The Thomist Tradition by Brian J. Shanley, O.P.
(Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy of Religion: Kluwer
Academic Publishers) provides the first comprehensive
treatment of the central topics in the contemporary
philosophy of religion from a Thomist point of view. After
an overview of Thomism in the twentieth century, the
remaining chapters treat the relationship between religious
claims and other truth claims, religious language
(especially analogy), theology and science, suffering and
evil, religion and morality, human nature and destiny, God,
and religious pluralism. The aim is to provide the reader
with an overview of the spectrum of Thomist positions,
beginning with Aquinas himself and then moving through his
most important interpreters. By cross‑referencing related
topics, the book situates particular problems within the
larger context of Thomism. Ample bibliographical references
direct the reader to the most important resources.
The Thomist Tradition|/a> should prove valuable to students
and faculty in philosophy of religion and theology, who are
looking for an introduction to the Thomist tradition.
The Thomistic tradition takes it name from the
thirteenth‑century religious thinker and saint who is its
source and inspiration: the Dominican Friar Thomas Aquinas.'
Aquinas understood himself to be a theologian, and that is
what he was. This obvious biographical fact needs to be
underlined at the beginning, however, since it has often
since been lost sight of in treatments of his thought. The
reason for this is that Aquinas also developed a powerful,
innovative, and comprehensive philosophy which has proved to
be at least as perennial, if not more so, than the
theological synthesis that it was originally designed to
serve. His followers have kept both strains of his thought
alive until this day, but not always combining the same dual
expertise. Theology and philosophy have since become more
distinct, and as each has fragmented into sub‑disciplines of
academic specialization, it becomes harder and harder for
anyone to master the thought of Aquinas as a whole. Yet
grasping the whole is essential to grasping the part, as
evidenced by the master work of Aquinas's mind: his Summa
theologiae. You cannot understand any part of the Summa
unless you understand its place within the whole, and much
violence has been done to Aquinas's thought by abstracting
it from the larger context in order to present it in
discrete units.
For a Thomist who considers Aquinas in this holistic way,
as Shanley does, a book such as this poses a number of
problems. First, the set of topics currently considered to
fall within the domain of the philosophy of religion does
not map easily into the traditional Thomistic universe of
discourse because it combines into one philosophical
discipline what Thomists would want to separate into two
formally distinct disciplines of theology and philosophy. To
put the matter another way, contemporary philosophy of
religion appears to the Thomist as something of a hybrid.
Some of its standard topics and approaches are
unproblematically philosophical by Thomist lights, but
others seem to be formally theological. The template of this
book and this series thus poses a problem for the Thomist
because it blurs the formal boundaries between philosophy
and theology. As much as possible, Shanley tries to stay on
the philosophical side of the line, but often it has been
necessary to bring theological issues into play in order to
explicate the logic of the Thomistic position. Shanley
endeavors throughout to make clear to the reader when the
discussion crosses the line from philosophy into theology.
Because this book involves both philosophical and
theological considerations, it would ideally require a
Thomist author with broad competencies in both disciplines.
Shanley's academic specialization is Thomistic philosophy,
but as a Dominican friar he also has an extensive training
in the theology of Aquinas.
In the case of each of the topics considered in this
book, Shanley attempts to define the major issues under that
rubric that have been debated within the Thomistic
tradition. Given the holistic character of Aquinas's
thought, a consideration of any one of the topics in the
book leads naturally and inevitably into other topics.
Shanley tries as much as possible to make each chapter able
to stand on its own, but in the interests of economy he
tries not to duplicate discussions; hence many
cross-references occur throughout the volume. Because the
Thomistic tradition is not monolithic, as outlined in
Chapter One, Shanley offers the reader a sense of the most
important variant positions. His strategy is to begin
wherever possible with the more traditional or classical
position, as defined by its proximity to Aquinas's original
view, and then use that as a baseline to explore more
creative and contemporary interpretations of Aquinas. This
means that there is quite a bit of consideration of the
texts of Aquinas in this book, which seems inevitable and
indeed desirable in a work on Thomism. Yet this is not a
book on Aquinas per se, so Shanley has not gone into the
historical background to the views. Rather Shanley treats
Aquinas as a participant in an ongoing philosophical
dialogue, where his views can continue to be attractive in
their original form or can become attractive through
creative reinterpretation. Shanley tries to be fair‑minded
in cataloguing the various disagreements among Thomists.
Shanley tries to give an accurate and fair account of all
the relevant schools of thought, even when not convinced of
their cogency. He draws from sources both contemporary and
classic, and from various languages; since the major
audience of the book is Englishspeaking, there is naturally
a preponderance of references to works in that language.
Shanley accounts of the various topics in this book provide
an initial Thomistic orientation, not a final word, and
there is ample bibliographical information for the reader to
pursue each topic further. Shanley views his task to be like
the biblical scribe commended by Jesus for being like a
householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and
what is old. There is some treasure for philosophers of
religion in the Thomistic tradition, and this book provides
something of a guide to it.
Modern Writings on Thomism, 6 volumes, selected and
introduced by John Haldane (Thoemmes Continuum):
This well-chosen selection of full length neo-Thomist
texts is representative of the best English language
commentary on Aquinas and shrewd philosophical thought.
Haldane has provided a brief introduction to the selections
which highlights the originality of these authors’ efforts.
The volumes should be of interest to all who want a sense of
English-language Thomism before Vatican II and also all who
seek to relish the perennial philosophical legacy of Thomas
Aquinas.
Excerpt: One effect of the greatly renewed interest in
the history of philosophy among English speakers has been to
direct their attention to hitherto neglected periods and
traditions. That in turn has resulted in a perforation of
the boundaries hitherto presumed to divide philosophy into
discrete phases. So, for example, scholars are now inclined
to see a continuity between ancient, Hellenic and early
medieval philosophy, and between philosophy and theology in
these periods. Likewise, more extensive study of modern
philosophy has revealed its overlap with late scholasticism.
This has induced revisions in the understanding of the likes
of Descartes (1596–1650) and Locke (1632-1704), and it has
brought nearer to the fore figures such as Malebranche
(1638–1715), Arnauld (1612–1694), Suarez (1548–1617) and
Cajetan. (1469–1534). As these interests develop so too does
the appetite for understanding traditions now seen to be
more proximate than was hitherto supposed, but one
significant impediment is the shortage of helpful secondary
material. That is beginning to be rectified with new
publications, but there already exist a number of
out-of-print and little known studies that are quite
valuable but which are very difficult to obtain (many having
long been `retired' from libraries).
One area of renewed intellectual interest is Thomism: the
body of philosophical and theological ideas that derives
from the work of Thomas Aquinas (1225–74). A quarter of a
century ago this might almost have seemed moribund, with
precious little knowledge of it outside the contracting
world of Catholic seminaries and colleges. Even at that
point, however, a revival of interest in Aquinas was
developing among English-language analytical philosophers,
building on the valuable work of such as Peter Geach and
Anthony Kenny (the former a convert to Catholicism, the
latter an ex-clerical resignee from it). By stages this
interest has grown and expanded into a broader concern with
medieval philosophy to the point where this is now a
significant area of scholarship, testified to by the recent
creation of The Society for Medieval and Renaissance
Philosophy, and the Cambridge journal Medieval Philosophy
and Theology, and by the appearance of many articles and
monographs – not to overlook the continuing and important
contribution provided from older sources such as New
Blackfriars (1920/64), The Modern Schoolman (1925), the
American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly (continuing from
The New Scholasticism (1927)), and The Thomist (1939).
What have not yet received as much attention, however,
are the traditions of scholasticism deriving from the
medieval thinkers, which were further developed in the
modern period and have periodically been refreshed by
engagement with newer philosophical movements. Here again,
though, there is growing interest, particularly in the
tradition of Thomism and its potential to inform and be
informed by analytical philosophy.
While there is evermore research into the thought of
Aquinas himself, and the analytical and other neo-Thomist
projects are developing, there is a neglect of the good work
done during the first half of the twentieth century by
authors seeking to present aspects of the Thomist system for
the purposes of teaching students and assisting scholars
working on Thomist issues. The current collection seeks to
address this omission by making available reprints of older
texts that are especially helpful in setting out some of the
central concepts and introducing readers to medieval and
scholastic authors and sources. The quarter century or so
that separates the first and the last of the works collected
here was a period of great significance. It spanned the
years between the wars, during which the links within
Europe, and between it and north America were first severed
and then re-established. The intellectual world was in
turmoil: with totalitarianism in open conflict with
democracy, with innovation challenging tradition, and with a
resurgent empiricism challenging metaphysical philosophy and
itself being challenged by existentialism. Meanwhile, within
the cultural world in which Thomism had revived and been
developed, the Catholic Church was moving towards an
'aggiornamento' or opening up of itself to the wider world,
and particularly to modern culture. It should not have been
altogether a surprise to find that the result of opening the
windows to the world was that more came in than went out.
Over the longer term, however, one might expect a balance as
those outside the culture in which Thomism was conceived and
in which it was nurtured and grew to maturity come to a
better appreciation of its character and virtues. To do that
they certainly need to look to the thought of Aquinas
himself; but they will be helped in this, and in the task of
seeing how that thought can be developed, by attending to
more recent work in the Thomist tradition.
The oldest of the texts reprinted in this collection is
the two-volume work by R.P. Phillips entitled
Modern Thomistic
Philosophy. This was first published in London in 1934
and 1935 by the famous Catholic publishing house of Burns
Oates & Washbourne Ltd. (Burns and Oates was the official
publisher in England to the Holy See (the Vatican), and
Washbourne published the first English translations of the
Summa Theologiae and Summa Contra Gentiles of Aquinas).
Phillips was then Professor of Philosophy at St John's
Seminary at Wonersh in the English county of Surrey. First
established in the late nineteenth century, the seminary
became an associated institution of the University of Surrey
in 1998.
In the opening sentence of the first volume (The
Philosophy of Nature) Phillips describes the purpose of the
book as being `to present a simple explanation of the
philosophy usually taught to Catholic students', and later
he adds that since such teaching was predominantly along
Thomist lines, it is that which the book aims to explain.
What Phillips did not need to make explicit is that the kind
of education he was concerned with was that designed to
prepare men for the priesthood. St John's Wonersh was, and
is, an ecclesiastical seminary. The origins of such
institutions lie in a decree of the Council of Trent
prescribing the training of those intended for the
priesthood. Unlike the religious orders such as the
Dominicans and the Jesuits who had their education divided
between novitiates (which attended to their spiritual
development) and scholasticates (which provided for their
intellectual formation), those training for the `secular'
clergy were educated in ecclesiastical seminaries which
combined both functions. Often such institutions were
comprised of junior and senior branches. The former served
as preparatory or collegiate schools, and it was only when
students reached the senior seminary that they would turn to
the study of theology`and philosophy. Even so, and
notwithstanding Phillipsy;s claim to be providing a `simple
explanation', readers should be struck by the level of
sophistication presumed in his exposition of Modern
Thomistic Philosophy.
In the final sentence of the first volume Phillips
describes humankind as inhabiting two worlds, `the material
and the immaterial', and this allows him to signal the
subject of the second volume, Metaphysics, as being the
science within which falls the study of immateriality. To
many readers this will seem to have about it a ring of
Platonic dualism, but, true to the tradition of Aquinas,
Phillips is thinking not so much of a medium in which exists
a parallel world but rather of the higher reaches of a
single reality. For all that there may be discontinuities
between different levels and modes of existence there is but
one ordered creation – and in the Thomist scheme
immateriality admits of degrees, as for example in the
progressive dematerialization of the forms of natural
objects as they are absorbed into cognition first in
sensation, then in perception and finally in intellection.
As a human being contemplates the geometry of a silver ring:
that which first exists locally and dimensively in a
quantity of silver, and then isomorphically in the structure
of the sense organs, finally comes to exist non-spatially
and in universal form as the conceptual content of the
thought that a circle is a round plane figure, every point
on the circumference of which is equidistant from its
centre. This power to abstract intelligible form from
material contexts and to form judgments expressing it
provides one Thomist argument for the immateriality of
intellect, and thence for the immateriality of the soul, and
ultimately for its post-mortem survival. Even so, according
to Aquinas human beings, unlike angels, are not spiritual
creatures, and angelic intellects are themselves imperfectly
immaterial to the extent that they are still subject to
change.
It is not reasonable to judge the cogency of these ideas
independently of understanding the form in which they were
held and developed. Phillips's work enables one to arrive at
such an understanding. The first volume begins with an
account of the genesis of philosophy in Greek antiquity and
draws from this a description of its continuing essence:
unlike theology it does not appeal to revelation or other
religious knowledge, and unlike science it is not concerned
with particular kinds of causes, substances or structures
but with causality, substance and structure per se.
Recognizably Aristotelian in its scope, this approach is
also optimistic in supposing that by the light of reason it
is possible to understand the fundamentals of reality and to
integrate that understanding within a comprehensive account
of its various aspects. So in Volume I, Phillips proceeds to
set out an account of the philosophy of nature, moving from
cosmology (mechanism, dynamism, matter, quantity, the
continuum, place and space, time, change, and individuation)
to animate nature in general and from there to sensitive
life and thence to intellectual life. Then in Volume II he
turns to epistemology, examining the challenge of skepticism
and the status of the objects of knowledge, be they concrete
or abstract; from there he moves to the elements of
metaphysics (being, potentiality and actuality, essence,
substance, causality) and so on to the existence and nature
of God, both in Himself and as cause of all things material
and immaterial. These two volumes are not only
comprehensive; they are intensive and of lasting value for
anyone trying to work their way into Thomist speculative
philosophy.
It is a common complaint of Thomists, analytical
philosophers and those in the European continental tradition
of hermeneutic existentialism that modern philosophy has
been mistakenly and damagingly preoccupied with the business
of justifying claims to knowledge. While allowing that
uncertainty is intrinsic to the human search for knowledge,
proponents of these otherwise quite different schools
generally reject the Cartesian idea that the individual is
in an egocentric predicament with no direct access to the
extra-mental world. For the anti-Cartesian the question is
not `do we know anything?' but rather `given that we have
knowledge, how is that arrived at?' Philosophy needs to
provide an epistemology, not as justification in the face
of urgent and pervasive doubt but as an explanation of how
we can know what we evidently do know. Although it is in
line with the realist commitment of Aquinas, Phillips's
discussion of knowledge nevertheless reflects the spirit of
skeptical anxiety common in English-language philosophy in
the period between the first and second world wars.
While John Peifer begins
The Concept in Thomism
by outlining different theories of knowledge (Cartesian,
Kantian and Thomistic) and entitles this chapter `Statement
of the Problem', it is clear from the content and style of
what follows that he is not really troubled with the
skeptical question save to the extent that he sees it as
bedeviling accounts of knowledge that begin inside the mind
of the would-be knower.
First appearing in 1952 as
The Concept in Thomism,
the same text was republished in 1964 as The Mystery of
Knowledge. The change of title may be accounted for by the
growing prominence of epistemology in north American
philosophy courses, and hence by the demand for suitable
college texts. In reality, however, the book is a
well-researched scholarly monograph on Thomistic treatments
of the structure of perceptual and intellectual knowledge
drawn from the writings of Aquinas himself, from the
Dominican commentators Cajetan and John of St Thomas, and
from twentieth-century European (largely French)
interpreters such as Maritain and Gilson. One of the great
merits of this work is that it quotes extensively from
scholastic sources (translating them in the body of the work
but giving the Latin in footnotes). In this way Peifer
provides readers with what is almost an anthology of central
passages in classical Thomist cognitive psychology. The
benefit of this is greater now than when the book was first
published since many of the sources he quotes have become
more obscure in the intervening years. The work also has the
virtue of presenting ideas in a form that stimulates the
reader to consider whether he or she agrees with them. It
is, then, both a work of scholarship and an exercise in
philosophy. So far as the latter is concerned, the main
thesis is an elaboration of the epistemological realism
advanced by Aquinas when he maintains that concepts are
abstracted from experience of natural forms and are the
means by which we think of things and not themselves the
objects of thought – save in reflection, as when we think of
the content of a concept (see Summa Theologiae, Ia, q.85, a.
2).
`No realistic philosophy can be considered complete
unless it includes a philosophy of nature'. So reads the
opening sentence of the preface of George Klubertanz's
The Philosophy of
Human Nature. This is an apt reminder of what was seen
in Phillips's work, namely the embedding of epistemology
(and metaphysics) within a broader philosophical framework.
As if to emphasize the point of connectedness he continues:
`Moreover, the philosophy of human nature is an absolute
prerequisite for a philosophically grounded ethics ... [and]
the philosophy of nature is in close material contact with
the natural sciences'.
Like Phillips, Klubertanz was writing with a student
readership in mind. He taught at St. Louis University (an
important US centre of neo-scholasticism and home of The
Modern Schoolman) and he developed the text out of lectures
given there from 1949 (the book was published
Apple-Century-Crofts in 1953). Evidently Klubertanz was
realistic in his assessment of what undergraduates might be
capable of, for he writes that `only an unusual class could
complete the entire text as it stands'. The difficulty is
not one of obscurity but derives from the fact, often
overlooked by more recent authors, that the `introductory'
is not the same as the `elementary'. Klubertanz makes no
effort to conceal the profundity of the issues with which he
is concerned and this sometimes makes for hard reading, but
the difficulties are mostly those of the issues themselves.
He begins with an investigation of human nature, asking
what would constitute a philosophical account of this and
relating that to the aims and methods of experimental
psychology. From there he proceeds to examine the competing
cases for considering human beings as exhibiting a unity or
a plurality of nature(s). So put, the issue may sound
remote, but it is a real and currently somewhat neglected
question. Biochemistry studies molecules, genetics
investigates microbiology, physiology deals with anatomical
systems, psychology studies mental functions. What is the
relation between these sciences so far as concerns the
beings under study in which their objects are
co-instantiated? Is man one or many thing(s)?
Klubertanz develops an updated version of Aquinas's
response to those who in his own time argued that human
beings have three organizing principles: the vegetative, the
sentient, and the rational souls. Human nature is one
principle subsuming many functions. Such is the
single-sentence answer, but true to the scholastic style
Klubertanz develops it methodically and in detail,
organizing his account in 185 sections contained within XIV
chapters and adding two appendices concerning, respectively,
`Philosophical Systems' (dualism, idealistic monism,
materialistic monism, positivism, sensism, philosophical
Freudianism, philosophical evolutionism, and determinism),
and `Related Issues'. What is offered is of intrinsic
interest, enduring value, and could serve as a model for a
new treatment of the same range of issues.
Klubertanz's linkage of philosophy of nature with ethics
marks a sharp and intended contrast with Kantian attempts to
derive morality from the structure of pure practical reason
alone. For the Thomist, the theory of value and right action
follows from philosophical anthropology: until one knows
what humans beings are, one cannot say what pertains to
their good, and hence how they should act.
John Oesterle's,
Ethics:
The Introduction to Moral Science (published by
Prentice-Hall in 1957) works on these assumptions to develop
a broad account of various aspects of ethics (its methods,
its ultimate end, the nature of happiness, the role of
virtue, the conditions of voluntariness and those of free
agency, the elements of evaluation, the nature and role of
law, and the character of friendship).
Like Phillips and Klubertanz, Oesterle developed his book
out of the experience of classroom teaching – in his case at
the University of Notre Dame which at that point was a
relatively small institution but has since become the
première Catholic University in north America. The book's
pedagogical origin is preserved in the review questions,
discussion topics and list of suggested readings (which
include references to works of Aquinas) appended to each
chapter. It is not, however, a mere student text, for as was
characteristic of authors in the Thomistic tradition,
Oesterle saw himself as having the responsibility of setting
out ideas that should appeal to all of philosophical mind,
from the educated layman to the advanced scholar. For that
reason the work repays the attention of the professional
philosopher, particularly in its treatment of the nature and
role of the virtues.
In her collection of essays Virtues and Vices (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1978) Philippa Foot writes `it is my opinion that
the Summa Theologica is one of the best sources we have for
moral philosophy, and moreover that St Thomas's ethical
writings are as useful to the atheist as to the Catholic or
other Christian believer.’Notwithstanding such high praise
from a well-respected source, the fact is that a quarter of
a century later moral philosophers outside the Thomist
tradition remain largely oblivious of the extent to which
Aquinas transcends Aristotle in ethics, both in adding new
elements and in exploring in far greater detail those that
Aristotle had himself identified. It is a merit of
Oesterle's study that he follows Aquinas in detailing the
structure of the human virtues and relating them to other
aspects of the human psyche, principally the passions, the
will and the intellect.
The final work selected for this set is Edward Simmons's
The Scientific Art of
Logic: An Introduction to the Principles of Formal and
Material Logic (put out by the Bruce Publishing Company
of Milwaukee in 1961). The text is again one forged in the
college classroom. Simmons taught philosophy at Marquette
University (which like St. Louis is a Jesuit Foundation) and
the work appeared on the eve of the Second Vatican Council.
A book published a decade later would almost certainly have
been very different in style, emphasizing formal methods of
representing inferences. The main challenge to the sort of
Aristotelian logic preferred by Simmons and other Thomists
then and earlier, is whether it is able to represent
inferences whose validity is demonstrable in the predicate
and propositional logics deriving from Frege and Russell. In
recent years Aristotelian logic has attracted a number of
able defenders (see for example Fred Sommers, The Logic of
Natural Language (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982)), but the
interest of Simmons's study lies less in its treatment of
valid inference than in what would now be termed its
philosophy of logic.
Once again the interconnectedness of Thomist philosophy
shows itself, for Simmons approaches inference by way of
analyzing the types and levels of mental acts. Immediately
it should be said that he is not engaging in empirical
psychological speculation but is seeking to identify the
necessary elements of rational thought, showing what is
presupposed by what, and how aspects at a given level are
related one to another: simple conception as contrasted with
judgment, and each with reasoning; the inverse relationship
between comprehension and extension; the universal and the
particular, the predicables, the categories, definition,
division, the taxonomy and semantics of terms, and so on.
Like Klubertanz, Simmons presents issues in a highly
structured way which has the advantage that readers can go
more or less directly to what interests them. Admittedly,
much will now seem superfluous if not misguided, but there
is material of enduring interest and importance in the
discussion of the different intellectual operations, of the
meaning of terms and of the varieties of induction.
Volume 1: Modern
Thomistic Philosophy vol. 1, `The Philosophy of Nature'
by R.P. Phillips, 1934
Volume 2: Modern Thomistic Philosophy vol. 2, `Metaphysics'
by R.P. Phillips, 1935
Excerpt: The purpose of this book is to present a simple
explanation of the philosophy usually taught to Catholic
students. No attempt has been made to introduce novel
doctrines, but merely to set out, as clearly as possible,
the meaning of those which are commonly received. Since such
teaching at the present day is predominantly on the lines of
the system originated by Aquinas, it is this system, as
developed by modern Thomists, which it is the object of this
book to explain. It is clear that in a single work it would
be impossible to give a full account, and absurd to try to
vindicate the truth, of the various philosophical systems
which are included under the generic name of Scholasticism ;
so that no systematic exposition is attempted of even the
chief of the non-Thomistic systems, those of Scotus and
Suarez. The divergences of their doctrines from those of S.
Thomas frequently throw light on the precise meaning of the
Thomist contentions ; so that to make some mention of them
is not foreign to our purpose. Similar considerations will
apply to our treatment of those other philosophical systems
which diverge still more widely from the Thomistic plan,
such as those of Spinoza or of Hegel. It appears to be as
unreasonable to expect, in an exposition of Thomism, a full
account and refutation of Hegelianism, for example, as it
would be to look for such an account of Thomism in Hegel's
Logic. Consequently, all that seems necessary to be done in
this direction is to notice the principal divergences of
modern philosophies from the Thomistic, so bringing into
higher relief its positive teaching ; and, as far as space
allows, to meet the more urgent of the reasons that have
been advanced against its truth.
Excerpt: The cleavage between the Cartesian and the
Thomistic traditions in knowledge is sharp and profound. The
Cartesian tradition ignores the impetus towards realism
given by nature, or regards it as a primitive inclination
which falls away under critical analysis. Hence its
adherents almost universally take as starting point the
so-called Principle of Immanence: the assumption that the
knowing subject immediately attains only his own ideas, his
own conscious states or subjective modifications. The
Thomistic tradition, on the other hand, accepts the initial
impetus towards realism given by nature and holds securely
to the naturally evident objectivity and reliability of
knowledge at every level. For man would not know that he
knows, unless he first knows something; he would not know
that he is a being, unless he first knew being, that which
is. Commencing with objectivity, the Thomistic tradition by
reflection, by comparison and contrast between nature and
knowledge, reaches a profound understanding of the immanence
of knowledge as regards principle, term, and object.
Thomists defend immanence, but not at the expense of
transcendence. Both are equally demanded by the facts.
Many in the Cartesian tradition predicate an
hermetically-sealed immanence, for they hold that ideas are
possessed in complete independence of the extra-mental
world, if indeed they grant any such thing as an
extra-mental world. Descartes, for example, held that he
possessed all of his ideas innately and that it pertained to
the essence of the soul to be constantly thinking. Many
thinkers followed the implications of Descartes' principles
to their logical term of idealism, holding that ideas were
merely objectifications of the spontaneous and autonomous
activity of the knower. The Thomist tradition, on the other
hand, sees that there is an initial passivity in knowledge.
Man is not always knowing; and when he does pass from the
mere capability of knowledge to actual knowledge, it is only
because the cognitive faculty has been enriched from without
by the immaterial reception of the form of the thing to be
known. Thought can attain things, because thought has been
caused by things. The doctrine of impressed species is at
once a testimony of the finitude and passivity of human
thought, and a guarantee of its objectivity. The impressed
intelligible species are effected by a process of
abstracting what is intelligible in the sense data gained in
an experimental contact with reality.
The more modern part of the Cartesian tradition has been
especially influenced by the distinctive twist Immanuel Kant
gave to the so-called Principle of Immanence. Kant held that
the human mind was productive of the formal part of the
concept of thought. He said that the extra-mental world
merely supplies the matter or clay which is shaped by the
a-priori forms of the knower. The Thomistic tradition, on
the other hand, insists that the human intellect is passive
with respect to its object. The activity of knowing which
results once the faculty has been enriched by the form of
the other in the impressed species in no way affects or
modifies that irreducible datum. The intellect is active,
even productive in knowing, but what it produces is not the
thing known, but the concept of the thing, which presents
unproduced contents to the mind clothed in conditions proper
to the mind. St. Thomas distinguishes between the productive
aspect of intellection, which produces the subjective means
by which or in which its object is known, and the
cognitional attainment itself of such an object. The
commentators have distinguished between formal and objective
concept to accentuate the difference between the subjective
means which the intellect produces in order to know, and the
transcendent datum which the intellect knows by those means.
Finally, for every thinker who begins with the immanence
of thought but does not go all the way to idealism, the
transition from immanence to transcendence presents a
logically insurmountable difficulty. How show that there are
originals of which the concepts are pictures? How speak of
pictures if there are no originals? It is`logically
impossible to show that correspondence, but they all tried
to make the leap to transcendent correspondence by means of
some illogical stratagem or irrational feeling. Descartes
did it by resorting to the veracity of God, whose existence
he had proven by an illicit transition from the ideal to the
real order. Locke did it by an appeal to the Wisdom and
Power of the Maker who enables things to make the right kind
of impression on the knower. Mâlebranche did it by an appeal
to the Bible. Leibniz' appeal is to his optimism. Kant did
it for those realities necessary for the moral order through
his categorical imperative. Even Fichte, who was such a
thorough-going idealist in his speculative philosophy,
brings tran-subjective existents back into the picture in
his practical philosophy through an appeal to the voice of
conscience, which offers grounds for a practical belief in
objective reality.
The Thomistic tradition has no need for such confession
of speculative failure. It recognizes that the transition
from immanence to transcendence is possible only for Divine
Knowledge wherein Will is joined to Knowledge in giving
physical being to what is known. Man is made to the image of
God—but he is not God. Being a creature composed of
potentiality and actuality, man must be acted upon by
things, at least initially, so that he can know them. When
he actually knows, man is directly and immediately aware of
a transcendent thing made present to thought as an object.
Only by reflection does he discover the inwardness of
thought and the means whereby what exists outside of thought
has been made present to thought.
Excerpt: No realistic philosophy can be considered
complete unless it includes a philosophy of nature. The
philosophy of human nature is an area where most of the
problems of the philosophy of nature occur, some of them in
a crucial form. Moreover, the philosophy of human nature is
an absolute prerequisite for a philosophically grounded
ethics. Clearly, then, a knowledge of the philosophy of St.
Thomas Aquinas requires a study of the philosophy of human
nature.
Nor is it an easy task to discover and present St.
Thomas's thought on man. For this philosophic thought is
contained on the one hand in summary form and often under a
deductive guise in the two Summae; on the other hand, the
Disputed Questions are fragmentary and polemical by their
nature, and the Commentaries follow an order and an emphasis
that is no longer directly useful. Moreover, where St.
Thomas presumed basic philosophical understanding and a
knowledge of the pertinent evidence, present day students,
unfamiliar with both, are unable to gain much more than a
superficial verbal mastery.
Finally, the philosophy of nature is in close material
contact with the natural sciences. The problems and
questions that arise out of this contact are dated by their
very nature; the problems of this third quarter of the
twentieth century are not those of the first and second
quarters, let alone those of the thirteenth century.
Consequently, a textbook that aims to present a Thomist
philosophy of human nature must meet many difficult
requirements. It simply cannot be put together out of
snippets of texts, culled at random from St. Thomas's
closely integrated works. St. Thomas's thought must be
re-thought in the modern setting. Great effort must be made
to present the basic evidences unmistakably and in such an
order that the student is able, most likely to gain a truly
intellectual and philosophic insight into human nature.
Finally, as many of the major contemporary problems must be
met as is consistent with the abilities of the author and
the student and the limitations of class time available.
In a more specific sense, ethics is introductory insofar
as it precedes political philosophy. Politics and ethics may
be considered as parts of moral philosophy, since both
consider human actions as ordered to an end. They differ in
that ethics deals with actions of individual human beings
as directed to an ultimate end, while politics deals with
actions of the members of a political society as ordered to
an ultimate end. In the study of ethics we see that the
realization of an ultimate end for man demands social and
political life, and in this way ethics leads to politics.
Ethics leads also to moral theology, and this is another
way in which it is introductory to moral science. Ethics is
based on principles known by reason alone and deals with
human acts as directed to a natural end. Moral theology is
based on revealed principles accepted by faith and deals
with human acts as directed to a super-natural end, the
vision of God. While it is true that human beings need
revealed moral doctrine in order to achieve the supernatural
end to which they are ordered, it is also true that moral
theology presupposes the reasoned grasp of natural moral
doctrine, for the truths of moral theology are not
intelligible in a scientific way with-out a comprehension of
the moral truths available to human reason. On the one hand,
this book is written in such a way that it easily leads to
moral theology, not by confusing ethics with moral theology,
but by distinguishing ethics from moral theology in order to
see the complementary relationship between the two sciences.
On the other hand, the position is taken throughout the
book—and argued explicitly in several places—that ethics as
a science is adequate to attain truths about the natural
moral order.
This book is an introduction also in the sense that it
remains, for the most part, general in its treatment. It
does not explicitly cover material contained in what is
often called "special ethics," the specific application of
moral principles and distinctions to particular problems, as
in business ethics, medical ethics, and so on. Such areas
are important parts of moral doctrine, deserving of separate
and extensive treatment. They are best treated, however, if
the general, fundamental principles and distinctions of
moral knowledge are first understood in their full
exposition as covered by ethics. For many persons, then,
ethics is the introduction to more specialized areas of
human activity in which they will be professionally engaged.
Still another sense in which ethics should be considered
as preliminary is as an introduction to the concrete order
of singular action. This point needs stressing because there
is a common misapprehension that the knowledge of ethics
alone—or the knowledge of moral theology as well—should
guarantee a person's being morally good in his actions by
providing complete and certain solutions to all courses of
action to be taken here and now. In the completely practical
order of singular action, each person's rectified will is a
prerequisite for good moral action. No one, therefore, can
justifiably expect ethics to make him good. On the other
hand, with a reasoned grasp of moral doctrine, one will be
much better prepared to approach his own moral situations
and problems than he would be without any understanding of
moral science.
At present there are at least four prevailing tendencies
among writers in the field of moral philosophy. One view
holds that ethics is "normative" and cannot be a science;
all that one can do scientifically is to give a logical
analysis of certain moral terms. Careful analysis of terms
in moral discourse is necessary, of course, and I have
sought to retain this important part of philosophical
investigation. At the same time, I have attempted to keep
such an analysis in the context of ethics as a practical
science, and not to present it as only a logical or semantic
problem. A second position adopts a purely empirical and
subjective view of ethics, as though it were nothing more
than statements of likes and dislikes. The third position
offers a rationalistic and sometimes purely theoretical view
of ethics as a science. Finally, some Christian authors tend
to give a theological exposition of moral philosophy, mixing
theological and philosophical elements to a point where they
are no longer distinguishable.
My aim is to recapture ethics as it was originally
conceived to be —a practical science based on reasoning
derived from common experience, though considering
speculative truths as any science must necessarily do. I
have also sought to reassert the primary role of virtue in
moral doctrine. Consequently, I have followed closely the
order of Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics, thereby
acknowledging that his work still remains the best
formulation of the practical science of ethics. I have often
followed just as closely the commentary on this work by St.
Thomas Aquinas, who clearly had the same opinion of the
worth of Aristotle's ethics as a science of natural moral
doctrine. While I am thus indebted to Aristotle and St.
Thomas on almost every page, I have not quoted them
directly, since the soundness of what they say is evident on
the only authority relevant here—reason itself. However, at
the end of each chapter, I have given the appropriate
references to Aristotle's Ethics and to the accompanying
commentary of St. Thomas. The one exception is the chapter
on law, which is drawn principally from the Summa Theologiae
of St. Thomas, though I have followed a philosophical order
in the exposition of law. Other readings are also cited,
though purely in a suggestive manner. Some of these readings
are in more or less conformity with the text itself; others
are offered as contrasting views. For the most part, the
selections are chosen with an eye to their easy
availability.
Volume 6: The
Scientific Art of Logic: An Introduction to the
Principles of Formal and Material Logic by Edward D.
Simmons, 1961
Excerpt: This text in logic is one of the first
contributions to the new Christian Culture and Philosophy
Series. The book is designed generally to serve the end of
the Series, and particularly to make available to
undergraduate students and their instructors an elementary,
but scientific, presentation of the principles of both
formal and material logic. The order follows the division of
logic into the logic of the first, second, and third
operations of the intellect. In each section, significant
logical relations, both formal and material, are examined.
Since any scientific inquiry requires hard intellectual
labor, it is inevitable that a scientific presentation of
logic will entail some difficulty for the student. Yet this
is as it must be. Formal logic is easier than material
logic, but formal logic alone is an inadequate instrument of
the intellect for rational discourse. Since most students
take only one course in logic, it is imperative, despite the
difficulties involved, that in it they be introduced to
material as well as formal logic.
Since scientific inquiry is intellectually taxing, some
might argue that the art of logic could be acquired much
more easily in an elementary course apart from its science
rather than along with it. However, the art and science of
logic are indistinguishably one. Unless the rules of logical
procedure are scientifically grounded in incontrovertible
first principles of the logical order, they cannot
adequately serve as principles either for a critique of or
defense for scientific discourse. The propriety of a logical
process could not be adequately defended by an appeal to a
rule of logic unless that rule were itself self-evident or
scientifically resolved into what is self-evident. Thus, it
is an illusion to think that the art of logic could be
acquired in any adequate fashion apart from the science of
logic. Consequently, this text attempts to present
scientifically the basic principles of both formal and
material logic. Its proximate end is to generate in its
users an intellectual habit which will serve as an adequate
instrument for rational discourse, especially in the other
sciences.
This book is not overly difficult, despite what has been
said. The point rather is that it is not easy — but neither
is logic. It is rigorous — so is logic. More to the point,
it can be used successfully only by students who are
prepared to put some effort into their work — so too logic
cannot be acquired without effort. Every attempt has been
made to make the presentation as straightforward as
possible, given the intrinsically rigorous character of the
subject matter. The opening chapter is designed, among other
things, to give the student some appreciation of the nature
and divisions of logic so as to orient him for the course to
follow. The final chapter is devoted exclusively to the
nature of logic. It is felt that at least a semester's work
in logic is a prerequisite for any penetrating analysis of
the nature of logic. In both the opening and final chapters
there is a discussion of the division of logic into the
logic of the three operations of the intellect. It is
according to this division of logic that the book is divided
into three parts. The opening chapter in each part includes
an investigation into the nature of the intellectual
operation from which that part gets its name. The remaining
chapters in each part take up the logical theory pertinent
to the part in question. Throughout, an effort has been made
to offer sufficient examples so that the usefulness of the
logical theory under discussion can be seen in a concrete
setting. Each chapter is followed by exercises, which are
designed to assist the student to appreciate the meaning and
force of the logical theory presented in that chapter. No
teacher is ever fully satisfied with another man's
exercises, and every teacher has some of his own to offer to
his students. However, the exercises suggested in this book
are varied enough, both in format and in degree of
difficulty, so that every teacher will find them to a
greater or less degree of some help for his students. It is
the teacher, not the textbook, who determines the program of
his course. Any teacher may find that there are things
treated in this book which he chooses not to include in his
course. Thus, for example, a teacher might choose to pass
over the discussion of the truth-functional proposition, or,
perhaps, to omit the final chapter on the nature of logic.
Perhaps some teacher may choose to omit some of the more
difficult matter in some of the chapters. With this in mind
several chapters have been ordered so that the more
difficult matter is treated separately from the rest. Thus,
in the chapter on relations between propositions, the case
of the singular proposition — which offers many difficulties
— is taken up separately. Again, since an elementary text
cannot take up every question, the author has omitted any
detailed discussion of the types of analogy and has
discussed only the relations of the simply attributive
categorical proposition in the chapter on relations between
propositions. A teacher using this book may feel it
necessary to supplement it with his own treatment of the
division of analogy into its types and/or his own treatment
of logically related modal propositions or compound
propositions. Nonetheless, it has seemed to the author,
after some years of experience in the teaching of elementary
logic, that the subjects treated in this book are, for the
most part, those which generally should and can be handled
in an elementary course covering a semester's time.
Like many other textbooks, this is written within the
context of the Aristotelian`tradition. Thus, it bears an
understandably basic resemblance to many other logic books.
The rules of validity for the categorical syllogism have
not changed since they were discovered by Aristotle. We are
not scandalized, then, to find them repeated faithfully from
textbook to textbook. They are not listed differently here.
Yet this text does have several distinctively different
features. As we have said, it is not limited to formal
logic. Again it aims at the acquisition of the art of logic
through the science. of logic and not apart from the science
of logic. The second part of the book includes a study of
the hypothetical proposition. Among the problems taken up in
this chapter are the following: Why cannot hypothetical
propositions in the strict sense be truth-functional? What
is the significance of a truth-functional proposition? How
can symbols and even truth tables be profitably employed
both for hypotheticals strictly taken and truth-functional
propositions? In the logic of the third operation the
chapter on the demonstrative syllogism and the consideration
of self-evident propositions in the chapter on induction
represent treatments necessary for an adequate course in
logic which are either omitted or given scant attention in
most logic textbooks. The final chapter, on the nature of
logic, is an attempt to investigate this difficult subject
matter on a level beyond that usually reached in logic
textbooks which speak of the nature of logic only at the
beginning of the book.
The book is within the Aristotelian tradition in the
sense that, for primary sources, it owes most to the Organon
of Aristotle and to logicians who have commented on the
Organon and who have attempted to develop their own logical
theory from that of Aristotle. The chapters on the
categories, on the categorical proposition, on the
categorical syllogism, on the demonstrative syllogism, and
on fallacious argumentation owe most to Aristotle's
Categories, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Posterior
Analytics, and On Sophistical Refutations. Several chapters
are indebted to Aristotle's Topics, especially those which
treat of definition, division, and dialectical
argumentation. The chapter on the predicables is first of
all indebted to Porphyry's Introduction to the Categories of
Aristotle. Other primary sources include the commentaries of
St. Thomas on the On Interpretation and Posterior Analytics
of Aristotle, the commentaries of both St. Albert and
Cajetan on several of the logical works of Aristotle, and
John of St. Thomas' Logical Art.
A Philosophy of Hope: Josef Pieper and the Contemporary
Debate on Hope by Bernard N. Schumacher, translated by
David C. Schindler (Moral Philosophy and Moral Theology, 5:
Fordham University Press) Josef Pieper was one of this
century's most influential thinkers. A leading Catholic
philosopher and authority on Thomas Aquinas, his writings
have won a wide audience through such books as The Four
Cardinal Virtues and About Love.
This important book is one of few extended studies of
Pieper's thought—in particular, of his contributions to a
philosophy of hope. Pieper was one of the first modern
philosophers to explore the idea of hope in human life, and
Schumacher discusses his development alongside contributions
by Sartre, Jaspers, Marcel, Heidegger, Bloch, and other
thinkers.
Ranging across the full body of Pieper's work, Schumacher
systematically examines Pieper's treatment of hope in the
larger context of the debates about hope in every major
Western tradition. Pieper's originality, Schumacher
demonstrates, is to have emphasized an ontology of
not-yet-being as the foundation of hope, and to find a way
to reconcile two disparate conceptions of hope—as an
individual's relation to possibility and as an historical
dimension of human life.
Schumacher looks at hope as a virtue, one opposed by
vices such as despair and presumption, particularly as they
are treated in existentialism and Marxism. He also explores
Pieper's treatment of hope in relation to the ideas of death
and immorality, and in the philosophy of history. Using the
idea of hope to examine such themes as dignity, ethics, the
good, and the just, Schumacher provides a valuable,
wide-ranging introduction to a shaper of contemporary
Christian thought against a richly drawn intellectual
background.
Excerpt: The theme of human hope has been put to a severe
test at the end of the millennium, a period characterized by
a certain pessimism and accompanied by a growing uncertainty
about the future of human progress and the dignity of the
human person. We need think only of the tragedies scattered
throughout the twentieth century: Auschwitz, Hiroshima,
Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, and so on. In an age of
nuclear weaponry, we find it difficult to imagine how those
in the past could seriously affirm that mankind was making
steady and confident progress toward a better state, and how
they did not even consider the possibility that the opposite
could be the case. Indeed, Lady Hope enjoyed a certain
success once she donned the optimistic garb of the
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century philosophers of progress.
In particular, she was viewed as the fundamental impetus of
the historical dynamism of mankind in its march toward what
Kant calls the "ethical community," or what Bloch calls the
"New Jerusalem." Toward the end of the nineteenth century,
this hope—that is, optimism about progress toward
improvement, which Turgot, Condorcet, Kant, Marx, and Comte
all predicted—began to give way to the rise of the nihilism
expressed by Nietzsche, and later to the contemporary
current of nihilistic existentialism. Hope was treated as an
illusion, a vice, a poisoned gift, a curse that the gods
had inflicted upon the human being. It was described as a
promise that could not be kept, a beautiful idea bereft of
any concrete reality, a folly, an opiate, and even as the
greatest enemy, the worst of evils. Certain thinkers have
even gone so far as to affirm that Nietzschean nihilism is
the epoch-defining event of the beginning of the millennium,
which marks the culmination of a universal movement.
This rise of despair has provoked, in turn, a reaction in
defense of the primacy of hope, which occupies a decisive
place at the dawning of the third millennium. This defense
focuses not only, as the philosophers of progress did, on
the relation between hope and the historical development of
the human species with a view to the end of this
development, but also on the concrete human individual in
relation to his future, which is the aspect the ancients
considered in their treatment. Indeed, the majority of
contemporary philosophers who deal with this subject
maintain that the act and the object of hope are not only
collective, but also personal.
Nevertheless, the theme of hope is not a uniquely modern
concern; it has been the focus of many studies over the
course of Western history. Already in ancient Greece, one
finds various attempts to define it in different historical
periods, distinguishing it, for example, from expectation
and from desire, and integrating trust into its meaning. The
Fathers of the Church and the Scholastics approach it from a
theological perspective, while some also analyze hope
(espoir) as a passion. Though Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz,
Hobbes, and Locke devote little attention to the subject,
hope reemerges once again as a theme in modern thought in
the writings of Kant, for whom it constitutes one of the
four principal questions to which the philosopher has an
obligation to respond, and also represents a concern for
Hume, Mill, and Kierkegaard.
Nevertheless, Bloch was not altogether incorrect in
asserting that the theme of hope was "as unexplored as the
Antarctic" before the 1956 publication of his The Principle
of Hope. Indeed, in the history of philosophy, hope has
never been a dominant theme; it was generally treated, if at
all, "incidentally," just as it continues to be treated
today among the majority of philosophers. And yet, given the
urgency of the contemporary historical situation, which
manages too often to drive people to despair, it is
surprising that such a topic would not have provoked more
reflection in philosophy, which has for its part too often
and too quickly abandoned the theme to sociology,
psychology, or theology. But hope is philosophically
significant by virtue of the fact that it constitutes a
fundamental and central mode of human existence; it is the
principal driving force of the historical-temporal human
being in via. A human being without hope is like a walking
corpse, which is both physiologically and metaphysically
absurd.
In fact, there are a number of different
twentieth-century philosophical analyses of human hope that
appeared long before Bloch's remarkable encyclopedic
reflection. The subject of human hope has been approached
from various perspectives: ethics, anthropology,
phenomenology, politics, and metaphysics. Some develop an
ontology of not-yet-being as the foundation undergirding the
act of hope; some work out a more clearly defined
understanding of the nature of hope by distinguishing it
from desire and expectation; some discuss its status as a
passion and as a virtue, interpreting it both at the
personal and at the communal level.
The purpose of the present study is, on the one hand, to
come to an understanding of the German philosopher Josef
Pieper's view of hope, and, on the other hand, to set this
view into dialogue with other con-temporary understandings.
To achieve this purpose, I did not restrict myself to the
works Pieper explicitly devoted to hope alone; instead, I
took a more general approach, and considered his oeuvre as a
whole. This has allowed me better to situate Pieper's
understanding of hope within the broader context of his
thought and to bring out certain points or underlying
ontological and anthropological foundations, which the
philosopher himself did not work out in detail in the works
specifically devoted to hope. Indeed, an adequate grasp of
his position requires a deep and comprehensive reading of
all of his writings. Moreover, on occasion I had to read
between the lines, which was in many cases the last resort
for grasping the most profound dimension of his thinking.
"What is self-evident is not discussed" is Pieper's
watch-word; we can complement this observation with
Heidegger's affirmation that the doctrine of any particular
philosopher lies in the "unsaid in what is said." An
interpretation of a text ought also to bring out what the
author sought to express without saying it explicitly; it
ought to lay bare the fundamental intuitions that underlie
his thought and run through everything he does in fact say.
In order to illuminate both the originality and the
controversial aspects of Pieper's position on the various
issues concerning hope, I have set it in dialogue with those
contemporary philosophers who have
treated the topic since the beginning of the twentieth
century. I did not limit myself to the authors whom Pieper
himself discussed and from whom he drew inspiration—for
example, Gabriel Marcel and Ernst Bloch—but I also included
authors to whom he did not refer, and who belong to various
philosophical schools spanning several decades. In addition
to the existentialist-neo-Marxist debate, I also took
account of phenomenological, analytic, and Anglo-Saxon
analyses, as well as different psychological, medical, or
psychiatric studies insofar as it was possible. This method
not only allowed me better to situate Pieper's thought
within the heart of the philosophy of the twentieth
centuryemphasizing not only his unique contribution, but
also his inadequacies and omissions—but also better to
understand the nature of human hope in a systematic way.
With Marcel and Bloch, Pieper contributed to the
rediscovery of the ontological foundation of human hope; he
articulated an ontology of not-yet-being, which is
accompanied by an eschatological dimension expressing the
internal structure of human nature ordered toward a future.
He thus represents in a certain way one of the pioneers
among the twentieth-century philosophers of hope in the
rediscovery, not only of the importance of the ontological
concept of human existence in via (for which he draws
inspiration as much from Thomas Aquinas and Przywara as from
Heidegger) for understanding hope, but also of the way to
approach it. To be sure, several books and articles on hope
were already in existence before the appearance of his first
work devoted to the theme, published in 1935 and showing
signs of his youth. But these were either theological, or
they did not show the intrinsic connection between an
ontology of not-yet-being and hope.
It is thus historically false to claim that Bloch and
Marcel were alone responsible for reinstating hope as a
philosophical problem, or to maintain that, to date, the
philosophical problem of hope has not yet been dealt with,
as Bloch does with some presumption in the preface to his
The Principle of Hope, ignoring all of the philosophies of
hope that open up with transcendence toward the
transcendent. Nevertheless, it is true that Pieper, inspired
by Marcel and provoked by Bloch, completes and deepens his
philosophy of hope only after the Second World War, when he
enters into a fruitful discussion with contemporary
philosophers of hope and of the absurd.
In the world of philosophy, Pieper also represents
something of a pioneer in the way he understands the
virtues and their importance for`the total fulfillment of
the person, an approach that became fashionable only in the
1980s, with the appearance of Maclntyre's celebrated book,
After Virtue. Just after the war, Pieper also developed a
theory of leisure and celebration, which for him is
intrinsically connected to the distinction between the
attitude of theoria and that of praxis. His notion of
theoria also provides the foundation for his understanding
of human hope, insofar as hope is unable to achieve its
object simply on the basis of the individual's own
resources, but also requires a gift from the other.
Disturbed by the shadows of history and the existential
shocks of Auschwitz and Hiroshima, in which the human being
became, for the first time in history, as Anders remarks,
"the master of the apocalypse," Pieper looks for a
foundation for a philosophy of hope. He adopts a position
that is not only opposed to the nihilists who proclaim that
the Nothing is better than being and that existence is an
imperfection and absurdity, but also to the social
religions that in the name of science or of praxis promise
perfect and endless happiness, the construction of the "New
Jerusalem" on earth.
This is one of the reasons why today [in 1950], at a time
of temptations to despair, it may appear necessary to bring
into view a notion of the End in which an utterly realistic
freedom from illusion not only does not contradict hope but
in which the one serves to confirm and corroborate the
other.
Hope thus constitutes one of the cornerstones of Pieper's
philosophy; and yet, of the many works that have been
published on his philosophy, not one of them has yet taken
up this theme as its central focus. One finds studies on
goodness and reality, on leisure and celebration, on the
university, on the virtues in general, on philosophy
and poetry, on truth, or even on anthropology. Moreover,
there have not been any works to date that have tried to
take account of and synthesize the various currents of
contemporary thought on the theme of hope. The great
majority of studies focus on one or two authors (Bloch or
Marcel, to mention only the two most important), or else
they treat only the studies published in a particular
language, or remain within a particular school of thought
(existentialism, neo-Marxism, phenomenology, neo-Thomism, or
analytic philosophy).
The first chapter of the present study analyzes the
ontological foundations of a philosophy of hope; chapters
two through five treat the nature, the characteristics, the
object, the content, the reason, and the justification of
human hope, as well as contrasting attitudes; finally, the
sixth chapter explores the relationship between hope and
history in light of the ultimate end of history.
Chapter one lays out the ontological and anthropological
foundations undergirding a philosophy of hope. On the basis
of the distinction between res naturalis and res
artificialis, on the one hand, and between a metaphysics of
theoria and a metaphysics of praxis, on the other, it is
possible to inquire into the origin of human nature, as
Sartre and Pieper have done, and more particularly, to ask
whether this nature is characterized by a fully autonomous
and a priori freedom or whether by a freedom inscribed
within a natural inclination toward the complete
(determinable) fulfillment of the individual. The two
authors share an anthropology in which the human being is
essentially project ed, either freely (according to Sartre)
or in a manner that is both free and determinate (according
to Pieper), toward the future, the place wherein the human
being realizes his possibilities. The human being is
fundamentally possibility or project. He hopes to become or
to possess what he has himself freely projected into the
future, or that toward which he has been projected. This
inclination and openness toward the future of possibilities,
which form the basis of a philosophy of hope, have their
roots in an ontology of not-yet-being (Heidegger, Bloch,
Pieper), which is in turn rooted in Heidegger's notion of
the existentiell temporality of Dasein. According to Pieper
and Bloch, the human being hopes to be able to pass from the
state of not-yet-being, that is, of minimal-being to the
state of being-more or being fulfilled. Human hope is
intrinsically linked to the itinerant condition of human
existence, which thus always implies existential
uncertainty.
Once the anthropological and ontological foundations of
an analysis of human hope have been outlined, I offer in
the second chapter a definition of the act of hope by
indicating its constitutive properties, as well as by
integrating the diverse perspectives of contemporary
philosophers of hope. Here I raise the question, to what
extent is human hope—which is an intentional movement toward
a good, difficult, possible, and future object distinct
from desire and expectation, and to what extent does it
necessarily presuppose an act of belief accompanied by an
act of trust? Next, I ask whether uncertainty regarding the
obtainment of the object hoped for is an essential
component of the act of hope. In addition to the analysis
of the elements of fear and love that accompany hope, and
the distinction drawn between hope and optimism, I show that
the structure of hope is inherent both to the philosophical
act and to reason.
The distinction between hope as espoir, or ordinary hope,
and hope as espérance, or fundamental hope, which is
affirmed by the great majority of authors, forms the theme
of chapter three. Taking my bearings from limit-situations,
such as terminal illness, suicide, martyrdom, and being
condemned to death, which can be the occasion for the
manifestation of fundamental hope, I suggest that the
object of hope as espoir is interchangeable, that is, it
changes constantly according to circumstances, while the
object of fundamental hope is by nature unique and
identical. While the majority of authors (whether
philosophers, doctors, psychologists, or psychiatrists)
qualify the object of fundamental hope in different ways, it
can be defined as the actualization and complete fulfillment
of the person. Hope as espoir is articulated through an
analysis of the relation between it and the passions (Thomas
Aquinas, Hume, and Bloch), which can be accompanied by moral
virtues, such as magnanimity and humility. Fundamental hope
can be considered either as one of Dasein's first
principles, or as a virtue. It is appropriate to raise the
question at this point whether the virtue of hope must be
under-stood only as a theological virtue, or, by contrast,
whether there also exists a natural virtue of fundamental
hope. The discussion of this controversial question debated
among the philosophers of hope will be followed by a
description of the relationship between ordinary hope and
fundamental hope as one of dependence and anteriority.
An exploration of human hope entails, moreover, a
discussion of attitudes that form a contrast with it namely,
presumption and despair. Chapter four will focus its
discussion primarily on the attitude of despair, that is,
the expectation of nonfullfillment, which is commonly
described as anticipated death, or a rupture with existence
and corning-to-be. Despair has its roots in the boredom of
the Modems and in the acedia of the Ancients, attitudes that
are captured well in the notions of verbositas and
curiositas, which Heidegger vividly described in his
analysis of average-everydayness. In this chapter, despair
is then related to the totalitarian state of work and to
leisure. The attitude of despair raises the delicate problem
of the existence of a total and absolute despair with
respect to the fundamental hope that is constitutive of
human Dasein.
I will then turn my attention in the fifth chapter to one
of the essential problems of a philosophy of hope: death,
the "anti-utopia," as Bloch describes it, which brutally
interrupts the projection of possibilities into the future.
Is human Dasein a being-toward-death or a being-toward-hope?
In order to answer this question, we will have to examine
the reason for the fundamental hope that sustains those
people who find themselves in limit situations. In this
context, I will primarily set the positions of Pieper and
Bloch into dialogue with one another with respect to the
arguments they set forth in their attempt to overcome the
anti-utopia of death. In doing so, I will bring out both
their common points and their basic divergence, at the same
time taking into account once again the position of
contemporary philosophers of hope in today's world.
The sixth and final chapter is devoted to the
relationship between human hope and history or, more
specifically, the end of time. A philosophy of hope is not
concerned solely with the future of the person-al destiny of
the historical-temporal individual, but it must at the same
time—particularly after Hiroshima—formulate a position with
respect to the possibility of the self-destruction of the
human race. This collective death represents a correlate to
personal death. While it is possible to affirm, as Bloch
does, a transcendence of personal death, insofar as man's
historical progress continues essentially on its march
toward the "new, earthly Jerusalem," and thus in a certain
way to safeguard the principle of hope, the possibility of
global self-destruction raises the question of the
anti-utopia of death in a new way. There is no
consciousness greater than that of the human race as a
whole that would enable us to transcend this "second death."
Thus, what position do we take with respect to the uncertain
future of history? This is one of the most important
questions facing us today. Does the irreducible anti-utopia
that finds its symbol in Hiroshima, that is, the death of
humanity, simply wipe out the principle of hope? Does it
necessarily give way to nihilistic despair? Or is
transcendence possible in spite of everything? Will humanity
ever attain Bloch's "homeland," Kant's "ethical community,"
or even Teilhard's "Omega point"? The question that is
raised once again in this context, just as it was before
withrespect to personal death, is the question of the reason
that founds fundamental hope in light of the end of
history: What reason do the philosophies of progress or of
nihilism offer for affirming that every-thing will turn out
well in the end, or that everything will turn out for the
worst? Is it reasonable to hope, or ought we rather to hand
the laurels to the metaphysics of the Nothing and of
despair? Will human history end in bitter defeat or
nothingness? If so, wouldn't it make more sense to commit
suicide immediately rather than wait for the end and suffer
needlessly? Or, by contrast, could we say that the creeds of
the various currents of the philosophy of progress of the
last two centuries are correct to advocate an optimism,
which holds that humanity will reach its homeland in spite
of personal death, by means of the trans-formation of the
world achieved through science and reason? Or again, is
there a middle position that would accept the possibility of
catastrophe within history, and at the same time offer a
justification for hope? What, when all is said and done, is
the ultimate reason that would provide the foundation for
hope, and even for despair, with respect to both personal
and collective death?
Art and Intellect in the Philosophy of Etienne Gilson by
Francesca Aran Murphy (Eric Voegelin Institute Series in
Political Philosophy: University of Missouri Press) In Art
and Intellect in the Philosophy of Etienne Gilson, Francesca
Aran Murphy tells the story of this French philosopher's
struggle to reconcile faith and reason. In his lifetime,
Gilson often stood alone in presenting Saint Thomas Aquinas
as a theologian, one whose philosophy came from his faith.
Today, Gilson's view is becoming the prevalent one. Murphy
provides us with an intellectual biography of this Thomist
leader throughout the stages of his scholarly development.
Murphy covers more than a half century of Gilson's life
while reminding readers of the political and social
realities that confronted intellectuals of the early
twentieth century. She shows the effects inner-church
politics had on Gilson and his contemporaries such as Alfred
Loisy, Lucien Lévy Bruhl, Charles Maurras, Henri de Lubac,
Marie-Dominique Chenu, and Jacques Maritain, while also
contextualizing Gilson's own life and thoughts in relation
to these philosophers and theologians.
These great thinkers, along with Gilson, continue to be
sources of important intellectual debate among scholars, as
do the political periods through which Gilson's story
threads—World Wars I and II, the rise and fall of Fascism,
and the political upheavals of Europe. By placing Gilson's
twentieth-century Catholic life against a dramatic
back-ground of opposed political allegiances, clashing
spiritualities, and warring ideas of philosophy, this book
shows how rival factions each used their own interpretations
of Thomas Aquinas to legitimate their conceptions of the
Catholic Church.
In Art and Intellect in the Philosophy of Etienne Gilson,
Murphy shows Gilson's early openness to the artistic
revolution of the Cubist and the Expressionist movements and
how his love of art inspired his existential theology. She
demonstrates the influence that Henri Bergson continued to
have on Gilson and how Gilson tried to bring together the
intellectual, Dominican side of Christianity with the
charismatic, experiential Franciscan side.
Murphy concludes with a chapter on issues inspired by the
Gilsonist tradition as developed by recent thinkers. This
volume makes an original contribution to the study of
Gilson, for the first time providing an organic and
synthetic treatment of this major spiritual philosopher of
modern times.
Excerpt: This is an "intellectual life" of Étienne
Gilson. The "intellect" follows a thematic order, but lives
are chronological. I have tried to give both chronology and
thematicism their due, for certain intellectual themes
shaped Gilson's life. The thematic currents all flow from
one historical fact, the French modernist crisis. Gilson was
an impressionable nineteen year old when the modernist
crisis began in France. It was like being nineteen during
the French Revolution, or like being a real-life Johnny
Tremaine at the start of the American Revolution. One can
hardly imagine a real Johnny Tremaine putting it all behind
him when the War of American Independence concluded. This
book tries to show how Gilson was marked throughout his life
by his reactions to modernism…
Gilson served his apprenticeship in philosophical realism
by studying textual, historical facts. We will see how
Gilson's first, historical studies of Descartes and Thomas
Aquinas led him toward a realistic epistemology, which does
not provide its own foundation, or "script," but requires
the prompting of faith. Gilson worked as a historian for a
quarter of a century before he began writing philosophy
books. Rather than noting all of Gilson's historical
writings, the book leads in with a few that best symbolize
his historical research, like his studies of Descartes and
Thomas. Chronology enables one to show how one thing leads
to another, and I have selected for description those
Gilsonian histories that had some causative influence on his
philosophical thought.
In the midst of the modernist crisis, the Parisian Gilson
learned to love the new art forms that were being invented
by Picasso, the cubists, and the expressionists.
Appreciation for the modernist painters helped Gilson to
write his first truly beautiful historical book, his study
of the Franciscan Bonaventure. However much he protested
the historical accuracy of his Thomism, Gilson's own
philosophy was profoundly colored by a Franciscan
spirituality that inches towards the surreal and
trans-rational. In the 1920s, Thomism became fashionable in
France, its promoters putting themselves forward as
defenders of reason in their culture war against
"irrationalism." Gilson was at edge with this
self-understanding. It was in the mid-1920s that Gilson
wrote his first defense of the intrinsic urge of the natural
human mind for supernatural vision.
If this set him somewhat apart from contemporaries like
Jacques Maritain, the debate about the possibility of
Christian philosophy that took place in France in the early
1930s made the two men friends. It also initiated Gilson's
transition from historian to philosopher. He began to argue
that Christianity can combine with philosophy, because
Christians make better realists than do their nonbelieving
friends. Henri de Lubac was almost alone in appreciating
the uniqueness of this presentation of Christian philosophy,
that Gilson was staking the debate on the heightened
metaphysical reality of nature as revealed in the Old
Testament scripture, not on the epistemological foundations
or spiritual edification supplied to the philosopher by his
religious beliefs. In that debate, and in the brilliant
books that flowed out of it, Gilson used arguments that look
historical but are really neat philosophy, a philosophy of
"graced factuality." It was in the mid-1930s that America
recognized Gilson's achievement as one who had shown the
unity of faith and reason. This book contends that American
Catholics saw a valuable part of the man, but not the whole.
Great actor that he was, he was well-enough attuned to his
audience to know what they could hear and what they could
not. The "Loisy problem" was outside their auditory range.
As the Second World War approached and the drums of the
French rationalists beat louder in their support for
Hitler's campaign against social modernism, Gilson argued
ever more clearly that realism is grounded, not in the
epistemic clarity of intuition, but in the simple mystery of
facts. This elite intellectual gave some energy in the
mid-1930s to writing popular social and political
journalism, trying to turn the tide away from the French
dream of a new dictator who would issue the command for the
entire French population to attend the Mass. Some of
Gilson's historical, mediaevalist opinions, such as his
conceptions of Averroës and Dante, have been surpassed by
contemporary scholarship. But if one sees these writings for
what they are, as products of the late 1930s, their timeless
value emerges. For now one can see what Gilson was trying to
get at, politically and philosophically, by posing Averroës
as a rationalist and Dante as an advocate of an emperor who
need take no spiritual, or moral, advice from the church.
It was not by accident that Gilson discovered his
existential Thomism in occupied Paris in 1942. It was the
summit of forty years' thought about the errors of
paleoconservativism and about how to ground reason in a
faith to which the call of the transrational sounds like
music. Gilson's priest friends, like the Dominican
Marie-Dominique Chenu, had followed him in working out
historical, factual, and existential interpretations of
Aquinas's thought. Others, like de Lubac, had taken his idea
that grace speaks from within nature to their hearts. De
Lubac's Surnaturel (1946) can be seen as a successor volume
to Gilson's defenses of Christian philosophy. Thus there
came about, in the late 1940s, the French "nouvelle
théologie," followed almost immediately by its condemnation.
De Lubac's "intrinsicism" was stigmatized in the encyclical
Humani Generis (1950). It was at a Thomist Congress in 1950
that one of the triumphant opponents of new theologies
indicated to Gilson that L'être et l'essence had the
modernist tinge. At the very same time, the remnants of
Charles Maurras' monarchist party began a campaign against
Gilson that led to the loss of his retirement pension.
Throughout the 1950s, a rather embittered Gilson began to
move still further away from this reactionary Thomism, with
its rejection of a "graced nature," to form an epistolary
friendship with de Lubac, the disgraced author of
Surnaturel, and to write a sideways attack on what he saw as
a contemporary, political version of "extrinsicism" in
Maritain's propagandizing for world government. He did not
just compose counterblasts, but a philosophy of
particularity.
He also turned the rudder of his existential philosophy
explicitly toward the mystery of the beautiful, writing
seven books about philosophy of art and aesthetics between
1950 and 1967. The beautiful was the boundless sea on which
he sailed in these years in which, his teaching now on one
side, he could write and meditate about what really
mattered. These were also what I call "grumpy years" for
Gilson; for the only aspect of the spirituality of the
Second Vatican Council with which this paradoxical Pascalian
Thomist resonated was the encouragement it gave to
philosophical pluralism. As Randolph Churchill tactlessly
remarked to Pius XII, "None of us is infallible." We
conclude by briefly considering the vivid current life of
Gilson's thought within contemporary theology, especially
that inclined to theological aesthetics.
The four themes are, in fact, continuous throughout
Gilson's life; but chronologically, they cross and recross,
appear, disappear and reappear. I tell this diachronic tale,
which does not make a neatly rounded "story," because the
spiritual drama of a man's life is the most direct way of
making the philosophy accessible. Gilson might concur with
Hans Urs von Balthasar's remark that the truths of
Christianity are summarized, not in the catechisms, but in
the lives of the saints.
The Ethics of Nature by Celia E. Deane-Drummond
(Blackwell Publishers) (Hardcover)
explores humanity's treatment of the natural world from a
Christian perspective. The book presents a range of ethical
debates arising from our relationship with nature,
including current controversies about the environment,
animal rights, biotechnology, consciousness, and cloning. It
sets the immediate issues in the context of underlying
theological and philosophical assumptions, and draws out
broader concerns for social justice. Complex scientific
issues are explained in clear and intelligible language.
Throughout the book, the author draws on primary
sources from Thomas Aquinas, and develops her own
distinctive ethical approach. This demonstrates that a
virtue ethic centered on wisdom provides the most
appropriate way to approach the ethics of nature. She has
held academic posts in both plant science and theology,
giving her an ideal vantage point from which to write.
It is the premise of this book that a Christian approach
to ethics is justifiable and offers a distinctive
contribution to moral reflection. How far the content of
theology impinges on ethical reflection has been the subject
of much heated debate, for both Catholic moral theologians
and Protestant counterparts. On the one hand, there are
those who argue that we need to begin with the kerygma of
Christian faith, then move on to reflect on various secular
alternatives in the light of such beliefs. Michael Banner is
a good example of this method, drawing particularly on the
theology of Karl Barth for his inspiration. He suggests
that:
the task of Christian ethics is to understand the
world and humankind in the light of the knowledge of God
revealed in Jesus Christ, witnessed to by the Scriptures,
and proclaimed by the Creeds, and that Christian ethics may
and must explicate this understanding in its significance
for human action through a critical engagement with the
concerns, claims and problems of other ethics.
Given that we can argue a case for Christian ethics to be
a modified version of virtue ethics, what particular virtues
are appropriate to consider? While many ethicists have
resisted any hierarchy of the virtues, Deane-Drummond
suggests that the four cardinal virtues of prudence,
justice, fortitude and temperance developed by Thomas
Aquinas give a good starting point for reflection on the
ethics of natures. The theological virtues of love, faith
and hope are the foundation of the other virtues, though in
the moral virtues prudence takes priority, in that like love
it can also be described as the `mother' of other virtues.
Prudence, in particular, is at the heart of Aquinas's
reflection on moral virtue, for it is implicit in his own
method of dialectical questioning, considering all the
options available before arriving at a reasoned decision
that informs a particular way of life, a life of virtue.
While drawing on Aristotle, Aquinas's view that corruption
of reason is impossible to avoid without an act of God's
grace runs counter to his position, and indeed that of
secular philosophical inquiry. Details of theological
debates about the relationship between nature and grace in
Thomistic theology need not concern us here. It is
sufficient to note that Thomas recognized the reality of
original sin but refused to endorse the idea that human
nature is eradicated by sin; this would amount to
Manicheanism. Instead, something of the goodness of creation
remains, even while restricting its capacity for the good.
Following Augustine, Aquinas argued for the healing of a
disordered nature by grace, but following the Greek
tradition, he also argued for the possibility of
divinization by grace. Keeping such strands together is
important in discussions about the virtues as learned and
the virtues received by divine gift of grace.
Prudence, or practical wisdom, for Aquinas is the
`mother' of all the other cardinal virtues. In the
occidental Christian view Being precedes Truth and Truth
precedes Goodness. It might be hard to imagine that prudence
is in any sense a prerequisite to goodness, since prudence
in colloquial use 'carries the connotation of timorous,
small minded self-preservation, of a rather selfish concern
about oneself; hence those who shun danger do so by an
appeal to 'prudence'. In contrast, the classical approach
that Aquinas adopts links prudence specifically with
goodness, and moreover there is no justice or fortitude
without the virtue of prudence. Instinctive inclinations
towards goodness become transformed through prudence, so
that prudence gives rise to a perfected ability to make
choices as related to practical matters of human reasoning.
Hence the free activity of humanity is good in so far as it
corresponds to the pattern of prudence. As such prudence is
the 'cause, root, mother, measure, precept, guide and
prototype of all ethical virtues, it acts in all of them,
perfecting them to their true nature, all participate in it,
and by virtue of this participation they are virtues Truly
human action is the inward shaping of volition and action by
reason perfected in truth. However, reason is not understood
in a narrow sense, it is 'regard for and openness to
reality'. Reality includes both supernatural and natural
reality, so that realization of goodness presupposes
knowledge of reality — simply good intentions are not
sufficient. Prudent decisions have universal and
particular/singular components. Universal principles are
given by synderesis, which relates to the naturally
apprehended principles of ethical conduct, or innate
conscience. The love of the good is the message of natural
conscience, relating directly to natural law. Deliberation
and judgment are characteristic of the cognitive stage of
prudence, while decision, volition and action demonstrate
its practical nature.
What are the advantages of a recovery of prudence for
reflection on the ethics of nature? Deane-Drummond suggests
that all aspects of the natural world that she considers in
this book do well to be approached through the category of
prudence. The particular facets of prudence that are most
relevant depend on the particular issue under consideration.
Yet, overall, the holistic method implicit in the notion of
prudence through contemplation/consideration, judgement and
action is vitally important to hold together in situations
where there is a temptation to split action from judgement.
For example, accurate reflection on environmental ethics
needs due attention to policy-making, to how far such a
desirable end will be achievable in practice. Distortions of
prudence may be more exaggerated in one area rather than
another, and Aquinas allows such distortions to be
distinguished by categorizing the different facets of
prudence. In the first place, the ability of prudence to be
still, to deliberate well, is a quality desperately needed
in the frenzied search for new methods and techniques in
biological science that are considered to have particular
usefulness for humanity. Deane-Drummond suggests that
taking the time to deliberate and reflect and listen to
others by taking counsel does not come easily to the popular
mind, concerned with instant results and instant
gratification of desires. Second, unlike deontological
approaches within Christian ethics that refer to particular
traditions that seem unrelated to practical contexts,
prudence demands full encounter with experience, including
the experience of science, taking time to perceive what is
true in the natural world. Such close attention to reality
as perceived in the scientific world involves a kind of
studied attention, a listening to the Other in nature,
without trying to force the natural world to conform to
human categories. While Aquinas restricted his idea of
taking counsel to other human subjects, in the present
environmental context it is essential to try as far as
possible to perceive from the perspective of all creatures,
all of whom are loved by God and under God's providence."
Third, prudence invokes not just contemplation of the world,
but positive action as well, action that has in mind the
goodness of God. Consequentialist approaches to the ethics
of nature have sought to frame decisions in terms of costs
and benefits, or risks. While prudence would include some
perception of risks where they are known, the ability to
have accurate foresight depends on how far such decisions
promote the overall goal of prudence towards goodness. It is
the character of the agents that is as important as the
particular consequences of individual decisions made. Hence,
the good of humanity is included along with the goods of
other creatures. While those who are not Christian will be
able to identify with the goal of goodness, a Christian
virtue ethic springing from prudence will seek to move to a
particular understanding of goodness, one that coheres with
the overall goodness for creation, as well as goodness for
humanity. Deane-Drummond argues that a Christian virtue
ethic set in such a context encourages a wider framework of
reference to include the cosmic community, rather than
simply the human community.
A discussion of the significance of prudence would not be
complete without mention of the three other cardinal virtues
of justice, fortitude and temperance. Justice is often split
off from a consideration of virtue ethics, as it is more
commonly associated with rule-based ethics. Onora O'Neill
considers the rival views of justice according to universal
principles, as opposed to virtue ethics with its concern for
the particular. She believes, instead, that justice needs to
be inclusive of virtues. Deane-Drummond suggests,
alternatively, from the side of virtue ethics, that when
considered as a virtue to be developed justice gives
consideration of rules and principles a proper place in an
overall ethical framework. In addition, a Christian
understanding of justice differs from that of secular
philosophy, so that it needs some further elaboration.
Justice is concerned broadly with the idea that each is
given her or his due. Unlike many other virtues, justice
specifically governs relationships with others, and also
unlike other virtues it is possible to act justly without
necessarily having a proper attitude towards that action.
Justice is therefore located in the will, rather, than the
emotions, keeping right relations between individuals others
and between others in community. Aquinas suggests that
`justice is the habit whereby a person with a lasting and
constant will renders to each his due'. A particular rule or
pattern for prudence prescribes what is a just deed
according to reason, and if this is written down it becomes
law. One important facet of justice, as Aquinas under-stood
it, is that it acts in a general way, directing the action
of all other virtues towards the common good'
Deane-Drummond argues throughout this book for a recovery
of ways of thinking that are aligned with virtue ethics,
though situated in a broader framework of Wisdom theology,
orientated towards the good understood in terms of the
goodness of God. Aquinas used ways of thinking about the
human mind that could not take into account the newer
knowledge arising from contemporary psychological studies.
It is beyond the scope of this book to explore all areas of
the vast spectrum of psychological knowledge in relation to
the development of virtues. Deane-Drummond therefore chose
to focus the question in a specific way and ask in what
sense trends in psychology challenge the possibility of
moral agency that is presupposed in virtue ethics. In
addition, Deane-Drummond considers how far contemporary
psychological study actually enlarges the possibility for
moral agency and development of the virtues, arising from a
deeper knowledge of self and mental function. Prudence, in
particular, involves a process from deliberation through to
action, and hence moral agency is integral at all stages of
prudential activity. What, for example, are the particular
psychological predispositions needed for valuing`the
environment and how might they influence the development of
virtues? Literature on Christian approaches to environmental
ethics seems to have ignored this aspect, perhaps because of
the shift away from anthropocentrism towards holism that
Deane-Drummond elaborates. However, she argues that it is
vital to come to terms with the psychological aspects of
human nature if we are to understand ways of fostering more
responsible (virtuous) approaches to the natural world. In
addition, moral agency is a far more important issue when
considering ethics orientated towards virtues compared with
other ethical approaches that focus more specifically on
external duties or consequences of human action.
Psychology, situated as it is on the border of neurobiology
and social/cultural studies, can form a natural bridge
between science and religion. It is also important to stress
that while some psychologists are turning to neurobiological
studies in order to help to elucidate human behavior, others
resist such a move as unwarranted reductionism.
Deane-Drummond includes scientific discussion of psychology
from the more biological through to the more cultural end of
the spectrum, without presuming any superiority of one over
the other, but in order to open up the debate about our
biological and psychological human nature and moral agency.
However, while strides are being made to relate
contemporary psychology to theology, it is disappointing
how sparse is the attention being paid to the possible
ethical implications from a Christian perspective. Christian
ethics is not alone in presuming the freedom of human
agency. While it would be impossible to do this enormous
field justice Deane-Drummond intends to use illustrative
examples of psychological literature in the light of
philosophical discussion on the topics in order to ask what
this might do to the elaboration of moral agency and thus
the real possibility of the development of Christian
virtues. Of course, Deane-Drummond has explored what virtues
mean from a psychological perspective. However, she suggests
that taking this approach would merely enlarge our
understanding of what it means, for example, to develop
wisdom from a scientific point of view. Deane-Drummond
intends to probe those areas of psychology that are becoming
increasingly popular`and take on the form of a myth, in much
the same way`that genetics could be said to have acquired
mythological status. An ethics of nature needs to be robust
enough to face this challenge and show how, far from
reducing human behavior to scientific analysis, contemporary
movements in psychology can, instead, enliven the way we
think about ourselves, our identity and who we are both in
distinctiveness and in kinship relation to other creatures.
After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism by Fergus Kerr
(Blackwell Publishers) (Paperback)
Written by a leading theologian, this new account of the
writings of Thomas Aquinas and their interpretation by
modern commentators reflects the major revival of interest
in his work.
After Aquinas makes available in one volume all the
material necessary for a rounded appreciation of Aquinas's
work and his enduring influence. As well as revisiting
Aquinas's own work, Kerr brings together a range of views
that have previously appeared in disparate places, thereby
exploring alternatives to the standard understanding of
Aquinas's writings. This book therefore represents a major
revisionist treatment of Thomism and its significance,
combining useful exposition with original, creative
thinking.
After Aquinas will become essential reading for all
undergraduate students and scholars interested in the work
of this great theologian.
This book is one of the most fascinating and informative
books on Thomas to come along in some time. Kerr focuses on
the period beginning with Pope Leo XIII's endorsement of
Thomism as a bulwark against post-Cartesian modernism and
subjectivism, and the division of Thomism into
Transcendental (essentially Kantian-informed) and
Existential (anti-Kantian and anti-modern) factions. He
shows how modern Thomism has been shaped by, and is thus
largely a product of, reactions to modern thinkers, such as
Descartes, Kant, Heidegger and other thinkers. He
successfully destabilizes the conventional view of Thomas as
important mainly for his theistic proofs (the "five ways")
and natural law theory, not only by arguing that Thomas's
arguments are essentially unintelligible apart from his
larger theological purposes, but that these purposes change
the way we understand even his philosophical importance. The
Thomas that emerges in Kerr's account makes an interesting
dialogue partner with contemporary thinkers such as Martin
Heidegger and Karl Barth. Furthermore, he holds his own
against Barth's misguided claims that Thomas's concept of
"nature" doesn't take sin seriously, or that his notion of
divine "simplicity" is idolatrous, or that his concept of
"analogia entis" is the invention of Antichrist! The Thomism
that emerges is strikingly at odds with that which we often
encounter in the secular or Protestant "textbook
traditions," where Thomas's God is a barren "First Cause" or
abstract "immutable substance," for example. Once we
understand what Thomas means, Kerr argues, we see that his
God is so dynamic that He is more accurately defined by
verbs than by nouns! Kerr offers chatty, and sometimes
wickedly naughty behind-the-scene peeks into controversies
that have shaped modern Thomism, such as the very personal
controversy between Garrigou-Lagrange and de Lubac. He also
apprears to be thoroughly conversant with recent
non-Catholic theology (for example, such as the work of the
Lutheran theologian, Robert Jensen, or the New Finnish
interpretation of Luther's notion of justification as close
to the Greek idea of "theosis"-- an idea for which Kerr
finds some parallel in Thomas's view of sanctification). He
is, of course, intimately familiar with the usual
suspects--the Catholic standards (Gilson, Chenu, Maritain,
Von Balthasar).
Excerpt: The hard question is to account for the rival
ways of reading Thomas. The mid-nineteenth-century revival
of interest, primarily in his supposedly Aristotelian
philosophy, was intended to put it to use in containing and
eradicating the supposedly Cartesian/Kantian subjectivist
individualism by which Roman Catholic thinkers were then
attracted. This use of Thomas, as we saw in chapter 2,
remains effective in the context of analytic philosophy. It
may, however, soon have to deal with a threat from medieval
scholarship: anachronism is always a risk when one calls on
earlier thinkers to refute current arguments. Anyway, the
standard outsider's view of Thomas owes everything to
Leonine Thomism: at worst, `arid Aristotelianism', at best a
combination of natural theology and natural law ethics which
satisfies some and repels others.
On the inside, so to speak, among those educated in
institutions where Leonine Thomism was all but mandatory, it
was being rejected by the 1920s. Initiated by such
remarkable interpreters as Pierre Rousselot and Joseph
Maréchal, many students of Thomas concluded that
Cartesian/Kantian philosophy could not be outwitted by being
regarded as a total mistake; rather, Thomas had to be reread
in the light of modern philosophical considerations. The
`Copernican revolution' inaugurated by Kant, in his focus on
the active role of the knower and the autonomy of the moral
agent, turned out, in this rereading, to be anticipated in
Thomas's conception of the natural drive of the mind towards
truth and being. Far from being a supposedly empiricist
epistemology, with the 1 mind being conformed to things in
the world, Thomas viewed every act of knowing and choosing
as implicitly knowing and choosing the truth and goodness
which is the mystery of the divine being. This generated
transcendental Thomism.' Kant's analysis of experience is
`transcendental', in the sense of getting behind actual
experience to lay bare the conditions which make it possible
at all. This reading of Thomas disclosed the a priori
conditions that Thomas took for granted in his understanding
of human experience: namely, that in every act of knowing
and loving the human being is tacitly and no doubt mostly
unwittingly growing closer to (or further away from) God.
In a somewhat different way, theologians of the same
generation, notably Henri de Lubac, reconnected Thomas's
thought with the patristic tradition: in short, as we saw in
chapter 8, retrieving his under-standing of the human spirit
as created in the divine image and naturally desiring the
face-to-face vision of God which of course can be granted
only as a gift. This puts an end to the two-storey view of
grace and nature, setting the two over against each other,
in favor of under-standing human life under divine grace as
the perfection of human nature. Opponents of this view
feared that human nature as always already graced, human
reason as always already anticipating beatific vision, and
human desire as always already fulfilled in charity,
smoothes out the tensions and contradictions and risks
allowing nature, reason and desire to collapse into grace,
faith and charity – or, by naturalizing the latter, turning
Christian life into a form of secular humanism.
In his book on Karl Barth, Hans Urs von Balthasar
rejected `sawdust Thomism' in favour of de Lubac's retrieval
of Thomas's doctrine of natural desire for God. Balthasar's
main concern, however, was to put Thomas's thought back into
the context of the entire Western meta-physical tradition,
understanding this as repeated disclosure of the divine
goodness, truth and beauty, consummated in the
self-revelation of God in the Christian dispensation of
grace. Above all, Balthasar sought to bring out the
importance of Thomas's insistence on the distinction in
creatures between their nature and their existence, or,
rather, on the complete absence of any such distinction in
God.
Thomas, we may agree, is a transitional figure: later
than the monastic theology and sacramental sense of the
world which we find still in the early thirteenth century,
earlier than the fourteenth-century developments that opened
tensions and contradictions between nature and grace, reason
and faith, and so on, leading eventually to the rejection
(in the West) of Aristotle and Christian Platonism. It is
not easy, nowadays, to believe in the harmony of reason and
faith for which the High Middle Ages, or at least Thomas
Aquinas, were once celebrated. It remains an option, on the
other hand, to take Thomas either as a key figure in the
development of modern theology or as primarily a continuator
of pre-modernity. He can be read as inaugurating modern
philosophy of religion, but only if his conceptual
apparatus, and in particular his understanding of causality
and substance, are assumed to anticipate the standard modern
view. If, on the other hand, he has a notion of agent
causality, and of self-diffusive substance, we find
ourselves on a different hermeneutic line altogether.
Similarly with his conception of moral theology as
principally an ethics of divine beatitude, and with his
conception of sanctification as deified creaturehood, we are
once again reading Thomas in the light of theological
traditions he inherited, rather than in that of modern and
in particular post-Reformation problems.
Sometimes, no doubt, this or that interpretation must be
regarded as simply mistaken. On the whole, however, more
complex factors are at play. For those who have been trained
in analytic philosophy, and are inclined to accept Frege's
principle that `existence is not a predicate', Thomas's talk
of `Being' will (as Anthony Kenny says) be `sophistry and
illusion'. On the other hand, for those who believe
Heidegger's grand narrative about the forgetfulness of Being
in the metaphysical tradition, Thomas's talk of `Being' will
either be `idolatry' or (with Balthasar) the wonderful
exception to Heidegger's rule. While there are recent
attempts to show that analytic philosophy and
hermeneutic/deconstructionist philosophies are not as
radically incommensurable as they look, it seems unlikely
that students of Thomas from these rival traditions will
ever take each other very seriously, let alone come to any
common understanding.
Perhaps we should rescue Thomas from philosophy
altogether – but then, after all, he is a great philosopher,
indeed that is one of the sources of the ambivalence of his
thought. He is a philosopher and he is a theologian, and we
are never going to agree where to put the emphasis.
In short, as some readings of his natural law theory seem
to show, incommensurable yet equally plausible, Thomas's
thought, perhaps over a range of issues, contains within
itself the Janus-like ambiguities that generate competing
interpretations which can never be reconciled. Working out a
doctrine of God and of creation in conjunction with Jewish
and Islamic metaphysics, a Latin theologian in the new
university environment referring all the time to great
monastic theologians of the Eastern Church, a Catholic
theologian haunted by Catharist dualism, more concerned to
protect the faith of friends in the arts faculty against
Islamicized Aristotelianism than to avoid alarming his
colleagues in divinity with his Aristotelian insights – all
along the line Thomas's work, we may surely say, offers
readers today little of the `synthesis' and `equilibrium'
for which it was widely admired 50 years ago, but, on the
contrary, reveals a loose-endedness in its constantly
repeated discussions of finally unresolvable problems:
`straw', Thomas called his work, in comparison with the
knowledge of God for which he hoped and prayed; sketches, we
may say, that he made in the course of his long and involved
journeyings.
The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas edited by Norman
Kretzmann, Eleonore Stump (Cambridge Companions to
Philosophy: Cambridge University Press) (Hardcover)
As always, Norman Kretzmann and Eleonore Stump deliver
another masterful work together. Each of these writers are
experts in their philosophical field of Medieval Metaphysics
and philosophy. For anyone interested in gaining a better
grasp of one of the greatest philosophers in the history of
philosophy, this volume will certainly help. Kretzmann and
Stump have edited this volume and included some of the
preeminent Thomistic philosophers of the last 40 years.
Chapters cover Aquinas' thoughts on ethics, metaphysics,
Aristotle and Aquinas, Aquinas' theory of knowledge, law and
politics and theological issues. Thus, the essentials of
Aquinas are here in one volume. Moreover, his is an
excellent work for those who would like to dig deeper and
gain a more thorough understanding of Aquinas, or for those
who would like to simply be "peeping Thomists" and get a
small glimpse of what Aquinas espoused.
Among the great philosophers of the Middle Ages
Aquinas is unique in pursuing two apparently disparate
projects. On the one hand he developed a philosophical
understanding of Christian doctrine in a fully integrated
system encompassing all natural and supernatural reality. On
the other hand, he was convinced that Aristotle's philosophy
afforded the best available philosophical component of such
a system. In a relatively brief career Aquinas developed
these projects in great detail and with an astonishing
degree of success. In this volume ten leading scholars
introduce all the important aspects of Aquinas' thought,
ranging from its historical background and dependence on
Greek, Islamic, and Jewish philosophy and theology, through
the metaphysics, epistemology and ethics, to the
philosophical approach to Biblical commentary. New readers
and nonspecialists will find this the most convenient,
accessible guide to Aquinas currently in print. Advanced
students and specialists will find a conspectus of recent
developments in the interpretation of Aquinas.
By gathering up some of the top Aquinas scholars in
the field, this volume presents the major topics of Aquinas'
work in a lucid, considered, and (most importantly) easily
understood way. While certainly not comprehensive (that is
not its aim, and after all, the book would be another 500
pages at least), any potential Thomist scholar would be
greatly served by this volume. Not only do the various
authors give the reader a general overview of Thomas'
thought and development, they also introduce some of the
disputes going on within academic Thomist studies. As such,
this volume is a good starting point for those interested in
Aquinas, be it an academic interest or an desire to learn
about the life and thought of a Doctor of the Church.
Admittedly, one should not try and delve into this book
with no previous background into Thomas' thought. It does
presume some level of familiarity with the terminology
Aquinas gained from Aristotle, as well as from the Church
Fathers and others. Given this, a general background in
philosophy and/or patristic/scholastic theology should
suffice for most of the work.
Aquinas by Ralph M. McInerny (Polity Press) (Paperback)
A briefer but no less authoritative introduction to the
life and central Aristotelian significance Aquinas, McInerny
provides deft look into the central contemporary
significance of the philosopher and theologian, with a
definite leaning toward the philosophical. This book is a
lively and highly accessible introduction to the thought of
Thomas Aquinas. While primarily a theologian, Aquinas'
conception of theology presupposed an autonomous philosophy.
This book concentrates on his philosophy while making clear
its openness to theology as reflection on Revelation.
As a philosopher, Aquinas is fundamentally Aristotelian.
Like Aristotle, he sees philosophy as emerging from the
ordinary thinking of ordinary human beings (and philosophers
when they are off duty). Philosophy does not initiate
certain knowledge but prolongs it by perfecting the
instrument of thinking and expanding its content. The quest
for wisdom, like that for happiness, is an inescapable fact
of human existence. This book uses key and crucial texts to
describe the trajectory of Aquinas' philosophical thought
from the analysis of changeable things through the reasoned
awareness that to be and to be material are not identical to
such knowledge as we con have of God. This brings Aquinas to
the threshold of Christian faith.
"Aquinas lived in a time of remarkable intellectual and
religious ferment. His thought, which Mclnerny following
John Paul Il describes as an implicit philosophy,
articulates not just for his own time, but for all times,
the philosophical principles implicitly operative in human
nature. In his new primer on Aquinas, Ralph Mclnerny manages
the impossible. He gives us Aquinas, his times, the core of
his philosophical teaching, and the significance of his
continued contribution to philosophy and theology. With the
deft style of the novelist and the clarity of a seasoned
teacher of Aquinas, Mclnerny provides a marvellous path into
the thought of the greatest of Catholic teachers.”
-Professor Thomas Hibbs, Department of Philosophy, Boston
College
"Mclnerny is perhaps the most important Catholic
philosopher of his generation. While many limit philosophy
to textual exegesis or formal logic, Mclnerny, in the spirit
of his immediate predecessors Etienne Gilson and Jacques
Maritain, still regards philosophy as the pursuit of wisdom,
speculative and practical. Steeped in the history of
philosophy, Mclnerny is a reliable guide to Aristotle and
Aquinas and their commentators through the ages. He writes
not for colleagues down the hall or for the appreciation of
a handful of specialists but to be read by those who share
his appreciation of antiquity or who seek an intellectual
compass in stormy times. Translated into many languages, his
work rightly commands a global audience. For its freshness,
Aquinas will only enhance Mclnerny's status as a major
interpreter of the Angelic Doctor." -Professor Jude P
Dougherty, Dean Emeritus, School of Philosophy, The Catholic
University of America
Excerpt: There have been many efforts to characterize the
shapes and forms of Thomism as the Leonine revival crested.
I propose a threefold division: transcendental Thomism,
existential Thomism, and Aristotelian Thomism.
-
Transcendental Thomism may be roughly characterized
as based on the belief that the Kantian critique is
justified. Consequently, if Thomism is to gain a hearing
from a world in which that view of Kant is shared, a
postcritical Thomas must be fashioned. Marcechal can be
considered the father of this movement, which includes
such figures as Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan, all
Jesuits. Maurice Blondel's influence on Henri de Lubac
is a variant of transcendental Thomism. To simplify even
further, transcendental Thomism, having abandoned
epistemological realism, seeks to find in the workings
of the human mind warrant for objective truths. This
type of Thomism is favored by theologians rather than
philosophers, as even its proponents acknowledge.
-
Existential Thomism, while it bears some incidental
relation to post-war Existentialism, is based upon the
conviction that the real composition of essence and
existence in everything but God is the clef de voute of
Thomism. Etienne Gilson and Cornelio Fabro are the
giants of this school, but there are significant
differences between them. What is shared is the
assumption that the distinction of essence and existence
provides a warrant for metaphysics without any
dependence on a philosophy of nature. Peculiar to Gilson
is his insistence that the order of theology is the
order of philosophy for Thomas and that his relation to
Aristotle is ultimately antagonistic. In the eyes of
critics, existential Thomism, in its final Gilsonian
phases, is the abandonment of philosophy in favor of a
Christian philosophy indistinguishable from theology.
-
Aristotelian Thomism is exemplified in Part II of
this presentation. It seems to me clearly to be the most
faithful and fruitful approach to Thomas. Moreover, by
emphasizing the autonomy of philosophy – though of
course for the believer philosophizing is never separate
from his faith – it is better able to enter the wider
philosophical marketplace. Of course, Aristotle is not
in the ascendancy in contemporary philosophy, though he
remains a permanent point of reference. Obviously, there
are merits in the other approaches to Thomas, and it is
a mark of Aristotelian Thomism that it is always on the
qui vive for such merits since it aspires to assimilate
in the principled way of Thomas himself.
It may be noted that theologians often complain that
there has been a tendency to make Thomas into a pure
philosopher and ignore the fact that he was by profession a
theologian. The counter concern is also heard, that
stressing Thomas as theologian has the unfortunate effect of
estranging him from ongoing philosophizing. The answer to
both these concerns is to be found in Thomas himself, as the
discussion of the relationship between philosophy and
theology.
If we have learned anything in the past few decades it is
that our ability to foresee what lies around the corner of
time is severely limited. Who would have thought in the
heyday of Thomism, at the midpoint of the twentieth century,
that the wholesale abandonment of Thomas's doctrine by
individuals and institutions lay just ahead? That
abandonment, if that is not too strong a term, has had the
effect of releasing Thomas into the wider scholarly and
philosophical scene, into the public domain. No longer is a
person's interest in Thomas taken as prima facie evidence
that he is on the verge of conversion to Catholicism –
always of course a consummation devoutly to be wished.
Unprompted by ecclesiastic approval, any number of
philosophers have been drawn to the texts of Thomas.
Medieval studies has continued its amazing advance into the
third millennium, but not all interest in Thomas is of a
historical nature. Interest in Thomas is to be found in the
most surprising places. We seem to have entered a phase of
its history that could be called freelance Thomism.
Once there were graduate programs fashioned to lead the
neophyte into the arcana of Thomas's thought, programs that
were, ut ita dicam, both Gilsonian and Maritain-like in
their aims. Nowadays, many graduate programs in philosophy
feature a Thomist, even two, sometimes as exotic novelties,
often on the zoological principle followed by Noah in
filling the ark. But even if there be but one, breeding
occurs and a new generation of freelance Thomists is
generated. Their sires – or dames – are sometimes remnants
of the Leonine Israel long since dispersed. But as often as
not these professors are autodidacts rather than disciples
of a master or mistress. Once Thomists had organizations and
journals and meetings in which to disagree with one another.
Now there is something like a secret handshake by which the
scattered devotees acknowledge one another.
What is lacking in this diaspora is any sense of
representing a minority view, an odd specialty tolerated by
the dominant secular trends in philosophy. It remains a mark
of the Thomist that he does not consider himself to be
engaged in a kind of philosophy. A remark-able statement of
that conviction can be found in John Paul II's Fides et
Ratio, the Aeterni Patris of our times. The pope begins, as
presentations of Philosophy 101 often do, with the
observation that philosophical questions, far from being
the puzzles of the sophisticated few, represent large issues
no one can fail to face sooner or later. In that sense,
everyone is a philosopher by dint of being a human being.
But then the question of the variety and rivalry of
philosophical systems is raised, and the encyclical
suggests something extremely important. It is not simply
that there are certain questions no human person can fail to
ask. There are shared answers to those questions.
Although times change and knowledge increases, it is
possible to discern a core of philosophical insight within
the history of thought as a whole. Consider, for example,
the principles of non-contradiction, finality and causality,
as well as the concept of the person as a free and
intelligent subject, with the capacity to know God, truth
and goodness. Consider as well certain fundamental moral
norms which are shared by all. These are among the
indications that, beyond different schools of thought, there
exists a body of knowledge which may be judged a kind of
spiritual heritage of humanity. It is as if we had come upon
an implicit philosophy, as a result of which all feel they
possess these principles, albeit in a general and
unreflective way. (para. 4)
In Part II (chapter 18) we spoke of the pre-philosophical
starting points or principles that Thomas assumes as already
known and as non-gainsayable. Surely this is what is being
referred to in the passage just quoted. It continues:
"Precisely because it is shared in some measure by all, this
knowledge should serve as a kind of reference point for the
different philosophical schools." This is a succinct
statement of the attitude that seems to characterize
Thomists now as before. If I have been successful in
presenting Thomas's world view in Part II, the reader will
understand why the more or less technical vocabulary that is
developed is anything but a jargon, some patois that
separates the speaker from the mass of mankind. All
philosophers long to be intelligible, perhaps, but the
recognition that such intelligibility requires a warm and
continuous relation to the knowledge every human person at
least implicitly has is not universally recognized. It is
the boast of the Thomist, alas often undercut by his
practice, that what he puts forward in argument is the
efflorescence of what Fides et Ratio calls "implicit
philosophy."
Discovering Aquinas: An Introduction to His Life, Work, and
Influence by Aidan Nichols (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Company) offers a lively and authoritative
introduction to the life, thought, and ongoing influence of
this singular churchman.
This book could not have come at a better time. After a
lengthy period of declining interest in Aquinas, we are
starting to see a Thomistic renaissance, including a renewed
appreciation for the way Aquinas's work so brilliantly
weaves together philosophy, theology, spirituality,
revelation, and ethics. As Nichols writes, "It is because of
the wonderfully integrated character of the wisdom of Thomas
Aquinas — integrated not only as supernatural with natural
but also as "thinking with love" — that the church in our
day should not leave him as a fresco on a wall but find
inspiration from his teaching and example."
By means of writing as felicitous as it is
insightful, Nichols chronicles the compelling facts of
Aquinas's life, explores the major facets of his thought,
establishes Aquinas's historical importance, and shows why
many today are regarding him as a vital partner in current
debates about the future of Christianity.
Truth in Aquinas by John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock
(Radical Orthodoxy: Routledge) Provocative and
sophisticated, Truth in Aquinas challenges all those with an
interest in contemporary Christian thought to attend once
more to the significance of this key medieval thinker.
Milbank and Pickstock present an important re-evaluation of
a fundamental area--truth--in the work of Aquinas.
In this book, Milbank and Pickstock present a wholesale
re-evaluation of the thought of Thomas Aquinas. They claim,
against many received readings, that Aquinas's philosophical
account of truth is also an entirely theological one. His
understanding of truth as adequatio is shown to be
inseparable from his metaphysical and doctrinal treatment of
the participation of creatures in God as esse; from his
theory of the convertibility of the transcendentals as
mediated by the transcendental `beauty'; and from his
Christology and theology of the Eucharist. This vision is
remote from the assumptions undergirding modern accounts of
truth as correspondence or coherence or redundancy. Since
these accounts are all in crisis, Milbank and Pickstock ask
whether Aquinas's theological framework is not essential to
the affirmation of the reality of truth as such.
Compelling and challenging, Truth in Aquinas develops
further the innovative theological project heralded by the
publication of the seminal
Radical Orthodoxy (Routledge, 1999).
Excerpt: One can detect four main attitudes toward truth
in contemporary thought. The first is a doubt as to the
possibility of truth altogether; the second is a confinement
of truth to practice rather than theory; the third, a
confinement of truth to theory rather than practice, but a
theory so esoteric that only a tiny minority is privy to it;
the fourth promotes, in the face of the first attitude, a
fideistic affirmation of some religious truth or other.
In the case of the denial of the possibility of truth,
this can take many different forms. Sometimes truth is
regarded as an unnecessary term because it is held to denote
simply an affirmation of what is the case. But if this `what
is the case' is not held to be true, then it reduces to what
appears to be the case, or is held to be the case for
certain practical purposes. Sometimes, again, truth is
regarded as strictly relative to a certain set of cultural
assumptions, and where the latter is regarded as arbitrary,
then relativism or conventionalism ensues, with the
consequence that there is no truth in any absolute sense.
Finally, the same approach can receive an ontological
extension, in such a way`that even natural arrangements in
time are regarded as aleatory. There may be temporary truths
of fact, in the sense of contingent events of relation
between things, including a relation to human
under-standing, but these facts do not arise according to
truth in the sense of a coherent logic. For this position,
the only truth that remains is the truth of the aleatory
itself, which is enthroned as a positive value.
For this first position, then, either truth is
inaccessible, or else reality itself is not amenable to
notions of truth. In the latter case, one has a full
theoretical nihilism, whilst in the former case, one has a
kind of practical nihilism.
The second position is an elaboration upon one version of
the first. It holds that if truth as correspondence to
reality is either unavailable or meaningless, then this is
no cause for despair, because truth belongs much more
naturally to practical rather than theoretical activity.
Sufficient truth for human purposes is available in the
successful attainment of humanly sought ends. Such
attainment discloses to us a certain reality outside of
which lies only vain speculation. However, this attitude
drains truth of its connotations of the indefeasible, and of
its sense of value. The first consequence follows, because
if human achievement provides us no clue as to what is
ultimately the case, then it is no more than a fleeting and
contingent set of contrived circumstances Such circumstances
may be true for a time, as truths of factual occurrence, but
can in the end prove not true at all. For while, certainly,
human access to truth can only be time-bound, if truth has
no connotations of the eternal and abiding, then it is hard
to see why it is called truth at all.
The second consequence follows because if the only
measure of the truth of a practice is its success, then
anything that works is regarded as just as good as anything
else, so long as it works also, without regard for any
judgement as to the inherent desirability of what has been
constructed. In this fashion, truth becomes detached from
the good. Furthermore, the criterion of success ushers in a
bad infinite, for when is one to decree that a process has
reached its ripeness? The boundaries of truth so understood
perpetually recede, and can only halt by dint of the
imposition of an arbitrary assertion of will. So here again
a truth confined to time proves elusive within time.
The third position, by contrast, possesses an unbounded
confidence not just in the truth of natural science, but in
its ability to provide a true ontology rather than merely a
very limited disclosure of certain aspects of reality
lending themselves to manipulation and prediction (as the
present authors would rather assume). Here the truth of
science resides not merely in the success of its operations,
as for the second position above, but rather in what those
operations are held to reveal. In this way, truth is here an
entirely theoretical matter and this is all the more the
case because truth as a property of the way things are is
seen to be entirely indifferent to the goodness of things
and to their beauty and value for human beings.
It is characteristic of modern natural science that it
will hold something to be true which is extremely
counter-intuitive and often remote from what people think to
be the case, and indeed from what they are capable of
understanding. This imposes a gulf between the everyday
world and the ironic gaze of the scientific sage from the
height of his privileged insight. Truth, therefore, of the
most ultimate kind has here become the property of an élite,
by the same token that it is freed from its traditional
convertibility with the good and the beautiful.
Increasingly, this cold truth is regarded as the only truth,
and society, to the detriment of democracy, allows its
guardians to take vital decisions which the rest of us can
scarcely comprehend.
The fourth position can be regarded as essentially
reactive. In the face of secular skepticism, pragmatism and
positivism, many religious people tend to take refuge in the
notion that there is nonetheless another source of truth
enshrined in certain texts, practices and traditions.
Ironically, for these texts, practices and traditions to
acquire absolute authority outside the workings of human
reason, they have to be regarded positivistically, in a
fashion which mimics scientific positivism itself. The
irrational strangely colludes with the most vigorously
reduced rationalism, and often one finds that various
fundamentalisms and fideisms are able happily to coexist
with, and even to reinforce, the technoscientific
capitalism of our day.
Against the background of the above delineated crisis of
truth, the present authors have undertaken a new reading of
Aquinas's understanding of truth. We have turned to Aquinas
because, in his writings, one can discover an entirely
different approach to truth which allows one, first of all,
to recover correspondence without a sense of redundancy;
secondly, to regard truth as at once theoretical and
practical; thirdly, to demonstrate that all truth is a
matter of faith as well as reason, and vice versa; and,
fourthly, to indicate that truth is immediately accessible
to the simplest apprehension, and yet amenable to profound
learned elaboration.
The first chapter, `Truth and correspondence', seeks to
show that the notion of truth as correspondence is in crisis
only because it is taken in an epistemological rather than
ontological sense. Usually Aquinas himself has been read
anachronistically according to the canons of epistemology,
and read this way, he has nothing to offer contemporary
thought. However, we seek to show that in Aquinas,
correspondence indicates a real ontological proportion
between being and intelligence in a perspective where these
are regarded as transcendentally convertible. For Aquinas,
within the human modus, there is a distinction between
intelligence and being, and yet also an unfathomable link
between them which we dimly discern according to an act of
aesthetic judgement. This perspective ensures that truth
does not simply reduce to our mode of apprehension of what
is the case, as is bound to occur on the epistemological
model for which the intellect is accorded no necessary
ontological dignity, but is merely supposed to mirror a
reality itself indifferent to being comprehended. This
possibility of retrieving truth as correspondence, and
therefore truth itself in a strong sense, is however
indissociably linked with Aquinas's theology and metaphysics
of participation.
In the second chapter, it will be shown how Aquinas's
general theory of truth applies both to his understanding of
the operation of reason and to the operation of faith. We
will argue that, contrary to usual readings, reason and
faith in Aquinas represent only different degrees of
intensity of participation in the divine light of
illumination and different measures of absolute vision. And,
furthermore, that reason itself requires faith because it
already presupposes the operation of grace, while,
inversely, faith still demands discursive argumentation and
is only higher than reason because it enjoys a deeper
participation in the divine reason which is direct intuition
or pure intellectual vision. In this way, Aquinas offers no
support to`those who claim that there can be a philosophical
approach to God independent of theology, but neither, on the
other hand, does he offer support to those who demand a
confinement to Biblical revelation independent of the Greek
legacy of metaphysical reflection. Rather, it will be shown
that, for Aquinas, revealed theology supplements metaphysics
with history and requires a completion of the theoretical
ascent to truth with a meeting of the divine descent in
liturgical practice.
The commencement of this descent is at the Incarnation.
In the third chapter, it will be shown not only how, for
Aquinas, truth is only restored for fallen men by the
hypostatic union, but also how this restoration involves
certain ontological revisions in excess of their occasion:
namely the conjoining of an ontic event with esse ipsum and
a kenotic elevation of the sensory over the intellectual,
and more specifically the sensory as touch. In Christ, this
new sensorial access to truth is something one both
contemplates and reproduces through the enactment of the
sacraments.
This double relation to Christ corresponds to the way in
which, for Aquinas, truth in God is both something envisaged
and something actively performed by the Father in the Logos.
Because we participate in this truth, for us also it is
something that we see as a reflection of the invisible in
the visible, and, at same time, something that we construct,
as-it were unwittingly, through our artistic and liturgical
attempts to praise the divine. Seeing and making are
combined in the mutuality of touch which is most intensely
taste; and the Eucharist, as foretaste of our beatitude,
newly discloses to us that this supreme intuition is itself
also a `touching'.
In the fourth chapter, the nature of this liturgical
completion of truth is elaborated. Here it will be shown how
we have a certain anticipation of the beatific vision in
this life because God descends in the Incarnation and its
perpetuation in the Eucharist to our immediate sensory
awareness, wherein alone we enjoy intuitive understanding.
In this fashion, it is the lower reason which is required to
educate our higher reason, although this new priority of the
sensory is accompanied by a linguistic and emotional play
between presence and absence. For Aquinas's Catholic
position, the most abstruse intellectual reflection on`truth
passes into the more profound and ineffable apprehension of
truth in the Eucharist. In this way, there is no gulf for
him between the most elite and the most common.
Summa Theologica
One can find the entire
Summa Theologica
online but this useful CD-ROM Edition
is easier to use and search.
St. Thomas Aquinas and the Summa Theologica
CD-ROM Edition (Harmony Media)
This CD-ROM is a collection of several of the works of St.
Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274), also known as the "Angelic
Doctor" and honored as the Patron of Catholic Schools.
Because of his clarity of thought and massive systematic
theological output, St. Thomas is considered the greatest
theologian in the Church's history. Hence the importance of
a software product devoted to his work.
The core of this program is the Summa Theologica, which
is still referenced in the major works of theology today
including the new Catechism of the Catholic Church. The
entire English Dominican Fathers' translation of the Summa
is included here, not merely major portions. The user will
be glad to find that all inter-textual references are
hyperlinked as are all biblical references linked with the
Revised Standard Version of the Bible: Catholic Edition.
Some of the references have been modified to match the verse
ordering of the current biblical translation.
The goal of the CD-ROM was to understand the Catholic
faith as St. Thomas Aquinas did. While the Summa Theologica
provides the strong doctrinal foundation, the Holy Bible and
the Bible Commentary provide the necessary counter-balance
of Divine Revelation.
This CD-ROM includes:
- SUMMA THEOLOGICA: The Summa Theologica is organized
into three main parts. They are accordingly named, the
First Part, Second Part and Third Part. The First Part
focuses on God Himself and as Creator. The Second Part
is divided into two sections: Part 1 God as the end of
Man and Part 2 Man's return to God. The Third Part looks
into Christ who is the way of man to God.
Each part is organized into treatises, questions and
articles. For example, under the Treatise on Sacred
Doctrine, there is one question. That question is
addressed in ten articles or points of inquiry. St.
Thomas then addresses those articles by first explaining
the main objections (OBJ) to his point, then providing
his answer (I answer that) and replying to the
objections (Reply OBJ).
- COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPELS: In the Catena Aurea, a
Commentary on the Four Gospels, St. Thomas collects
portions of the works of the Fathers of the Church,
edits and synthesizes them into a single body of
scriptural commentary. Organized by each of the four
Gospel writers, the Catena begins by putting forth the
verses to be analyzed and then takes each verse phrase
by phrase and provides the early Fathers' insights into
the passage.
- PRAYERS AND HYMNS: In the Prayers and Hymns of St.
Thomas Aquinas, six of the Angelic Doctor's purported
works are presented in both the English and Latin
translations.
- SUMMA EXCURSION: In the Summa Excursion, a main
point from each question is presented and then
illustrated with photos and art. References to the main
document are hyperlinked at the end of the excerpt.
- HOLY BIBLE: The Revised Standard Version: Catholic
Edition is presented here as a particularly appropriate
choice for a companion Bible. The RSV is usually the
source chosen for references in Church documents and
most recently, the new Catechism of the Catholic Church.
The Ethics of Aquinas edited by Stephen J. Pope (Moral
Traditions Series: Georgetown University Press) "A
remarkable set of in-depth background essays by scholars of
erudition, balanced judgment, and clarity of thought. . . .
This is a rich and unparalleled resource for scholars of
theological ethics." Lisa Sowle Cahill, Monan Professor of
Theology, Boston College
In this comprehensive anthology, twenty-seven outstanding
scholars from North America and Europe address every major
aspect of Thomas Aquinas's understanding of morality and
comment on his remarkable legacy.
The opening chapters of
The Ethics of Aquinas introduce readers to the
sources, methods, and major themes of Aquinas's ethics. Part
II of the book provides an extended discussion of ideas in
the Second Part of the Summa Theologiae, in which
contributors present cogent interpretations of the
structure, major arguments, and themes of each of the
treatises. The third and final part examines the legacy of
Thomistic ethics for the twentieth century and today.
These essays reflect a diverse group of scholars
representing a variety of intellectual perspectives.
Contributors span numerous fields of study, including
intellectual history, medieval studies, moral philosophy,
religious ethics, and moral theology. This remarkable
variety underscores how interpretations of Thomas's ethics
continue to develop and evolve—and stimulate fervent
discussion within the academy and the church.
Recent years have witnessed a remarkable revival of
interest in the ethics of Thomas Aquinas. Scholars have
produced books and articles on the life of Aquinas, his
spirituality, and his understanding of the relation between
faith and reason, nature and grace, reason and faith, and
other theological themes. Moralists have writ-ten on his
accounts of human acts and agency, happiness, the will, the
virtues, and various special topics. Some authors provide
brief and very general overviews of Thomistic ethics, but
none offers a comprehensive treatment of the basic moral
arguments and content of Aquinas's major moral work, the
Second Part of the Summa theologiae. This work intends to
fill this lacuna.
This book addresses a fairly wide audience. It intends to
attract the attention of experts, but also to assist readers
who are interested, but not necessarily specialists, in the
moral thought of Aquinas. Its essays complement, but do not
substitute for, a careful study of the primary texts.
The chapters in this volume reflect a variety of
intellectual perspectives. The contributors come from
numerous fields, including intellectual history, medieval
studies, moral philosophy, religious ethics, and moral
theology. Some authors have spent a lifetime working with
specific texts of Aquinas, others draw from Aquinas as one
among a number of resources that help address their primary
concerns with contemporary moral issues. As a whole, the
contributors to this volume represent a spectrum of
viewsabout the meaning and contemporary normative
significance of Aquinas's moral thought. They certainly do
not comprise a single school of thought. This variety
underscores the way in which Thomistic ethics continues to
be the scene of lively intellectual development.
The citations in the essays come from a variety of
Thomistic texts (including various different texts of the
Summa). Some scholars use the latest critical editions made
available by the Leonine Commission; others draw from
alter-native standard editions such as those published by
Marietti. Each author furnishes an English translation of
the words of Aquinas in the body of his or her chapter;
readers who wish to consult the Latin texts can find them in
the notes.
A word about the structure of the volume is in order. The
initial chapters introduce`readers to the sources, methods,
and major themes of Aquinas's ethics. These orienting essays
will be especially helpful for readers who have less
familiarity with Aquinas's theology than some others.
The second, more lengthy, part of the book provides an
extended discussion of the treatises presented in the Second
Part of the Summa. Aquinas himself did not divide the text
according to "treatises," but, for the sake of clarity and
order, we use this conventional system of demarcation. These
chapters are not exactly "commentaries" in the sense of a
line-by-line explication of texts; our authors do not
provide any critical discussion relating to the
establishment of reliable texts, or much in the way of
philological and grammatical analysis. They seek only to
present cogent interpretations of the structure, major
arguments, and themes of each of the "treatises."
The third part of this volume examines various aspects of
Thomist ethics in the twentieth century and beyond. Some of
the contributors to this section trace various movements
within Thomist moral philosophy and moral theology in the
last century, others take a more prospective view of future
developments of Thomist ethics. These chapters make it
abundantly clear that far from being a monolithic and static
moral theory, Thomism is a tradition of inquiry that
continues to experience the same kind of development that
marks other such traditions.
The Thought of Thomas Aquinas by Brian Davies (Clarendon
Paperbacks: Oxford University Press) Thomas Aquinas was one
of the greatest Western philosophers and one of the greatest
theologians of the Christian church. In this book we at last
have a modern, comprehensive presentation of the total
thought of Aquinas. Books on Aquinas invariably deal with
either his philosophy or his theology. But Aquinas himself
made no arbitrary division between his philosophical and his
theological thought, and this book allows readers to see him
as a whole. It introduces the full range of Aquinas'
thinking; and it relates his thinking to writers both
earlier and later than Aquinas himself. This book is
intended for scholars and students of theology, philosophy,
and medieval thought.|/span>
This book represents a long overdue modern
comprehensive presentation of the total thought of Aquinas.
While traditional studies of Aquinas invariably deal with
either his philosophy or his theology, Davies introduces the
full range of Aquinas's thinking, relating it to writers
earlier and later than Aquinas himself. The book will be of
considerable interest to professional theologians and
philosophers, as well as to those with particular interest
in medieval thinking. It is designed to be accessible to the
general reader who has no specialist knowledge of medieval
thought or professional training in philosophy or theology.
To study the Summa Theologiae- to do some
Summa-wrestling- requires a good grasp of traditional logic,
a thorough grasp of Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics, and
some Thomistic natural philosophy. Understandably, very few
have this background, and that is the beauty of Davies'
book. Believe it or not, the Summa Theol. was meant for
beginners. It's not, but Davies' book certainly is. Davies
assumes nothing more than a desire to understand St. Thomas
and his greatest work.Davies' writing is both lucid and
luminous, just like the fellow Dominican who's thought he is
writing about. The Southern writer Flannery O'Conner once
wrote (in Wise Blood) that "Thomism usually comes in
horrible wrappers." Unfortunately O'Connor never had the
pleasure of reading Brian Davies.
On Evil (De Maleo) by Thomas Aquinas, translated by
Richard Regan, introduction and notes by Brian Davies
(Oxford University Press) (Paperback)
The De Malo represents some of Aquinas' most mature
thinking on goodness, badness, and human agency. In it he
examines the full range of questions associated with evil:
its origin, its nature, its relation to good, and its
compatibility with the existence of an omnipotent,
benevolent God. This edition offers the Leonine Commission's
authoritative edition of the Latin text with Regan's new,
clear English translation and an extensive introduction by
Brian Davies.
Excerpt: Prospective readers of the De malo may expect to
find in it an extended discussion of what is nowadays
commonly called "the problem of evil." That is to say, they
might expect to find Aquinas dealing directly in it with
questions like "Does evil show that there is no God?" or
"How can belief in the reality of evil be reconciled with
belief in the existence of a good, omniscient, and
omnipotent God?" But should the De malo be read as an essay
on "the problem of evil' in this sense? The most accurate
and short answer to this question is "No." For Aquinas in
the De malo never attempts to defend belief in the existence
of God. Throughout the text he takes it for granted that God
certainly exists. And he never tries to show that we can
consistently believe both that there is evil and that God
exists. His discussion proceeds on the assumption that evil
and God are both somehow there to be talked about. But his
treatment of evil in the De malo, and what he says about it
in other works, can still be read as engaging with what I am
calling "the problem of evil." And we need to be clear as to
how this is so.
To begin with, we need to note that there are some
popular ways of approaching the problem of evil of which
Aquinas does not avail himself. In particular, so I need to
stress, he makes no attempt to show that the evil we
encounter is something permitted by God for a morally
sufficient reason. Also, so I must emphasize, Aquinas never
tries to argue that evil arises by virtue of causes over
which God has no control. Those who believe in God's
existence despite evils occurring often suggest that these
evils can always be viewed as necessary means to a good end
and that God is morally justified in allowing them or in
bringing them about. They often also argue that much
occurring evil consists in or derives from the bad moral
choices of creatures and that God is therefore not to be
blamed for it. But this is not how Aquinas thinks. Why not?
Partly because he does not think that the goodness of God is
that of someone always acting with morally sufficient
reasons. But also because he does not think that the choices
of creatures derive from them as opposed to God. Or, to put
things another way: God, for Aquinas, is not a good moral
agent; and, for Aquinas, the choices of creatures always
show forth the action of God, not his permission of actions
that somehow arise only from agents other than himself.
With respect to God's goodness, Aquinas's point is not,
of course, that God is immoral or submoral. Rather, it is
that God cannot be the sort of thing we have in mind when we
allude to agents acting (or failing to act) with morally
sufficient reasons (i.e., for the most part, people). As we
have seen, Aquinas has a lot to say on moral agency. But he
does not take what we have seen him to think about this as
applicable to God. For him, God is good not because God,
like a virtuous human being, is well behaved, but because
God is the source of all creaturely goodness which, in turn,
reflects (in all its diversity) what God is by essence
eternally. Or, in Aquinas's words:
Goodness should be associated above all with God.
For goodness is consequent upon desirability. Now things
desire their perfection; and an effect's perfection and form
consists in resembling its cause, since what a thing does
reflects what it is. So the cause itself is desirable and
can be called "good," what is desired from it being a share
in resembling it. Clearly, then, since God is the primary
operative cause of everything, goodness and desirability
belong to him.
For Aquinas, created things are made by God, and they all
seek to be themselves (they seek their good) by acting in
accordance with what God intends (has in mind) for them. For
this reason Aquinas suggests that, in seeking (tending to)
their good, creatures are manifesting a kind of blueprint in
the divine mind, that "all things are said to be good by
divine goodness, which is the pattern, source and goal of
all goodness." As he sees it, this means that they are
seeking God. For their goal is something that lies in God as
their maker. God is that by virtue of which there is
something instead of nothing. So he is the ultimate maker,
the ultimately desirable, the ultimate good. He is the omega
because he is the alpha. He is the end (what is desirable)
because he is the beginning.
So what does God's goodness therefore amount to in
detail? Aquinas does not claim to know. For, as we have
seen, he takes God to be fundamentally incomprehensible to
us. It is clear, however, that he does not take God's
goodness to be that of something like a human being acting
in the light of moral considerations. He certainly thinks
that terms signifying human moral perfections can be
predicated of God. He is clear that we can speak of God as
just, truthful, or loving, for instance. But words that
designate moral perfections in human beings do not, for him,
signify God's moral integrity. They signify what flows from
God and what must be somehow in God if God is the source of
the being of things. But they do not signify moral
attributes had by God as some of his creatures can be said
to have such attributes. For Aquinas, therefore, questions
like "Does God act with an eye on morally sufficient
reasons?" or "Is God well behaved?" are irrelevant when it
comes to thinking about God and evil (they are effectively
like asking whether God always takes care to keep himself
fit, or whether he does enough to provide for his
retirement). They spring from confusing the Creator with his
creatures.
As for Aquinas on choices independent of God, we have
already seen how Aquinas thinks on the matter. For, as I
noted above, even free human actions are, for Aquinas,
caused by God. A popular line of reasoning frequently
advanced in discussions of God and evil runs thus:
- Much evil is the result of what people freely choose
to do.
- It is good that there should be a world with agents
able to act freely, and a world
- containing such agents would be better than a world
of puppets controlled by God.
- Even an omnipotent God cannot ensure that free
people act well (for, if they are
- free and not puppets controlled by God, what they do
is up to them).
- Therefore, much evil is explicable in terms of God
allowing for the possible consequences of his willing a
great good.
But this "free will defense," as it is usually called, is
simply unavailable to Aquinas, given his account of God as
the source of the beings of things and given how he applies
it with respect to the actions of reasoning, creaturely
agents. For him, there is no such thing as a real creaturely
choice that is not caused by God.
How, then, does Aquinas view evil in the light of God's
existence? What, positively speaking, does he say about the
problem of evil? If we take what we find him maintaining in
the De malo, and if we read it together with his other
writings, the main points he makes are these:
- God cannot be thought of as a creative cause of evil
since evil always consists of absence or a failure to
be.
- All things created by God are good (considered as
real or actual). Indeed, they are nothing but good since
God (as Creator) makes things to be and since something
is good insofar as it exists (is real or actual).
- Things are had insofar as they fail in some respect.
The failure in bad things cannot be thought of as
creatively caused by God, though things may sometimes
fail because God is bringing it about that other things
do well (because God is bringing some good about).
- Moral evil occurs as free, rational agents turn from
what is actually good in order to pursue other goals. As
with all evil, its "reality" is that of failure. And it
is not something creatively made by God.
- All that is real when evil comes about is caused to
be by God, who is the source of all good.
What Aquinas means by these theses should be relatively
clear from what I have written above. Here, therefore, the
point most worth stressing, perhaps, is that Aquinas's
contribution to discussions of the "the problem of evil" is
essentially a negative one. For it is mostly concerned to
stress that God does not creatively make evil to be.
At the same time, however (and bearing in mind what he
does not want to say on the matter), Aquinas's approach to
the topic of God and evil is a rounded and distinctive one.
And it is grounded in a whole way of thinking about a
variety of questions, not just those that might naturally
occur to someone reflecting on what is nowadays often meant
by "the problem of evil." Aquinas turns directly to some of
these questions in the De malo. And, though it is only in
other writings that he deals more directly with the rest,
his discussions in the De malo frequently hark back to or
presuppose what he says elsewhere. For this reason, as for
others, the De malo is one of the works of Aquinas to which
readers might most profitably be directed as they seek to
understand him in general.
Scripture and Metaphysics: Aquinas and the Renewal of
Trinitarian Theology by Matthew Webb Levering
(Challenges in Contemporary Theology: Blackwell Publishers)
(Hardcover)
In this major contribution to contemporary theological and
philosophical debates, Matthew Levering bridges the gap
between scriptural and metaphysical approaches to the triune
God.
Levering's argument rests upon St. Thomas Aquinas's
understanding of theology as contemplative wisdom. Taking us
through Aquinas's theology of God as One and Three, he
demonstrates that Trinitarian theology should be a spiritual
exercise assisting our movement from self- to
God-centeredness. Crucial to the spiritual exercise is the
contemplative appropriation of biblical revelation, which,
Levering argues, has to be joined to a correspondingly rich
metaphysical analysis if the "God" who is revealed is to be
understood in a non-idolatrous fashion. In chapters that
broadly follow the structure of Aquinas's treatise on God in
his Summa Theologiae, Levering engages with a wide range of
contemporary theologians, biblical exegetes, and
philosophers.
Excerpt: For Aquinas, Trinitarian theology is ultimately
ordered to contemplative union, and so at the outset we can
note that his Trinitarian theology is not isolated from his
doctrine of salvation. In the Eucharistic liturgy, in which
the whole Mystical Body shares in Christ's sacrificial
fulfillment of Israel's Torah, Christ's members (as the
perfect Temple) manifest God's name by worshipping the
Trinity. By sharing in the self-emptying form of Christ,
revealed by the Spirit in word and sacrament, Christ's
cruciform members already mystically "see" the Father. This
liturgical union with the Trinity is contemplative, although
as a liturgical union requiring the active holiness of
Christ's members, Christian contemplation is not thereby
bifurcated or cut off from Christian action. As the Fathers
and medieval theologians recognized, the contemplative
liturgical union with the Trinity that is enjoyed by
believers whose faith is formed by charity, is expressed
theologically in contemplative and metaphysical modes.
The goal of this book, therefore, is sharing in the
Church's manifestation of God's "name" by renewing the
practices of theological contemplation. The first chapter
of the book treats sacra doctrina, the sacred teaching or
wisdom that is knowledge of God and all things in relation
to God. This chapter argues that appropriating the revealed
sacred teaching has always demanded, even for the biblical
authors, metaphysical questioning. Indeed, the practice of
metaphysical questioning constitutes a spiritual exercise
that purifies from idolatry those who would contemplate the
self-revealing God. This unity between rational
investigation and contemplative beatitude finds wonderful
expression in St. Athanasius's understanding of human
sharing in the divine image:
They would be no better than the beasts, had they
no knowledge save of earthly things; and why should God have
made them at all, if He had not intended them to know Him?
But, in fact, the good God has given them a share in His own
Image, that is, in our Lord Jesus Christ, and has made even
themselves after the same Image and Likeness. Why? Simply in
order that through this gift of God-likeness in themselves
they may be able to perceive the Image Absolute, that is the
Word Himself, and through Him apprehend the Father; which
knowledge of their Maker is for men the only really happy
and blessed life.
The alleged opposition between metaphysics and salvation
history in theology founders when confronted with this
understanding of salvation (in history) as holy
contemplation, an understanding shared by Aquinas.
The remaining chapters continue in systematic fashion the
book's discussion of divine "being" with various
theologians, most importantly St. Thomas Aquinas." The
chapters span the themes contained in Aquinas's treatise on
God in the Summa Theologiae 1, qq.2–42. While not directly
treating q.43, on the temporal missions of the Son and
Spirit, the bookengages this topic by emphasizing the
scriptural and soteriological foundation of Aquinas's
theology of God." Chapters 2 and 3 address God in his unity,
in dialogue with Jewish and Christian theologians whose
concern is that Aquinas's account of God's "attributes"
(what one can say about God as one) distort, in a
supersessionist and onto-theological manner, the one living
God revealed as YHWH to Israel as narrated in the Old
Testament. Chapters 4 through 7 then explore aspects of the
theology of the Trinity. Chapter 4 asks whether the Paschal
mystery of Jesus Christ is revelatory of the Trinity in such
a way as to constitute an analogy for the Trinity. This
chapter inquires into the modes by which we understand the
"distinction" of Persons in God. The fifth chapter extends
this topic by directly considering Aquinas's account of the
"psychological analogy" as a means of under-standing the
Persons as subsisting relations. In both the fourth and
fifth chapters, at stake is whether Aquinas's analogy for
understanding the Trinity is grounded sufficiently in God's
revelation in Scripture."
The sixth chapter turns to Aquinas's description of the
Persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Here the
theologians in light of whose work I contextualize Aquinas's
views are biblical exegetes. Aquinas's description
of the Persons can seem far from the narrative reality
that one meets in the New Testament and in the "biblical
theology" practiced by contemporary biblical exegetes. This
chapter inquires into whether Aquinas's highly metaphysical
(speculative) account treats the themes of "biblical
theology," and if so, what is gained by Aquinas's
nonnarrative approach. Lastly, the seventh chapter addresses
the movement in theology towards developing a metaphysics
that is properly theological, in other words a Trinitarian
metaphysics. After examining the work of proponents of this
development in light of classical Jewish and Muslim
concerns, I argue that Aquinas's nuanced analysis of the
relationship of "essence" and "Persons" accomplishes the
main goals of proponents of "Trinitarian ontology," without
creating the conceptual and interreligious problems that
Trinitarian ontology creates. Aquinas's approach retains
the integrity of the Old Testament revelation while fully
displaying its integration into Christ Jesus' definitive
revelation of God.
In short, the book aims both at reordering contemporary
Trinitarian theology and at identifying further "signposts,"
as Walker Percy might put it, along the contemplative path
marked out by God himself in Scripture and tradition. I hope
to show that by following a path of contemplation (grounded
in the active holiness that sharing in Christ's salvific
fulfillment of Israel's Torah involves), Trinitarian
theology remains fully inserted within Christ's salvific
fulfillment of Israel's Temple, where God's name, against
the idols, is manifested.
Knowledge and Faith in Thomas Aquinas by John I. Jenkins
(Cambridge University Press) offers a revisionary account of
key epistemological concepts and doctrines of St. Thomas
Aquinas, particularly his concept of scientia (science). It
proposes a new interpretation of the purpose and
composition of Aquinas' most mature and influential work,
the Summa theologiae, which has traditionally been regarded
as a work for neophytes in theology. John Jenkins'
comprehensive and original study will be of interest to
readers in philosophy, theology and medieval studies.
Excerpt: The questions of Thomas Aquinas about
knowledge and faith are not ours. Twentieth-century
philosophers have tried to find in Aquinas answers to our
questions, but with predictable results: his detractors have
found him either confused or simple-minded, while many of
his supporters have tended to assimilate his thought to one
or another modern philosophers. Both, I contend, have
misunderstood his thought. We cannot find our questions in
Aquinas's writings because the interrelated cluster of
epistemic concepts denoted by the terms he uses – such as
cognitio, intelligere, notitia, credere, opinio, fides and
especially scientia – differ in varying degrees from our
concepts of cognition, understanding, knowledge, belief,
opinion, faith and science. Thus when Aquinas raises broadly
epistemic questions, he does so in a different conceptual
framework, and in this framework a different set of
propositions is considered unproblematic, and another set is
open to question. There are undoubtedly affinities between
Aquinas's questions and our own, and many of his concerns
are quite similar to ours. Still, I want to argue, in an
important sense which has not been fully appreciated in the
literature, Aquinas asks different questions and pursues
different ends in his inquiries. My particular concern in
this work will be with the central notion of scientia in
Aquinas, and how this concept plays a role in the scientia
of sacred doctrine, the scientia of Christian theology which
is based upon faith and presented in Aquinas's magnum opus,
the Summa theologiae...
In the first chapter of this book I examine
Aquinas's understanding of Aristotle's notion of scientia
(in the Latin translation Aquinas used), as this is
presented in Aquinas's commentary on the Posterior
Analytics. The Aristotelian view as presented in this work
and in Aquinas's commentary is complex and not easily
summarized. A noteworthy feature of this account, however,
is that a condition for perfect scientia of some predication
is that not only must one know the cause of this predication
being true (in the Aristotelian sense of formal, material,
efficient or final cause), but one must also know the cause
better than its effect. The reason for this rather stringent
requirement is that, for perfect scientia, one's awareness
of the cause must eventually become the cause of one's
awareness of the effect.
This condition for scientia, which seems strange to
modern ears, has important implications for the process of
acquisition of scientia within a certain field. To acquire
such scientia two stages are necessary. In a first stage one
becomes familiar with the fundamental concepts within the
field and discovers the causes, and thus becomes able to say
which causes bring about which effects. In addition to this,
however, a second stage is also required which will make the
causes sufficiently well known that they become the
foundation of one's thinking in that field, and one's
knowledge of the causes becomes the cause of one's knowledge
of the effects. To use an anachronistic example, consider a
car mechanic who knows very well that when octane is
combined with oxygen and a spark is applied, combustion
occurs. He may even be able to recite the cause of this; he
may have learned, through reading it or being told, that
octane reacts with oxygen because it has the chemical
structure of an alkane hydrocarbon. However, though he in
some sense knows the cause of octane's combustibility, he
does not have scientia of this fact until he becomes so
familiar with the respective structures of hydrogen, carbon
and alkane hydrocarbons such as octane that his knowledge of
octane's combustibility flows from, is caused by, his
knowledge of these chemical forms. The second stage in the
acquisition of a scientiais meant to bring about the
required familiarity with the cause in a field. Its purpose
is to induce habits of thought, intellectual habits, in
virtue of which a person's knowledge of the cause becomes
the cause of; the epistemic grounds for, his knowledge of
the effect. Its purpose, that is, is to make one's thinking
in a particular field mirror the order of causality.
In chapter two I argue that in the Summa theologiae
Aquinas adopts the Aristotelian notion of scientia, or at
least something quite close to it. The structure of the
scientia of the Summa theologiae, sacred doctrine or
Christian theology, differs from other forms of scientia
which humans can have, for in it humans participate in God's
own scientia. The principles of this scientia are the
articles of faith which have been revealed by God and
accepted in faith. Although these principles cannot be fully
understood and must remain mysteries in this life, and
although this scientia transcends many of the limitations to
which other scientiae are subject, sacred doctrine is
properly a scientia subject to the fundamental conditions of
an Aristotelian scientia.
In chapter three I draw the consequences of the
preceding analysis for our understanding of the Summa
theologiae and sacred doctrine. There I argue that the Summa
was not written for neophytes in the study of theology, as
has been widely thought, but was a pedagogical work for very
advanced students who had come to the second stage in the
acquisition of this scientia. That is, it was intended as a
work for students who were already familiar with Christian
theology, its concepts and principles, and the philosophy it
presupposes, but who stood in need of the intellectual
habituation by which the principles in the field, the
articles of faith, become the foundation and cause of their
thinking about matters in this field. Thus the Summa
theologiae offers a synoptic view of the field which, as
much as possible, moves from causes to effects so that the
proper habits of thought are instilled.
My interpretation of Aquinas on scientia and sacred
doctrine raises a question about his view of how we
apprehend the principles of the various scientiae. If one's
knowledge of principles is to be the cause of one's
knowledge of conclusions, and if scientia is to be a
practical ideal for inquiry and pedagogy, it must be a
practical possibility for us to know the principles of the
scientia and to know them better than its conclusions. In
chapters four to six I take up this question. In chapter
four I give a general sketch of Aquinas's account of our
apprehension of the principles of scientiae which are not
based upon divine revelation, but on natural human cognitive
powers. Aquinas, I contend, held views according to which
the required apprehension of principles in these scientiae
is at least possible.
In chapter six I consider assent to the principles
of sacred doctrine, the articles of faith. Against the
standard interpretations, I argue that Aquinas did not think
that this assent is inferred from any conclusions of natural
theology, nor that it is due to a command of the will which
overrides a lack of evidence. Rather one is able immediately
to apprehend these propositions as divinely revealed. To
prepare for this, I consider in chapter five the nature of
grace, which elevates our natural powers, and the
theological virtues and Gifts which are due to divine grace.
In the final chapter, I take up two final
objections to my reading of the Summa theologiae as a whole
and the sort of intellectual virtue which it was trying to
instill. This will provide an opportunity to review the way
we can acquire the scientia of sacred doctrine. The
perfection of this scientia, which is the highest wisdom, is
only attained after one's life on this earth when he enjoys
the vision of the divine essence and knows other things
through God's essence. In this life, however, we can attain
an inchoate realization of it which will help us attain the
perfect state. I summarize just how the Summa theologiae is
meant to instill the imperfect state.
"Philosophy in the ancient world began in wonder,"
Henry Frankfurt recently observed. "In the modern world, of
course, it began in doubt." One might add that the
philosophy which began in wonder sought wisdom, while that
which began in doubt sought indubitable, or certain, or
reliable information about the world. If we take philosophy
in its classical sense, as the love of and search for
wisdom, the whole of Aquinas's thought, even his Christian
theology, can be called philosophical. And, in this wider
sense of philosophy, the whole of Aquinas's thought stood
within the ancient philosophical tradition. Aquinas was, of
course, distinguished from earlier pagan thinkers in that he
believed the wisdom philosophy sought could not be fully
attained by strictly natural human powers, or in this world.
He learned much from his reading of Aristotle and
Aristotelians, but his fundamental concern was to understand
and articulate a Christian wisdom. This wisdom could not be
had through natural, human reasoning, but was possible only
through Christian faith and through living a life informed
by love of God and neighbor, a love which is realizable only
if God elevates us beyond our nature. According to Aquinas's
Christian vision, we attain perfect wisdom in heaven, when
we will see God as He is (Mt 5:8), and know all other things
in and through our grasp of divine essence. Then we will
know perfectly, even as we are known (I Cor. 13:12). Indeed,
then we will be like God, for we will see God as He is (I Jn
3:2).
My contention, then, is that we distort Aquinas's
thought if we remove it from this ancient philosophical
tradition and try to find and make central the issues of
modern philosophy. A further consequence of my study will be
that we miss the impetus and tenor of his thought if we
consider elements of it apart from the specifically
Christian wisdom which is its end, its Lelos. Aquinas's
writings have, I believe, been subject to both sorts of
distortion.
My concern in what follows, then, will be with
understanding certain pivotal aspects of Aquinas's thought,
particularly his concept of scientia and the nature of his
project in the Summa theologiae. I will not try to argue
whether Aquinas is right or wrong, whether ultimately his
views can be defended or whether they must be rejected. As
was said, scholarship on Aquinas has often been hampered
because scholars were too quick to try to defend his views
as viable in the contemporary philosophical debate, and
failed to understand them fully. We shall find that simply
to understand Aquinas on several key points on which he has
been misunderstood will be quite enough to occupy us in the
following pages. A sustained and systematic critique or
defense of Aquinas's views must be the subject of subsequent
work.
Nevertheless, although my concern will be limited
to the historical or interpretive question of what Aquinas
thought, I hope it will be of some use to those interested
in the viability of contemporary Thomism. Since the end of
the Second Vatican Council the influence of the central
figures of twentieth century Neo-Scholasticism – such as
Maréchal, Maritain and Gilson – has waned. But in their
place has arisen some excellent work on both understanding
and developing Aquinas's views. My hope is that my efforts
will aid this strand of contemporary Thomism.
Among Neo-Scholastic Thomists we find a tendency to
define Thomism by some set or core of unalterable doctrines.
Difficulties arose, however, when someone argued that one or
more of these doctrines was not in fact in Aquinas's
writings, or was in fact false. Alasdair Maclntyre has
argued that a better way to think of Thomism is as a
tradition. A tradition is defined with respect to a certain
language, shared beliefs, institutions and practices. In the
course of time debates, conflicts and inquiries lead those
working within a tradition to modify and revise not only the
doctrines under consideration, but also aspects of the
shared language, background beliefs, institutions and
practices. Nevertheless the continuity of debate and inquiry
makes for the continuity of an identifiable tradition. If we
understand Thomism as a tradition, we can see how we can
critique or modify certain doctrines of Aquinas, and yet
still remain faithful to the tradition.
Certainly there is much in Aquinas's thought which
contemporary thinkers, even contemporary Thomists, will find
untenable in light of subsequent scientific, philosophical
and theological developments. It would truly be miraculous
(in Aquinas's sense of this term) if, given the work of the
past seven hundred years, that were not the case. However, I
believe that any careful study of Aquinas's views will
reveal much that is philosophically and theologically
suggestive, true and profound. The most viable contemporary
Thomism is one which takes its start from Aquinas's texts,
but subjects Aquinas's claims to critical examination, and
develops and revises them in light of this subsequent
criticism and inquiry. It is this sort of work which
constitutes a Thomistic tradition. It is hoped that my
effort to reach a better understanding of this medieval
Master will also illumine possibilities for the Thomistic
tradition.
Dialectic and Narrative in Aquinas: An Interpretation of the
Summa Contra Gentiles by Thomas S. Hibbs (Revisions: a
Series of Books on Ethics: University of Notre Dame Press)
investigates the intent, method, and structural unity of
Thomas Aquinas's Summa Contra Gentiles. In this innovative
study Thomas S. Hibbs goes against the grain of most
traditional interpretations of the work, which claim it
serves a missionary or apologetic end, and argues that the
intended audience is Christian and that its subject is
Christian wisdom. In the process of making his argument,
Hibbs also demonstrates that the Summa Contra Gentiles is
the most important of Aquinas's texts on the relationship
between faith and reason, theology, and philosophy.
Since the prologue to the Summa Contra Gentiles has been
the focus of nearly all the debates over the work, Hibbs
begins with an examination of it and the controversies it
has provoked, and tests various interpretations of the
prologue in light of the actual text. He then goes on to
suggest that the method of the Contra Gentiles is
dialectical and that its unifying principle is provided by
the narrative structure of scripture. The next chapters are
Idevoted to each of the Contra Gentiles' four parts and Hibbs
argues that any interpretation of the first three books must
consider how the order of Aquinas's discussion is driven by
a series of dialectical encounters with received opinions,
especially those of Aristotle and his commentators. Hibbs
further demonstrates how attention to the dialectical method
of the work has two advantages: first, it enables readers to
avoid misinterpretations of Aquinas's positions on various
issues, and second, it allows the reader to recapture
something of Aquinas's original pedagogical intent.
Dialectic and Narrative in Aquinas also reveals how the
dialectical method of the Contra Gentiles is crucial to
Aquinas's project of subordinating philosophy to theology,
and in the concluding chapter Hibbs considers in detail the
narrative unity of the Contra Gentiles and brings themes
from Aquinas into conversation with contemporary work in
genre theory.
Aquinas on
Aristotle: Dumb Ox Books' Aristotelian Commentary
Series: Dumb Ox Books
Dumb Ox Books' Aristotelian Commentary Series: Dumb Ox
Books makes available long out of print commentaries of St.
Thomas Aquinas on Aristotle. Each volume has the full text
of Aristotle with Bekker numbers, followed by the commentary
of St. Thomas, cross-referenced using an easily accessible
mode of referring to Aristotle in the Commentary. Each
volume is beautifully printed and bound using the finest
materials. All copies are printed on acid-free paper and
Smyth sewn. They will hold up.
Commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics by Thomas Aquinas,
translation and introduction by John P. Rowan.
Preface by Ralph McInerny. (Dumb Ox Books' Aristotelian
Commentary Series: Dumb Ox Books) (Hardcover)
Of all Thomas Aquinas's Commentaries on Aristotle, that on
the Metaphysics is in many ways the most intriguing. For
most of the twentieth century, Aristotelian studies were
governed by the claim of philologists that the Metaphysics
is a compilation of disparate materials, probably made by
someone after Aristotle, and that the order of the books
cannot be taken to represent any literary unity. Indeed, the
internal contents of the books were said to represent
materials of different date and purpose. Furthermore,
presumed aim of these treatises, and indeed of philosophy
generally, the acquisition of wisdom, receives in the
Metaphysics two radically different accounts. Is God the
object of Wisdom or is wisdom the most comprehensive view of
the natural world? Is the science Aristotle is seeking in
the treatises an ontology or a theology?
In marked contrast to such imaginative accounts, the net
effect of which is to discourage rather than to encourage
reading of the work, Thomas Aquinas finds the twelve books
he comments on wonderful for their order, both overall and
in the minutest detail. His reading is governed by what he
takes to be the clear sense of the text, his interpretations
keep close to what Aristotle actually said, his account is
breathtaking in its acuity. Thomas's commentary belongs to
the great tradition that was broken - one hopes only
temporarily - by the rise of philology, which a cynic has
described as the effort to read a text without understanding
it. Any student of Aristotle can appraise Thomas's
interpretation since its measure is the text of Aristotle.
This edition reproduces the translation of John Rowan as
well as his introduction, but in a single volume, rather
than in two. The Leonine critical edition of the text will
soon appear; in the meantime, as it has for most of this
century, the Marietti edition, on which this translation is
based, can continue to be help to those who wish to learn
from "the master of those who know."
Commentary on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics by Thomas
Aquinas. Translation by C.I. Litzinger, O.P. Foreword by
Ralph McInerny. (Dumb Ox Books' Aristotelian Commentary
Series: Dumb Ox Books) (Hardcover)
Thomas Aquinas was introduced to the "New" Aristotle at the
University of Naples and, after becoming a Dominican,
studied under Albert the Great at Cologne and edited
Albert's commentary on the Ethics of Aristotle. Throughout
his career, Thomas exhibits a more-than ordinary interest in
the philosophy of Aristotle and an ever deeper appreciation
of it. Nonetheless, it was relatively late in his short life
that he composed a dozen commentaries on Aristotelian works,
spurred on, doubtless, by the controversial use to which
Aristotle was put by those in the Faculty of Arts at Paris
who are variously called Latin Averroists or Heterodox
Aristotelians. These commentaries are among the most
careful, helpful, and insightful ever written on the text of
Aristotle. It is sometimes mistakenly thought that in them
Thomas was somehow "baptizing" Aristotle, wrenching his
thought into conformity with Christian doctrine. No one who
reads the commentaries could long entertain this libelous
view of them.
The translation of Thomas's Commentary on the Nicomachean
Ethics made by Father Litzinger has long been out of print.
It is here reprinted in a somewhat altered form. The
translation itself stands as Litzinger produced it , but the
presentation of the Aristotelian text, with accurate
identification of Bekker numbers as well as the mode of
referring to Aristotle in the commentary have been changed
so that the commentary can function better as a Commentary.
Commentary on Aristotle's De Anima by Thomas Aquinas,
translation by Kenelm Foster, O.P., and Silvester Humphries,
O.P. Introduction by Ralph McInerny. (Dumb Ox Books'
Aristotelian Commentary Series: Dumb Ox Books) (Hardcover)
The commentary Thomas Aquinas completed on Aristole's De
Anima is thougt to be the first of some dozen such
commentaries that he wrote toward the end of his short
career. He may have produced the work in 1268 while teaching
in the Dominican house of Santa Sabina in Rome. Shortly
thereafter he returned to Paris where he was swept into the
Latin Averroist controversy, at the centre of which was the
proper interpretation of the De Anima.
Avicenna and Averroes, the great Arabic commentators,
read the De Anima in such a way that intellect was taken to
be a separate substance and not a faculty of the human soul.
Some of Thomas's contemporaries, Masters of the Faculty of
Arts, accepted the Avicennian and Averroist interpretations
as good money and thus came to old positions incompatible
with their Christian faith.
What is the correct reading of the De Anima? This
commentary, composed before Thomas was caught up in the
contemporary controversy, sets out to understand what it is
that the text teaches. Many students of Aristotle have come
to see this commentary as indispensable to reading the text
aright.
Commentary on Aristotle's Physics by Thomas Aquinas,
translation by Richard J. Blackwell, Richard J. Spath and W.
Edmund Thirlker Introduction by Vernon J. Bourke.
(Dumb Ox Books' Aristotelian Commentary Series: Dumb Ox
Books) (Hardcover)
Review pending
The Philosophy of William of Ockham: In the Light of Its
Principles by Armand Maurer (Studies and Texts, No 133:
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies) Every philosophy
is sustained by a number of elemental principles that give
it cohesion and unity. Ockham's is no exception. The
principles of the divine omnipotence and the rule of
parsimony of thought known as 'Ockham's razor', and others
like the principle of non-contradiction, help to shape the
entire range of his thought. Many of his conclusions on
matters as diverse as God's knowledge, will and power, on
creation and the causality of natural things, and on human
intuition and morality are reducible to them. These
principles are not unique to Ockham but were common to all
the scholastics. Yet it is precisely in confrontation with
the views of his predecessors and contemporaries such as
Scotus, Henry of Gent, Aquinas and Chatton that the
particular force and character of his thought are revealed.
Over and again he sets each principle to powerful use, but
allows no single one of dominate, or to yield all its
consequences. Martin Heidegger once declared, 'Every thinker
thinks but one single thought'. The original and focal point
of Ockham's thought is the singular or individual thing (res
singularis), as common nature (natura communis) is the
central conception of Scotism, and the act of existing
(esse) is of Thomism. With Ockham the traditional
conjugations of being come to signify the thing itself in
its ineluctable unity. The concept of being is univocal,
standing for and signifying individuals. A being is
radically diverse and incommunicable, differing from every
other being not only in number but also in essence. Indeed,
an individual thing can no longer be said to have an
essence; it is an essence. Ockham takes his place among the
great philosophers because, like them, he drew out all the
implications of his insight. He remains a seminal thinker:
his denial of common essences, his emphasis on language in
philosophical discourse, all anticipate significant
developments in modern philosophy.
The
Catholic Tradition by Thomas Langan (University of
Missouri Press) "This is a remarkable work. There are few
who possess Langan's historical knowledge and philosophical
depth. His reading of the past is informative, insightful,
and provocative, all at once. . . . Anyone who wishes to
know what Catholicism is, friend, foe, or uninformed
Catholic, will find this volume a veritable treasure."--Jude
P. Dougherty
In his Tradition and Authenticity in the Search for
Ecumenic Wisdom, Thomas Langan argued that the close
interaction of traditions in today's society calls for
methodical critical appropriation of the beliefs fostered by
the principal traditions. He also promised to demonstrate by
example how such appropriation could be accomplished. In The
Catholic Tradition, Langan successfully fulfills that vow by
showing how a tradition--the Catholic--has shaped his own
outlook.
In this comprehensive study, Langan examines the history
of the Catholic Church and the origins of its teachings
since the Church's conception. Although committed to the
Catholic religion, Langan does not obscure the Church's
failings as he lays out the fundamentals of the Catholic
faith.
He provides insight into the great Christological
councils, discusses the differences in the spiritualities of
East and West, and portrays the crucial roles that the pope
and bishops played during the Middle Ages. He incorporates
the thought of Augustine, Aquinas, and medieval Catholicism
as he traces the rise and decline of Christian Europe, the
great issues raised by the reform: priesthood, the
Eucharist, spirituality, and Church structure.
Satan has no greater triumph, Langan asserts, than when
Catholics, who are recipients of the Good News of God's
universal love, allow selections from their tradition to be
turned into sectarianism and ideology. This balanced history
of the Church as human reality faces such perversions
squarely. But despite betrayals by its own across the
centuries, the Catholic tradition, with its origin at Sinai,
remains the oldest and largest extant religious institution.
In a last section Langan offers a unique overview of the
church's present situation, its strengths and weaknesses,
the new movement and the challenge of the "new
evangelization."
The Catholic Imagination in American Literature by Ross
Labrie (University of Missouri Press) In this well-written
and comprehensive volume on Catholic writing in the United
States, Ross Labrie focuses on works that meet three
criteria: high intellectual and artistic achievement,
authorship by a practicing Roman Catholic, and a focus on
Catholic themes. Labrie begins with a discussion of the
Catholic imagination and sensibility and considers the
relationship between art and Catholic theology and
philosophy.
Central to Catholic belief is the doctrine of the
Incarnation, wherein human experience and the natural world
are perceived as both flawed and redeemed. This doctrine can
be seen as the axis on which Catholic American literature in
general rests and from which variances by particular authors
can be measured. The optimism implied in this doctrine,
together with an inherited American political consciousness,
allowed a number of Catholic authors, from a culture
otherwise perceived as outside the American mainstream, to
identify with a political idealism that granted dignity to
the individual.
Counterpointing this emphasis on the individual, though,
is the doctrine of the church as an intermediary between God
and humanity and the belief in the community of saints. In
concert with the doctrine of the Incarnation, these
teachings gave Catholic writing a communal and prophetic
dimension aimed at the whole of American society.
Separate chapters are included for each of the writers
considered so that the distinctiveness of their works is
elucidated, as well as the unity and the rich diversity of
Catholic American writing in general. Some of the authors
considered are Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, Allen Tate,
Robert Lowell, Thomas Merton, and Mary Gordon.
A concluding chapter examines the significance of the
corpus of Catholic American writing in the years 1940 to
1980, considering it parallel in substance to the body of
Jewish American literature of the same period. The Catholic
Imagination in American Literature fills a distinctive place
in the study of American literature.
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