Every discipline, including theology, requires a synthetic overview of its acquisitions and open questions, a kind of "topography" to guide the new student and refresh the gaze of specialists. In his Synthese dogmatique, Fr. Jean-Herve Nicolas, OP (1910-2001) presents just such a map of Thomistic theology, focusing on the central topics of Dogmatic Theology: The One and Triune God, Christology, Mariology, Ecclesiology, the Sacraments, and the Last Things. Drawing on decades of research and teaching, Fr. Nicolas synthetically presents these topics from a faithfully Thomistic perspective. While broadly and genially engaging the theological literature of the 20th century, he nonetheless remains deeply indebted to the Thomistic school that would have formed him in his youth as a theologian. This provides the reader with an unparalleled theological vision, masterfully bringing forth, at once, what is new and what is classical.
Catholic Dogmatic Theology: A Synthesis is being published in English as a multi-volume work. In this volume, originally written as a supplement to his large Synthese dogmatique, Fr. Nicolas returns to the theological topics of the One God and Creation. In a tightly unified presentation, he discusses: what we can naturally and supernaturally know about the One God; the nature of creation and providence; the nature of bodily creatures and their evolution; the nature and activity of spiritual creatures, men and angels alike; the problem of evil; and the relationship between the natural and the supernatural. By returning to these themes classically treated in the context of the Prima pars of the Summa theologiae, Fr. Nicolas presents his readers with the completion of his dogmatic synthesis.
Serving as a professor for decades, including at the University of Fribourg, Fr. Nicolas was at once a profound scholar and a masterful pedagogue. Gathering the work of a lifetime into a single pedagogical narrative, Fr. Nicolas's Catholic Dogmatic Theology: A Synthesis provides a resource for students and scholars alike. In view of the hyper-specialization of theology today, this series of volumes provides readers with a synthetic and sapiential overview of the fundamentals of dogmatic theology from a robust and profound Thomistic perspective.
