Moved by God to Act: An Ecumenical Ethic of Grace in Community - Softcover

Aikin, Carter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1610975200 ISBN 13: 9781610975209

Publisher: Cascade Books, 2014

Synopsis

Moved by God to Act offers a fresh description of Christian moral action as a moment of connection between divine and human agency. Through an ecumenical consideration of a variety of resources, this book gives an accessible description of the work of God's grace not only in individual Christian agency but also within the dynamics of Christian community. Moved by God to Act brings the contemporary theological ethics of community into dialogue with the pneumatology of Thomas Aquinas. The ethic emerging from this dialogue lifts up the centrality of God's grace in Christian community while at the same time offering a detailed articulation of the human being as naturally and beautifully drawn into cooperation with God's grace in the ethical life. The book concludes by showing how Aquinas stands in substantial harmony with the contemporary authors discussed, offering a proper description of God's agency in individual Christian human agency and the dynamics of the "body" of the Christian community to which the contemporary discourse so rightly points. Moved by God to Act is an attempt to speak to the work of God in the life and day-to-day action of Christians and Christian communities as moved to act by the Holy Spirit.

About this title

About the Author:

Wm. Carter Aikin is Associate Professor of Religion and Philosophy and Director of the Center for Vocation, Faith, and Service at Hastings College in Hastings, Nebraska

Review:

''In this first-rate study of ecumenical theology, Carter Aikin shows how Aquinas doctrine of grace offers a resource for Protestant theology. He develops Aquinas' key insights in light of distinctively Protestant commitments to a confessing community, shaped by and answerable to Scripture, as the proper context for receiving and acting out of divine grace. This book offers a valuable contribution to an ongoing ecumenical conversation about the relevance of Aquinas for contemporary theology and moral and pastoral practice.''
--Jean Porter
John A. O'Brien Professor of Theological Ethics, University of Notre Dame
Author of ''Ministers of the Law: A Natural Law Theory of Legal Authority'' (2011)

''[A] rich, highly original, utterly engaging, and genuinely charitable scholarly work. Aikin brings contemporary theologians Stanley Hauerwas and Reinhard Hutter into conversation with Thomas Aquinas to explore the intimate relationship between God s agency and human agency in the Christian moral life. . . . Aikin beautifully delineates the new way of being and acting made possible not only for individual Christians but indeed for the church. Moved by God to Act is a compelling, captivating, and gratefully very hopeful investigation of what it means to live in Christ and be moved by the Spirit.''
Paul J. Wadell
Professor of Religious Studies, St. Norbert College

''In his lucid book on grace and human action, Aiken offers a much-needed contemporary contribution from the field of moral theology/Christian ethics to this too-often-neglected topic. He establishes the need in contemporary theology for the sophistication and precision of St. Thomas Aquinas' thought on grace, and also draws on contemporary thinkers (Stanley Hauerwas and Reinhard Hütter) to extend the communal emphasis of the Angelic Doctor s work. Aiken's book is one of the first in an impending deluge of studies augmenting recent work on virtue with more detailed attention to the relationship between God's grace and human action.''
--William C. Mattison III
Associate Professor of Moral Theology, Catholic University of America
Author of ''Introducing Moral Theology: True Happiness and the Virtues'' (2008)

''Aikin's accomplishment is most impressive. Conversant with certain influential contemporary discussions of Christian moral agency, Aikin also knows his Aquinas very well, making intelligent use of Aquinas on grace and the Holy Spirit to depict more fully the working of God in the Christian moral life, both individually and communally. Go's acting is not at the expense of human agency; God's intimate involvement in human acting, depicted in its ecclesial setting, is genuinely empowering. Aikin's project is ecumenical and charitable in the best sense, and his careful, thoughtful, uplifting analyses show convincingly how Aquinas and Hauerwas and Huetter, can be mutually enriching.''
--Joseph Wawrykow
Associate Professor of Theology, University of Notre Dame and author of ''The Westminster Handbook to Thomas Aquinas'' (2005) --Wipf and Stock Publishers

About this edition

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1610975200
• ISBN 13: 9781610975209
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 264