Speaking with Aquinas: A Conversation about Grace, Virtue, and the Eucharist

by David Farina Turnbloom, Bruce T. Morrill SJ (Foreword by)

Overview

According to Thomas Aquinas, the Eucharist is meant to build up the unity of the church. This desired ecclesial unity is, however, not often given adequate treatment. In Speaking with Aquinas, David Farina Turnbloom seeks to describe the relationship between the celebration of the Eucharist and the unity of the church. By examining Aquinas's treatment of grace and virtues, this book allows the reader to understand Aquinas's eucharistic theology within the context of the spiritual life of the church. In the end, Turnbloom retrieves a Thomistic theology of the Eucharist that arises from Aquinas's concern for the virtuous life of the church, rather than a eucharistic theology that too narrowly focuses on theories of transubstantiation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814687819
Publisher:	Liturgical Press
Publication date:	02/01/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	198
File size:	514 KB

About the Author

David Farina Turnbloom is assistant professor of theology at the University of Portland. He has published numerous articles focusing on the relationships between Christian worship and ethics. He is a board member of the ecumenical group The Liturgical Conference. He holds a PhD in systematic theology from Boston College.

Bruce T. Morrill, SJ, holds the Edward A. Malloy Chair of Catholic Studies in the divinity school at Vanderbilt University where he is also Professor of Theological Studies. In addition to numerous journal articles, book chapters, and reviews, he has published several books, most recently Encountering Christ in the Eucharist: The Paschal Mystery in People, Word, and Sacrament (Paulist Press, 2012). His most recent book with liturgical Press is Divine Worship and Human Healing: Liturgical Theology at the Margins of Life and Death (Pueblo/Liturgical Press, 2009).

Table of Contents

Contents
 
FOREWORD - Bruce T. Morrill, SJ
 
PREFACE
Conversion through Conversation
 
INTRODUCTION
Finding a Lost Voice
  I. Grammars
  II. Scholastic Grammars
  III. Modern Grammars
  IV. The Problem: Lacking Context
  V. The Solution: Finding a Lost Voice
 
CHAPTER ONE
Why the Secunda Pars?
  I. Lamenting the Loss of a Loss
     1. The Deadly Dichotomy
     2. Consequences of the Deadly Dichotomy
  II. The Purpose of the Summa Theologiae
  III. Signification and Causality
  IV. Baptism and Penance: Infusing Charity
  V. The Eucharist: Increasing Charity
  VI. Unanswered Questions
 
CHAPTER TWO
Grace as the Embodied Spiritual Life
  I. The Teleological Nature of the Spiritual Life
     1. The Structure of the Summa Theologiae
     2. The Place of the Prima Secundae in the Summa
  II. Grace and the Spiritual Life
     1. Grace Actualizing the Image of God
     2. The Spiritual Life Conforming to Grace
  III. Belief and Signs
  IV. Conclusion: Cooperative Participation
 
CHAPTER THREE
The Theological Virtues Founding the EmbodiedSpiritual Life
  I. The Theological Virtues: Orders and Degrees
     1. Faith, Hope, and Charity
     2. Orders of Generation and Perfection
     3. Three Degrees of Charity
  II. Falling in Love with God
     1. Justification
     2. Infusion
  III. Growing in Love for God
     1. Sanctification
     2. Increase
  IV. Being Saved by Love
 
CHAPTER FOUR
The Moral Virtues Manifesting the Embodied Spiritual Life
  I. Moral Virtues
     1. The Codependence of Moral Virtues
     2. Acquiring and Increasing Moral Virtue
  II. Embodying Friendship with God
     1. Operating Ex Caritate
     2. Dispositive Acts of Charity
     3. Communal Embodiment of Friendship with God
  III. Grammars of Grace and Virtue
 
CHAPTER FIVE
The Eucharist Nourishing the Embodied Spiritual Life
  I. Jesus Establishes the Way
     1. Paschal Mystery as Sacrificial Sign of God’s Love
     2. Provocation as Possibility of Theosis
  II. Sacraments Show the Way
     1. Writing the Signs through Religion
     2. Reading the Signs through Faith
     3. Graced Cooperation
  III. Eucharist as Nourishment for the Way
     1. Writing Christ through the Eucharist
     2. Spiritually Eating through Faith
     3. The Unity of the Church:The Fellowship of Sinful Saints
 
C H A P T E R S I X
A Liturgical Theology of Right Religion
  I. A Self-Defeating Tendency
  II. Goodness and Rightness
  III. Religious Signification
  IV. Right Religion
     1. Religious Prudence
     2. Striving for Right Religion
  V. Writing a Diverse Christ for a Plural World
     1. Prudently Writing Christ
     2. How Do We Write Christ?
 
CONCLUSION
Speaking with a Lost Voice
 
Bibliography
Index
 

Editorial Reviews

"Lucid, compelling, and conversational, David Farina Turnbloom's Speaking with Aquinas connects the sacramental theology of the Summa Theologica with Thomas Aquinas's soteriology and ethics. By examining the relationship between grace and the virtues, Turnbloom uncovers the presuppositions of Thomas Aquinas's treatises on the sacraments and on the Eucharist. Aquinas's ‘multiple grammars' allow him to treat the paradoxical agency of both Christ and the Christian in the sacraments. As a result, in this nuanced but accessible treatment, the Holy Spirit and the Christian life of faith emerge as the center of Aquinas's sacramental theology. Speaking with Aquinas reveals the links between Christology, sacrament, the Eucharist, and ethics, showing how Aquinas's sacramental soteriology can still speak to readers today."
Kimberly Belcher, PhD, University of Notre Dame



"David Turnbloom invites us into an entirely new conversation about how the Eucharist nourishes our moral lives. Into the circle of contemporary theologians like Chauvet, Morrill, and Baldovin, Turnbloom invites Thomas Aquinas and gives him room to speak about his grammar of grace and virtue. As Turnbloom channels Thomas, we hear the thirteenth-century theologian with a whole new voice speaking to us about the spiritual life of friendship with God as a pilgrim community. Refreshingly satisfying discourse for hungry Christians on the move!"
James F. Keenan, SJ, Canisius Professor, Boston College


"Turnbloom provides a comprehensive understanding of the Eucharist while allowing Aquinas's work to be given a place that is extremely helpful to Christianity as a whole rather than getting bogged down"
Robert Huttmeyer, Catholic Library World


"Many elements of his work will facilitate conversation among even the most entrenched parties on either side, namely, those who would absolutize scholastic grammars of the sacraments, and those who would do likewise to modern grammars, such as those grounded in patristics, anthropology, or studies of symbols."
Theological Studies


"An ambitious project, but quite a necessary one. Turnbloom's attempt to build a dialogue between different aspects of Aquinas's thought and bring it into a more recent kind of liturgical theology is admirable. The author's writing is accessible to the ordinary reader who might not be familiar with Thomistic theology."
Ecclesia Orans

"By retrieving Aquinas' own understanding of grace and virtue, and the underlying principles of theosis, Turnbloom shows that there is not necessarily a deficit in Aquinas so much as in the interpretation of his work. Turnbloom also makes a strong case for the importance of virtues of charity and prudence in constructing ‘right' acts of religion today, perhaps offering a rejoinder to the more aggressive elements on both sides of current liturgical debates."
Anaphora

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