eschator83 wrote:
Much better selections could have been made.
For example?
Quote:
I think the authors are forced to publish, and they want the book listed as Christian because it will sell more than if listed as atheist or political science. But it demeans Aquinas and Christianity.
There's very little chance that a "Christian" book published by an academic press like Hackett will sell better than a secular one.
Quote:
Presenting only two obscure articles about the soul as a discussion of conscience is outrageous, misleading, deceitful.
It's very often the case that college textbook presentations of St. Thomas are just what you describe: philosophy of religion textbooks, for example, that just print a brief bit from the "5 Ways" as the Thomistic approach to God. This Law, Morality and Politics book does not, it's true, give a really thorough account of any of the areas it treats, but it's just a textbook, and does a fairly reputable job at what it does.
Quote:
Compounding the matter, the book starts with two selections described as on conscience, Articles 12 and 13 from ST 1 Q79, which discuss incoherently whether conscience and synderesis are powers of the Soul?
The questions driving those articles are what you say, but the answers, as is typical, actually spell out clearly what St. Thomas thinks synderesis and conscience
are. For example:
Quote:
"Synderesis" is not a power but a habit; though some held that it is a power higher than reason; while others [Cf. Alexander of Hales, Sum. Theol. II, 73] said that it is reason itself, not as reason, but as a nature. In order to make this clear we must observe that, as we have said above (Article 8), man's act of reasoning, since it is a kind of movement, proceeds from the understanding of certain things--namely, those which are naturally known without any investigation on the part of reason, as from an immovable principle--and ends also at the understanding, inasmuch as by means of those principles naturally known, we judge of those things which we have discovered by reasoning. Now it is clear that, as the speculative reason argues about speculative things, so that practical reason argues about practical things. Therefore we must have, bestowed on us by nature, not only speculative principles, but also practical principles. Now the first speculative principles bestowed on us by nature do not belong to a special power, but to a special habit, which is called "the understanding of principles," as the Philosopher explains (Ethic. vi, 6). Wherefore the first practical principles, bestowed on us by nature, do not belong to a special power, but to a special natural habit, which we call "synderesis". Whence "synderesis" is said to incite to good, and to murmur at evil, inasmuch as through first principles we proceed to discover, and judge of what we have discovered. It is therefore clear that "synderesis" is not a power, but a natural habit.
Now, you might not like this, or you might not understand it, but you can't honestly claim it's incoherent. It's anything but incoherent. Indeed, it's a
model of philosophical clarity. As a basic presentation of St. Thomas's thought on the matter, it's hard to beat. Like I asked at the outset, do you have an alternative text in mind that would do a better job?
