This dissertation brings a new philosophical perspective to an important topic in the contemporary theology and science dialogue, specifically the theological reception of multiverse thought in modern cosmology. In light of recent cosmological speculation about the plausibility of a 'multiverse,' a cosmic ensemble in which our own universe is just one of many, theological responses have largely focused on the question of whether such a multiverse might be an alternative to divine design (or might itself be compatible with divine design). However, this approach neglects the fundamental metaphysical issues entailed in the multiverse proposal, including its entanglement of the one and the many (a paradox which has itself been a central concern of theological reflection), as well as its intimations of cosmic multiplicity, diversity, and infinity. In this dissertation I provide the first systematic theological engagement with these metaphysical implications. My approach is to draw on ancient and medieval resources (neglected not only in multiverse discussions but also in the theology and science field more generally) to show that the concept of metaphysical participation provides a particularly fertile ground on which theology can engage constructively with multiverse thought. To that end, I focus specifically on the participatory thought of Plato, Aquinas, and Nicholas of Cusa, each of whom seek to understand how a physical cosmos of complexity and immensity might share in divine existence of unity and simplicity. I bring their insights into interaction with a diverse range of contemporary theological, philosophical, and scientific figures to demonstrate that a participatory account of the relationship between God and creation argues for greater continuity between theology and the multiverse proposal in modern cosmology.

Um estudo sobre a razão prática em Tomás de Aquino, analisada sob a luz de seus primeiros princípios. Parte-se da pergunta de como o ser humano descobre o que é bom e mau para si o que requer cobrir dois momentos distintos de sua obra: o tratamento dado à synderesis e, em seguida, como os princípios por ela apreendidos se articulam e como funcionam na mente humana. Defende-se, por fim, que é um equívoco ler os princípios da lei natural como primariamente normativos no sentido deontológico do termo. São, antes, diretivos, conferindo à razão prática individual os bens de cuja posse depende a felicidade humana. As implicações dessa leitura para a ética de Tomás de Aquino que aparece agora sob forte roupagem eudaimonista são, por fim, analisadas. / The present study focuses on Aquinass exposition of practical reason, analyzed in light of its first principles. We begin with the question of how an individual human being discovers what is good and bad for himself, which is at the root of natural law, that is, rationally grounded morality. This requires covering two distinct moments of Aquinass work: his treatment of synderesis and, after it, how the principles apprehended by synderesis relate to one another and what kind of knowledge they give to the human mind. It is argued that it is a mistake to see the first practical principles as normative in the deontological sense. Rather, they are directive, furnishing practical reason with the goods on whose possession human happiness depends. The implications of this reading for Aquinass ethics are then analyzed and his ethical stance emerges as strongly eudaimonistic.

Esta tese tem como objetivo expor a teoria cartesiana da criação, desenvolvida nas Meditações. Começando pela submissão dos fundamentos da tradição filosófica (o realismo e o idealismo) ao método da dúvida, a crítica cartesiana acabará por atingir a cosmologia cristã, consolidada por Tomás de Aquino sobre o realismo aristotélico, bem como as soluções idealistas favoráveis à existência de verdades, essências e naturezas eternas e incriadas. A partir daí, Descartes desenvolve uma concepção de criação cuja universalidade envolve a ideia de Deus, a coisa pensante, as coisas simples e universais e as coisas materiais. A universalidade da criação é uma exigência da ideia cartesiana de Deus como ser sumamente perfeito. Entendida como perfeição, a onipotência divina requer a dependência absoluta de todas as coisas em relação a Deus enquanto causa eficiente, isto é, causa criadora. Do contrário, há uma clara negação da onipotência e, consequentemente, da perfeição divina. Pretendemos ainda mostrar que a teoria cartesiana da criação é o fundamento da teoria da livre criação das verdades eternas, que alguns intérpretes consideram incompatível com o sistema cartesiano. / This thesis aims to expose the Cartesian theory of creation, developed in Meditations. Submitting the foundations of the philosophical tradition, namely realism and idealism, to the methodical doubt, Cartesian criticism will eventually reaches out the Christian cosmology, consolidated by Thomas Aquinas on Aristotelian realism, as well as the favorable idealistic solutions to the existence of truths, essences and eternal and uncreated natures. From there, Descartes develops a conception of creation whose universality involves the idea of God, the thinking thing, the simple and universal things and the material things. The universality of creation is a requirement of the Cartesian idea of God as a supremely perfect being. Understood as perfection, divine omnipotence requires the absolute dependence of all things in relation to God while efficient cause, that is, creative cause. Otherwise, there is a clear denial of the omnipotence and consequently of the divine perfection. We also intend to show that the Cartesian theory of creation is the foundation of the theory of the creation of the eternal truths, that some interpreters consider incompatible with the Cartesian system.

This study is concerned with the spiritual impetus and the lived dimension of the philosophy of the French Thomist Jacques Maritain in light of John Caputo's Heideggerian critique of Thomist metaphysics. In Heidegger and Aquinas: An Essay on Overcoming Metaphysics, Caputo argues that the thought of Thomas Aquinas, probably the most important and most representative figure of orthodox Catholic thinking, is a paradigmatic case of what Martin Heidegger calls 'ontotheology'. This is the dominating tendency of Western philosophy and theology to view Being not as a mystery, but metaphysically as a mere collection of things which are simply present- external to the human being and the value of which is use. For Aquinas, according to Caputo, God is the highest 'being' that creates other 'beings', and it is in virtue of this relationship that human beings, allegedly made in God's image, view the world simply as a collection of things to be manipulated. The first question constituting this study's point of departure, then, is: if Aquinas is indeed an exemplar of ontotheological thinking, is the same true of Jacques Maritain, perhaps the twentieth century's most influential follower and interpreter of Thomas Aquinas? Yet in the same work Caputo also proclaims that what has been said is not the whole truth about Aquinas, and the argument that his thought is an instance of ontotheology is in fact what Caputo sets out to respond to-for the sake of recovering an Aquinas who was not a 'cold rationalist', but a spiritually gifted contemplative, a Catholic saint. Caputo makes the case that we can, by employing a method of 'retrieval' or 'deconstruction'-inspired by Heidegger and Jacques Derrida-find that which is hidden or left 'unthought' in Aquinas but which nevertheless determines his entire philosophical and religious life. This, Caputo argues, is a pre-metaphysical, mystical tendency directed towards the mystery of being, which overcomes metaphysics and escapes ontotheology. Here I apply this Heideggerian critique and retrieval to Maritain, and I argue that while there is in Maritain the same 'ontotheological' tendency to view reality as a collection of things and God as paradigmatic maker of things-the prima causa so richly expressed in Thomistic doctrines of the 'transcendentals' and participative being-there is in him a deep pre-metaphysical, mystical tendency which is, in fact, far more explicit than in Aquinas. In the first part of the study, I compare the philosophical doctrines and projects of Maritain and his first teacher and guide, Henri Bergson, and then of Heidegger in relation to Maritain. I also give a sketch of Maritain's religious and intellectual development, identifying the key religious and artistic figures involved: the novelist Léon Bloy and the painter Georges Rouault. In light of the philosophical analyses and what can be gleaned from Maritain's biographical notes, his correspondence, and the biographical insights provided by those close to him, I argue that we can see in Maritain the same concern for the question of the meaning of being in relation to human life that we find in Heidegger, and that, like Heidegger, this concern underlies his philosophical thought and serves as the impetus for something beyond philosophy. I show that from his Bergsonian beginnings to his later days as a Little Brother of Jesus, Maritain has a profound sense of the pre-conceptual and intuitive kinds of knowledge that we find in existentialist thinkers such as Heidegger, and also artists and mystics. I posit that while Maritain claims what he calls the 'intuition of being' is the most primordial experience human beings can have of ultimate reality, there is, in fact, an experience, or aspiration to have such an experience, which is even more basic, with greater implications for overcoming metaphysics and ontotheology: mystical communion with ultimate reality. The aspiration for such communion is, I claim, the 'unthought' in Maritain that must be sought out for the purpose of retrieving a Maritain who goes beyond metaphysics. Mapping out the main branches of Maritain's thinking about being in terms of the classical doctrine of the 'transcendentals' and corresponding instances of connatural knowledge, the second part of the study is devoted to finding where, in Maritain's thought, a retrieval might be possible. Examining Maritain's conceptions of the connatural experience-knowledge of the moral good and mystical experience, I conclude that we cannot discover any overcoming of metaphysics and ontotheology in either when they are taken on their own terms. For underlying both conceptions, I claim, is Maritain's 'master concept' of the 'act of existence', or esse, the metaphysical principle which makes it possible for the human being to take hold of their own existence and participate in the moral and divine life. The distinction between esse and the essence of beings (essentia) and a stress on the former, as Caputo argues with regard to Aquinas, in fact only supports Heidegger's thesis on the ontotheological character of Thomist thought. For a stress on esse, the principle by which God creates and sustains things in existence is only the outcome of a preoccupation with conceiving God primarily as the 'maker' of things. And what of esse when it comes to mystical experience? Mystical experience, Maritain says, is that of which metaphysical wisdom 'awakens a desire' even while it is unable to attain it, such that the testimony of it, such as that provided by St. John of the Cross, 'no philosophical commentary will ever efface'. Yet here, too, esse only serves to make an unbridgeable ontological and cognitive divide between God as viewed in terms of His causal transcendence and as an intentional object of consciousness, as presence- something or someone external to oneself. This is so even as one is, in virtue of the connatural experience-knowledge of love, united with Him in 'one spirit', as Maritain says, following St. John of the Cross. Given this, I seek a retrieval of Maritain elsewhere, in the richest and most original areas of his thought: the connatural experience-knowledge of the artist and the relationship between the artist and the mystic. For Maritain, true artists and mystics are not concerned with reducing reality to manageable chunks but with expressing the mystery of reality, and, as I demonstrate in the final two chapters, it is when the vocations of the Catholic artist and the Catholic mystic converge in Maritain's reflections-in the cases of Léon Bloy, St. John of the Cross, and Maritain's wife Raïssa-that we are able to retrieve a Maritain that, while very much remaining a Catholic philosopher, is also a mystic. I claim that it is when his thought is situated in its wider existential and religious context that Maritain as both thinker and contemplative escapes the charge of ontotheology because there exists in him a primordial and utterly determining mystical aspiration to experience a communion in love with ultimate reality, best expressed in terms of poetic and mystical language, rather than the metaphysical language of Thomist philosophy. Essential in demonstrating this are events in Maritain's life as well as people-artists and mystics-who reveal the mystery of Being to him. Toward the end of the study, I claim that this immanent mysticism in Maritain-which, unlike that of Caputo's retrieved Aquinas-balances apophatic and cataphatic elements and, as such, is complex and profound enough to render the categories of contemporary debate on the nature of mysticism and mystical experience in need of revision.

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This thesis focuses on the issue of whether or not the government is ever justified in prohibiting the actions of an individual who is harming herself but not others. I first analyze some of the key historical figures in the paternalism debate and argue that these accounts fail to adequately meet the needs of a modern, pluralistic society. Then, I analyze and critique the nuanced, soft-paternalist strategy put forth by Joel Feinberg. Finally, I defend a version of hard paternalism, arguing that a balancing strategy that examines each action on a case-by-case basis shows all citizens equal, and adequate concern and respect.

<p>This dissertation draws on the virtue ethics tradition in moral theology and moral philosophy for inquiries regarding the acquired and infused virtues, virtue's increase and remission, and virtue's relation to sacramental practice. I rely on two medieval texts to ask and answer these questions: the <italic>Summa Theologiae</italic> by Thomas Aquinas and <italic>Piers Plowman</italic> by William Langland. My arguments are primarily inter- and intra-textual with some attention to the texts' history of interpretation and the socio-historical Catholic culture in which they were written. I conclude that the texts share pedagogical features that teach their readers in what the perfection of virtue consists and show readers how to increase in that perfection.</p><p>This thesis follows from the work of David Aers, Stanley Hauerwas, Alasdair MacIntyre, Josef Pieper, and Eberhard Schockenhoff.</p> / Dissertation

This thesis aims to interpret the elements of beauty and art in the marriages portrayed in Geoffrey Chaucer¡¦s Canterbury Tales by means of St. Thomas Aquinas¡¦s theory of beauty and that of art. St. Thomas asserts that beauty consists of three elements: proportion, clarity and integrity, and that art imitates and denotes production. I take beauty and art as the crucial concepts and use analogy as the inquiring tool to examine the imaginary domain between beauty and art as applied to marriage, meanwhile investigating the implied language of intercommunication between aesthetics and marriage. Marriage is taken as a representation of beauty; its different forms and contents portrayed in Chaucer¡¦s various tales will be analyzed so as to see to what extent they reflect and diverge from medieval aesthetic sensitivity and how aesthetic theory can be adopted to interpret medieval marriage. In Chapter One, the theory of ¡§proportion¡¨ is applied to the various forms of marriage depicted in the Tales to explore how the marriage of the nobility and that of the commoners will correspond to this element of beauty, as portrayed in ¡§The Clerk¡¦s Tale,¡¨ ¡§The Man of Law¡¦s Tale,¡¨ ¡§The Second Nun¡¦s Tale,¡¨ ¡§The Franklin¡¦s Tale,¡¨ ¡§The Merchant¡¦s Tale,¡¨ ¡§The Miller¡¦s Tale,¡¨ ¡§The Wife of Bath¡¦s Prologue¡¨ and her tale. Chapter Two examines the roles the variants of ¡§clarity,¡¨ that is, physical and spiritual beauty, play in marriage, and a debate on the coexistence and non-coexistence of physical and spiritual beauty of a wife among the pilgrim-tellers will be demonstrated. Furthermore, in Chapter Three I shall extend the medieval concept of art to that of the ¡§procreative art¡¨ in marriage, and explore the relationship between the procreative art and the ¡§integrity¡¨ of marriage in the aforementioned tales. The conclusion discusses Chaucer¡¦s positions on the aesthetics of marriage of the nobility and that of the commoners portrayed in the tales.

The goal of this thesis is to develop the foundation and structure for a virtue ethics theory grounded in a specific notion of care. While there has been a recent revival of interest in virtue ethics theory, the theory has its roots in Aristotle's work as well in the medieval writings of Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas worked out many of Aristotle's ideas in much more detail. However, while Aquinas offers a very rich and compelling ethical theory, it is problematic because it is very tightly wrapped in his theology. A key component in Aquinas's theory is charity. Charity is one of Aquinas's theological virtues, which express the relationship between humans and God. Charity is the love of God and of neighbor and he construes it as the foundation for all the other virtues. My thesis explores the idea of replacing charity with the virtue of care. The virtue of care to be used in this essential role is primarily based on recent work on the ethics of care by Nel Nodding. The virtue of care, as I develop it, combines three interrelated parts: instinctive, maternal and relational care. By comparing and contrasting care and charity, I demonstrate that the virtue of care can fill the role of charity. In this capacity care can serve as a naturalistic foundation for a virtue ethics theory. Since the ethics of care is relatively new, it has yet to take shape. I propose building a care-based virtue ethics theory on the structure of Aquinas's theory. This new care-based virtue ethics theory also benefits from utilizing many of the components of Aristotle's theory which are found in Aquinas's work. My argument is that care can fulfill the role of charity in Aquinas's theory. Care-based virtue ethics theory is a completely naturalistic version of Aquinas's virtue ethics theory. My thesis contains both the foundation for this different kind of care-based virtue ethics theory and some direction for future work on revising Aquinas's theory using the virtue of care. The essence of this care-based virtue ethics theory is captured in the notion I outline of a virtuoso human.

This thesis investigates the topic of natural law in the Therav āda and Thomistic traditions by utilizing the methodology of comparative religious ethics. Approaches to the method such as ethical formalism, ethical naturalism, and narrative ethics are assessed with the author opting for a multidimensional approach that is religious and ethical. This multidimensional approach, as defined by William Schweiker, conducts natural law inquiry from a hermeneutical standpoint of moral diversity and democratic pluralism. The hermeneutical standpoint warrants a historicizing of natural law ethics that is compatible with modern secularity instead of a classicist metaphysical worldview. To achieve this task, the thought of moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre and Jewish theologian David Novak is used to formulate a concept of a natural law tradition. Three normative features define the natural law traditions in question: rationality as tradition- constituted, revelation as a historical phenomenon, and natural law as a cultural construct that is both comparative and ontological. The central claim of this thesis is that the Theravāda and Thomistic traditions provide a similar conceptual apparatus for rational discourse that can locate ethical commonalities and respect differences across traditions. The commonality between traditions is secured in natural law ethics because these traditions adhere to a constitutive truth that is the objective ground of all truths and of nature which designates a shared humanity. On the other hand, these natural law traditions are able to at least respect difference because they recognize the autonomy of other traditions outside of and pre- existing their own. Natural law ethics in these religious traditions therefore avoids the ethical challenges of relativism and authoritarianism. Both traditions define a concept of "nature" with a proper teleological orientation for the moral life. "Nature" is an open category in these traditions that can never be fully defined. This demonstrates how these natural law traditions avoid ontological violence. The overall claim is that natural law ethics, which are evident in the Therav āda and Thomistic traditions, offer something essential to a pluralistic secular democracy: an unconditioned view of human dignity that protects inalienable rights because it is secured by a higher law than civil laws.