Aquinas's Eschatological Ethics and the Virtue of Temperance [Hardcover]

Matthew Levering offers a biblical and Thomistic portrait of the cardinal virtue of temperance and its allied virtues, in dialogue with an ecumenical range of theologians and scholars.

InAquinass Eschatological Ethics and the Virtue of Temperance, Levering argues that Catholic ethics make sense only in light of the biblical worldview that Jesus has inaugurated the kingdom of God by pouring out his spirit. Jesus has made it possible for us to know and obey Gods law for human flourishing as individuals and communities. He has reoriented our lives toward the goal of beatific communion with him in charity, which affects the exercise of the moral virtues that pertain to human flourishing.

Without the context of the inaugurated kingdom, Catholic ethics as traditionally conceived will seem like an effort to find a middle ground between legalistic rigorism and relativistic laxism, which is especially the case with the virtue of temperance, the focus of Leverings book. After an opening chapter on the eschatological/biblical character of Catholic ethics, the ensuing chapters engage Aquinass theology of temperance in theSumma theologiae, which identifies and examines a number of virtues associated with temperance. Levering demonstrates that the theology of temperance is profoundly biblical, and that Aquinass theology of temperance relies for its intelligibility upon Christs inauguration of the kingdom of God as the graced fulfillment of our created nature. The book develops new vistas for scholars and students interested in moral theology.

The biblical scholar Reinhard Feldmeier notes that in Greco-Roman literature prior to the New Testament, humility generally has a negative meaning that lies, depending on the context, somewhere between sycophancy and pusillanimity, servility and shabbiness. By contrast, Paul gives humility high praise: Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others bettel3&