First published 30 years ago and long out of print, Aquinas: God and Action appears here for the first time in paperback. This classic volume by eminent philosopher and theologian David Burrell argues that Aquinas’s is not the god of Greek metaphysics, but a god of both being and activity. Aquinas’s plan in the Summa Theologiae, according to Burrell, is to instruct humans how to find eternal happiness through acts of knowing and loving. Featuring a new foreword by the author, this edition will be welcomed by philosophers and theologians alike.
Table of Contents
Foreword to Second Edition
Preface
Part 1. Scientia Divina: The Grammar of Divinity
1. Background: Philosophical Grammar
2. The Unknown
3. Showing a Way: Esse
4. Analogical Predication
5. Truth in Matters Religious
6. A Philosophical Objection: Process Theology
7. A Psychological Objection: Jung and Privatio Boni
Part 2. Actus: The Operative Analogous Expression
8. Actus: An Inherently Analogous Expression
9. Intentional Activity and Performance: Paradigm for Actus
10. Natural Process: Actus and Causality
11. Divine Activity: Creative and Immanent
12. The Act of Understanding: A Theory and an Analogy
13. Paradoxes of Action: Some Structural Parallels