Berek Smith | Nashotah House Theological Seminary (original) (raw)

Papers by Berek Smith

“Love the sinner; hate the sin,” has become one of the biggest cliche's in modern Christianity. O... more “Love the sinner; hate the sin,” has become one of the biggest cliche's in modern Christianity. One of the most prominent theological articulations at the origin of this cliche is found in Thomas Aquinas, who provides a detailed discussion of love for one's enemies. Indeed, his reasonings are so intricate that A. C. Grayling, in a recent publication, calls them a “barrage of casuistries.” This essay will examine and explore these casuistries concerning love of one's enemies, specifically as it relates to friendship. Some of the questions we will be asking are: Does love for enemies include a form of friendship? If friendship is a mutual relationship, how can one be friends with someone with whom one also has enmity? Is the love we have for our enemies different from other sorts of love? If so, in what way? Does Thomas' detailed discussion provide a viable way forward in our modern world full of factions and “enemies?”
This essay will seek to explore how the “barrage of casuistries” that allows Thomas to find a sort of friendship towards his enemies is, in fact, a balanced and intricate path towards a deeply healing and irenic way of treating both friends and enemies. Thomas' answer, however, is inescapably religious, inasmuch as it involves God as a parent, through whom we are all related in love. This essay will thus argue that from the Thomistic perspective, it is love of enemies, coram Deo, that ultimately holds together the fabric and communion of human society.

Whether Thomas Aquinas' and John Calvin's Understandings of the Presence of Christ in the Euchari... more Whether Thomas Aquinas' and John Calvin's Understandings of the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist are Compatible It would seem that Thomas Aquinas' and John Calvin's understandings of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist are not compatible. Certainly, those who call themselves Thomists and those who call themselves Calvinists have had little to do with each other on this subject. The objections to their compatibility will, in this essay, be brought from Calvin, since Calvin explicitly addresses the schoolmen's view in disagreement therewith. Of particular interest in this regard are sections 12-15 of Book IV, chapter xvii of Calvin's Institutio Christianae Religionis. 1 In section 12, Calvin attacks a spatial, local conception of the body of Christ in the Eucharist, citing Berengarius. Though by no means having a merely lay understanding of Ego Berengarius, Calvin nonetheless understands the document in a fairly common sense way, contra the schoolmen. He takes it to be advocating a local, physical transubstantiation of bread and wine into flesh and blood.

“Love the sinner; hate the sin,” has become one of the biggest cliche's in modern Christianity. O... more “Love the sinner; hate the sin,” has become one of the biggest cliche's in modern Christianity. One of the most prominent theological articulations at the origin of this cliche is found in Thomas Aquinas, who provides a detailed discussion of love for one's enemies. Indeed, his reasonings are so intricate that A. C. Grayling, in a recent publication, calls them a “barrage of casuistries.” This essay will examine and explore these casuistries concerning love of one's enemies, specifically as it relates to friendship. Some of the questions we will be asking are: Does love for enemies include a form of friendship? If friendship is a mutual relationship, how can one be friends with someone with whom one also has enmity? Is the love we have for our enemies different from other sorts of love? If so, in what way? Does Thomas' detailed discussion provide a viable way forward in our modern world full of factions and “enemies?”
This essay will seek to explore how the “barrage of casuistries” that allows Thomas to find a sort of friendship towards his enemies is, in fact, a balanced and intricate path towards a deeply healing and irenic way of treating both friends and enemies. Thomas' answer, however, is inescapably religious, inasmuch as it involves God as a parent, through whom we are all related in love. This essay will thus argue that from the Thomistic perspective, it is love of enemies, coram Deo, that ultimately holds together the fabric and communion of human society.

Whether Thomas Aquinas' and John Calvin's Understandings of the Presence of Christ in the Euchari... more Whether Thomas Aquinas' and John Calvin's Understandings of the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist are Compatible It would seem that Thomas Aquinas' and John Calvin's understandings of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist are not compatible. Certainly, those who call themselves Thomists and those who call themselves Calvinists have had little to do with each other on this subject. The objections to their compatibility will, in this essay, be brought from Calvin, since Calvin explicitly addresses the schoolmen's view in disagreement therewith. Of particular interest in this regard are sections 12-15 of Book IV, chapter xvii of Calvin's Institutio Christianae Religionis. 1 In section 12, Calvin attacks a spatial, local conception of the body of Christ in the Eucharist, citing Berengarius. Though by no means having a merely lay understanding of Ego Berengarius, Calvin nonetheless understands the document in a fairly common sense way, contra the schoolmen. He takes it to be advocating a local, physical transubstantiation of bread and wine into flesh and blood.