Ceslas Spicq: An Overlooked Master in the Use of Scripture for Moral Theology

The present essay was the preparatory work done for a talk given at the 2025 Conference for the Word on Fire Academic Journal, The New Ressourcement: “The New Ressourcement, Scripture, and Its Interpretation.”

It is a well-known tale: of all theological disciplines, moral theology in the post-Conciliar Church has undergone perhaps the most dramatic transformation. In moving beyond the inherited methods of legalistic casuistry, moral theologians sought a more integrated, genuinely theological account of human action—an account attentive to acts divinized by grace. Yet what counts as a “fuller framework” has long been a matter of dispute. The 1990s—and the grave necessity that occasioned Veritatis Splendor—are still close enough in memory to remind us that much moral theology after the Council was, in fact, little more than a continuation of casuist theories of conscience, now presented as “liberated” from supposedly rigid and inflexible constraints. Proportionalism, “fundamental option” theories, autonomy-vs.-heteronomy schemas, renewed attention to social structures of sin, situation ethics, and similar approaches were heralded as supplying the needed “adult” framework, one suited—so it was argued—to a laity presumed no longer in need of the black-and-white precision of the past.¹

I’m being lighthearted, of course, because I know that I am addressing a group that will permit slight rhetorical excesses. The general sense that something was wrong with moral theology, as it was presented in most seminary curricula, was not wrong-headed, even if many of the post-Conciliar “solutions” offered in replacement to fan older moral theology were. Although not universal in the “manuals,” a powerful current of legalism had come downstream from the probabilist controversies and had led to a sclerotic law-conscience framework which had cut off moral deliberation from the virtuous formation of prudence, let alone from the great dogmatic truths of divinization, life in Christ, etc. As one says, “Something had to give.” Thus, truth be told, even if Optatam totius could have been read by some in a very conservative and traditional sense, it is not surprising that the immediate aftermath of the Council gave way to a kind of immense breadth of new attempts to address the needs of moral questions, often excessively spurning the tradition by way of overreaction to what were, truth be told, real and profound shortcomings.

For many of us gathered here, we share a certain admiration for the renewal that has emanated from those who have inherited from the line of Dominican Fr. Servais Pinckaers. During his tenure at Fribourg, Pinckaers significantly advanced an important vein of renewal. Indeed, the 1995 English translation of his Sources of Christian Ethics must be considered a transition moment within Anglophone attempts to articulate a complete, faithful theological account of moral truth, with a full theological grounding. We have all become very familiar with the narrative: beatitude and virtue should be central to moral theology; law is a pedagogue, not an antagonistic partner in a fight between freedom and law; dogmatic theology must be much more tightly integrated into a single theological framework that does not place moral thought in isolation from the great truths of faith; the need to integrate scripture more fully into moral theology (a well-worn theme from the oft-cited passage of Optatam totius, no. 16²). Even for those who are not Thomists, the general atmospheric changes which have taken place in Catholic moral theology during these past 30 years owe a great deal to the influence of his works, as well as his students, and those who have been influenced by them.

However, Pinckaers’s efforts—crucial though they have been in countering both the nominalist-legalist drift of much modern Latin moral theology and the more problematic post-Conciliar movements—did not arise ex nihilo. His anti-casuist orientation was already anticipated in the works of a number earlier Dominicans (e.g., Antonin Sertillanges, Timothée Richard, Henri-Dominique Noble, Thomas Deman, Juan Arintero, Stanislas Gillet, Marie-Albert Janvier, Ambroise Gardeil, Benoît-Henri Merkelbach, Dominik Prümmer, Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, et al.), and one could easily extend the list to include figures from other religious families and Catholic authors. Moreover, with regard to the integration of Scripture into moral theology, Pinckaers was preceded by another scholar—one who had already undertaken a systematic and exegetical gathering of moral themes from Scripture: Fr. Ceslas Spicq (1901–1992). This paper aims to encourage greater engagement with this important source and “mentor” in the use of scriptural data for moral theologizing.

After teaching in various contexts throughout Europe and at the École biblique in Jerusalem, Fr. Spicq held a professorship from 1953 to 1971 at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. His scholarly career included numerous substantial contributions to biblical exegesis—notably his three-volume Lexique théologique du Nouveau Testament—as well as major studies on Pauline literature, the Petrine epistles, and the Letter to the Hebrews. Yet his bibliography also includes a remarkable series of works devoted explicitly to Christian anthropology and moral theology: Agapè: prolégomènes à une étude de théologie néo-testamentaire ; the comprehensive three-volume Agapè dans le Nouveau Testament (Agape in the New Testament); Charité et liberté selon le Nouveau Testament (Charity and Liberty in the New Testament); Vie morale et Trinité Sainte selon Saint Paul (The Trinity and our Moral Life according to St. Paul; St. Paul and Christian Living); Spiritualité sacerdotale d'après Saint Paul (The Mystery of Godliness); La revelation de l’ésperance dans le nouveau testament; Dieu et l’homme selon le Nouveau Testament; and Vie chrétienne et pérégrination selon le Nouveau Testament; and the two-volume Théologie morale du Nouveau Testament.³

In this short paper, I would simply like to present Spicq as a model for the specifically sapiential function of theology—here, moral theology—in its engagement with scriptural data. That is, his scriptural inquiry is not driven by a mere desire to gather particular sources, as though such collection were the terminal act of the intellectus fidei. Rather, as he himself states explicitly (as I will cite below), his aim is to present the data of Scripture in a way that furnishes principles for theological discursion. In this respect, he practices something akin to positive theology precisely within the horizon of a sapiential-scientific mode of inquiry⁴

In particular, I hope you leave this talk with at least some desire to explore his two-volume Théologie morale du Nouveau Testament. Although deeply erudite in its lexicographical and historical analyses—and profoundly conversant with the scholarship of his day, to the point that many pages are more than half-filled with technical footnotes—Spicq’s work nonetheless takes the canonical text as it stands, with the docile conviction that the sacred Author and authors ultimately convey a message that is fundamentally coherent. This methodological posture allows him to gather a wide array of themes that he regards as the major contours of the moral vision presented by the New Testament writers:

1. Development of Morality from the Old to the New Covenant

Connected Themes: Christian devotion; service to time; responsibility; fidelity.

2. The New Being and the New Life

1. Repentance and Baptism

2. Baptism and Belonging to Christ

3. Baptism and Belonging to the Holy Spirit

4. Baptism “for a body”: incorporation into the Church

5. Adoptive filiation

6. New Birth

Connected Themes: New being and religious life; Charity and divine birth; Divine generation and youth; Christian vitality and organic growth.

3. Grace–Glory: Giving Thanks and Rendering Glory

1. Gift, Love, and Gratuitousness

2. Saving and Educating Grace

3. Glory: Opulence and Splendor

4. To Render Thanks and To Render Glory

Connected Themes: Beauty; peace; joy; sufficiency and license; humility.

4. Justification, Sin, Sanctification

1. The Justice of Faith is the Justice that Comes from God

2. The Christian: Sinless and Sinner

3. Sanctification and the Liturgical Life

Connected Themes: Progressive purification and flight from the world; the Christian life as combat; bearing the cross and mortification; pitfalls and scandals; temptation; strength and victory.

5. Faith and Fidelity

1. Necessity and Genesis of Faith

2. The Structure and Objects of Faith

3. Being Steadfast and Doing the Truth

4. The Degrees and Progress of Faith

Connected Themes: Heresy and orthodoxy; faith and loyalty; hypocrisy; faith and authenticity.

6. One’s Outlook Toward the Future: Advent, Hope, and Fear

1. The Present Life and the Future Life: The Call to Happiness

2. Waiting and Watching with Head and Heart Freed

3. Foundations and Supports of Hope: Its Certainty

4. In the Time of Salvation, Hope Stimulates Effort and Is Realized Through Perseverance

5. Retribution and Fear

Connected Themes: Strength; prayer: a) Jesus, Master of Prayer; b) Persevering Prayer; c) Bold and Combative Prayer; d) Effective Prayer; e) What Should One Ask For? — Poverty; Labor...To Love God and Neighbor Is the Whole Law and the Prophets

7. To Love God and Neighbor Is the Whole Law and the Prophets

1. Christians, Who Have Been Loved, Are Themselves Loving

2. Made to Love, Christians Must Truly Love

3. Charity and the Moral Life: How Does the Christian Love?

4. Qualities and Growth of Agape

Connected Themes: The Church as an Institution of Charity; purity and virginity.

8. Pastoral Instructions, Formation of Conscience, and Uprightness of Conduct

   1. Christian Education by the Leaders of the Church

   2. Formation of Conscience and the Christianization of Moral Sense

   3. Motivation and Realization

9. The Freedom of the Children of God

1. Aspiration to Deliverance and the Identity of the Him Who Frees

2. The Abolition of Former Tyrannies

3. The Spiritual Nature of Christian Freedom

4. Freedom for Being at the Service of the Savior

5. Freedom to Love One’s Neighbor

Connected Themes: Privileges of the Free; Morality and Casuistry; Education in Freedom; Deficiencies, Progress, and Perfection.

10. From the Image of God to Eschatological Transfiguration through the Imitation of Jesus Christ and His Apostles

    1. Created in the Image of God, the Christian Must Resemble the Heavenly Father

    2. The Imitation of Christ, Image of the Father: The Vocation and Grace of the Christian

    3. The Apostle Paul as Model to Imitate

    4. Exemplary and Inspiring Lives

Conclusion: Major Treatises of New Testament Morality

1. Unity of New Testament Morality: a) Traditional; b) Authoritative; c) Universal

2. A Religious Morality: of Holiness and Radiant Beauty

3. Morality of Grace — the Morality of the New Testament is a Baptismal Morality:

   1. Divine Paternity and Filial Morality; Morality of Imitation and Heavenly Perfection; Morality of Charity;

   2. Christonomic Morality: Following Christ; Being Assimilated to Christ; Morality of Crucifixion and Gladness; Eschatological;

   3. Pneumatic Morality: of Life; of Progressive Liberation; of Rejuvenating Metamorphosis; of Effective Realizations

4. To Have a Good Heart

Appendix

1. Moral Life: Christ and Charity

2. The Natural Law in the New Testament

3. What the Title “Christian” Signifies

4. Christians Live as Citizens of Heaven

5. Adoptive Sonship and Adoption in Brotherhood

6. What Is Grace?

7. To Believe, to See, to Savor

8. Is Heaven More Populated Than Hell?

9. The Unwrinkled Face of Love in the Christian Church

10. Corinthians 5:1 and Chastity Outside the New Testament

11. Juridical Emancipation and Freedom of Grace

As the layout of the volumes makes clear, the work offers an extensive array of themes for theological reflection. Yet it can also feel somewhat like a smorgasbord: one topic set beside another, sometimes appearing more heaped together than woven into a synthetic whole. In fact, in a generally positive review in Revue biblique, the Dominican Fr. François-Paul Dreyfus observed that this very structure runs somewhat counter to the grain of theology itself—at least insofar as theology aims to form an intellectus fidei, an understanding of the faith, rather than to produce a mere aggregated catalogue of motifs:

The only problem aroused by the present work is that expressed by the first word of its title: Théologie. Fr. Spicq himself admits that he hesitated to use it, and this is a justified hesitation. For what distinguishes a theology from a collection of themes is that theology is a work of wisdom, and it is proper to the wise person to order things (sapientis est ordinare). Such an order certainly exists within each individual chapter, but—as can be seen from the preceding summary—it remains rather vague; it is that of association (“supplementary themes”): more vitally felt than precisely articulated. One such supplementary theme could easily pass from one chapter to another without compromising the structure of the whole.⁵

Whatever external framework Spicq may have brought to the scriptural data, Dreyfus acknowledges that the exegete consistently strives to efface his own questions and preferences before the witness of Scripture itself, allowing the themes of the New Testament to emerge on their own terms—even if inevitably viewed through the discerning mind of one reflecting on human action and its moral contours. As Fr. Spicq himself remarked:

Our intention is not to present a thesis, nor even a global, organically constructed synthesis, but to constitute an almost complete dossier of the textual data, and to draw out their coherences, while respecting the hierarchy of values, so as to render intelligible the ideas expressed by Jesus and His Apostles.⁶

This remark provides a helpful point of departure for several observations I would like to register about why deeper engagement with Spicq’s works—this one and the others mentioned above—can significantly enrich moral theology. In my view, he offers an exemplary model of how moral theologians may draw upon positive-scriptural theology precisely as a sapiential activity of theology understood as intellectus fidei. Allow me to sketch a few scholastic considerations that clarify what I mean, albeit in summary form.

A qualitative difference separates the assent of faith from the operations of discursive theology. Certain figures in the Thomistic tradition articulate this distinction using the somewhat arcane but very useful notion of the formal object quo (or ratio formalis obiecti ut obiectum).⁷ The vocabulary matters, for it helps articulate the differing ways in which the human person is “capacitated” in the supernatural order—through grace, the theological virtues, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the infused moral virtues, and discursive theological reasoning.

Applied to the distinction at hand, the matter may be summarized thus: faith lovingly assents to God as He reveals Himself, in the mode proposed by the Church; discursive theology lovingly inquires into the meaning of that revealed message. Faith originates from the Trinity and immediately returns to the Trinity—increasingly so as our life of faith deepens. Discursive theology, too, proceeds from the Trinity through faith and returns to the Trinity in the judgments it reaches—but only after passing through the (super-elevated) activity of human reasoning, which seeks to intelligibly manifest how the Trinity is the keystone of all the mysteries and the luminous core of every revealed truth.

This difference in objectivity means that, in the labor of discursive theology, what is known in the obedience of faith is subjected to a new perspective: that of reasoned articulation. Discursive theology labors to show how revealed truths relate to one another, how they mutually illuminate one another, and how they shed light on all of experience and reality. The theologian approaches the data of faith and, one hopes with a Marian docility, asks: “How and why is this so?” In view of the revealed message and the other truths belonging to the various theological loci⁸ the task of discursive theology becomes: What is the intelligible meaning of this truth? In what ways is it (at least partially) explained by other revealed truths? And, in what ways does it explain other truths, both revealed and natural?⁹

The status of positive theology¹⁰ raises a distinctive question concerning the explanatory character of theological discourse. On the one hand, a certain scholastic bias can treat positive theology as though it were merely preparatory—an ante-chamber to “real” Theology.¹¹ On the other hand, under the influence of a certain historicist pressure, positive theology can devolve into an almost endless investigation of sources: cataloguing what various monuments of Christian teaching have said, rehearsing their positions, and tracing their historical development, yet without ever arriving at the determination dicendum quod, “in conclusion, it must be said.”¹² In such a posture, theology risks appearing as little more than a cataloguing exercise: assembling themes from the past, offering tentative judgments about authors and contexts, but hesitating to advance any transhistorical claim illumined by the very data it has so carefully gathered.

It seems necessary, however, to steer between these two extremes—both Scylla and Charybdis—and to recognize that positive theology holds a distinctive place within the sapiential offices of theology: namely, among those operations proper to Theology insofar as it considers the revealed principles of faith and seeks to manifest their intrinsic intelligibility. This, too, was the position of Fr. Spicq:

Biblical theology is authentically a task of theology. Furnishing for the science of God its revealed given, in an elaborated and assimilable form, it exercises a sapiential function in relation to speculative theology, in the sense that wisdom is a knowledge of principles and attains the source itself.¹³

And it is to be expected that biblical theology, understood in this sapiential sense, will exhibit precisely the character we find in the structure of Spicq’s work. The revealed datum is truly a source—a fontal principle or, to shift metaphors, a light guiding investigation. It is datum, given. This means—and I promise I am not merely courting my New Ressourcement listeners—that it is always a supersaturated phenomenon, inexhaustibly overflowing our grasp and continually inviting renewed engagement. The revealed given—here, in particular, the thematic density of Sacred Scripture—is infinitely rich in its capacity to manifest the supernatural “meaning” of the Trinity and the Redemptive Incarnation, with all the implications that flow therefrom.¹⁴ As given, this data must be received according to the thematic contours through which it emerges in the relevant theological loci—in this case, Scripture taken on its own terms.

Any one of the themes from above effectively stand as a kind of principled reminder of the fact that any particular, synthetic framework of Theology must be ready to receive a kind of “correction” or rectification from the data of faith itself. Thus, to take two examples which have been operative in my own thought and teaching: the Chrisitian life as life in Christ as members of His mystical body; ¹⁵ the formation of Christian conscience through docility to the Church and her various holy teachers and authorities.¹⁶ Although I believe a rich Eastern Catholic and Thomist framework can be built up regarding the first theme, I prefer in my classes to begin by drawing on a variety of texts taken from Spicq (and Bl. Columba Marmion and Panayiotis Nellas) concerning baptism,¹⁷ the image and likeness of God,¹⁸ filial adoption,¹⁹ and, more broadly, life in Christ. On a number of these topics, Spicq gathers together the implications of the pastoral practice and guidance already operative in the early Church, not only in her leaders²⁰ but also in her exemplary members who are living models of the Christian life.²¹ In a similar manner, an entire theology of spiritual combat, drawing from the best of liturgical practice and the Fathers could be enhanced by allowing the themes in Vie chrétienne et pérégrination to refine the frameworks of one’s moral theology. I believe something similar could be said concerning many other themes: the nature of law; the theology of Christian hope; grace and beatitude; the role of exemplars in the moral life; conscience and freedom; charity (to which he dedicated so many massive works); the connection between morality and eschatology; etc.

Obviously, beyond Spicq and his particular methods, there is far more to consider when attending to the scriptural data that nourish moral reflection. I do not refer merely to other authors, but to other modes of receiving Scripture—modes that take the Word as it is enfolded within the life of the Church herself: in the texture of her liturgies, her prayers, her readings, and her hymnody. Yet to follow these lines of inquiry involves broader questions about the theological loci themselves and the principles they yield—principles capable of illuminating whole swathes of moral-theological reflection.

What I hope to leave you with today is simply a new (or, perhaps, renewed) interest in a teacher who can set before your reflective and meditative insight the particular luminosity of Scripture as a principle for the intellectus fidei in moral theology. Ressourcement is not merely the recovery of ancient texts; more importantly, it is the fresh rediscovery of truth itself, approached in a spirit of contemplative awe. Those teachers and masters who assist us in this task deserve to be returned to and reconsidered, for they reveal the life of our spirit by manifesting, above all, the truth of the Triune and Redeeming God who invites us into the intimacy of His own life. In the case of Fr. Spicq, we have a model of Scriptural exegesis placed decisively in the service of the sapiential labors proper to the theological intellectus fidei.

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1. For a very good genealogy of these matters, see Matthew Levering, The Abuse of Conscience: A Century of Catholic Moral Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2021). I believe that Levering’s claims are well confirmed by the fact that there is a tendency toward a rehabilitation of casuistry and even the so-called “prince of the Laxists”, Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz. See Julia Fleming, Defending Probabilism: The Moral Theology of Juan Caramuel (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2006). Already in the 1990s this continued relevance of casuistry in certain circles is evident in, for example, James F. Keenan, “The Return of Casuistry” Theological Studies 57 (1996): 123–139; idem., “Applying the Seventeenth-Century Casuistry of Accommodation to HIV Prevention,” Theological Studies 60 (1999): 492–512; The Context of Casuistry, ed. James F. Keenan, Thomas Shannon (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1995). For a recent appraisal of moral theology today, thirty years after the promulgation of Veritatis Splendor, see The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 23, no. 4 (Winter 2023), “The Thirtieth Anniversary of Veritatis Splendor.”↩︎

2. Vatican II, Optatam totius, no. 16: “Special care must be given to the perfecting of moral theology. Its scientific exposition, nourished more on the teaching of the Bible, should shed light on the loftiness of the calling of the faithful in Christ and the obligation that is theirs of bearing fruit in charity for the life of the world.”↩︎

3. He was also the author of Esquisse d'une histoire de l'exegèse latine au moyen âge, Saint Paul: les Épîtres pastorales; L’épitre aux Hébreux (in two editions).↩︎

4. The formal-objectival outlook that one has makes all the difference in this regard. There is a strong current within modern “positive theology” toward a kind of cataloguing of sources, almost completely in abstraction from the work of scientific-sapiential theology. In fact, this style of positive theology is partially to blame for the “proof from scripture, proof from tradition, proof from reason…” framework that was used in many theological texts in the 18th-20th centuries. For a discussion of this, in relation to Melchior Cano (who perhaps did not intend for this effect, but nonetheless partially lead to it), see “Melchior Cano and Modern Theology,” by Mannès Jacquin, translated on To Be a Thomist at https://www.athomist.com/articles/melchior-cano-and-modern-theology. For some thoughts on the sapiential offices of theology, see Matthew K. Minerd, Wisdom be Attentive: The Noetic Structure of Sapiential Knowledge,” Nova et Vetera (English Edition) 18, no. 4 (Fall 2020): 1103–1146. For some further reflection on some of these points, see Mathew K. Minerd, “De Locis Theologicis: The Methodological Heritage 16th to 19th Century Scholasticism for the Use of Scripture and Exegesis in Theology,” in Handbook of Biblical Thomism, ed. Matthew Levering, Piotr Roszak, and Jörgen Vijgen. Edinburg, Scotland: T & T Clark, 2025), 163–181. Also, see the important observations in Cajetan Cuddy, “Casuistry and Theology: Then and Now,” The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 25, no. 2 (Summer 2025): 289–315.↩︎

5. François-Paul Dreyfus, “Revue de Théologie morale du nouveau testament par Ceslas Spicq,” Revue biblique 75, no. 4 (Oct. 1968): 593–595 (here 594–5). For critical review of the work on exegetical terms, see Jean Hadot, “Compte rendu, C. Spicq, Théologie morale du nouveau testament,” L’Antiquité Classique 39, no. 2 (1970): 627–630.↩︎

6. Ceslas Spicq, Théologie morale du nouveau testament, vol. 1 (Paris: Lecoffre / Gabalda, 1970), 10.↩︎

7. Regarding the distinction between formal object quo and quod (or ratio formalis obiecti ut res and ratio formalis obiecti ut obiectum) see Jacques Maritain, Philosophy of Nature, trans. Imelda Choquette Byrne (New York: Philosophical Library, 1951), 125–135; Wiliam Wallace, The Role of Demonstration in Moral Theology (Washington, DC: The Thomist Press, 1962), 23–27; Raymond Martin, “L’objet intégral de la Théologie d’après Saint Thomas et les Scolatiques,” Revue Thomiste 12 N.S. (1912): 12–21 (available in translation at https://www.athomist.com/articles/the-integral-object-of-theology-according-to-saint-thomas-and-the-scholastics).↩︎

8. On the this topic, I have presented a number of texts online in translation and with commentary. A listing can be found at https://www.athomist.com/articles/tag/De+Locis+Theologicis.↩︎

9. I am here drawing upon certain pivotal insights on theological observation made by Michel Labourdette (dependent on work by Marie-Rosaire Gagnebet and others) in Michel Labourdette, “Theology: Faith Seeking Understanding,” The Thomistic Response to the Nouvelle Théologie, ed. and trans. Matthew K. Minerd and Jon Kirwan (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2023), 89–125.↩︎

10. I do not intend here to enter into the many difficulties involved in the question concerning positive theology and its nature. The topic is a live question today. I think that any sound approach to this question must take up, as a starting point, the work of Br. Luke Salm, Celestine Luke Salm, “The Problem of Positive Theology,” S.T.D. Dissertation, The Catholic University of America, 1955.↩︎

11. Truth be told, I cannot shake this sense in the essay by Labourdette mentioned above.↩︎

12. I believe that, quite paradoxically, Cano’s De locis theologicis—important though I believe it to be, at least as a first methodological foray—could be said to have contributed to both of these excesses. Along with other factors and authors, the work gave rise to the late modern manual format that structured itself around “proof from scripture, proof from tradition, proof from reason…”. On the one hand, this expositional style is a very diminished kind of positive-theological summary of dogmatic theses. On the other, this very format so cheapens the work of positive theology that it can understandably come to be seen to be a kind of ladder to be kicked aside for the sake of the tasks of scientific theology, somewhat deracinated from what should be its principles, namely the revealed given, considered in its intelligible virtualities. On the way that Cano influenced the development of positive theology, see “Melchior Cano and Modern Theology” by Mannès Jacquin.

    Concerning the risk of theology devolving into a kind of “theologian-ology,” see Cajetan Cuddy, “Casuistry and Theology: Then and Now,” The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly (2025): 85–112.↩︎

13. Spicq, Théologie morale du nouveau testament, vol. 1, 14.↩︎

14. Obviously, in the most high-level of ways, I have in mind the works of Jean-Luc Marion on revelation.↩︎

15. I have mused on this topic on To Be a Thomist in an article, “Thomistic Thoughts on Christology, Moral Theology, and a ‘Principled Return’ to the Topics of the Secunda Pars.”↩︎

16. This last point would be in line with the reflections I have presented in “What You Don’t Know Can Still Harm You: Memory and Docility as Virtues for Forming an Unformed Conscience”; National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 23, no. 4 (Winter 2023): 615–636; “Ecclesia, magistra conscientiae: Catholic Teaching and the Formation of Conscience” in Benedict Ashley, The Dialogue Between Tradition and History: Essays on the Formation of Catholic Moral Theology (Broomall, PA: National Catholic Bioethics Center, 2022), 203–222.↩︎

17. See Spicq, Théologie morale, 61–103.↩︎

18. See ibid., 688–744. Also of relevance is the whole of Dieu et l’homme selon le nouveau testament (Paris: Cerf, 1961).↩︎

19. See Spicq, Théologie morale, 433–450; likewise, the whole of Vie morale et trinité sainte selon saint Paul (Paris: Cerf, 1956).↩︎

20. See Spicq, Théologie morale, 567–622.↩︎

21. See Spicq, Théologie morale, 720–744.↩︎