Steven A Long

My lecture from the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas in 2017, "The Order of the Universe," published in Dio creatore
e la creazione come casa comune Prospettive Tomiste, ed. Serge-Thomas Bonino - Guido Mazzotta, Urbaniana University Press, Città del Vaticano, 2018 [Doctor Communis, Pontificia Academia Sancti Thomae Aquinatis:  ATTI XVII SESSIONE PLENARIA], pp. 117-136.

The introduction to the second edition of The Teleological Grammar of the Moral Act.  This responds to a variety of objections, criticisms, and what seem to the author to be particular misunderstandings of the thesis argued. Among the latter category of seeming misunderstandings might be counted the proposition that what Thomas means by "per se" order of object of the external act to the end necessarily or usually implies a unique and exclusive relation to the end.  This is something that I am inclined to deny:  the same casuality that can render anaesthesia to be per se ordained to an intention of surgical repair for the sake of health, can make it to be per se ordained to an intention of kidnapping.  The analysis of Summa theologiae II-II, q. 64, art. 7 regarding killing in defense is also extended. The introduction responds to a variety of other foundational criticisms of the analysis provided in the book, and indicates also some minor precisions/revisions. New appendices were added to the second edition that are pertinent to understanding cooperation with evil, and the role of prudence in cases of double effect, but these are not here included.

A brief review engaging Jean Porter's remarkable work Nature as Reason, acknowledging significant strength of the work in its regard for aspects of natural teleological order for practical knowledge, and focusing upon remaining points of dispute:  chiefly, the import of proximate natural teleology for moral understanding, in sexual ethics and elsewhere; and difficulties regarding the nature of "rights," which seem to be derivative vis a vis the understanding of the nature of the good. This was published way back in 2008, in Nova et Vetera.

This essay attempts to show that three things often thought to be opposed—the dynamism, relationality, and teleology of the image of God in man toward grace and glory; a strict distinction between nature and grace; and the doctrine that man has an obediential potency to friendship with God and supernatural beatitude—are not only not opposed but are actually necessarily related elements of a coherent and true theological synthesis.

A paper published responding to  criticisms offered by a genuinely great luminary of Thomistic thought, Fr. Lawrence Dewan, O.P, and including also response to the objections posed to some of my work by the serious Thomistic scholar  Kevin Keiser.

Engages philosophy of nature, metaphysics, and revelation in considering the question of man's relation to the cosmos and the nature of stewardship.  This is a speculative treatment published in 2012, & does not address  either the recent papal encyclical Laudato si' or the controversies pertaining to the hypothesis of humanly caused global warming.

A response--published on the website thomistica.net at the address <https://thomistica.squarespace.com/config#/|/commentary/2015/4/10/intention-death-and-doctrinal-mutation-universal-tradition-and-the-death-penalty>--to the argument of Tollefsen (to be found at <http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/03/14652/>) that the death penalty is intrinsically wrong.

An imperfect (because of interposed dashes in words, etc.) but accurate PDF of my original work for The Thomist in 1999 considering the relation of the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas to the teaching of Evangelium Vitae regarding the death penalty.  It is also available in html format at <http:www.thomist.org>.