IMC 2014: Sessions

Paper -a:
One of the most vexing and perennial questions of Christian Theology is how to reconcile God's benevolent will that all humans should be saved (1 Tim. 2. 4) with the traditional teaching that all humans will not, in fact, actually attain to final salvation. This paper will investigate how the early Franciscan school at Paris, led by Alexander of Hales (c. 1185-1245), grappled with central questions of God's salvific will, predestination, and divine love in one of the earliest and most influential summae of the Scholastic period, the Summa fratris Alexandri.

Paper -b:
The present contribution intends to start from this quotation of Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q . 96, art. 2: 'In the state of innocence man dominated other animals by imperium [...] and he dominated plants and inanimate beings not by imperium nor by immutatio but by using their help without any impediment ('not per imperium vel immutationem sed absque impedimento utendo eorum auxilio')'.

In other words, Thomas Aquinas asserts that ideally man in his relations with his environment, dominates by imperium animals and freely makes use of plants and inanimate beings; but that in practice, he fails to dominate animals by imperium, or to use freely plants and inanimate things, which latter he is reduced to dominate by imperium and immutatio (immutatio meaning here to exercise influence as a cause on inanimate things).

This contribution will try to explain this remark about environment, to understand whether it is an extension of the moral scheme of imperium voluntatis, and whether it implies any relationship with the political meaning of imperium.

Paper -c:
Lives of the Georgian saints feature many miracles worked by the holy men. Some of these miracles were probably borrowed directly from the Bible: 1. a deer fed St David with milk, and a pigeon fed St Shio (compare with Eliah being fed by ravens, 1 Kings 17. 6); 2. St Shio burnt incense by sprinkling it on top of a hot coal, which he held in his bare hand (compare with a Seraphim, having a burning coal in his hand, Isaiah 6. 6); 3. Evagre split the Mtkvari River by means of St Shio's staff to cross on dry land (compare with the story of splitting of the Jordan River (Joshua 3. 16) and of the Red Sea (Exodus 14. 16).

When the Psalm 114. 7 discusses the splitting of waters, it ties the miracle directly with the Lord: 'Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord'. The Georgian hagiographer, apart from recognising the Lord’s supreme power, uses the notion of the power of the saints, the latter perceived as the soldiers of Christ: 'Air, fire and water always stand in awe of those in service of the Lord'. This viewpoint corresponded to the contemporary theology: saints performed miracles with divine assistance; therefore they were capable of granting assistance to pious believers.