The Communication of the Incommunicable: Love as a Unifying Order in Medieval Theology and Poetry

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Special Session

Organizer Name

Erik van Versendaal

Organizer Affiliation

Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family

Presider Name

Dabney Park

Presider Affiliation

Univ. of Miami

Paper Title 1

Communicating the Incommunicable: The Paradox of Personhood and Communion in Richard of Saint-Victor

Presenter 1 Name

Michael Camacho

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family

Paper Title 2

Can the Father Give Everything without Giving Fatherhood? Relation, Incommunicability, and Self-Giving in Aquinas's Trinitarian Theology

Presenter 2 Name

Michael Joseph Higgins

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family

Paper Title 3

Revelatory Embrace: Perfection as Communication in Dante's Paradiso

Presenter 3 Name

Erik van Versendaal

Start Date

13-5-2018 8:30 AM

Session Location

Schneider 1275

Description

This panel approaches the concrete structure of love as articulated in medieval Christian thought, represented here by Richard of St. Victor, Thomas Aquinas, and Dante Alighieri. Each of the three papers that will comprise this session concerns the paradoxical interplay of total communicatio and irreducible incommunicability in the perfection of personal love. Does the union at which love aims threaten the abiding mystery of the person, or vindicate it? Can we think of a union that is not totalizing – i.e., one in which distinction is perfected in relation?

Erik van Versendaal