Aquinas as a Mystical Theologian | Fr. Bernhard Blankenhorn, O.P.

The Thomistic Institute

Christianity, Religion &Amp; Spirituality, Society & Culture, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality, Thomism, Catholicism

4.8 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2020

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This lecture was presented by the campus chapter of the Thomistic Institute at the University of California, Berkeley on October 21, 2019.

Fr. Bernhard Blankenhorn, O.P. is a Dominican friar of the Province of the Most Holy Name of Jesus. He is a professor of theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome, where he is an associate director of the Thomistic Institute. He did his doctoral studies at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, under the direction of Fr. Gilles Emery, O.P. He has published "The Mystery of Union with God: Dionysian Mysticism in Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas" (CUA Press, 2015). He is currently completing a textbook on the Eucharist. His other research interests include medieval Dominican mystical theologies, the function of metaphysics in theology, the grace/nature relation, the notion of revelation, the development of doctrine and the charisms.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I actually brought an image which I'm not going to leave on the depths because it'll block
0:05.0	the view partly, but it's an icon which one of our Byzantine right, Nalkite right friars
0:11.0	lent to me.
0:12.0	And it's an icon by of Dionysius the Ariopagite, whom the East still venerates as a saint.
0:19.0	The West, with its critical historical, historical
0:22.1	critical thinking, has sort of said, well,
0:24.1	he's a sixth century anonymous writer, et cetera, et cetera.
0:27.3	But it's an interesting icon, because maybe I'll set it over here.
0:31.6	Notice something strange about it,
0:33.1	if you know anything about iconography.
0:34.9	What's odd about this icon?
0:37.1	Any ideas? The blue halo. He's a blue halo. You know what it iconography? What's odd about this icon? Any ideas? The blue halo.
0:39.5	The blue halo. You know what it's for? It's the dark cloud. On the summit of Mount Sinai,
0:47.5	which is the ultimate symbol of union with God. So tonight I'll talk all about the blue halo,
0:52.6	meaning the dark cloud. So we'll leave it here for you to contemplate.
0:56.0	They say, you know, the Byzantine say,
0:59.0	an icon isn't so much a topic you look at.
1:03.0	It's essentially the presence of the person represented,
1:07.0	and they are in a way, they're present between you and the image.
1:11.6	Interesting theology.
1:15.6	So you might know that since the time of Plato and the ancient Greeks,
1:21.6	Western human beings have been striving to give a philosophical or a theological account of contemplative assent
	...

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