The Creative Retrieval of Saint Thomas Aquinas : Essays in Thomistic Philosophy, New and Old

W. Norris Clarke has chosen the fifteen essays in this collection, five of which appear here for the first time, as the most significant of the more than seventy he has written over the course of a long career. Clarke is known for his development of a Thomistic personalism. To be a person, according to Saint Thomas, is to take conscious self-possession of one's own being, to be master of oneself. But our incarnate mode of being human involves living in a body whose life unfolds across time, and is inevitably dispersed across time. If we wish to know fully who we are, we need to assimilate and integrate this dispersal, so that our lives become a coherent story. In addition to the existentialist thought of Etienne Gilson and others, Clarke draws on the Neoplatonic dimension of participation. Existence as act and participation have been the central pillars of his metaphysical thought, especially in its unique manifestation in the human person.The essays collected here cover a wide range of philosophical, ethical, religious, and aesthetic topics. Through them sounds a very personal voice, one that has inspired generations of students and scholars. W. Norris Clarke has chosen the fifteen essays in this collection, five of which appear here for the first time, as the most significant of the more than seventy he has written over the course of a long career. Clarke is known for his development of a Thomistic personalism. To be a person, according to Saint Thomas, is to take conscious self-possession of one's own being, to be master of oneself. But our incarnate mode of being human involves living in a body whose life unfolds across time, and is inevitably dispersed across time. If we wish to know fully who we are, we need to assimilate and integrate this dispersal, so that our lives become a coherent story. In addition to the existentialist thought of Etienne Gilson and others, Clarke draws on the Neoplatonic dimension of participation. Existence as act and participation have been the central pillars of his metaphysical thought, especially in its unique manifestation in the human person. The essays collected here cover a wide range of philosophical, ethical, religious, and aesthetic topics. Through them sounds a very personal voice, one that has inspired generations of students and scholars. contents 6 preface 8 part i 12 Twenty-Fourth Award of the Aquinas Medal, by the American Catholic Philosophical Association, to W. Norris Clarke, SJ 14 Interpersonal Dialogue: Key to Realism 27 Causality and Time 38 System: A New Category of Being? 50 A Curious Blind Spot in the Anglo-American Tradition of Antitheistic Argument 59 The Problem of the Reality and Multiplicity of Divine Ideas in Christian Neoplatonism 77 Is the Ethical Eudaimonism of Saint Thomas Too Self-Centered? 100 Conscience and the Person 106 Democracy, Ethics, Religion: An Intrinsic Connection 120 What Cannot Be Said in Saint Thomas’s Essence-Existence Doctrine 128 Living on the Edge: The Human Person as ‘‘Frontier Being’’ and Microcosm 143 The Metaphysics of Religious Art: Reflections on a Text of Saint Thomas 163 part ii 182 The Immediate Creation of the Human Soul by God and Some Contemporary Challenges 184 The Creative Imagination: Unique Expression of Our Soul-Body Unity 202 The Creative Imagination as Treated in Western Thought 220 The Integration of Personalism and Thomistic Metaphysics in Twenty-First-Century Thomism 237 notes 244 name index 272 subject index 278 Part I: Reprinted articles Twenty-fourth award of Aquinas medal by the American Catholic Philosophical Association to W. Norris Clarke, SJ Interpersonal dialogue : key to realism Causality and time System : a new category of being A curious blind spot in the Anglo American tradition of antitheistic argument The problem of the reality and multiplicity of divine ideas in Christian neoplatonism Is the ethical eudaimonism of Saint Thomas too self-centered? Conscience and the person Democracy, ethics, religion : an intrinsic connection What cannot be said in Saint Thomas's essence-existence doctrine Living on the edge : the human person as frontier being and microcosm The metaphysics of religious art : reflections on a text of Saint Thomas Part II: New articles The immediate creation of the human soul by God and some contemporary Challenges The creative imagination : unique expression of our soul-body unity The creative imagination as treated in western thought The integration of personalism and thomistic metaphysics in twenty-first-century Thomism. A collection of essays that cover a wide range of philosophical, ethical, religious, and aesthetic topics. Norris Clarke has chosen the fifteen articles in this collection, five of which appear here for the first time, as the most significant of the more than seventy articles he has written over the course of a long career. Father Clarke is known for his development of a Thomistic personalism. To be a person, according to St. Thomas, is to take conscious self-possession of one's own being, to be master of oneself. But our incarnate human mode of being necessarily involves living in a body whose life unfolds across time, and whose life is therefore inevitably dispersed across time. If we wish to know in full self-consciousness who we are, we need to assimilate and integrate this dispersal, so that our lives become a coherent story. The essays collected here cover a wide range of philosophical, ethical, religious, and aesthetic topics. Through them sounds a very personal voice, one that has inspired generations of students