RT Article
T1 The Headship of Christ and the Angels: An Ambiguity in Thomas’s Account
JF New blackfriars
VO 105
IS 1
SP 92
OP 103
A1 Lim, Joshua Han
LA English
PB Cambridge University Press
YR 2024
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1884549632
AB The development of Thomas’s teaching on Christ’s headship relies upon the principle of the causality of the maximum: ‘the maximum in a genus is the universal cause in that genus’. This principle appears in the fourth way to demonstrate God’s existence. Applied to the humanity of Christ, Thomas argues that Christ, on account of his perfect fullness of grace, is, according to his humanity, the universal source of grace for all the members of the Church, including the angels. How does this cohere with Thomas’s teaching elsewhere in the Summa theologiae that it is only as Word that Christ causes grace in the angels? In this paper, I explore this tension and offer a way of understanding Thomas’s broader approach to the mystery of Christ.
K1 Thomas Aquinas
K1 Summa Theologiae
K1 Medieval Theology
K1 Grace
K1 Christology
K1 Angelology
DO 10.1017/nbf.2023.11