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James Dominic Rooney, OP
Hong Kong Baptist University
  1. Being a ‘not-quite-Buddhist theist’.James Dominic Rooney - 2022 - Religious Studies 58 (4):787-800.
    Buddhism is a tradition that set itself decidedly against theism, with the development of complex arguments against the existence of God. I propose that the metaphysical conclusions reached by some schools in the Mahayana tradition present a vision of reality that, with some apparently small modification, would ground an argument for the existence of God. This argument involves explanation in terms of natures rather than causal agency. Yet I conclude not only that the Buddhist becomes a theist in embracing such (...)
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  2.  87
    Freedom, even if God decrees it.James Dominic Rooney - forthcoming - In Aku Visala & Olli-Pekka Vainio (ed.), Theological Perspectives on Free Will: Compatibility, Christology, and Community.
    W. Matthews Grant has argued that it is possible to reconcile a strong theory of God’s causal sovereignty with libertarian freedom by denying that God causes the acts of free creatures by means of some factor intrinsic to Himself. Grant argues that the accounts on which God causes those actions of His creatures in virtue of His decrees cannot be libertarian. I will argue that two classical theories of grace, despite holding that God causes creaturely acts in virtue of a (...)
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  3. What is the Value of Faith For Salvation? A Thomistic Response to Kvanvig.James Dominic Rooney - 2019 - Faith and Philosophy 36 (4):463-490.
    Jonathan Kvanvig has proposed a non-cognitive theory of faith. He argues that the model of faith as essentially involving assent to propositions is of no value. In response, I propose a Thomistic cognitive theory of faith that both avoids Kvanvig’s criticism and presents a richer and more inclusive account of how faith is intrinsically valuable. I show these accounts of faith diverge in what they take as the goal of the Christian life: personal relationship with God or an external state (...)
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  4. Grounding Relations Are Not Unified.James Dominic Rooney - 2019 - International Philosophical Quarterly 59 (1):57-64.
    Jonathan Schaffer, among others, has argued that metaphysics should deal primarily with relations of " grounding. " I will follow John Heil in arguing that this view of metaphysics is problematic as it draws on ambiguous notions of grounding and fundamentality that are unilluminating as metaphysical explanations. I understand Heil to be arguing that grounding relations do not form a natural class, where a 'natural' class is one where some member of that class has (analytic or contingent a posteriori) priority (...)
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  5. Metaphysical Fundamentality as a Fundamental Problem for C. S. Peirce and Zhu Xi.James Dominic Rooney - 2022 - Philosophy East and West 72 (4):1045–1065.
    Abstract:While the American pragmatist C. S. Peirce and the twelfth-century Confucian thinker Zhu Xi 朱熹 lived and worked in radically different contexts, there are nevertheless striking parallels in their view of inquiry. Both appeal to the fundamental nature of reality in order to draw conclusions about the way in which inquiry can be a component of the path toward moral perfection. Yet they prominently diverge in their account not only of the fundamental nature of reality, but also of the way (...)
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  6. The Problem of Thomistic Parts.James Dominic Rooney - forthcoming - Dialectica.
    Thomas Aquinas embraces a controversial claim about the way in which parts of a substance depend on the substance’s substantial form. On his metaphysics, a ‘substantial form’ is not merely a relation among already existing things, in virtue of which (for example) the arrangement or configuration of those things would count as a substance. The substantial form is rather responsible for the identity or nature of the parts of the substance such a form constitutes. Aquinas’ controversial claim can be roughly (...)
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  7.  96
    Vocation to Love: Supererogation in Aquinas.James Dominic Rooney - 2022 - International Journal of Systematic Theology 24 (2):156-172.
    Thomas Aquinas’ account of religious vocation has been interpreted as involving a qualified duty, where ordinary people fall short of living up to the moral ideal of becoming a monk or nun. Such an account of religious vocation makes a hash of Aquinas’ thought and misses important aspects of his ethics. Aquinas holds that religious life is praiseworthy, but not morally required, because there are multiple sources of normativity. I conclude by proposing that, while elements of Aquinas’ notion of supererogation (...)
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  8.  54
    Aquinas, Thomas.James Dominic Rooney - 2022 - In Mortimer Sellers & Stephan Kirste (eds.), Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. Springer.
    [Encyclopedia entry] Born in Italy in 1225, and despite a relatively short career that ended around 50 years later in 1274, Thomas Aquinas went on to become one of the most influential medieval thinkers on political and legal questions. Aquinas was educated at both Cologne and Paris, later taking up (after some controversy) a chair as regent master in theology at the University of Paris, where he taught during two separate periods (1256-1259, 1269-1272). In the intermediate period he helped establish (...)
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  9. Banez’s Big Problem: The Ground of Freedom.James Dominic Rooney - 2021 - Faith and Philosophy 38 (1):91-112.
    While many philosophers of religion are familiar with the reconciliation of grace and freedom known as Molinism, fewer by far are familiar with that position initially developed by Molina’s erstwhile rival, Domingo Banez (i.e., Banezianism). My aim is to clarify a serious problem for the Banezian: how the Banezian can avoid the apparent conflict between a strong notion of freedom and apparently compatibilist conclusions. The most prominent attempt to defend Banezianism against compatibilism was (in)famously endorsed by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange. Even if (...)
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  10. An Alleged Contradiction in Dignitatis Humanae.James Dominic Rooney - 2021 - Angelicum 98 (2):99-118.
    The declaration on religious freedom issued by the Second Vatican Council, Dignitatis Humanae claimed: «the human person has a right to religious freedom» (no. 2). Nevertheless, some think the modern declaration of Vatican II contradicts prior Catholic magisterial teaching on religious liberty. I evaluate whether the Magisterium is proposing an inconsistent set of propositions. I argue that a careful reading of the relevant magisterial propositions from classical papal encyclicals, namely, those that apparently opposed religious freedom, reveals they do not contradict (...)
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  11. Evolutionary Biology and Classical Teleological Arguments for God's Existence.James Dominic Rooney - 2013 - Heythrop Journal 54 (4):617-630.
    Much has been made of how Darwinian thinking destroyed proofs for the existence of God from ‘design’ in the universe. I challenge that prevailing view by looking closely at classical ‘teleological’ arguments for the existence of God. One version championed by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas stems from how chance is not a sufficient kind of ultimate explanation of the universe. In the course of constructing this argument, I argue that the classical understanding of teleology is no less necessary in modern (...)
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  12. Survivalism, Suitably Modified.James Dominic Rooney - 2021 - The Thomist 85 (3):349-376.
    A well-known problem seems to beset views on which humans are essentially material, but where I can survive my death: they seem incoherent or reducible to substance dualism. Thomas Aquinas held a unique hylomorphic view of the human person as essentially composed of body and soul, but where the human soul can survive the death of the body. ‘Survivalists’ have argued that, post mortem, a human person comes to be composed of their soul alone. ‘Corruptionists’ point to Thomas’ texts, where (...)
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  13. Believing the Incomprehensible God.James Dominic Rooney - 2020 - Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 94:111-122.
    There has been recent epistemological interest as to whether knowledge is “transmitted” by testimony from the testifier to the hearer, where a hearer acquires knowledge “second-hand.” Yet there is a related area in epistemology of testimony which raises a distinct epistemological problem: the relation of understanding to testimony. In what follows, I am interested in one facet of this relation: whether/how a hearer can receive testimonial knowledge without fully understanding the content of the testimony? I use Thomas Aquinas to motivate (...)
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  14. Why all classical theists should believe in physical premotions, but it doesn’t really matter.James Dominic Rooney - 2020 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 88 (2):139-166.
    “Physical premotion” is a concept associated with Baroque Catholic theological debates concerning grace and freedom. In this paper, I present an argument that the entities identified in this debate, physical premotions, are necessary for any classical theist’s account of divine causality. A “classical theist” is a theist who holds both that God is simple, that is, without inhering properties, and that humans and God are both free in the incompatibilist sense. In fact, not only does the acceptance of physical premotions (...)
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  15.  57
    The Christological Root of Heresy in the Thought of JH Newman.James Dominic Rooney - 2012 - Josephinum Journal of Theology 19 (2):1-15.
    John Henry Newman's theory of heresiology evolved over the course of his life, accentuating certain Christological characteristics of heresy. He began with the study of the Arian heresy, progressing through the Sabellian and Apolloniarian, and ending with the Monophysite. The theory of heresy and orthodoxy finally developed in the Development of Doctrine reflects this struggle to find common features of orthodoxy corresponding to principles governing Christology in the early Church Fathers. As a consequence, Newman's heresiology, in its final stage, holds (...)
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  16.  57
    Goods and Groups: Thomistic Social Action and Metaphysics.James Dominic Rooney - 2016 - Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 90:287-297.
    Hans Bernhard Schmid has argued that contemporary theories of collective action and social metaphysics unnecessarily reject the concept of a “shared intentional state.” I will argue that three neo-Thomist philosophers, Jacques Maritain, Charles de Koninck, and Yves Simon, all seem to agree that the goals of certain kinds of collective agency cannot be analyzed merely in terms of intentional states of individuals. This was prompted by a controversy over the nature of the “common good,” in response to a perceived threat (...)
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