Thomas Cai

Official Title: Assistant Professor | Director of the Xavier Centre for Memory and Identity | Research Coordinator for the Faculty of Religious Studies and Philosophy | Director of the Macau Ricci Institute

Faculty: Faculty of Religious Studies and Philosophy

Email: thomas.cai@usj.edu.mo

Short Bio

Dr. Thomas Yilun Cai (Ph.D, KU Leuven; Master of Studies in Theology, University Oxford; MA in Religious Studies, Fudan University) teaches courses in dogmatic theology. Before coming to USJ, he was a research fellow at Sun Yat-sen University. His doctoral dissertation focuses on the idea of natura pura in Robert Bellarmine’s commentary on the Summa. Dr. Cai’s work is broadly engaged with the theology of Thomas Aquinas and the Thomistic school in the 16th and 17th centuries.

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2409-1010

SCOPUS: 55620333100

Publications

Articles in English:

Yilun Cai, “The Efficacy of Grace according to Domingo Bañez”, Augustiniana 62(2012), 291-326.

Yilun Cai, “The Appeal to Augustine in Domingo Bañez’s Theology of Efficacious Grace”, Studia Patristica 69 (2013), 379-384.

Yilun Cai, “Robert Bellarmine’s Idea of the Child Who Dies Unbaptized in the Commentary on Summa Theologiae”, Journal of Early Modern Christianity 1 (2014), 143-164.

Yilun Cai, “Desiderium naturale vivendi Deum in Robert Bellarmine’s Commentary on Summa Theologiae”, Gregorianum 95 (2014), 511-534.

Yilun Cai, “The Question of Adam’s Grace and the Theology of Pure Nature in Robert Bellarmine’s Commentary on the Summa”, Sino-Christian Studies 24 (2017), 7-39.

Thomas Yilun Cai, “Original Sin and Reprobation in Renaissance Thomism, The Cases of Domingo Bañez and John of St. Thomas,” in Nos sumus tempora: Studies on Augustine and His Reception Offered to Mathijs Lamberigts, BETL 316, ed. A. Dupont, W. François, J. Leemans (Leuven: Peeters, 2020), 433-444.

Yilun Cai, “To follow or overcome our nature? Reflections on the goodness of human nature with Mencius and Thomas Aquinas," Gregorianum 103(2022), 691-712.

Yilun Cai, “Matteo Ricci’s teaching on the goodness of human nature: its Thomistic and neo-Confucian sources,” The Heythrop Journal 65(2024), 138-151.

Yilun Cai, "The Jesuit teaching on human nature in China during the first half of the seventeenth century: A historical outline and theological reflection," The Journal of the Macau Ricci Institute, forthcoming.

Yilun Cai, "From overcoming self to overcoming nature: the teaching on human nature in Ricci, Pantoja and Aleni, "Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, forthcoming.

Articles in Chinese:

Yilun Cai, 「我卻愛雅各，惡以掃」—托馬斯．阿奎那論上帝預定與摒棄之因 (“I loved Jacob, but I rejected Esau” Thomas Aquinas’ Idea of the Cause of Predestination”), 道風：基督教文化評論 (Logos and Pneuma: Chinese Journal of Theology)47(2017), 49-75.

Yilun Cai, “The Debates on Indulgences and Faith between Cajetan and Luther in 1518 Augsburg”, Christian Studies基督宗教研究輯刊 22(2017), 117-131.

Yilun Cai, “God and the Origin of Moral Evil---Maritain and Nicolas on God’s Permission of Evil," Universitas哲學與文化 46(2019), 71-85.

Yilun Cai, “St Robert Bellarmine on Unbaptised Infants: A Theological Interpretation in the Historical Context,” Collectanea Theologica Universitatis Fujen 神學論集202 (2019), 522-550.

蔡翼倫， "聖多瑪斯思想權威之演變，從1274年至1323年"，神學論集（ISSN: 1012-9332) 218期（2023冬），529-551頁.