Cardinal Cajetan

Although Murray Rothbard gave high praise to the economic teachings of Thomas de Vio Cardinal Cajetan, portraying him as proto-Austrian, this article argues that the reality is more complicated. Examining Cajetan’s three major economic works, On Monetary Exchange, On Charitable Pawnshops, and On Usury, it demonstrates that he could be in turn liberal, moderate, and conservative, depending on the particular context and question. It concludes that read within his own scholastic and pastoral approach, Cajetan may still have insights and contributions to offer the history of economics, but of a more mixed character than Rothbard’s portrayal.

Are all God’s activities identical to God?  If not, which are identical to God and which not?  Although it is seldom noticed, the texts of Aquinas (at least on the surface) suggest conflicting answers to these questions, giving rise to a diversity of opinion among interpreters of Aquinas.  In this paper, we draw attention to this conflict and offer what we believe to be the strongest textual and speculative support for and against each of the main answers to these questions.

The essay considers the two most significant figures in the emergence of the thesis of the Church's infallibility in formal canonizations, namely Melchior Cano and Thomas Aquinas, who together established the strongest and most frequently cited arguments in favor of said infallibility. Through an examination of both their arguments and their historical context, it concludes, first, that Aquinas did not defend a simple infallibility in canonizations, and second, that their arguments validly establish a divine guarantee, but a subtler divine guarantee than has been typically defended since Benedict XIV.

conciliarist work, found in the Dis-putationes de controversiis Christianae fidei adversus huius temporis haereticos, emphasizing his theolog-of conciliarism. Bellarmine sees the conciliarists as attacking the divinely instituted Petrine structure of the Church. He does not advocate for an absolute papal monarchy in which there are no cred Scripture and Apostolic Tradition, have supreme authority in the Church: one which the magisterium, whether papal or conciliar, must accept in humility and pass on unsullied. Only Christ has a true fullness of power; the pope has a fullness only relative to that of the bishops. Nevertheless, Christ immediately instituted the pope as the supreme head of the Church on earth, and as such, the pope has supreme ecclesiastical power over the whole Church on earth.

I will proceed in three parts: First, I will consider briefly the classic dispute between Luther and Cajetan on the power of the keys, with the goal of clarifying the ecclesiological nature of the sacrament of penance. Second, I will discuss a widespread modern Catholic consideration of the sacrament that misunderstands the nature of the juridical power of absolution by making it something virtually accessory to our reconciliation with God. Third, I will consider Aquinas’s teaching on the ecclesial dimension of the sacrament of reconciliation as a way of thinking about the relation between the priesthood and the Church. My basic argument is the following: The intrinsic form that all grace takes in the Christian economy of salvation is not only Christological but inherently sacramental and ecclesial. In the sacrament of penance, this grace provides entry into the communion of the Church and therefore renders Christ’s salvific action in the world effective in an irreplaceable way. Such juridical agency endures eschatologically, because reception of the sacrament of forgiveness from a rightly delegated minister entails an inchoate participation in the final judgment of Christ in his glory, and Christ’s judgment of mercy has everlasting ecclesial effects upon which we will be eternally dependent.

Certains théologiens et certains canonistes considèrent qu'un pape peut tomber dans l'hérésie. Selon eux, il devrait alors être déposé par un concile général. Cette théorie remonte au Décret de Gratien (XIIe siècle). Elle a engendré les erreurs du conciliarisme et du gallicanisme. Même si elle a été défendue par des théologiens de renom (Cajetan, Jean de Saint-Thomas...), cette doctrine a été réfutée par saint Robert Bellarmin.

Some theologians and canonists Believe a pope might fall in heresy. According to them he should therefore be deposited by the General Council. This theory dates from Gratian Decretum (XIIth century). It generated Conciliarism and Gallicanism errors. Although this theory was adopted by well-established theologians (Cajetanus, John of St-Thomas...), it has been thoroughly refuted by saint Robert Bellarmine.

Many writers have recognised that Thomas does not present us with a theory of analogy.  Rather what we see in his numerous works is how Aquinas uses analogy. This creates ambiguity and difficulties for scholars trying to reconstruct a systematic understanding of analogy in the mind of Aquinas.

  One fundamental question raised by Aquinas’ treatment of analogy which I seek to address in this paper is whether analogy is primarily a grammatical or else a metaphysical doctrine. Is it, to put it another way, a matter of predication or of participation?

  I propose to answer this question by firstly examining the metaphysical interpretation of Cardinal Cajetan, followed by the ‘predication only’ view of Ralph McInerny. I will discuss problems raised by both approaches. Next I will discuss to what extent predication might depend on participation in the metaphysical and clarify the nature of this dependence. It will become evident during this discussion that the issue of the nature of analogy impinges on the wider issue of how far Aquinas is working within an Aristotelian or a Platonic framework of epistemology. Finally I will draw some tentative conclusions.

Como los hábitos resumen nuestra vida al modo de una segunda naturaleza, Santiago Ramírez sostiene que ésta debe indagarse desde su principio, comenzado por los hábitos principales que determinan nuestro conocer y obrar. Rescatando el aspecto metafísico y psicológico del hábito, el P. Ramírez explica que la distinción real existente entre hábito y disposición en el predicamento qualitas es un aporte original de Santo Tomás a la filosofía. Por otro lado, el teólogo dominico enseña que los hábitos de intellectus y de synderesis cualifican a nuestra potencia intelectual para obrar de modo infalible su acto propio, asemejándonos de algún modo a los ángeles: debido a que la naturaleza es el fin de la generación, resulta necesario analizar el origen de los primeros principios si queremos entender la naturaleza de estos hábitos.

Fifty-plus years ago, Ralph McInerny’s The Logic of Analogy characterized Francis Silvestri of Ferrara’s doctrine of analogy as a confusing hybrid of the thought of Thomas Aquinas and of Thomas Cajetan. Since then scholarship on 15th Century Thomism has flourished, thanks especially to the efforts of Ashworth, Bonino, Hochschild, Riva, and Tavuzzi. In light of these decades of scholarship, this article reconsiders Francis Silvestri’s doctrine of analogy. It attempts to show the merits of his contribution to the Thomist Tradition’s ongoing reflection on analogy, especially the dispute among Thomists and with Scotists over abstracting an analogous concept, the unity of the concept used analogously, and the use of analogy in demonstration. It argues that Francis’ hybrid succeeds in finding a place for analogy of attribution in names said analogously of God and creatures while still meeting Cajetan’s standards for answering Scotist objections to demonstration through analogous terms.

Published in American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 2016. Online First 22 January 2016

A diferencia del orden natural, el hábito de los primeros principios sobrenaturales no es una especie átoma sino un género de hábitos intelectuales, en el que sobresale el don de intellectus. Para una adecuada comprensión del mismo, Santiago Ramírez rescata dos aspectos particulares del pensamiento de santo Tomás: uno filosófico, la distinción real que existe entre disposición y hábito en el predicamento qualitas; y otro teológico, la distinción real entre virtudes infusas y dones del Espíritu Santo.

Ens Primum Cognitum in Thomas Aquinas and the Tradition presents a reading of Thomas Aquinas’ claim that “being” is the first object of the human intellect. Blending the insights of both the early Thomistic tradition (c.1380—1637AD) and the Leonine Thomistic revival (1879—present), Brian Kemple examines how this claim of Aquinas has been traditionally understood, and what is lacking in that understanding.

While the recent tradition has emphasized the primacy of the real (so-called ens reale) in human recognition of the primum cognitum, Kemple argues that this misinterprets Aquinas, thereby closing off Thomistic philosophy to the broader perspective needed to face the philosophical challenges of today, and proposes an alternative interpretation with dramatic epistemological and metaphysical consequences.

En la interpretación y desarrollo por parte de la escuela tomista de las tesis de Tomás de Aquino sobre el conocimiento intelectual del individuo material, han predominado dos tradiciones: la que encuentra en Cayetano su máximo representante y la que tiene en Juan de Santo Tomás su principal exponente. Si bien ambas líneas interpretativas afirman que la intelección de lo particular material es indirecta, la primera afirma que tal conocimiento es impropio, confuso y discursivo, mientras que la segunda sostiene que es propio, distinto e inmediato. En la primera línea se puede colocar a Thomas de Sutton, Capreolo y Cayetano, mientras que en la segunda están el Ferrariense, Báñez y Juan de Santo Tomás. Se investiga también la continuación de estas tradiciones y sus modificaciones en el tomismo contemporáneo, exponiendo las posiciones de Jacques Maritain, Cornelio Fabro, Joseph Gredt, Joseph Maréchal y Francisco Canals Vidal.

The aim of this paper is to make a first approach to the late scholastic debate concerning the love of God towards possible creatures. I start with brief exposition of the historical background of the debate and the main positions of authors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, such as Duns Scotus, Cajetan, Bañez and Suárez. I deal in detail with the essentialist position of the Jesuit Gabriel Vásquez and his followers, who affirmed a necessary love of God towards possible creatures. I also present the arguments of the Thomist theologian Baltasar Navarrete against Vasquez’s position. Finally, I show how the different positions concerning the love of God towards possible creatures reveal diametrically opposed metaphysical positions about the formal constitutive element of being as such and its transcendental affections, anticipating some fundamental trends of modern rationalism.

This study offers a comprehensive overview of the various ways in which commentators interpreted the rhetoric of the Letter to Philemon from the fourth to the eighteenth century. For this purpose, fifty commentaries that appeared during this period are scrutinised one by one in order to determine the different ways in which commentators understood the rhetorical situation reflected by the letter and how they explained Paul's persuasive strategy. The study concludes with a thorough overview of broad tendencies that may be discerned in this regard. It reflects on the numerous ways in which commentators interpreted and expanded the meagre details offered by the letter to imagine a rhetorical situation that made sense to them. It also explains how consensus developed on certain matters, but, at the same time, how a diversity of views developed on other issues.

Available at: https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/book/pointing-out-persuasion-in-philemon-9783161564246?no_cache=1

The following authors/writings are discussed: ● Ambrosiaster ● Jerome ● Chrysostom ● Pelagius ● Theodore of Mopsuestia ●Theodoret of Cyrus ● Cassiodorus ● John of Damascus ● Alcuin of York ● Claudius if Turin ● Hrabanus Maurus ● Haimo of Auxerre ● Florus of Lyon ● Isho‘dad of Mev ● Sedulius Scottus ●Pseudo-Oecumenius ● Atto of Vercelli ● Lanfranc of Bec ● Bruno the Carthusian ●Theophylact of Ohrid ● Euthymius Zigabenus ● Commentarius Canatbrigiensis ● Glossa Ordinaria ● Peter Lombard ● Hervaeus of Bourg-Dieu ● Thomas Aquinas ● Pierre de Tarentaise ● Nicholas of Lyra ● Denys the Carthusian ● Desiderius Erasmus ● Johannes Bugenhagen ● Martin Luther ● Thomas de Vio Cajetan ● Heinrich Bullinger ● Johannes Brenz ● John Calvin ● Theodore Beza ● Georg Major ● Lambert Daneau ● William Attersoll ● Cornelius a Lapide ● Gulielmul Estius ● John Mayer ● Hugo Grotius ● David Dickson ● John Trapp ● Abraham Calovius ● Matthew Henry ● Georg Michael Laurentii ● Johann Albrecht Bengel ● Siegmund Jacob Baumgarten

Revised, Spanish-language version of paper presented at Marquette University, 2005 (see below).

Abstract: In this paper I ask the question “what is the end of religious worship?”  It would seem that the end cannot be God, for he cannot be perfected; nor can it be the worshipper, for that would imply a certain selfishness which must be absent in a perfect act of worship.  I examine the standard Thomistic account, represented by Cajetan, and I argue that a more nuanced view of the problem is to be developed in view of Aquinas’ many texts on the issue, scattered about his corpus.  The paper aims to reach this nuanced view.

Resumen: Esta ponencia tiene como meta desarrollar una respuesta, basada en un análisis textual de Santo Tomás, a las siguientes preguntas: ¿Cuál es el fin del culto? ¿Para qué le damos culto a Dios? ¿De qué le sirve a Dios nuestro culto? ¿O acaso no es Dios, sino nosotros mismos, quienes somos los beneficiarios del culto? Se discute lo que se podría llamar “la solución estándar tomista” a este problema. En la primera parte (I), el trabajo examina el problema de la finalidad del culto dentro del contexto del teísmo clásico. La parte II expone el status quaestionis según se encuentra en la literatura contemporánea. En la tercera parte (III), el autor se enfoca en la solución estándar tomista, según la expone Cayetano, y demuestra en qué aspectos a la misma le falta ser más matizada para incluir la solución completa de Santo Tomás. Y finalmente, la parte IV propone una cuidadosa y fiel lectura de los textos y expone los fundamentos de una nueva y matizada solución al problema.

Antonino (Antoninus) of Florence (1389-1459) had an enormous influence on the Renaissance , and in some way, the Reformation and even the Counter-Reformation. Such varied figures as Marsilio Ficino, the Medici family including the Medici pope, Leo X, Martin Luther, Tommaso de Vio Cardinal Cajetan, and Savonarola in varied ways were inspired by his life and works. His canonization shows that he has been embraced as an ideal Dominican, a follower and developer of Aquinas, and a faithful bishop of the Catholic Church. He was a paradigmatic example of how traditional Medieval Dominicans had enormous influence on Italian (particularly Florentine) culture, and how they played central roles in a cultural Renaissance and an ecclesiastical Reformation that would ultimately be in tension with their own ideals.

Any philosophical framework compatible with Christianity should be able to explain at a philosophical level why Jesus' human nature is not a human person. I briefly review the explanations of this fact proposed by Scotus and Suarez out of their rejection of the real distinction between essence and esse, and find them wholly unsatisfactory from the philosophical viewpoint. I then review the solutions proposed within the Thomistic school, and select the proposed by Billot.

Although Murray Rothbard gave high praise to the economic teachings of Thomas de Vio Cardinal Cajetan, portraying him as proto-Austrian, this article argues that the reality is more complicated. Examining Cajetan’s three major economic works, On Monetary Exchange, On Charitable Pawnshops, and On Usury, it demonstrates that he could be in turn liberal, moderate, and conservative, depending on the particular context and question. It concludes that read within his own scholastic and pastoral approach, Cajetan may still have insights and contributions to offer the history of economics, but of a more mixed character than Rothbard’s portrayal. Philip Neri Reese, "Cajetan’s Economic Treatises: A Critique of Rothbard’s Proto-Austrian Portrayal," Journal of Markets & Morality 18, no. 2 (Fall 2015): 349-371.

The paper deals with two important philosophers of the Renaissance, Cajetan and Suárez, who represent important movements in the scholastic thought. It focuses on the topics of philosophical psychology, more precisely on the relationship between the sensory and the intellectual parts of the soul with respect to the moral evaluation of human action. The difference between the two thinkers is manifested mainly in the location of the moral virtues either in the will or in the sensitive appetite.

This paper presents a problematic argument in Aquinas’ Summa (I.60.5), where he claims that, in general, the part loves the whole more than itself and, therefore, all creatures love God more than themselves.  I contend that this argument, apart from it being very odd, implies that creatures are parts of God.  But in view of Aquinas’ doctrine elsewhere, it is difficult to see how this pantheism is coherent within the whole of his metaphysics.  The paper makes an attempt at resolving this difficulty by appealing to Aquinas’ doctrine of the common good.

In his Summa theologiae Aquinas argues that humans, and in fact all creatures, naturally love God more than themselves. The main argument he gives for this claim is that everything that naturally belongs to another loves the other more than itself, “for we see that naturally the part exposes itself for the conservation of the whole.” Scotus did not buy this argument and accused Aquinas of falling into the error pantheism by implying that the relationship between God and his creation is essentially the relationship between a whole and its parts. In his turn Cajetan attempted to defend Aquinas from Scotus’ charge. This paper examines the problem textually in Aquinas and borrows from Scotus, Cajetan, and especially Garrigou-Lagrange, to absolve Aquinas from Scotus’ accusation of pantheism.In his Summa theologiae Aquinas argues that humans, and in fact all creatures, naturally love God more than themselves. The main argument he gives for this claim is that everything that naturally belongs to another loves the other more than itself, “for we see that naturally the part exposes itself for the conservation of the whole.” Scotus did not buy this argument and accused Aquinas of falling into the error pantheism by implying that the relationship between God and his creation is essentially the relationship between a whole and its parts. In his turn Cajetan attempted to defend Aquinas from Scotus’ charge. This paper examines the problem textually in Aquinas and borrows from Scotus, Cajetan, and especially Garrigou-Lagrange, to absolve Aquinas from Scotus’ accusation of pantheism.

Earlier, English-language version of paper presented at Universidad Panamericana, 2010 (see above).

Abstract: In this paper I ask the question “what is the end of religious worship?”  It would seem that the end cannot be God, for he cannot be perfected; nor can it be the worshipper, for that would imply a certain selfishness which must be absent in a perfect act of worship.  I examine the standard Thomistic account, represented by Cajetan, and I argue that a more nuanced view of the problem is to be developed in view of Aquinas’ many texts on the issue, scattered about his corpus.  The paper aims to reach this nuanced view.

The problem of divine attributes was one of the most intensely debated topics in the 17-18th century Irish philosophy. Simply put, the problem revolves around the ontological question (i) whether human and divine attributes differ in degree or in kind, and the semantical (ii) how we ought to describe these divine attributes by means of our human language. While there was a consensus that analogies play a key role in solving the semantical problem there was a controversy about the kind of speech they allow for. Especially, it was contested if using analogies for divine predication allows for a separate kind of speech, i.e., allows us to speak neither literally nor metaphorically but analogically.
The aim of my paper is to contextualize George Berkeley’s position on the problem of divine attributes as developed in § 21 of the IV. Dialogue in Alciphron. More specifically and contrary to what most scholars hold, I argue Berkeley fails to follow Cardinal Cajetan with remarkable closeness. Despite paraphrasing parts of Cajetan’s De Nominum Analogia in § 21, the solution Berkeley advances is closer to the position of John Duns Scotus – and hence, ironically, with the position Cajetan aimed to reject.

This study analyses the philosophical difficulty in interpreting the act of being comes from the multiplicity of meanings of the term “esse” (to be) according to the most significant authors of the Thomistic school. They are intended to present a coherent doctrine of the speculative point of view and most of them supported the thesis of ontological gradation in the formation of all real things but without the simultaneous presence of the plurality of substantial forms.

The present article treats the life and works of Thomas Aquinas and his reception within the scholastic traditions up to 1879 (Aeterni patris). The first two sections introduce the life and works of Thomas Aquinas, with a particular focus on the Scriptum and the Summa theologiae. The third section treats Thomas's reception up through 1500, looking at the initial period of condemnation in the late thirteenth century. This is followed by his canonization and acceptance as a theological authority in the fourteenth century and the gradual development of the Thomist schools of the fifteenth century. The fourth and fifth sections examine the reception of Thomas's thought in the era of Church reform and the baroque period (1500–1650), and from 1650 until Aeterni Patris (1879) respectively.

The article is a preliminary analysis of the analogy in Summa Theologiae by St. Thomas Aquinas. Starting with the preliminary definition and presentation of the fundamental analogies, the key writings of the Summa underlying its in-depth analysis (i.e. analogy) are being compared. Some interpretations of the writings of Thomas Aquinas made by his followers (Cajetanus, Gilson and Gardeil) are also presented. The purpose of the article is to give an incentive to bring out new content from the Acquinas’ own thought in order to confront it with the knowledge of reality and the world, which is now available through exact sciences (especially quantum physics).

This paper aims to develop a response, based on an analysis of St. Thomas Aquinas’s texts, to the following questions: What is the end of worship? Why do we worship God? What benefit does God derive from our worship? Alternatively, perhaps, is it not ourselves, rather than God, who are the beneficiaries of our own worship? The paper aims to develop what may be called the ‘Standard Thomistic Account’ as a solution to this problem. In the first part (II), the paper examines the problem of the finality of worship within the context of Classical Theism. Part II presents the current state of the problem in the contemporary secondary literature concerning this issue. In the third part (III), the paper focuses on Cajetan’s version of the Standard Thomistic Account, and shows in which aspects it is in need of more nuance to be able to portray Aquinas’ complete solution. Finally, Part IV proposes a careful and faithful reading of the texts and lays out the foundations for a new and more nuanced solution to the problem.

This article investigates the 15th Century Thomist background to Thomas di Vio Cajetan's De Nominum Analogia by comparing and contrasting the positions of John Capreolus, Dominic of Flanders, and Paul Soncinas on participation in an analogous concept. Points of comparison and contrast include 1) the authors’ preferred texts and divisions of analogy and analogous unity from the writings of Thomas Aquinas, and 2) their rival positions on whether there is or is not an analogous concept which is separate (praecise) from the proper concepts of the analogates. It argues that Cajetan's own explanation of the unity of the concept of being through proper proportionality in De Nominum Analogia and De Conceptu Entis directly opposes Paul Soncinas's doctrine but is consistent with that of John Capreolus. A full pdf version of this paper is available to download on Philosopher's Index.