Catholicism, natural theology, and the gift of understanding

Since the Patristic era, the Catholic faith has acknowledged two kinds of theology, today called ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’, corresponding to the diverse worlds of discourse about God without and with what is particular to Christian revelation. The Church also formally defends the teaching that th...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Pinsent, A
Other Authors: Dew, Jr, JK
Format: Book section
Language:English
Published: Baker Academic 2024
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author Pinsent, A
author2 Dew, Jr, JK
author_facet Dew, Jr, JK
Pinsent, A
author_sort Pinsent, A
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description Since the Patristic era, the Catholic faith has acknowledged two kinds of theology, today called ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’, corresponding to the diverse worlds of discourse about God without and with what is particular to Christian revelation. The Church also formally defends the teaching that the one true God, Creator and Lord, can be known with certitude by those things which have been made, by the natural light of human reason. Drawing from Aquinas, however, I argue that the deeper distinction of natural and supernatural theology is in terms of subjective understanding, especially the understanding associated with the gift of the Holy Spirit in the life of grace. Progress in natural theology today will need to focus on this difficult topic of understanding, while recognising that natural theology alone can never bridge the gap between God and ourselves.
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spelling oxford-uuid:e3bfc825-adf7-4eb1-8e9e-ba2f1ee7d3f32024-04-16T10:53:57ZCatholicism, natural theology, and the gift of understandingBook sectionhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_1843uuid:e3bfc825-adf7-4eb1-8e9e-ba2f1ee7d3f3EnglishSymplectic ElementsBaker Academic2024Pinsent, ADew, Jr, JKCampbell, Jr, RPSince the Patristic era, the Catholic faith has acknowledged two kinds of theology, today called ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’, corresponding to the diverse worlds of discourse about God without and with what is particular to Christian revelation. The Church also formally defends the teaching that the one true God, Creator and Lord, can be known with certitude by those things which have been made, by the natural light of human reason. Drawing from Aquinas, however, I argue that the deeper distinction of natural and supernatural theology is in terms of subjective understanding, especially the understanding associated with the gift of the Holy Spirit in the life of grace. Progress in natural theology today will need to focus on this difficult topic of understanding, while recognising that natural theology alone can never bridge the gap between God and ourselves.
spellingShingle Pinsent, A
Catholicism, natural theology, and the gift of understanding
title Catholicism, natural theology, and the gift of understanding
title_full Catholicism, natural theology, and the gift of understanding
title_fullStr Catholicism, natural theology, and the gift of understanding
title_full_unstemmed Catholicism, natural theology, and the gift of understanding
title_short Catholicism, natural theology, and the gift of understanding
title_sort catholicism natural theology and the gift of understanding
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