John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock's Truth and Aquinas (Routledge, 2001) marks the most sustained attempt to lay claim to the thought of Thomas Aquinas as a forerunner of the Radical Orthodoxy Movement. According to Milbank and Pickstock's seminal work, the essential Christian world-view obscured and distorted by modernity and rediscovered by Radical Orthodoxy can be clearly glimpsed in Thomas Aquinas. But is this account defensible, or does Aquinas in fact offer a different or even incompatible position on the central ontological and philosophical issues defining the Radical Orthodoxy movement? Aquinas and Radical Orthodoxy provides an overall orientation to and critique of the use made of Aquinas by these authors. Author Paul Dehart presents the large and controversial claims made by the authors about Aquinas, theology, and philosophy in a thoroughly accessible format, before critically testing many of the appeals to specific Aquinas texts that support these claims. Aquinas and Radical Orthodoxy offers a reading of Radical Orthodoxy and of Aquinas in light of each other. The book not only illuminates many of the obscurities of the Radical Orthodox portrait of Aquinas, but it also clarifies the distinct shape of Aquinas's own views on metaphysics and epistemology. Each of the chapters examines carefully the way Aquinas texts are used by Pickstock and Milbank, questions the validity of using contemporary ideas to recover the truth' of Thomas Aquinas, and illustrates the resulting unfortunate occlusion of that thinker in his contextual specificity. Aquinas and Radical Orthodoxy thus ultimately offers a reflection on what this tells us about Radical Orthodoxy, its strengths and weaknesses, and its future.

Aquinas and Radical Orthodoxy investigates the encounter of the most vibrant and controversial trend in recent theology with the greatest Christian thinker of the Middle Ages. The book describes Radical Orthodoxy s orientation and highlights those anti-secular strategies and intellectual influences that have shaped its appeal to Aquinas. It surveys the emergence of the particular picture of Aquinas especially associated with the leaders of Radical Orthodoxy, John Milbank and his student Catherine Pickstock, along with the scholarly disputes which prompted and followed that development. The book then undertakes a detailed investigation of the pivotal publications on Aquinas of those two authors, laying out their difficult theories in clear language, carefully examining the texts of Aquinas to which they appeal, and challenging their interpretations on a number of fundamental points. Topics covered include: analogical language and knowledge of God, the role of metaphysics within theology, the relation of cognition to the divine archetypes of things, the possibility of human apprehension of God s essence, the nature of substance, and speculation on the Trinity. The conclusion reflects on those elements suppressed by the Radical Orthodox reading of Aquinas, their constructive philosophical and theological possibilities, and the challenges they present to the Radical Orthodox project. "

While the dominant approaches to the current study of political philosophy are various, with some friendlier to religious belief than others, almost all place constraints on the philosophic and political role of revelation. Mainstream secular political theorists do not entirely disregard religion. But to the extent that they pay attention, their treatment of religious belief is seen more as a political or philosophic problem to be addressed rather than as a positive body of thought from which we might derive important insights about the nature of politics and the truth of the human condition. In a one-of-a-kind collection, DeHart and Holloway bring together leading scholars from various fields, including political science, philosophy, and theology, to challenge the prevailing orthodoxy and to demonstrate the role that religion can and does play in political life. Contributing authors include such important thinkers as Peter Augustine Lawler, Robert C. Koons, J. Budziszewski, Francis J. Beckwith, and James Stoner.

In this penetrating volume, Paul DeHart Hurd combines more than half a century of experience and current scholarship with his vision for improving the middle school science curriculum. While others have failed to center adolescents in science curricula, Hurd recognizes the biological, social, and emotional needs of this population. Looking toward the future to properly educate students now, Hurd's curriculum presents today's youth with the culture of science and technology that has import in their lives. The end result? An important contribution to the study of curriculum and a substantial pedagogical tool from an eminent thinker.