Search results for ""Humanum Academic Press""

Homo Abyssus is one of the most significant works of Catholic philosophy in the twentieth century. In this speculative appropriation of Aquinas, Ferdinand Ulrich lays out a vision of being as an image of divine goodness, drawing out as-yet-undiscovered treasures from Aquinas’s texts through a fundamental engagement with modern philosophy, above all Hegel and Heidegger. One of the most unique features of this vision is, as Hans Urs von Balthasar observed, “It stands face-to-face with the innermost mysteries of Christian revelation, and opens them up, without ever departing from the strictly philosophical sphere. In this respect, it overcomes the baleful dualism between philosophy and theology perhaps more successfully than any previous attempt.”The first part of the book offers a fundamental metaphysics, expounding in detail the basic structure of being in the light of creation ex nihilo interpreted as an act of radical generosity. This discussion presents novel insights into traditional themes such as the real distinction between essence and existence, participation, causality, and the analogy of being; and it explores from the same perspective of radical generosity themes associated more with modern philosophy, such as the relationship between being and nothingness, the ontological difference, and being and time. The second part of the book is a speculative anthropology, which proposes to think through the constitution of the human being as a kind of dynamic exemplar of the meaning of being: man not only shows the meaning of being, but co-enacts it in his relation to himself, to the world, and to God.In addition to offering the first major work of Ulrich to appear in English, this translation includes a substantial introduction by Martin Bieler, and a helpful lexicon to help elucidate the book’s unusual vocabulary.

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Referring to creation as generous is not common. We normally associate notions of generosity and gift in the created order with human being and action, imputing such notions to other creatures and the whole of creation often only in a ""poetic"" sense. Once we center the reality of all things in God as a loving Creator, however, we become disposed to see everything, in its very givenness, as gift?a reality that participates from its depths, in analogical ways, in God's generosity, such as to make possible a deepened look also at the problem of evil. The Generosity of Creation has a twofold purpose in this light. The four chapters of Part I spell out what this God-centeredness implies for our understanding of the cosmos in various contexts: first, the ""paradigmatic"" meaning of the child and childlikeness for a civilization rightly ordered in terms of gift; second, ecology considered in terms of a ""liberation theology"" guided by ""integral human development""; third, the unity between ""ideas"" and ""reality"" as a necessary condition for ""preserving nature as the pre-sacrament, and the Church as the sacrament, of the Word of God's Love""; fourth, human freedom conceived primarily as a response to the good and a desire for God, in contrast to the would-be neutral or indifferent freedom characteristic of liberal societies.Part II explores the metaphysical foundations for speaking of creatures as ""generous"": gifts from God that participate, each according to its own nature, in God's giving. The exploration unfolds in dialogue with theologian Michael Waldstein, in relation to the anthropology of John Paul II and the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas.

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Ferdinand Ulrich’s Homo Abyssus: The Drama of the Question of Being (Humanum, 2018), originally published in 1961, is one of the most groundbreaking works in Christian metaphysics from the 20th Century. But it is also a difficult book, posing unique challenges to the new reader because of its particular vocabulary, its unusual approach to traditional themes, and the philosophical background that it takes for granted. A Companion to Homo Abyssus is intended to offer readers initial assistance entering into the text and navigating their way once there. Rather than commenting on the text page by page, this book includes five relatively brief essays on basic themes in the original volume and a simplified “digest” of the work’s arguments as they appear in each section. Moreover, it provides a translation of a paper Ulrich delivered just after publishing Homo Abyssus, in which he presents the essential argument of that work in a more concise scope. A Companion to Homo Abyssus will be indispensable to those who are encountering Ulrich’s challenging but profoundly rewarding book for the first time, and beneficial for those who wish to deepen their understanding of the book’s broader implications.

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The Second Vatican Council represents a decisive milestone in the relationship between the Church and the world. The pastoral constitution Gaudium et spes proclaims a new spirit of missionary dialogue, openness, and mutual enrichment. The Church endeavored to recognize the genuine “triumphs” of the modern age, and, bearing in mind also the serious “ambiguities” and “tragedies” that characterize our modern culture, sought to present anew the profound beauty of Christian existence.What then does it mean for the Church to be “open” to the modern world? How can the world be receptive to the novel life the Church offers? How does the Christian navigate this dialogue? The essays gathered in this volume explore the theological anthropology of Gaudium et spes for answers to these questions. They strive to elucidate that only by the light of God’s infinite love incarnate in Jesus Christ does the human person come to perceive the mystery of his own being and the world come to realize itself; only then do the social realities of economy, work, and family take on human form.

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