Gerald Boersma, Ph.D.

Gerald P. Boersma is Professor of Theology at Ave Maria University and Humboldt Fellow at the University of Tübingen. Boersma is a Catholic systematic theologian whose writings focus especially on the thought of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. He is author of Augustine’s Early Theology of Image (Oxford, 2016) and numerous essays as journal articles and book chapters devoted to theology, philosophy, and literary criticism. Prior to coming to Ave Maria University, he taught for five years at St. Bonaventure University. He has held fellowships at the Villanova University and the University of Tübingen.

Dr. Boersma’s page at academia.edu

Books:

• Loving Knowledge: Connatural Knowledge of God in Thomas Aquinas. (forthcoming)
• Augustine’s Early Theology of Image: A Study in the Development of Pro-Nicene Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016)

Journal Articles (select):

• “Liquefaction and Love: The Metaphysics of a Eucharistic Miracle.” Nova et Vetera 22 (2024).
• “Divine Contemplation as ‘Inchoate Beatitude’ in Aquinas.” The Thomist 86 (2022): 445–91.3.     “Augustine’s Trinitarian Theology in Dante’s Paradiso 33.” Logos 25 (2022): 1–17.  4.     
• “Fons Iustitiae: Justice in the City of God.” International Journal of Systematic Theology 23 (2021): 68–91.
• “The rationes seminales in Augustine’s theology of Creation.” Nova et Vetera 18 (2020): 413–441.
• “Death in Life at Christmas: T.S. Eliot’s ‘Journey of the Magi.’” Logos 23 (2020): 21–30.7.     “The Egoism of Eros: The Challenge of Love in Diotima’s Speech.” Review of Metaphysics 72 (2019) 93–113.  
• “Jerusalem as the Caelum Caeli in Augustine.” Augustinian Studies 49 (2018): 247–276.9.     “Augustine on the Beatific Vision as ubique totus.” Scottish Journal of Theology 71 (2018): 16–32.
• “Ambrose’s De Isaac as a Baptismal Anthropology.” Pro Ecclesia 26 (2017): 311–332.11.   “Augustine’s Immanent Critique of Stoicism.” Scottish Journal of Theology 70 (2017): 184–197. 
• “Augustine’s Deer Visits the Ophthalmologist: Exercising the Eyes of Faith in En. Ps. 41.” Journal of Theological Interpretation 10 (2016): 53–69.
• “‘Let us Flee to the Fatherland’: Plotinus in Ambrose’s Theology of Ascent.” Nova et Vetera 14 (2016): 771–81.
• “The Logic of the Logos: A Note on Stoic Logic in Adversus Praxean 10.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 22 (2014): 485–498.

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Book Chapters (select):

• “The Spiritual Senses in the Confessions.” In Augustine’s Confessions: A Critical Guide. Edited by Thomas Williams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023.
• “Theophanies and the Vision of God in Hilary, Ambrose and Augustine.” In The Cambridge History of Early Christian Theology. Edited by Lewis Ayres. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022.
• “Participation.” In T&T Clark Encyclopedia of Christian Theology. Edited by Paul Allen. London: T&T Clark, 2022. Accepted.
• “Confessions 7 and the Liminality of Vision.” In Augustine’s Confessions and Contemporary Concerns. Edited by David Meconi 125–142. St. Paul, MN.: Saint Paul Seminary Press, 2022.
• “The Duplex Via: Authority and Reason at Cassiciacum.” In The Intellectual World of Christian Latin Antiquity: Reshaping Classical Traditions. Edited by Lewis Ayres, Michael Champion, and Matthew Crawford, 443–465 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023.
• “Incarnational and Theophanic Anagogy in De Trinitate.” In Patristic Spirituality: Classical Perspectives on Ascent in the Journey to God.Edited by Kevin Clarke and Don Springer, 291–306. Leiden: Brill, 2022.
• “‘No one knows who does not first taste’: The Spiritual Senses in Aquinas’s Christology.” In: Thomas Aquinas and the Crisis of Christology. Eds. Michael Dauphinais, Andrew Hofer, and Roger Nutt, 303–319. Ave Maria, Fl.: Sapientia Press, 2021. 
• “De Genesi ad litteram 2: The Second, Third and Fourth Days of Creation.” In Augustinus, De Genesi ad litteram. Edited by Johannes Brachtendorf and Volker Henning Drecoll, 101–120. Leiden: Brill, 2021.
• “Aquinas and the Greek Fathers on the Vision of the Divine Essence.” In Thomas Aquinas and the Greek Fathers. Edited by Michael Dauphinais, Andrew Hofer, and Roger Nutt, 130–150. Ave Maria, Fl.: Sapientia Press, 2018.
• “Scripture in Augustine’s Earliest Treatises.” In The Bible in Christian North Africa. Volume 1, Commencement to the Council of Carthage (180 to 397 C.E.). Edited by Jonathan Yates and Anthony Dupont, 213–238. Berlin: DeGruyter, 2020.