Cornelius Ernst

Cornelius Ernst (1924–1977) was a Sri Lankan Dominican theologian.

Ernst was born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1924 to an ethnically Dutch Anglican father and Sinhalese Buddhist mother. For a period he was a member of the Communist Party of Sri Lanka. He shared the Anglicanism of his father, but later converted to Catholicism after reading John Henry Newman's ''Apologia Pro Vita Sua''.

While at Cambridge (1946–7) he attended lectures by Ludwig Wittgenstein. He produced the first English translation of Karl Rahner's ''Schriften zur Theologie'' which he penned the foreword to and named ''Theological Investigations''. This title choice was influenced by Wittgenstein's book ''Philosophical Investigations''.

He was ordained in 1954, following this he taught at Hawkesyard Priory in Staffordshire, England from 1957 until 1966 when he moved to Oxford Priory.

He edited and wrote the introduction to a Latin-English bilingual translation of the section on grace in Thomas Aquinas' ''Summa Theologiae'', which he published in 1972. Ernst work attempted a synthesis of the ideas of Wittgenstein and Aquinas.

In 1974 he published a book, ''The Theology of Grace''. He was a long time contributor to the New Blackfriars journal.

In 1979 many of his essays were posthumously published as a book, ''Multiple Echo'', featuring a foreword by Donald M. MacKinnon. Ernst work influenced theologians Nicholas Lash, Fergus Kerr, and Timothy Radcliffe. Provided by Wikipedia