922 ELIZABETH C. SHAW AND STAFF reader and hence to a larger public than is often the case with works in philosophy. In his discussions of texts with which Tam most familiar, I find him a sound and reliable interpreter who is able to single out and develop issues that are at best implicit or in need of further clarification and development. He combines his long time interests in time and tem- porality and the body politic while developing his own independent the- . Whether or not one fully agrees with his argument, it is clear that Sherover combines solid and original scholarship with well-argued con- clusions of his own, seeking to lead us in the direction of a higher and fuller mode of authentic being in the world. ‘This collection of essays is an excellent addition to the series, Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy, edited by Jude P. Dougherty—Eugene Thomas Long, The University of South Carolina SuARkz, Francisco, $.J. The Metaphysical Demonstration of the Existence of God: Metaphysical Disputations 28-29. Translated and edited by John P. Doyle. South Bend: St. Augustine's Press, 2004. xxiv + 170. Cloth, $30.00—Francisco Suarez's Metaphysical Disputations, first published in Salamanca in are his most important and influential work, con- taining summaries of his own thought and that of previous scholastics in systematic form. Many of the Metaphysical Disputations have been h, but it was a surprise to me that Disputations 28 and 29, which are certainly of central importance to Suarezian meta- physics, had not previously been translated into English. The English- speaking scholarly world, however, is certainly fortunate in having the present translation that has been produced by one of the world’s most well-informed students of Suarez, John P. Doyle, of Saint Louis Univer- sity, who has devoted much of his scholarly career to the study of Jesuit philosophers, such as Sudrez, and is an accomplished translator of late medieval philosophical texts into quite readable English, despite the dif- ficulty of Sudrez’s Latin text and the difficulty of the subject matter. The present volume contains a sixteen-page introduction that briefly sums up Suére7’s life and works, outlines the contents of the Metaphys- ical Disputations, and then presents a summary of the two disputations translated, which is valuable because of Sudrez’s tendency to ramble and to include almost every imaginable detail from the thought of his predecessors. The heart of the volume is the translation of the two dis- putations; it is followed by a list of persons to whom Suarez alludes and a brief identification of them—an invaluable addition since in many cases most readers would not otherwise know to whom the Jesuit phi- losopher is referring. ‘The bibliography is particularly helpful in listing the thirteen other disputations that have been translated into English and in providing a select guide to secondary sources for further reading. Disputatons 28 and 29 are the first two disputations in the second part of Suarez’s fifty-four Metaphysical Disputations and mark the begin- ning of special metaphysics, which deals with particular beings, as op- posed to general metaphysics, which deals with being in general.SUMMARIES AND COMMENTS 923 The focus of Disputation 28 is on the division of being into infinite and finite and on the analogy of being. Disputation 29, which is much longer, undertakes a metaphysical demonstration of the existence of God. Since the time of the great Islamic thinkers, Avicenna and Aver- roes, philosophers have warmly debated whether the existence of God was to be demonstrated in metaphysics, as Avicenna held, or in physics, as Averroes claimed. Henry of Ghent, for example, admitted the validity of Aristotle's argument from motion in Physics 8, but he also pointed to its inadequacy for proving that there is only one God and added his own metaphysical argument, derived largely from Avicenna, in order to prove that there can be only one God. Duns Scotus, following Henry, in- sisted that a metaphysical argument for the existence of God was neces- sary. After surveying the views of his predecessors, Suarez examines the Aristotelian proof from motion, which he finds wanting, and refor- mulates the proof in terms of causality rather than of motion, that is, in metaphysical rather than physical terms. Ina second section of Disputation 29, Suarez asks whether it can be shown in an a posteriori way that there is only one uncreated being, which is God. er rejecting the Anselmian claim that the existence of God is self-evident, Suarez argues that the existence of such a God can be demonstrated both in a completely a posteriori way from effects and in a way that is immediately a priori, but mediately a posteriori. At the end of the his exposition and defense of the first sort of proof, however, Suarez admits that the completely a posteriori proof does not show that absolutely all other beings have been made by the one unproduced be- ing, but only those beings that we can know by natural reason and phi- losophy. Hence, he needs the a priori demonstration to make the argu- ‘ment universal in its conclusion. The third section of Disputation 29 first of all excludes the possibility of demonstrating the existence of God completely a priori. Suarez claims, nonetheless, that once the existence of God has been demon- strated a posteriori, it is possible to demonstrate the unicity of God in an a priori manner, although he concedes that it is not easy to do so. He ex- amines seven arguments, finding the first three inadequate, while judg- ing the others more favorably. Ultimately, he concludes that it has been demonstrated that God exists and that the demonstration is metaphysi- cal. The erudition of the Doctor eximius, as Sudrez has come to be known, has an amazing scope, brings together a wide range of scholas- tic arguments, orders them neatly, and evaluates them clearly. Suarez is never easy reading, nor is metaphysics, but John Doyle's clear transla- tion accompanied by abundant notes certainly makes a challenging task far less daunting—Roland J. Teske, 8.J., Marquette University.