Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), University of Dayton, 2019, Theology

Placing the theological anthropology set forth in the foundational addresses of John Paul II's Theology of the Body alongside feminist theological perspectives, this dissertation proposes a more adequate anthropology, proper to the human person as female and male. My objectives include engaging feminist criticism and related theological frameworks, such as feminist, Trinitarian, and embodiment theologies in order to advance a theological anthropology that assimilates a fuller human perspective. Based on a critical essentialist method, this dissertation accepts difference between sexes as an anthropological criterion by which to assess integrated female and male relationships to one another and to God, but does so in a way that defines terms, refines conclusions, and proposes lacunas in the discourse. The significance of this dissertation is twofold. First, it distinguishes the early discourses of the Theology of the Body as foundational to the entirety of John Paul II's audiences in contrast to a pervasive disregard for close attention to early texts in favor of later discourses on sexual ethics. Second, it advances both unique perspectives of the Theology of the Body and feminism towards a more adequate anthropology that thrives in mutuality and reciprocity, in which neither female nor male is diminished. Third, this dissertation contributes to a conversation about the bodily-person, including embodied difference, in which difference is encountered as a necessary principle for unity, particularly in the acts of self-gift and relationship. My conclusions incorporate John Paul II's claim that the body reveals the person with a feminist concern that marginalized persons, especially women, are created as imago Dei in the same measure as every other person. By considering topics of language and meaning, theology and embodiment, anthropology and feminism, and relationships and complementarity, this dissertation concludes that the Theology of the Body discourse (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jana Bennett Ph.D. (Committee Chair); William Portier Ph.D. (Committee Member); Vincent A. Miller Ph.D. (Committee Member); Dennis Doyle Ph.D. (Committee Member); Susan Windley-Daoust Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Theology; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), University of Dayton, 2016, Theology

This dissertation examines the social magisterium of Pope Leo XIII as it is developed in the aftermath of the French Revolution and during the nationalizing process of the liberal Italian state. The thesis of the dissertation is that Leo XIII provides Catholic social teaching with a proper vision of human relationship as a mode of analogical participation in the Lord's goodness. In his own historical context, Leo's analogical vision of social relations is developed in tension with the nation-state's proposal of political citizenship as the social relation that relativizes every other relation – most especially one's ecclesial relation. In our own context, Leo's analogical vision of social relations stands in tension with the late-modern proposal of consumerism as the social reality that relativizes every other relation – including one's matrimonial, familial, social, and ecclesial relations.

Committee: Kelly Johnson Ph.D. (Advisor); Russell Hittinger Ph.D. (Committee Member); William Portier Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jana Bennett Ph.D. (Committee Member); Michael Carter Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: History; Philosophy; Religious History; Social Structure; Theology

Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, 2020, Theological Studies

This analysis will synthesize Elizabeth Johnson's Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love and Laudato Si': On Care for Our Common Home toward a Catholic cosmocentric theological anthropology. Chapter one analyzes the pneumatology, christology, and eschatology of Ask the Beasts and identifies anthropological applications. Chapter two analyzes and develops the practical theology of Laudato Si' in terms of creation, pneumatology and trinitarian theology, christology, and eschatology. Applications for human beings are discussed throughout chapter two as the encyclical makes frequent references to how our understanding of being human shapes care for our common home. Chapter three shows how the theological foundations of the texts align. Ask the Beasts can offer development of the framework set in Laudato Si' so that the call for humans to care for our common home has stronger theological backing. Together, the texts indicate that humans are part of a community of creation that is loved by the Creator and accompanied by the Spirit in all suffering. They suggest our being connected christologically through deep incarnation and rising with all creatures through the Spirit in the resurrection. A Catholic cosmocentric theological anthropology can help humans to understand responsibility for creation as part of who we are theologically and act accordingly. This responsibility is motivated by the joy that comes from relationship with the triune God and our primary identity not as sinful but as Christ's beloved.

Committee: Vincent Miller Ph.D. (Advisor); Groppe Elizabeth Ph.D. (Committee Member); Henning Meghan Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Religion; Spirituality; Theology

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), University of Dayton, 2015, Theology

This dissertation considers two trajectories of Christian thought about human temptation after the first sin of Adam and Eve and about Christ's confrontation with the devil in his own temptation, focusing on the embodiment of these trajectories in the thought of Maximus the Confessor and Thomas Aquinas. The first of these trajectories sees fallen human temptation in the framework of an ascetic confrontation with the devil on the battlefield of the human mind, in thoughts and desires. The second of these trajectories see this temptation in the framework of a purely internal division between the flesh and the spirit, expressed as disordered concupiscence (“desire”) or the fomes peccati (the “tinder of sin”). Structurally, the work is divided into two sets of three chapters with an introduction and a conclusion. The introduction reviews modern denials of the devil's role in Christian theology, defends the place of the devil in Christian theology, considers recent work that relates to the dissertation's subject matter, and provides a detailed outline of the following chapters. Each set of three chapters (first on Maximus, then on Thomas) is organized according to: (1) sources for the central figure; (2) the anthropological framework for temptation in the thought of the figure; and (3) the Christological application of this framework. The author shows that both Maximus and Thomas conceive of Christ in his temptation as an empowering exemplar who takes on something of the punishment for Adam's sin in his own temptation by the devil. Though certain disjunctions appear between these thinkers in the course of the study, the conclusion offers constructive suggestions about ways in which the two trajectories might still be compatible. The conclusion also outlines areas for future historical and systematic research concerning Christian traditions of temptation and recommends a retrieval of the earlier trajectory of which Maximus forms a part.

Committee: Matthew Levering (Advisor); Paul Blowers (Committee Member); Gloria Dodd (Committee Member); Dennis Doyle (Committee Member); William Portier (Committee Member) Subjects: Divinity; Ethics; Middle Ages; Psychology; Religion; Theology

Doctorate in Sacred Theology (S.T.D.), University of Dayton, 2008, International Marian Research Institute

The dissertation of 761 pages takes its bearing from the Apostolic Letter Novo millennio ineunte (NMI) in which John Paul II outlined the path the Church is to adopt in the newest epoch. At stake is the “necessity to rediscover the full practical significance of Chapter 5 of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, dedicated to the universal call to holiness (NMI 30). To meet this challenge, John Paul II stressed that a concrete “pedagogy of holiness” is required, which above all must include a “spiritual path” without which “external structures … will serve very little purpose (NMI 43).” The Polish Pontiff invited all ecclesial movements to present their original pedagogy of holiness (cf. NMI 31). The author of this dissertation responds to this challenge by highlighting the task of the Blessed Virgin Mary as educator in a pedagogy of holiness both in the teachings of John Paul II and of Father Joseph Kentenich, founder of the Schoenstatt Movement. The dissertation consists of two parts with a concluding chapter comparing John Paul II's considerations with those of Father Kentenich. Part I focuses on Pope John Paul II's concept of holiness and the task of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the process of education towards human perfection. The topic is developed in six chapters: (1) Pope John Paul II's notion of the Human Person's call to Human Fulfillment and Holiness; (2) Wojtyla's Philosophical Anthropology in “The Acting Person;” (3) the Pope's Theological Anthropology; (4) his concept of Holiness; (5) his Marian Teaching and (6) John Paul II's Contribution to a Pedagogy of Holiness. Part II concentrates on Father Joseph Kentenich' quest for the New Person called to holiness. Parallel to part I the topic is structured in six chapters: (1) Father J. Kentenich as a Pioneer of a Pedagogy of Sanctity; (2) his Theological Anthropology in view of his Pedagogy of Holiness; (3) his Concept of Holiness; (4) his Mariology; (5) his notion of Mary as Educator and (6) (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Johann Roten G (Committee Chair); Bertrand Buby A (Committee Member); Luigi Gambero (Other); Robert Hughes (Committee Member); Thomas Thompson A (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Educational Psychology; Philosophy; Theology