Wisdom, Law, and Virtue

Lawrence Dewan, O.P., is Professor of Medieval Philosophy and Metaphysics at the Dominican University College in Ottawa and a member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas. In 2006 he received the Maritain Medal for Scholarly Excellence, conferred by the American Maritain Association.

"This collection is thick with learning and wisdom. To read Dewan is to watch a master Thomist at work, and those who submit themselves to an apprenticeship with him by reading this book will have their effort repaid a hundredfold." -- -Mark F. Johnson Marquette University "This book is a treasure trove of incisive and penetrating reason. Written by an acknowledged grand master of Thomistic philosophy, Fr. Lawrence Dewan, OP, this collection manifests the author's jeweler's eye for the ordering principles of being, nature, and human action, and for the judiciously framed distinction. These essays- "St. Thomas, Our Moral Lights, and the Natural Order" especially comes to mind-grapple with crucial questions regarding St. Thomas's moral philosophy and theology. They should be read favorably fifty years from now, and are destined to augment the normative literature of recrudescent Thomistic renewal." -- -Steven Long Ave Maria University "A solid and handsome production." -The Thomist "Many Thomists rightly regard Lawrence Dewan as the best living interpreter of Thomas's philosophy and theology of practical reason. Several of these essays are already classics. What a boon to have twenty-seven collected together!" -- -Russell Hittinger University of Tulsa "Although coming together piecemeal, this is one of the most coherent and profound books on ethics published in recent history. In his unassuming way, Fr. Dewan has given us Thomas Aquinas speaking in, and to, our day." -- -Kevin L. Flannery, S.J. Pontifical Gregorian University "This collection is rich and various, but it is also a coherent whole, one that vividly conveys to the reader a sense of both the depth and the breadth, as well as the permanent interest of Thomistic ethical thinking." -- -Kevin White Catholic University of America "In an ordered set of essays Lawrence Dewan brings Thomistic metaphysical and theological depth to many ethical questions inadequately treated by current ethicians such as non-Catholics Lyotard, Catholic dissenters such as Porter, and Catholics such as Maritain, Dewart, Punzo, Finnis, Gallagher, Bradley and (I must admit) myself, as well as, deepening our understanding of spirituality, contemplation, and prayer and the unity of the virtues." -- -Benedict M. Ashley O.P. St. Louis University