Hall, Douglas C.

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HALL, Douglas C.

PERSONAL:

Male. Education: Catholic University of Louvain, Ph.D., S.T.L.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—c/o Author Mail, Brill Academic Publishers, P.O. Box 9000, 2300 PA Leiden, Netherlands.

CAREER:

Educator. University of Maryland, College Park, currently professor in European Division.

WRITINGS:

The Trinity: An Analysis of St. Thomas Aquinas's Expositio of the De Trinitate of Boethius, E. J. Brill (New York, NY), 1992.

SIDELIGHTS:

Douglas C. Hall is the author of The Trinity: An Analysis of St. Thomas Aquinas's Expositio of the De Trinitate of Boethius, which provides a close historical study of this probing work of medieval philosophy. Aquinas's belief that reason cannot speak about faith is summarized most powerfully in his Summa theologiae, but he further details it in the unfinished "Expositio of the De Trinitate of Boethius." As Brian Davies explained in the Journal of Theological Studies, "Hall offers an account of this text with an introduction to Boethius and an attempt to comment on Aquinas in the light of certain modern writings about him."

Christopher Albrecht, reviewing The Trinity in the Review of Metaphysics, found Hall's study to be "a useful little work." Albrecht went on to note that Hall's examination of the "Expositio" is the first "based on the modern critical edition of the Latin text." According to the same reviewer, Hall's study is a "worthy contribution" to the field of Thomist philosophy. Davies noted that he knows "of no book currently available in English which tries to cover the ground covered by Hall," and praised the work as "sensible," as well as "concise and accurate." However, the same reviewer did complain that Hall "obscures what is exciting" in Thomist studies by using a "jargon of a kind assiduously and delightfully avoided by Aquinas himself." Paul G. Crowley, writing in Theological Studies, found more to like in Hall's work, calling The Trinity a "gem of a book," and one that "situates Aquinas's unfinished Expositio within the framework of current issues of method." Crowley went on to note that, despite poor proofing, Hall's book is a "prodigious accomplishment."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Journal of Theological Studies, October, 1993, Brian Davies, review of The Trinity: An Analysis of St. Thomas Aquinas's Expositio of the De Trinitate of Boethius, pp. 753-754.

Review of Metaphysics, September, 1994, Christopher Albrecht, review of The Trinity, pp. 138-139.

Theological Studies, March, 1994, Paul G. Crowley, review of The Trinity, pp. 178-179.