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Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth

Sacred Doctrine and the Natural Knowledge of God

Eugene F. Rogers, Jr.

Revisions: A Series of Books on Ethics

Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth is a work of systematic theology written with a dual purpose: to provide a fresh interpretation of Aquinas on the nature of theology, and to uncover and explore theological affinities between Aquinas and Protestant theologian Karl Barth. In carrying out these purposes, Eugene F. Rogers, Jr. presents a challenge to contemporary Catholic thought and contributes to a paradigm shift in Thomas interpretation with this groundbreaking book. He provides a fresh interpretation of Aquinas on the nature of theology and uncovers and explores theological affinities between Aquinas and Protestant theologian Karl Barth. As an overture to contemporary Protestant thought, he seeks to overcome prejudices about Thomas’s commitments to Scripture and the centrality of Jesus Christ, and does so in part by turning to Aquinas’s commentary on Romans—a crucial work never before translated or treated at length in English.

Eugene F. Rogers, Jr. is an assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia.

Reviews

“This remarkable book makes a complex and detailed case for a bold yet modest thesis: there is convergence between Aquinas and Barth on natural knowledge of God.” — The Thomist

“[T]his book is required reading for both Thomists and Barthians. It lays the groundwork for a dialogue that a mere decade ago many would have called unthinkable.” — Theological Studies

“Rogers elucidates these key texts from Aquinas’ own commentaries on scriptural books in question, underscoring the theological context of the Summa in a way which should put an end to philosopher’s insouciance and theologians’ complaints that Trinity and Christology were relegated to later questions of the Summa.” —_Pro Ecclesia_

“If it had no other merits, and it has many, Rogers’s book would be important precisely for its attempt to restore scripture to the place of primacy it had in Thomas’s understanding of his own work . . . Rogers’s approach enables him to put Aquinas and Barth into conversation, to engage Protestant criticisms of Aquinas creatively, and to recover the properly theological motives for Aquinas’s appropriation of philosophy.” —_Modern Theology_