Aquinas and Modernity

Shadia B. Drury

doi:10.5771/9780742583979

Summary

In this startling book, Drury overturns the long-standing reputation of Thomas Aquinas as the most rational exponent of the Christian faith. She reveals that Aquinas as one of the most zealous Dominicans (Domini Canes) or Hounds of the Lord. The book contains incisive criticisms of Aquinas's reconciliation of faith and reason, his defense of papal supremacy, his justification of the Inquisition, his insistence on the persecution of Jews, and his veneration of celibacy. Far from being an antiquarian exercise, Drury shows why the study of Aquinas is relevant to the politics of the twenty-first century, where the primacy of faith over reason has experienced a revival. The current pope, Benedict XVI, relies heavily on Aquinas when prescribing cures for the ills of modernity. For Drury, religion is as incompatible with political moderation and sobriety in our time as it was in the thirteenth century. This is why she defends a secular version of Aquinas's theory of natural law_a theory that he betrayed in favor of what she calls 'the politics of salvation.'

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2008
ISBN-Print: 978-0-7425-2257-2
ISBN-Online: 978-0-7425-8397-9
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 209
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. Series Editors' Introduction No access
3. Preface No access
4. Acknowledgments No access
1. The Historical Setting No access
2. The Fanaticism of Faith No access
3. The Lost Promise of NaturalLaw No access
1. The Intellectual Setting No access
2. William of Saint-Amour No access
3. Siger of Brabant No access
4. The Usurpation of the Double Truth No access
5. Aristotle and the Bible No access
6. Faith and Reason No access
7. The Authority of Scoundrels No access
8. Weapon Against Modernity No access
9. The Ann-Modernist Oath No access
10. The Appeal of Fideism No access
11. Is Faith Impervious to Reason? No access
1. Papal Supremacy and the Two Swords No access
2. The Pragmatism of Natural Law No access
3. The Bigotry of Faith No access
4. Heathens, Heretics, and Jews No access
5. The Success and Failure of the Mosaic Law No access
6. Just War and Holy War No access
7. Death to Heretics No access
8. Aquinas and the Inquisition No access
1. Eunuchs for Heaven No access
2. The "Aristotelian" Argument No access
3. Sharing the Agony No access
4. The Sex Life of Adam and Eve No access
5. To Marry or To Burn? No access
6. Carnal Pleasure and the Contemplation of God No access
7. Those Pesky Polygamous Patriarchs No access
8. The Crimes of Celibacy No access
9. The Vices of Celibacy: Abelard, Heloise, and Augustine No access
1. Christianity and the Inquisition No access
2. The Silence of Conscience No access
3. The Separation of Church and State No access
4. Western Civilization and the Islamic Threat No access
5. Freedom and Licentiousness No access
6. The New Averroist Menace No access
7. The Disenchantment of Postmodernity No access
1. Natural Law and Human Nature No access
2. A Minimalist Reading No access
3. Abhorrence of Nature No access
4. Conscience No access
5. Conventionalism No access
6. Legal Positivism No access
7. Natural Law and Divine Revelation No access
8. Conclusion No access
Notes No access Pages 169 - 196
Bibliography No access Pages 197 - 202
Index No access Pages 203 - 208
About the Author No access Pages 209 - 209