Contents
Philosophy: The Handmaid to Theology
Three Uses of Philosophy in Theology
Characteristics of a Catholic Philosophy
Outline of the Book
Concluding Apologetic Postscript
Further Reading
The Problem
What Is Philosophy?
The Necessary Uselessness of Philosophy
First Principles
Four Implications of First Principles
Philosophy and Faith
What Is Faith?
Philosophy Overcomes the Reductionism of Scientism and Fideism
Further Reading
Part I: What Is
Chapter 2: The Origins of the Perennial Philosophy
The Birth of Philosophy
The Pre-Socratics (ca. 600 BC to ca. 400 BC)
The Socratic Revolution
Plato: The Discovery of Transcendent Truth
Aristotle: The Master of Those Who Know
Later Philosophical Developments
The Rejection of the Perennial Philosophy
Further Reading
The Problem: Knowing Reality behind Appearance
Reductive Extremes
The Act of Existence
The Transcendental Properties of Being
The Divisions of Being
The Analogy of Being
The Ladder of Being
Further Reading
The Problem: What Can Be Known?
The Rejection of Knowledge: Relativism and Skepticism
Framing the Problem: Plato’s Critique of Knowing as Looking
Reductive Extremes
Thomistic Realism: Necessity in the Contingent
Further Reading
The Problem: Man, between the Beasts and the Angels
The Platonic Foundations
Reductive Extremes
Hylomorphism and the Unity of Man
Significant Implications of Human Nature
Personalism
Further Reading
Part II: What Ought to Be
The Problem: What Must I Do?
Reductive Extremes
Virtue Ethics: Being a Better Person
The Natural Law
The Good of Making: Beauty and Art
Further Reading
The Problem: Rendering unto Caesar What Is Caesar’s
Reductive Extremes
Community: The Temporal and the Eternal Ends of a Person
Further Reading
Part III: Ever Shall Be
The Problem: The Hidden God
Reductive Extremes
“I Am Who Am” (Ex 3:14)
The Master Both–And: Primary and Secondary Cause
Miracles and Prayer
Further Reading
Chapter 9: Evil: The Perennial Objection to the Perennial Philosophy
How to Think about Privations
Metaphysical Background: Being and God
Being as Good
The Presence of Evil in Creation
God and Evil
Conclusion: Piety to Being
Further Reading
Appendix I: Timetable of Major Philosophers and Key Moments in History
Appendix II: Natural Knowledge of God
Bibliography
Index