Ty Monroe | Assumption University (original) (raw)

Books by Ty Monroe

Putting on Christ, 2022

Putting on Christ aims to situate Augustine’s early soteriology and sacramental theology within t... more Putting on Christ aims to situate Augustine’s early soteriology and sacramental theology within the context of his personal history and intellectual development. Beginning with an extended analysis of the theology of salvation and sacramental efficacy contained within Augustine’s Confessions (ca. 400), the study then traces the maturation of his views on these matters, beginning with his earliest extant works, the Cassicacum dialogues (ca. 386). The journey entails treating Augustine’s earliest discussions of Christ’s person and his saving work, as well as the believer’s subjective experience of conversion and salvation. As Augustine’s corpus shifts from philosophical dialogues to explicitly apologetic and scriptural-exegetical works, so too does his soteriological lexicon expand to include concepts and terms that will later become his stock-in-trade, such as the virtue of humilitas. And as his roles in the North African Church come to include participation in the presbyterate and the episcopacy, so too does his engagement expand to a wider set of polemical contexts, both anti-Manichaean and anti-Donatist.

Putting on Christ tracks these and many other aspects of Augustine’s maturing thought, showing where lines of both continuity and development lie and aiming to uncover their reasons. In doing so, it reveals Augustine to be a thinker and a teacher who continued to hone his understanding of salvation, the very heartbeat of Christian life and thought, as well as its relation to various other aspects of the Christian theological worldview, from Christology and anthropology to sacramental theology and ecclesiology.

Papers by Ty Monroe

The Heythrop Journal, 2023

This essay considers the question of conversion unto repentance, as an act of cognition and volit... more This essay considers the question of conversion unto repentance, as an act of cognition and volition, by the separated soul in the post-mortem state. It primarily explicates and interrogates Thomas Aquinas's various attempts to rule out this possibility for the damned. Since Thomas's arguments for such impossibility feature his commitment to the radical immateriality of the human soul—and, like it, the angelic spirit—the essay highlights the ontological and moral tensions within that account. The case is thus made for the ontological, logical, and moral inconsistencies of his position, in pursuit of a more holistic anthropology across the soul's various states and a more rationally and coherent eschatology—namely, an affirmation of the irreducible mutability of the created soul on its way towards likeness to God, perhaps, if not certainly, towards universal salvation.

Eclectic Orthodoxy, 2022

Inasmuch as nature's and grace's distinction and relation entails the specific matter of human na... more Inasmuch as nature's and grace's distinction and relation entails the specific matter of human nature's compatibility with divinity-its ordering toward graced participation in, likeness to, and ultimate unity with God-the nature-grace debate is much more than a singular concern or cordoned-off locus of theological reflection. It is, rather, an inquiry into the very core of reality, into the reason for anything's existence. And this is because an investigation of the relationship between nature and grace is an inquiry into the relationship between creaturehood and divinity, world and God. David Bentley Hart recognizes this fact, and for this reason his recently published series of essays, You Are Gods (hereafter, Gods), makes a significant contribution to the nature-grace debate. In addition to probing the discretely anthropological concerns which have often served as entry points, Hart's analysis makes plain to the reader that underlying all expressions of the nature-grace relation is one fundamental question: how to think the Creator-creature relation and distinction? By dilating his scope so patently, Hart leads the reader toward the core of the matter. He shows that our thinking and desiring the discrete objects of our present existence is never merely what it seems but is instead evidence of a prior apperception of and an ultimate intention toward the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. But he then traces this line of inquiry to its necessary conclusion, plumbing the ontological depths which such anthropological considerations, on their own, only begin to sound. In this review essay, I want to summarize and interrogate the three primary ways in which Hart has thrust the broader nature-grace debate into somewhat new territory, beyond the back-and-forth of what I would call broadly intra-Thomistic debates-whether about natural desire, velleity, obediential potency, or even intrinsicism vs. extrinsicism. I also aim to show how, in doing so, Hart has placed the debate on such a precipice that any 'further' step is one in which Hart himself seems hesitant to make. To the pivotal features of his proposal, then: 1) Hart's wager in the nature-grace debate moves well beyond the 'intrincism' of de Lubac (et al.) by a) its moral reassessment of the relationship between gratuity and necessity and b) its explicitly ontological reframing of that question. To that last, he is not merely addressing the issue of humanity's intrinsic capacity for and ordering toward the divine, but is instead positing humanity's nascent unity with the divine, as well as divinity's own mutual or reciprocal capacity for and fundamental unity with the human. 2) Though this more radical intrinsicism enjoys a notable proximity to certain German Idealist systems-namely, Hegel's-Hart nevertheless recoils from what he takes to be the excesses of Hegelianism, disastrous as he thinks it is to any meaningful distinction between the creaturely and the divine. 3) He thus aims to occupy a middle space well beyond less radical intrinsicisms but short of Hegel's totalizing vision, primarily by suffusing his entire reading with a rigorously teleological soteriology. That soteriology is bulwarked by his version of an 'analogical interval' between divinity and humanity, over against a notion of divine-human identity. Each of the three features of his proposal is not that difficult to glean from the book, but I hope that my explicating them serially and in view of their interrelations will prove fruitful. Ultimately, I aim to flag where and how they depend on and yet remain in tension with one another, especially as it pertains to Christology. This will allow me to chart the suspended middle of Hart's new nature-grace revolution and to assay its coherence. My summary account is this: Hart is right to stage a more radical intrinsicism, for in rejecting the idea that a divine telos is extrinsic to or only contingently possible for humanity, he has simultaneously rejected the notion that creating, redeeming, and becoming human are extrinsic to God. In this way he has allowed the fullness of the Christian revelation to be more fully animated by its singular Grundprinzip, the Incarnation. Yet, merely saying that the unity-in-distinction of nature and grace, of creature and creator, means that creation is not extrinsic to God, Hart's proposal remains suspended between 1 the less radical intrinsicisms which he's surpassed and some further position which, A More Radical Intrinsicism Hart's endeavor surpasses previous attempts to secure the intrinsic relation of nature to grace which merely affirm that human nature is always and everywhere ordered to, capable for, and in some sense desirous of the supernatural (i.e. divinized) end, but which still define the gratuity of this gift over against necessity. Put positively, for Hart the very terms of necessity and gratuity must be wholly recalibrated. This continues prior efforts which Hart undertook in That All Shall Be Saved (hereafter, Saved). Gift and necessity only seem to be mutually exclusive to one another, since they are often pitted against one another in our (merely) creaturely mode of existence. For, here essence and existence-nature and action-remain potentially and often concretely distinct, such that even if my best nature or character 'demands' my generosity toward my children, I can hypothetically (if not also actually) entertain and even enact generosity's lack. Not so with God, who is the very love, generosity, and parental care which God always has and will exhibit, even when cauterizing us with the consuming fire of painfully purgative affection: Between the immanent and the transcendent, or the finite and the infinite, such rivalries of agency are not even cogently conceivable. An intrinsic rational desire for God would constitute a "right" to God's grace only if our nature were our own achievement. Yes, in a sense God does manifestly owe his creatures grace, within the terms of the gift of creation; but that is a debt he owes ultimately only to his own goodness. (Gods, 9) 2 If these kinds of claims appear in Hart's earlier writings on apokatastasis, they are deepened and expanded on the anthropological-phenomenological front in Gods, with its several chapters on knowledge, desire, and ethico-aesthetic judgment. That they render his proposal a step well beyond, say, any de Lubac-inspired recalibration becomes clear when one considers, say, de Lubac's own recalibration of gratuity and necessity. When the nature-grace debates, begun in part through the interventions of Maurice Blondel, took on the force of a narrow, intra-theological controversy, the crux of the matter was Henri de Lubac's resistance to the concept of natura pura. 3 And at the heart of his 'intrinsicist' (or 'anti-extrinsicist') critique was a rejection of the notion that God might create a rational human whose innate end is some form of beatitude short of the visio Dei, whose flourishing might culminate in some 'merely natural' desire for of happiness-i.e. a natura pura. For, he concluded, even the hypothetical could do much to distort our thinking about the concrete and thoroughly graced character of human existence as we actually experience it. His resistance forced the question of necessity and gratuity, writ large. For, as those opposed to de Lubac's intrinsicism complained (and still do), to say that there is inherent in human nature, per se, a 'natural' desire for the 'supernatural' is to place a constraint upon God. Surely, God couldn't place an intrinsic desire for union with the divine within a nature and then fail to fulfill that desire with (at least) the offer of participation in the divine life. And, so, to constrain God in this way would be to render such an offer a debt, something owed rather than something gifted 'gratuitously.' various extremes. 2 Note that this is part of a broader reassessment of gratuity and necessity visa -vis God 3 Though, as Aaron Riches has recently argued, this did not ultimately mean for de Lubac an outright rejection of the concept as a pure hypothetical, or else de Lubac perhaps wouldn't have been able to maintain his staunch agreement with a particular intrepretation of Humani Generis. See Riches, "Qualcosa Di Dio: The Metaphyisics of Desire and Paradox of the Real," Communio 49 (Spring, 2022), 168-9. He is right, it seems to me, to focus on de Lubac's consistent attention to the concrete existence of humans; however, as I note below, in this effort he still ultimately defines gratuity by reference to the hypothetical lack of such a gift.

Studia Patristica CXV, vol. 12, 2021

The Christology of Gregory of Nyssa has been subjected to various scholarly assessments. While ma... more The Christology of Gregory of Nyssa has been subjected to various scholarly assessments. While many have sought either to exonerate him or indict him in view of later conciliar standards, others have protested that such judgments are anachronistic. This article dives into the fray, but with more than Chalcedon in view and with less than ‘orthodoxy’ at stake. That is, Gregory’s Christology is assessed in view not merely of Chalcedon, but of the radical unity-in-distinction evident within the canons of Constantinople II. Yet the goal is neither to exonerate or indict, since Gregory cannot meaning- fully be expected to meet later dogmatic standards, even if evaluating his views in this way proves beneficial. So, Gregory’s Christological statements are sorted, interpreted, and assessed, with an eye to their soteriological motivations and implications. It is shown that Gregory’s theology of the historical life of Christ tends to be divisive with respect to the divine and human natures, while his theology of the resurrected Christ tends to be unitive – nearly to the point of monophysitism – and the rationale for both tendencies is explained. Yet it is also made clear that his theology of universal salvation complicates such a straightforward interpretation and so proves that Gregory’s Christology and soteriology remain fruitful in their own right.

Archa Verbi 14, 2017

This essay revisits the oft-posed question of Dionysius’ reception in the middle ages, but with a... more This essay revisits the oft-posed question of Dionysius’ reception in the middle ages, but with an eye toward a lesser known heir, Thomas Gallus. A Victorine abbot who left Paris for an outpost in Vercelli, Italy, Gallus was steeped in the thought of his forebears—viz., Hugh and Richard—and serves as an interesting representative of one reception tradition. Some aspects of this medieval Dionysianism have received scholarly attention, especially in regard to the medieval bifurcation between 'affective' and 'intellective' receptions of the Dionysian corpus. Gallus is regularly lined up alongside other twelfth and thirteenth century figures (usually Victorines and Franciscans) and, at times, their affective Dionysianism is set over against the intellective reading associated with Dominicans such as Albert and Thomas.

In this essay, I revisit the question of this bifurcation by giving a more sustained look at the anthropological and metaphysical underpinnings of the affective interpretation. That is, Gallus’ treatment of mystical union is interpreted in light of his understanding of the human person as a knowing and loving subject and his understanding of the broader metaphysical relationship between God and creation. This approach to reading Gallus makes it possible to see that in positing loving ecstasy as the mode of union with the Divine 'above mind,' the affective tradition is not necessarily engaging in what has recently been called a "major transformation" of the Dionysian tradition. Rather, by showing how similar concerns appear within the original texts of Dionysius (and not merely in aberrant Latin translations thereof), I suggest concerns about apophasis and ecstatic, immediate, and erotic union which transcends intellection are not unique to Gallus.

Forum Philosophicum, 2015

This essay considers distinct ways of understanding these complexities, specifically by reference... more This essay considers distinct ways of understanding these complexities, specifically by reference to the anthropological and metaphysical thought of St. Maximus the Confessor. Maximus’ understanding of human knowledge and volition and desire are interpreted in light of his commitments concerning doctrine of God, read through his systematic correction of a broadly “Origenist” aversion to metaphysical motion.

Book Reviews by Ty Monroe

The Classical Review, 2023

Journal of Theological Studies, 2020

Augustinian Studies, 2018