Participation in the Divine Life: Aquinas and Vos on the Lord’s Supper

Glen Clary delivers a plenary address at the Reformed Forum 2018 Theology Conference at Hope Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Grayslake, Illinois.

[@Benzjammin10]

Really helpful. Just wished for more Vos material in contrast

[@anselman3156]

As one who is already appreciative of St. Thomas's teaching, I found this to be a good presentation. However, I did not learn anything about Vos's teaching on the Lord's Supper. The speaker may have presumed his audience's knowledge of this, but it would have been helpful to an "outsider" to have the two teachings contrasted.

[@joseph.candito]

Here is where I am confused. Isn't this the position Augustine argued against the Pelagians. “For this, too, the Pelagians have been bold enough to aver, that grace is the nature in which we were created, so as to possess a rational mind, by which we are enabled to understand - formed as we are in the image of God, so as to have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creeps upon the earth.” On Grace and Free Will. In opposing Pelagius’ denial of man’s need for God’s grace to obtain salvation, Augustine was arguing for the necessity of infused grace for man’s salvation before the Fall.

[@ninjacell2999]

Might need a bit more context for that quote, because it seems like it could be Augustine talking about how the Pelagians redefined grace to mean our natural state and ability to obey, and therefore explained all the Scripture's mention of grace. Either way, the works we do for God are not instrinsically meritorious (as the Pelagians teach), and the way they become meritorious is not by the infusal of a quasi-substance called grace, but instead by the establishment of a Covenant between God and man. God agreed to reward Adam's works with blessing the works themselves did not strictly earn. So there is a difference between what the Reformed and the Pelagians teach.

[@vanttil101]

See Vos’ RD 2, 13-15 for tremendous help here. His argument is that traditional Román Catholic Theology has a Pelagian Conception of the will.

[@JonathanRamont]

You got it

[@thomasyeutter1112]

Many of those that are called Reformed Thomists, and some of those that call themselves Reformed Thomists, are really men who stand in the philosophical tradition of common sense realism. Common Sense Realists reject the post Kantian assumptions that underpin the thought of Van Til, and Dooyeweerd. They can be appreciative of the philosophical approach of Thomas without adopting the eucharistic theology of Thomas