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Document Details : Title: The Summa Theologiae as Itself Prayer? Subtitle: A Proposal by A.N. Williams Author(s): KERR, Fergus Journal: Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses Volume: 95 Issue: 2 Date: 2019 Pages: 219-233 DOI: 10.2143/ETL.95.2.3286473 Abstract : A.N. Williams, who taught patristics at Cambridge University until her recent retiral, was commissioned in 1997 to contribute to a special issue of the journal Modern Theology dealing with the split in Christian theology schools between spirituality and doctrine. She argued that, like classical pre-modern theologians whose works she explored in her other writings exemplifies, Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae, should be read, not as a detached speculative enterprise still often regarded as unduly rationalistic, but as an interactive process, freeing readers from idolatrous theories, and so bringing them into communion with the divine. In effect, sustained engagement with the methodical arguments in the Summa is a contemplative activity, which, as she propopes, may itself be described as prayer. |
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