mnichols

Superb and Comprehensive

April 7, 2011

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

In a singly superbly written, researched and organized work, Lawrence Feingold has demonstrated both precisely how St. Thomas Aquinas understood the concept of the natural human desire for God to be and also, and perhaps more importantly, how St. Thomas did not understand it to be. Many of his conclusions, stated early and frequently throughout his book, boldly fly in the face of current trends in the debate concerning the relationship between nature and grace especially with regard to the DeLubacian notions of the natural human desire for supernatural ends. In The Natural Desire to see God According to St. Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters, Feingold traces the trajectory of Thomistic notions of innate natural desire vs. elicited natural desire beginning with a thorough exposition of the Angelic Doctor's own texts and extending through subsequent interpretations/clarification of St Thomas by interpreters such as Cajetan, Sylvester of Ferrara, Duns Scotus, Suarez and others before ending up finally with Henri DeLubac in the 20th century. He spends the last few chapters of his book specifically addressing the claims of DeLubac and how an innate desire for God is incompatible with the teachings of St. Thomas, who held that the desire for God is an elicited desire, beginning first with a general desire for knowledge of causes in general, but which needs intellectual specification for desiring the one, Triune God and ultimately, for the beatitude promised to man through sheer Divine gratuitousness.

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Matthew

Best book on nature/grace debate

April 10, 2010

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

A phenomenal book. It is clear, precise, and very well-documented. Feingold seeks to show the meaning of the natural desire to see God in St. Thomas, i.e. the question is what does this "natural desire" mean or what kind of natural desire is it. He does this first by going through the principle texts of Thomas on this subject and clearly laying out his doctrine and the questions that arise from it at first. He follows this with the debate up to the present time on this matter from Scotus, Denis the Carthusian, Cajetan (here he takes up the question of obediential potency as well), Francis Sylvester of Ferrara, Domingo de Sota, Francisco de Toledo, Medina, Banez, Suarez, and Jansenius. Finally he gives a systematic account of de Lubac's position and compares it point by point with St. Thomas. He concludes by saying that understanding the natural desire according to St. Thomas as innate is foreign to the texts of St. Thomas. There are many fundamental principles which de Lubac either denies or misunderstands from St. Thomas. Rather de Lubac falls in line with the Scotus tradition and tries to read St. Thomas as saying the same thing as Scotus (at least inasmuch as he says the natural desire to see God is innate). He concludes the book with summary of arguments on why an innate appetite for the vision of God is impossible. No matter where you may fall on the debate this book is well worth reading due to the detailed research on the understanding of this point from Scotus through de Lubac (not to mention his meticulous reading of St. Thomas!).

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Amazon Customer

Five Stars

February 16, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Excellent overview of the Grace discussion within Thomistic though

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Alfred Freddoso

Magisterial

October 26, 2012

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

For those of us who grew up theologically in the 1960's with the works of de Lubac, Lonergan, Rahner, et al., de Lubac's interpretation of the natural desire to see God became mandatory, and the old-style Thomists who criticized de Lubac were seen as the epitome of wrongheadedness, narrowmindedness, stupidity, .... you name it. Still, I always had the suspicion that there were conceptual confusions that needed to be straightened out before de Lubac could claim victory on this score. I hoped, without any realistic expectation of its ever happening, that someone would in my lifetime clear up both the conceptual confusions and the historical questions regarding St. Thomas's account of the natural desire to see God.

Well, let's just say that in this magisterial book Feingold has shown beyond the shadow of a doubt that de Lubac was just dead wrong both in his criticisms of the Thomists and in his interpretation of St. Thomas. The book is a model of conceptually precise and philosophically informed Catholic systematic theology carried out in conversation with the whole of the tradition on this particular question.

In addition, there is a delicious irony here, viz., that the book should have been written by a Jewish convert to Catholicism, especially considering that another terrific recent Thomistic book, Fr. Thomas Joseph White's Wisdom in the Face of Modernity, is also written by a convert with Jewish roots. God has a sense of humor.

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Most recent customer reviews

There are some weaknesses in Mr. Feingold's arguments

Review of The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters, 2nd ed., 2010, by Lawrence Feingold

The topic of Mr.Read more

Published 3 months ago by Michael Stannard

a scholarly stupor mundi, but far from settling the doctrinal question

Several reviewers have declared the nature-grace debate finished once-and-for-all with the advent of Feingold's magisterial work on the Baroque commentarial tradition.Read more

Published on December 3, 2014 by Vir desideriorum

A Most Satisfactory Work

Amidst the fog of Modernity, students of Catholic thought have been groping for the satisfying food of wisdom, yet rarely do they stumble upon a feast such as this. Dr.Read more

Published on December 12, 2013 by Ronald

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