Political Science and Saint Thomas Aquinas

by Dr. Donald G Boland

OTHER TITLES BY DONALD G. BOLAND

1. Logic, Science, and St. Thomas Aquinas | En Route Books and Media
2. Natural Philosophy, Modern Science and Saint Thomas Aquinas | En Route Books and Media
3. Science, Psychology and Saint Thomas Aquinas by Donald G. Boland | En Route Books and Media
4. Ethics Today and Saint Thomas Aquinas | En Route Books and Media
5. Natural Law – Australian Style | En Route Books and Media
6. Political Science and Saint Thomas Aquinas | En Route Books and Media
7. Economic Science and St. Thomas Aquinas: On Justice in the Distribution and Exchange of Wealth | En Route Books and Media
8. The Social Encyclicals and Saint Thomas Aquinas | En Route Books and Media
9. Metaphysics, Truth and St. Thomas Aquinas | En Route Books and Media
10. Metaphysics/Ontology and St. Thomas Aquinas (Twenty Readings in Wisdom Forsaken) | En Route Books and Media
11. Thomas of the Creator | En Route Books and Media
12. The Thomist Tradition: Avoiding Scylla and Charybdis | En Route Books and Media

TESTIMONIALS

“The restoration of Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics as the necessary basis of political science is the principal objective of Political Science and St Thomas Aquinas. With this book Dr Boland has provided an excellent exposition of two works of St Thomas Aquinas: his Commentary on the Politics of Aristotle and his work on Kingship. Dr Boland has very skillfully traced the golden thread provided by St Thomas and contrasted it against the theories underpinning modern political science where authentic metaphysics has given way to an all-embracing mathematical quantification of nature, and human psychology has (in the words of Chesterton) degenerated from the study of anthropos to the study of anthropoids. Political Science and St Thomas Aquinas is a most thought-provoking book. To me it serves admirably at the level of human reason and philosophical reflection the papal motto of St Pius X: “to restore all things in Christ.” – Frank Calneggia, author of Assertions and Refutations: An Assessment of Dr Tracey Rowland’s Natural Law: From Neo-Thomism to Nuptial Mysticism  

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OTHER CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHY BOOKS

Ethics Today and Saint Thomas Aquinas: A Complete Course on Moral Philosophy for Our Time and All Times

by Dr. Donald G. Boland

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

OTHER CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHY BOOKS

Assertions and Refutations: An Assessment of Dr Tracey Rowland’s Natural Law: From Neo Thomism to Nuptial Mysticism

by Frank Calneggia

TESTIMONIALS

“I used selected extracts from Frank Calneggia’s analysis and critique of Dr. Tracey Rowland’s book Natural Law: from Neo-Thomism to Nuptial Mysticism in an appendix to my recent book Natural Law – Australian Style. Readers now have the distinct advantage of reading the full text of his work. In it, one will see how thoroughgoing his analysis and critique is. I felt the need only to extract his powerful responses to points made in the early part of his work, which are numbered 1 to 21. In fact, as may be seen on reading his work, he goes on to respond in quite amazing detail to another 130.  The popes, especially of recent times, now over a period of more than a hundred and forty years, have endorsed the need for Catholic academics to use our human reason to propound and defend the Natural Moral Law. What I found most impressive in Calneggia’s responses are the number and depth of detail of citations from magisterial documents that he was able to bring to bear in direct refutation of the position of Rowland on Natural Law, and most significantly citations from Pope Benedict XVI, whose work Rowland should know well as she has herself written a book on him. Though Calneggia covers many other significant aspects of her position on Natural Law, that aspect of his response is quite devastating. But, more generally, if it only succeeds in bringing to the attention, not just of modern Catholics but also of all people amenable to reason, what is the true position of the Church on the meaning and place of the Natural Law in the defence of Faith and Morals, this work will in my view prove to be one of the most valuable contributions on the subject.” – Donald G Boland, author of Natural Law – Australian Style

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OTHER CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHY BOOKS

Natural Law – Australian Style: A Study in Disputation focusing on the Work of Peter Singer, John Finnis and Tracey Rowland

by Dr. Donald G. Boland

OTHER TITLES BY DONALD G. BOLAND

1. Logic, Science, and St. Thomas Aquinas | En Route Books and Media
2. Natural Philosophy, Modern Science and Saint Thomas Aquinas | En Route Books and Media
3. Science, Psychology and Saint Thomas Aquinas by Donald G. Boland | En Route Books and Media
4. Ethics Today and Saint Thomas Aquinas | En Route Books and Media
5. Natural Law – Australian Style | En Route Books and Media
6. Political Science and Saint Thomas Aquinas | En Route Books and Media
7. Economic Science and St. Thomas Aquinas: On Justice in the Distribution and Exchange of Wealth | En Route Books and Media
8. The Social Encyclicals and Saint Thomas Aquinas | En Route Books and Media
9. Metaphysics, Truth and St. Thomas Aquinas | En Route Books and Media
10. Metaphysics/Ontology and St. Thomas Aquinas (Twenty Readings in Wisdom Forsaken) | En Route Books and Media
11. Thomas of the Creator | En Route Books and Media
12. The Thomist Tradition: Avoiding Scylla and Charybdis | En Route Books and Media

REVIEWS

Francis Etheredge, Profiles in Catholicism (June 8, 2022). Click here to read. 

TESTIMONIALS

“With this book, Dr. Boland has conducted a laser precise post-mortem on the natural law theories of
Singer, Finnis and Rowland. I highly recommend his Natural Law – Australian Style to all who teach
or study Ethics or Law in institutions of higher learning, and to all who desire to benefit from the intensive and extensive learning of a true Thomistic scholar and teacher.” – Frank Calneggia, author of Assertions and Refutations: An Assessment of Dr Tracey Rowland’s Natural Law: From Neo-Thomism to Nuptial Mysticism

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OTHER CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHY BOOKS

The Drama of Metaphysics: An Exploration into the Psychological Power of Worldviews

by Stephen Alexander Beach

TESTIMONIALS

“A copy of this book should be in every high school in America, and translated into Spanish so we can get it overseas as well. I’ve told my family the same. It is that good.” – Dr. Peter Mango, former director of the MA in Philosophy program, Holy Apostles College & Seminary, Cromwell, CT

“It seems cliché to say that Western Civilization is at a crossroads. Actually, we are now beyond the crossroads a fair distance down the wrong path. In The Drama of Metaphysics, Stephen Beach details our missteps, encouraging the hope that civilization might somehow regain its bearings.”  – Dr. Chris Gustafson, Director of the Regina Institute

“A well-articulated treatise that explains the shards of our ruined society and offers the kind of hope we need to begin rebuilding civilization.” – Dr. Sebastian Mahfood, OP, co-author with Dr. Ronda Chervin of Catholic Realism: A Framework for the Refutation of Atheism and the Evangelization of Atheists

“Stephen has done an excellent job of articulating the philosophical underpinnings of various worldviews in conjunction with the moral life of the human person. I highly recommend his work. Once you pick it up, it will be hard to put down.” – Dr. Marianne Siegmund, Director of the MAPS and MDiv in the New Evangelization programs at Holy Apostles College & Seminary in Cromwell, CT

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

​Stephen Alexander Beach is a graduate of Holy Apostles College and Seminary with a Master of Arts in Systematic Philosophy. He has also been a high school Catholic Theology and Philosophy teacher since 2013 in Charleston, SC, where he lives with his wife, Juliana Beach.

OTHER CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHY BOOKS

The Battle for the 20th Century Mind

by Ronda Chervin

Reviews

A review of Dr. Ronda Chervin’s, The Battle for the 20^th Century Mind (St. Luis, MO: En Route Books and Media, 2022) by Francis Etheredge

Ronda Chervin sets out her course through the 20th Century as a dialogue between notable pairs and herself; however, on occasion there is more than a notable pair. Chervin begins the book with James Dewey (1842-1910) and William James (1842-1910) and ends it with Albert Camus (1913-1956) and C. S. Lewis, which makes it slightly out of sequence as she precedes these two with Sartre (1905-1980) and St. John Paul II. I not only like and admire the range of her “pairs” but appreciate, too, her plan to recover from her “opponents” what he or she has to offer. In this same style of pithy comment and argument Chervin proceeds promptly and at a reasonable pace through her period companions. Each person is introduced within the framework of a reasonably brief but apposite cameo and, as far as one can tell, a fair assessment, neither omitting nor exaggerating key facts and works. Furthermore, there are often a range of excerpts from the people under consideration and, therefore, Chervin’s book starts to serve the purpose of a reader, too: a book giving actual samples of a variety of works.

The book as a whole, we begin to realize, is not a strictly chronological account of thinkers through the 20th Century; rather, it is thematic, introducing us to a range of themes and thinkers, beginning with “Religion of Experience vs. Religion of Doctrine” and ending with “Evil as Proof of Atheism vs. God as the Answer to Suffering”. At the same time, Chervin provides a variety of resources to help the interested reader or actual student of philosophy, giving a mixture of primary and secondary sources. There is a particularly attractive set of excerpts from the work of St. Edith Stein which pertains very much to the present day need to understand the equality and complementarity of the sexes; and, in a different but equally exemplary way, there is the prolife work of Joan Andrews. In other words, this book easily suffices as an introduction to both the general reader and to the student who needs an overview of the background to contemporary thought.

While Chervin specifically recommends another of her books on ethics (cf. p. 116) there are excerpts and themes which apply, directly or indirectly to human nature and moral action; for instance, as regards those who want to permit euthanasia or even seek it, there is the work of Viktor Frankl, who ‘thought there were many layers where illness could arise, and that one of them was due to failure to find meaning in life’ (p. 100). Furthermore, there is a substantial treatment of the theme of freewill vs determinism with numerous excerpts from von Hildebrand.

In general, however, this book would work well with one of the many introductions to “perennial philosophy”, the philosophy that integrates truth with truth throughout the ages and constantly draws on reality as it exists, not confusing “what is the effect of the fall of man” with what in fact points to the enduring reality to be redeemed. At the same time, we could say, the book tends towards the possibility of a new synthesis, taking from each author what can be recognized as part of a renewed understanding of the nature of reality and the human person.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ronda Chervin has a Ph.D. in philosophy from Fordham University and an M.A. in Religious Studies from Notre Dame Apostolic Institute. She is a convert to the Catholic faith from a Jewish but atheistic background. She has been a professor at Loyola Marymount University, St. John’s Seminary of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, Franciscan University of Steubenville, Our Lady of Corpus Christi, and Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Connecticut. Eighty-five books of hers have been published by Catholic presses in the area of philosophy and spirituality. Dr. Ronda presents on EWTN and Catholic radio. Her many books include Quotable Saints, Seeking Christ in the Crosses & Joys of Aging, Catholic Realism and Voyage to Insight.

OTHER CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHY BOOKS