Exploring Aquinas with the help of Reinhard Hutter

In Dust Bound for Heaven: Explorations in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas, pp. 20-25, Reinhard Hutter provides an immensely helpful and insightful list of books for those interested in further explorations of St. Thomas Aquinas:

For those readers who come as neophytes to the thought of Thomas, the following invitation to further explorations should serve as a beginner’s guide to his philosophy and theology, a beginner’s guide that gradually progresses to some more substantive and demanding interpretations of Thomas that are most helpful. For those readers already more advanced in their encounter with Thomas’s teaching and for those who would call themselves Thomists, the more demanding among the following list of studies simply indicate among a much larger body of Aquinas scholarship those works to which I am most gratefully indebted.

The best popular introduction to Thomas’s life and work remains G. K. Chesterton, Saint Thomas Aquinas (2009) and the best recent scholarly introduction is Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., Saint Thomas Aquinas, Volume 1: The Person and His Work (2005). For a lovely, accessible, yet still profound paraphrase of the Summa theologiae in pocket size, the reader might turn to Walter Farrell, O.P., and Martin J. Healy, My Way of Life: Pocket Edition of St. Thomas: The Summa Simplified for Everyone (1952).

The most accessible and concise introduction to Thomas’s philosophy is Edward Feser, Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide (2009), to Thomas’s theology is Michael Dauphinais and Matthew Levering, Knowing the Love of Christ: An Introduction to the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (2002), to Thomas’s ethics is Paul Wadell, The Primacy of Love: An Introduction to the Ethics of Thomas Aquinas (1992), and to Thomas’s masterwork, the Summa theologiae, is Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., Aquinas’s Summa: Background, Structure, and Reception (2005). An exceedingly helpful resource to Thomas’s theology for beginners is Joseph P. Wawrykow, The Westminster Handbook to Thomas Aquinas (2005). Those readers who want to get an exposure to Thomas’s theology under the guidance of leading contemporary Aquinas scholars should turn to The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, edited by Rik Van Nieuwenhove and Joseph Wawrykow (2005). For a brief, concise, and lucid account of the remarkable history of reception, interpretation, defense, and application of Thomas’s thought in the course of the more than seven centuries since his death, students of Thomas should turn to Romanus Cessario, O.P., A Short History of Thomism (2005). For a useful guide into various aspects of Thomas’s philosophical thought that organizes his theology, the beginner might turn to The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas, edited by Norman Kretzmann and Eleonore Stump (1993). For a first introduction into Thomas’s metaphysics that is as accessible as it is lucid, one can hardly do better than to avail oneself of W. Norris Clarke, S.J., The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics (2001).

For a balanced and lucid overview of and solid introduction to all topics treated in the Summa theologiae, the student of Thomas’s thought might first want to consult Brian Davies, O.P., The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (1992). However, the reader who is looking for guides to the most central treatises of Thomas’s masterpiece will find excellent guidance from the following studies, which are not listed alphabetically but along the lines of the order of teaching (ordo disciplinae) the Summa theologiae unfolds.

On the First Part of the Summa:

• The Hackett Aquinas: The Treatise on the Divine Nature. Summa Theologiae I, 1-13 (2006)
• Rudi te Velde, Aquinas on God: The “Divine Science” of the Summa Theologiae (2006)
• Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The One God: A Commentary on the First Part of St. Thomas’ Theological Summa (1943)
• Matthew Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics: Aquinas and the Renewal of Trinitarian Theology (2004)
• Gilles Emery, O.P., The Trinitarian Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (2010)
• Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Trinity and God the Creator: Commentary on St. Thomas’ Theological Summa I, 27-119 (1952)
• Robert E. Brennan, O.P., Thomistic Psychology: A Philosophic Analysis of the Nature of Man (1941)
• Pia Francesca de Solenni, A Hermeneutic of Aquinas’s Mens through a Sexually Differentiated Epistemology: Toward the Understanding of Woman as Imago Dei (2000)
• Bernard Lonergan, S.J., Grace and Freedom: Operative Grace in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas (2000)
• Jacques Maritain, God and the Permission of Evil (1966)
• Herbert McCabe, O.P., God and Evil in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (2010)

On the First of the Second Part of the Summa:

• Servais Pinckaers, O.P., The Sources of Christian Ethics (1995)
• Denis J. M. Bradley, Aquinas on the Twofold Human Good: Reason and Human Happiness in Aquinas’s Moral Science (1997)
• Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Beatitude: A Commentary on Thomas’ Theological Summa I-II, 1-54 (1956)
• Ralph McInerny, Ethica Thomistica: The Moral Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas (1982)
• Steven A. Long, The Teleological Grammar of the Moral Act (2007)
• Stephen L. Brock, Action and Conduct: Thomas Aquinas and the Theory of Action (1998)
• Nicholas E. Lombardo, O.P., The Logic of Desire: Aquinas on Emotion (2010)
• George P. Klubertanz, S.J., Habits and Virtues: A Philosophical Analysis (1965)
• Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance (1965)
• Romanus Cessario, O.P., The Moral Virtues and Theological Ethics (2008)
• Fulvio di Blasi, God and the Natural Law: A Rereading of Thomas Aquinas (2006)
• Jean Porter, Nature as Reason: A Thomistic Theory of the Natural Law (2005)
• Charles Journet, The Meaning of Grace (1960)
• Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Grace: Commentary on the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas, I-II, 109-114 (2010)
• Joseph P. Wawrykow, God’s Grace and Human Action: “Merit” in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas (1995)

On the Second of the Second Part of the Summa:

• Stephen J. Pope (ed.), The Ethics of Aquinas (2002)
• Lawrence Dewan, O.P., Wisdom, Law, and Virtue: Essays in Thomistic Ethics (2008)
• Romanus Cessario, O.P., Christian Faith and the Theological Life (1996)
• Romanus Cessario, O.P., The Virtues, Or, the Examined Life (2002)
• Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Theological Virtues, Volume 1: On Faith (1965)
• Michael Sherwin, O.P., By Knowledge and by Love: Charity and Knowledge in the Moral Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (2004)
• Josef Pieper, Faith, Hope, Love (1997)
• Hans Urs von Balthasar, Thomas und die Charismatik: Kommentar zu Thomas von Aquin, Summa Theologica II-II 171-182, besondere Gnadengaben und die zwei Wege menschlichen Lebens (1996).

On the Third Part of the Summa:

• Romanus Cessario, O.P., Christian Satisfaction in Aquinas (1982)
• Paul Gondreau, The Passions of Christ’s Soul in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (2009)
• Matthew Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple: Salvation according to Thomas Aquinas (2002)
• Reginald Garrigou Lagrange, O.P., Christ the Saviour: A Commentary on the Third Part of the Theological Summa of St. Thomas
• Coleman E. O’Neill, O.P., Meeting Christ in the Sacraments (2002)
• Abbot Vonier, O.S.B., A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist (2003-2004)
• Charles Journet, The Mass: The Presence of the Sacrifice of the Cross (2008)

To assist the reader in grasping Aquinas' philosophy (without which his theology "cannot be adequately understood, let alone appreciated"), Hutter offers the following recommendations:

The most thorough historical-genetic treatment of Thomas’s philosophy is John F. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being (2000). The best account to see Thomas’ metaphysics concretely at work in a conceptual reconstruction of its main moves would be Lawrence Dewan, O.P., Form and Being (2006). Eleonore Stump, Aquinas (2003), offers an excellent treatment of Thomas’s thought, primarily his philosophy, but also aspects of his theology, that is directed to a readership influenced by analytic philosophy and the natural sciences. Inspired by an Aristotelian-Thomist integration of natural philosophy and metaphysics, Benedict M. Ashley, O.P., in his opus magnum, The Way toward Wisdom: An Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Introduction to Metaphysics (2006), offers an impressive demonstration of how the pursuit of philosophical wisdom along the lines of Thomas — metaphysics as meta-science — allows a comprehensive vision of all human sciences in a coherent and expansive framework. Jacques Maritain’s earlier and in many ways unsurpassed classic, Distinguish to Unite or The Degrees of Knowledge (1995), offers an even more expansive framework of Thomist epistemology: from the knowledge conveyed by the senses to natural philosophy and natural science, from there to metaphysical knowledge and theological knowledge, and finally to mystical knowledge. And in order to find out why indeed Thomism as a coherent intellectual tradition of philosophical discourse and inquiry proves superior to modern and postmodern modes of such discourse and inquiry, one cannot do better than turn to think through the argument advanced in what has become a classic in a very brief time: Alasdair MacIntyre’s Gifford Lectures, Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry: Tradition, Encyclopaedia, Genealogy (1990). Another set of expanded Gifford Lectures offers a brilliant and spirited defense of Thomas’s understanding of philosophical wisdom. No other recent work will help the interested reader better to understand why natural theology was absolutely indispensable to Thomas’s overall theological project than Ralph McInerny, Praeambula Fidei: Thomism and the God of the Philosophers (2006). For a contemporary restatement of Thomas’s natural theology that addresses and rebuts the criticisms against natural theology raised by Kant and Heidegger, one best turns to the lucidly argued book by Thomas Joseph White, O.P., Wisdom in the Face of Modernity: A Study in Thomistic Natural Theology (2009).

Those who want to find out — contrary to recent rumors — why Thomas’s philosophy is far from dead but intensely engaged by contemporary analytic philosophers might want to consult John Haldane (ed.), Mind, Metaphysics, and Value in Thomistic and Analytic Traditions (2002), John P. O’Callaghan, Thomist Realism and the Linguistic Turn: Toward a More Perfect Form of Existence (2003), Craig Paterson and Matthew Pugh, Analytical Thomism (2006), and David S. Oderberg, Real Essentialism (2007). For an instructive and very broad-minded Thomist engagement of philosophy as presently practiced in America, one might turn to Thomas Hibbs, Aquinas, Ethics, and Philosophy of Religion: Metaphysics and Practice (2007), and for learning to appreciate the ongoing relevance of Thomas’s doctrine of natural law for contemporary political and legal theory and for the practice of law-making, the reader will profit immensely from Russell Hittinger, The First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural Law in a PostChristian World (2003) and from J. Budziszewski, The Line Through the Heart: Natural Law as Fact, Theory, and Sign of Contradiction (2009).

For those readers who are interested to find out how Thomas’s theology inspires and informs the work of contemporary theologians, they might want to turn to Ressourcement Thomism: Sacred Doctrine, the Sacraments, and the Moral Life, edited by Reinhard Hütter and Matthew Levering (2010) and to The Analogy of Being: Invention of the Antichrist or the Wisdom of God?, edited by Thomas Joseph White, O.P. (2011).

By the time the reader has reached this point of the introduction it might have dawned upon him or her that this kind of invitation to a deeper exploration of Thomas’s philosophical and theological thought might presuppose a more encompassing intellectual reorientation and reeducation. Such a reader is well advised to take advantage of two rather unique books, one as precious as the other: A. G. Sertillanges, O.P., The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods (1980), and Josef Pieper, Leisure — The Basis of Culture (1998).

"Hillbilly Thomists" -- Dominican Bluegrass!

The Hillbilly Thomists Old bluegrass classics, great folk standards, and a dash of Scotch-Irish instrumental music, all brought to you by a band of Dominican friars. What is a Hillbilly Thomist?

In 1955, the southern author Flannery O’Connor said of herself, “Everybody who has read Wise Blood thinks I’m a hillbilly nihilist, whereas. . .I’m a hillbilly Thomist.” She said that her fiction was concerned with the ways grace is at work among people who do not have access to the sacraments. The Thomist (one who follows the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas) believes that the invisible grace of God can be at work in visible things, just as the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, in the person of Christ.

Edward Feser's helpful overview of Thomistic philosophy

Revisiting and worth reading. Edward Feser's helpful overview of Thomistic philosophy:

• The Thomistic Tradition, Part I /
• The Thomistic Tradition, Part II

I had originally intended to include in chapter 1 of Aquinas a brief overview of the history of Thomism. But as things turned out, the book was running too long, and since the section in question did not fit entirely smoothly into the chapter anyway, my editor and I decided to cut it out. Still, since it might be useful to readers looking for a quick rundown on the (often bewildering) variety of schools of thought that have developed within the Thomist tradition ... I’ve broken it into two parts: this post covers the history of Thomism up through the mid twentieth century; the second will cover analytical Thomism and offer some recommendations for further reading. Proud owners of Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide interested in a “Director’s Cut” can print and paste them between chapters 1 and 2.

Recommended Surveys on the history of and various schools of thought within Thomism by Edward Feser:

• Romanus Cessario, A Short History of Thomism (Catholic University of America Press, 2003);
• Helen James John, The Thomist Spectrum (Fordham University Press, 1966);
• Fergus Kerr, After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism (Blackwell, 2002);
• Ralph M. McInerny, Thomism in an Age of Renewal (University of Notre Dame Press, 1968);
• Brian J. Shanley, The Thomist Tradition (Kluwer, 2002).

Here and There

• Discussing or Ignoring Thomas Pink’s Interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae Rorate Caeli 01/05/15:

  One of the most difficult of the doctrinal points at issue between the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) and the Holy See is the question of religious liberty. The Second Vatican Council’s teaching on this point in Dignitatis Humanae seems to be in clear opposition to the traditional teaching. In 2011 [Rorate Caeli] posted an intervention on the question by Prof. Thomas Pink, in which Pink proposed a reading of Dignitatis Humanae in accord with tradition. At the time, the chairman of the Latin Mass Society, Joseph Shaw, now a Rorate contributor, hailed Pink’s intervention as “truly important article,” and a blogger well acquainted with the SSPX called it a “a game-changing intervention,” that reframed the debate.

  Prof. Pink has since developed his argument further in a number of papers (most of which are available here). But what effect has Pink’s thesis actually had on the debate?

• Thomas Aquinas in China, by William Carroll. Public Discourse 12/11/14. "Thomas Aquinas’s commitment to the importance of reason and its universal role in defining what it means to be human makes him an attractive thinker for contemporary Chinese scholars."

• The Philosopher Who Defied Hitler: Q&A with Alice von Hildebrand, by Sean Salai, S.J. (and in America magazine, of all places!):

  Before her husband [Dietrich von Hildrebrand] died in 1977, she persuaded him to write an autobiographical account of his life. This memoir includes the story of his persecution under the Nazis, who had blacklisted him in 1921 and eventually forced him to flee Europe for the United States during World War II. A portion of the manuscript, newly compiled and translated into English by John Henry Crosby under the title “My Battle Against Hitler: Faith, Truth, and Defiance in the Shadow of the Third Reich," was published Oct. 21 by Image Books.

  On Oct. 21, I conducted the following email interview with Lady Alice on her career and on the newly translated autobiography of her husband ...

• 'First Things' vs. 'Communio', "Murrayites" and "MacIntyrians"; The Paradox of the "Catholic Libertarian" and Another Kind of Illiberal Catholicism -- A roundup of relevant reading in 2014 - Taking a look back at last year's skirmishes. The Catholic Church and the Liberal Tradition 12/20/14.

• Dr. Ed Peters on antinomianism, moved by the observation that Francis has appointed five more papal electors than Church law authorizes:

  Let me be clear: it does not make a fig’s worth of difference whether 120 or 125 cardinals vote in the next papal conclave, but it does make a fig’s worth of difference, I suggest, if yet another ecclesiastical rule, set out in a major legislative document using terminology indistinguishable from that which conveys many other considerably more important rules, is ignored because this leader or that doesn’t feel like abiding by it. We have processes to reform law in the Church; looking the other way isn’t one of them—at the very least, it’s a very dangerous way to change laws.

  Antinomianism has been a long time spreading, and we are going to be a long, long time repairing the damage it has done to the Church (and the State). Where to start, then, except with the first step: recognizing that antinomianism is the default setting today.

  (HT: Pertinacious Papist, see comments for further discussion).

• Torture: Historical and Ethical Perspectives Unam Catholicam Sanctitam brings refreshing analysis to the torture debate, renewed once more within the Catholic blogging world by the release of . Drawing upon prior historical research from Fr. Harrison, the authors to the following conclusion:

  Understanding these distinctions [between punitive torture, torture for purpose of extraction and extrajudicial torture] means that one could also simultaneously affirm the permissibility of certain kinds of torture (punitive) while uniformly condemning the practices of the CIA, which are extrajudicial.

  The long and short of it is that attempts to make blanket statements about torture qua torture are misguided and prone to end up in contradiction for the simple reason that Tradition does not address torture qua torture, just like we cannot make blanket statements about violence qua violence but only violence under a variety of categories (war, assault, corporal punishment, self-defense, etc.) In the eyes of tradition, putting a man on the rack to extract information, branding a convicted thief with a hot iron, flogging a prisoner, and executing a man in an extremely painful manner (e.g., burning) were all totally different things. To moderns, these are all simply "torture" without disinction, but the Tradition did not view it this way; their distinctions were real distinctions, not mere semantics, and if we hope to understand what the Tradition says to us, we have to accept its distinctions.

  Incidentally, the attempt to ground opposition to all forms of torture in "the dignity of the human person" was not an argument known to tradition and leads to various difficulties. As we have mentioned above in our discussion of Ad Extirpanda and Ad Consulta Vestra, it was only because objections to torture were not grounded in the dignity of the human person that any development of thought here was possible. The argument that all forms of torture are intrinsically evil because they are offenses against the human person is not tenable, at least if we take the Church's tradition seriously.

• Peter J. Leithart and Robert P. George spar over the proper understanding of religion as a "basic human good" worthy of being (freely) pursued - "Basic Goods" (First Things 8/27/14; Reply to Leithart (8/28/14), to which Dr. Mark Latkovick remarks:

  I simply want to add the point – moral rather than anthropological – that contrary to what Leithart implies, the “basic human goods” are not moral directives for choice. This is why, according to the “new natural law” theory (of Grisez, Finnis, Boyle, W.E. May, George, and others), moral principles and moral norms are necessary to guide our free choices so that we choose the various basic goods wisely. The latter are practical in nature, the former are moral in nature.

• How to be a conservative: a conversation with Roger Scruton, John Derbyshire. Prospect Magazine. 09/12/14.

• Raising the Tone: An Interview With Renowned Composer James MacMillan Regina (09/05/14). Mr. MacMillan was Composer/Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic from 2000-2009 and Principal Guest Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Kamer Filharmonie until 2013. He is also an outspoken critic of much contemporary Catholic church music, and recently sat down for an exclusive interview with Regina Magazine to discuss his point of view.

• "Ruined by books: My Top 10 Philosophy List", by Artur Rosman (Cosmos In The Lost).

• Lastly, OnePeterFive's "Drunk Catholic History" series covers my spirit of choice: bourbon.

Hutton on Feingold and Milbank - "Thomism goes Old School"

[Cross-posted from Henri De Lubac, Thomas Aquinas and the debate over "Pure Nature", a blog specifically devoted to logging reading notes and chronicling my explorations into this particular Thomistic debate].

Writing in Nova et Vetera ("Desiderium Naturale Visionis Dei -- Est autem duplex hominis beatitudo sive felicitas: Some Observations about Lawrence Feingold’s and John Milbank’s Recent Interventions in the Debate over the Natural Desire to See God", pp. 81-131) Reinhard Hütter bristles at Milbank's sharply polemical criticism of Feingold:

In his recent opuscule, The Suspended Middle: Henri de Lubac and the Debate concerning the Supernatural, John Milbank characterizes Feingold’s work as “arch-reactionary,”“written to reinstate a Garrigou-Lagrange type position,” and his exegetical method as “much like that of the proof-texting of a Protestant fundamentalist,” hence representing the “die-hard,” “palaeolithic” neo-Thomism. Moreover, in a less than subtle form of invective, Milbank denies his interlocutor the honor of being named correctly by consistently misnaming him throughout as “Feinberg.” The readers of Milbank’s treatise -- most of whom in all likelihood are neither experts in the thought of Thomas Aquinas, Henri de Lubac, or Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange in particular nor of Catholic theology in general -- are thus invited to entertain the suspicion of some sinister right-wing ecclesiastical conspiracy. And since Feingold’s tome is, quite unfortunately, virtually impossible to lay hands on [not anymore? -- Christopher] as well as (should one succeed in getting hold of it) a much more demanding read than Milbank’s opuscule, very few of Milbank’s readers will be able to double-check the all too quick dismissal of a serious piece of theological scholarship the implications of which are, however, unsurprisingly, less than supportive of Milbank’s own project. But why should anyone care about the truth of the charge if one of the presently leading opinion formers of contemporary Anglo-American Protestant theology has sent out such weighty signals as “arch-reactionary, die-hard, palaeolithic neo-Thomism”?

On Milbank's embarassing mispelling of Feingold as "Feinberg", Hütter further adds: "The possibility, however, that the consistent use of the misnomer “Feinberg” simply reflects a neglect of contingent details, cannot be definitively excluded, since, after all, the reader has to recognize behind “Jacques Maintain” the Thomist philosopher Jacques Maritain (25, note 9)." If John Milbank were to ever release a new edition of The Suspended Middle, it would undoubtedly benefit from a proofreader.

* * *

Hütter's lengthy review of Feingold and Milbank is well recommended. Like Hütter, I cannot say the same for The Suspended Middle, although with the caveat that I have personally only made my way through the first several chapters before deciding -- at least for the time being -- that it would be preferable to postpone Milbank and complete my objective of finishing Feingold's immensely more satisfying (and immensely more lucid) opus by the close of this year. Indeed, I found my subjective experience of reading Feingold contra Milbank to be in part aesthetically-motivated: the pleasure of reading the former as contrasted with the painful drudgery of the latter.

Feingold surveys the entire history of Catholic theology and the Thomist commentorial tradition on this particular subject, with the position of each author clearly formulated, substantially documented and laid out in detail such that one can grasp with relative ease where each stands on any given question: Scotus, Cajetan, Suarez, De Lubac, and a host of other Thomists, not to mention Aquinas himself. Feingold's text contains copious quotations from his source materials, and is exhaustively referenced and footnoted. Nothing is left to question. One cannot but be awed by the herculean effort it must have taken to read through, understand, meticulously assemble and publish this body of work. To call it a "magisterial" treatment in scope and substance is not an understatement.

Unfortunately, my experience of navigating Milbank's Suspended Middle is much akin to groping my way through a London fog after a night of pub-hopping. His work is as sparse on direct quotations as Feingold is indulgent, leaving the reader thirsty for validation beyond purported claims and wishing Milbank would deign to engage in what he denigrates as "Protestant proof-texting". For example, consider Milbank's blithe assertion that:

"Cajetan and neo-scholasticism, by contrast [to De Lubac's ontological revisionism], leave philosophical ontology alone in its immanence: the being of human nature, as of everything else, can be specified without reference to God, or only God as ultimate efficient cause. On the other hand, cosmic and human beings in no way (as it does for De Lubac) anticipates grace. The structures of grace are without precedent: yet in practice scholasticism will have to speak of them in terms of analogues taken from an immanent univocal ontology. Since nothing in 'purely natural' being of itself participates in divine esse or by analogical ascent negates its own non-self-sufficiency, these analogues will be purely in terms of the quantitative extension of the range of an adequately "given" meaning. And what natural analogues to grace will be available in these terms save those of an anonymous and overwhelming force? or a nominal and invisible raising of status which yet commands visible jurisdiction? [p. 30]

How's that for a single paragraph? -- and I assure you it's characteristic of the whole lot. I'm embarrassed to say that, having read several hundred pages of Feingold (and in this year alone, reams of academic articles and book reviews on Aquinas) I've never experienced the cognitive difficulty I've encountered with Milbank. Does anybody else find him as impenetrable as I do? (Rhetorical question -- googling "John Milbank" and "dense" turns up 10,600 results with such descriptions of his works as "a dense read"; "Impressively dense"; "dense but quite profound"; "dense and exquisite"; "splendidly dense"; "characteristically dense"; "poetically dense"; "painfully dense"; "dense and difficult"; "dense, heady and bewildering"; "impossibly dense"; "dense, challenging and elusive"; "dense, frequently heady and inclined toward ornately convoluted prose"; "a dark, pith pit of dense propositions" -- and possessing a "dense, intellectual style that has prompted charges of elitism." I may not be traveling alone.

Moving on ... Hütter also offers the following intuition of why Milbank finds "Feinberg" -- sorry, Feingold -- so exasperating:

While Milbank’s project is neither guided nor framed by the norms and criteria of Catholic theology, his reaction is nevertheless indicative of how not a few contemporary Catholic theologians might react to Feingold’s book as well. For Feingold indeed challenges numerous assumptions received and settled in the first three decades after Vatican II. The first is methodological: In the wake of neo-Marxist sociology, the linguistic turn in Anglo-Saxon philosophy, and the hermeneutical and poststructuralist developments in continental philosophy, theology for many a contemporary Catholic theologian can only be conceived as defensible and intelligible in a thoroughly historical-contextualist and constructivist mode. Every theological claim must needs be advanced, read, and assessed in light of the historical, communal, and political context in which it is produced and to which it is addressed. The only way to forward arguments is by situating and out-narrating opponents as well as offering rhetorical and aesthetic appeals leading to the volitional as well as conceptual conversion of the interlocutor. Propositional discourse as informed by metaphysical realism and discursive, conceptual argumentation is therefore at present widely dismissed as a suspiciously disembodied and philosophically outdated mode of speculative theology, oblivious to the historical, pragmatic, and practice oriented nature of theology itself and thus vulnerable to being constantly co-opted by deeply entrenched as well as concealed discourses of power and interest. This wholesale rejection of what was seen as the ossified discourse of textbook neo-scholasticism was accompanied -- in the wake of Heidegger as well as Wittgenstein -- by hailing the "end of metaphysics" in general and the Aristotelian Thomist metaphysics in particular. And since -- on the basis of Leo XIII’s encyclical Aeterni Patris -- Thomas Aquinas had again been instantiated as the loadstar of a renewed Catholic philosophy, according to an understanding that interpreted Vatican II as the license to break with that very tradition, he had to be put aside as outmoded too.

According to Hütter, Feingold distinguishes himself in that his mode of writing circumvents the "historical-contexualist and constructivist" expectations of postmodern scholarship by "entering into" the scholastic commentorial tradition, focusing exclusively on Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus (as well as some Scotists), the Thomist commentators (including Suárez) up to Garrigou-Lagrange and Henri de Lubac.

Feingold provokes by operating in a mode of discourse very unfamiliar to theological readers by now largely unaccustomed to the conceptual precision and rigor once cultivated by the “schoolmen.” Differently put, Feingold’s mode of discourse is highly mimetic of the virtually forgotten tradition of Thomist commentators. ...

What makes Feingold so provocative is that the form of his discourse -- in stark contrast to de Lubac’s way of reading the commentators -- is shaped not by a historical hermeneutic but by reconstructing and thus entering their own way of conducting a speculative theological enquiry, a mimetic exercise reconstructing and thus continuing the commentators’ discursive mimesis of Aquinas.

As Hütter points out, this distinction also applies to Feingold's critical engagement with De Lubac himself -- whereas De Lubac's writing "transposes the speculative theological discourse of the commentators into a historical-hermeneutical frame of inquiry", Feingold "[enters into] the commentatorial tradition with its propositional-discursive mode of operation" which is distinguished by its metaphysical realism (dismissed by Milbank as a "Garrigou-Langrange type position" p. 24 Suspended Middle). Thus:

Feingold provokes by returning to and, by implication, rehabilitating an older discursive tradition and submitting de Lubac’s theology to the conceptual rigor of this tradition. Feingold is so irritating because he picks up the ball where it was dropped -- with the broad acceptance of the theological approach advanced by Henri de Lubac and other representatives of the nouvelle théologie -- without signaling awareness of what has happened in Catholic theology since. [Hütter, pp. 93-94]

Thomas Aquinas' "Summa theologiae": A Biography - Bernard McGinn

On my "to read" list: Thomas Aquinas's "Summa theologiae": A Biography (Lives of Great Religious Books), by Bernard McGinn.
Princeton University Press (May 25, 2014). 272 pgs.

In full disclosure, I promised that I would give it mention on my blog while the review was forthcoming. McGinn is distinguished for his extensive scholarship of Christian mysticism and does not identify himself as "a card carrying member of any Thomist party." Nevertheless:

"... I'd been reading Thomas for almost sixty years and teaching him for over forty. When I was studying a dry-as-dust version of neo-Thomist philosophy from 1957 to 1959, I was rescued from despair by reading the works of Etienne Gilson, especially his Being and some Philosophers. . . . between 1959 and 1963, I was privileged to work with two great modern investigators of Thomas, Joseph de Finance and Bernard Lonergan. It was then I realized that no matter what kind of theology one elects to pursue in life, there is no getting away from Thomas. So the opportunity to come back to Thomas and the Summa was both a challenge and a delight." [From the Preface]

Suffice to say I am intrigued, and will have more to report once I get into it.

From the Publisher

This concise book tells the story of the most important theological work of the Middle Ages, the vast Summa theologiae of Thomas Aquinas, which holds a unique place in Western religion and philosophy. Written between 1266 and 1273, the Summa was conceived by Aquinas as an instructional guide for teachers and novices and a compendium of all the approved teachings of the Catholic Church. It synthesizes an astonishing range of scholarship, covering hundreds of topics and containing more than a million and a half words--and was still unfinished at the time of Aquinas's death.

Here, Bernard McGinn, one of today's most acclaimed scholars of medieval Christianity, vividly describes the world that shaped Aquinas, then turns to the Dominican friar's life and career, examining Aquinas's reasons for writing his masterpiece, its subject matter, and the novel way he organized it. McGinn gives readers a brief tour of the Summa itself, and then discusses its reception over the past seven hundred years. He looks at the influence of the Summa on such giants of medieval Christendom as Meister Eckhart, its ridicule during the Enlightenment, the rise and fall of Neothomism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the role of the Summa in the post-Vatican II church, and the book's enduring relevance today.

Tracing the remarkable life of this iconic work, McGinn's wide-ranging account provides insight into Aquinas's own understanding of the Summa as a communication of the theological wisdom that has been given to humanity in revelation.

Cessario on Cajetan and the Communio School

The Communio school of theology, taken globally, and not as it plays out under the influence of the American edition, is more difficult to define than Thomism. Thomists are those who read Aquinas, and so may be distinguished from those who read and adhere to other major Christian thinkers such as Scotus or St. Bonaventure or Ockham. Partisans of the Communio school, on the other hand, study many authors; their return to the sources embraces a wide range of both ancient and recent theologians and philosophers, and even includes consulting social scientists.

[Tracey] Rowland identifies many of these figures in her chapters. Suffice it to remark that a common feature of Communio school theology is that its adherents subscribe without hesitation to a viewpoint that lately has been set forth by Nicholas M. Healy in his Thomas Aquinas: Theologian of the Christian Life: “In his commentary on the Summa theologiae, Cajetan so separates nature from grace that humanity now has two ends, natural and supernatural. . . .” Healy of course repeats an assertion that was set forth with remarkable success in the twentieth century by Jesuit Father Henri de Lubac, later Cardinal of the Roman Church.

It has always struck me as odd that so many good-willed theologians accept the view that a twentieth-century French Jesuit whose intellectual interests were wide-ranging occupied a better position to understand what St.Thomas Aquinas taught about the finalities of the human person than did a sixteenth-century Italian humanist, who had represented Catholic doctrine in person to no less imposing a figure than Martin Luther and whose commentary on the entire Summa theologiae appears by order of Pope Leo XIII in the critical edition of Aquinas’s opera omnia that bears that Pope’s name, the still incomplete Leonine edition. But they do. Many sincere people, including Tracey Rowland, accept the proposition that de Lubac laid bare a huge historical mistake about how to construe the relationship between nature and grace, and they seemingly consider his critique of Cardinal Cajetan and the Thomists who follow him a non-gainsayable principle of all future Catholic theology. What Cajetan obscured, de Lubac grasped with clarté. Nicholas Healy illustrates this conviction:“[T]he influence of the two-tier conception of reality became widespread and was understood by many theologians as a reasonable development of Thomas’s thought.” One could infer from remarks such as these that Tommaso De Vio, Cardinal Cajetan (1469–1534) should be known as the great betrayer of Aquinas instead of his papal approved interpreter. Prima facie, the proposition seems primitive.

Those who want to understand more about this golden apple of twentieth-century theological discord should consult the work of Professor Steven A. Long. His essays on topics such as the obediential potency and other related theological theses repay careful study. Long’s articles reveal the way that theologians have attempted to handle the difficult question of describing adequately the differentiation of finalities that the gratuitous bestowal of divine friendship on the members of the human race introduces into Catholic theology. Because of the centrality that this issue holds in the thought of many of the theologians that Rowland presents to her readers, I think it is important to alert those who will read her book, especially beginners in the discipline, that they should make up their own minds about de Lubac’s critique, and not assume that one eminent French Jesuit and 100,000 Communio followers can’t be wrong. The fact of the matter is that the differentiation of finalities that a Catholic theologian must consider in the human person remains a topic that has been ill served during the period after the Second Vatican Council.

Let me conclude this section with a word of advice to beginners: You can embrace Gaudium et Spes 22 and still follow Cardinal Cajetan.

Romanus Cessario, OP.
Nova et Vetera Vol. 2, No. 2 (2004).

* * *

Incidentally, today is Romanus Cessario's 73rd birthday. You may view more of his articles online here, his full CV here.

Aquinas's Notion of Pure Nature and the Christian Integralism of Henri de Lubac

As noted by Edward Feser, "there is a growing wave of reaction against the Nouvelle Theologie’s reaction against the tradition of the commentators" -- specifically the proposal that "the centuries-old tradition of Aquinas commentators, and the Neo-Scholastics in particular, somehow all got Aquinas wrong on questions of nature and grace, natural and supernatural."

Among such recently published texts are:

• The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas and His Interpreters, by Lawrence Feingold. Catholic University of America Press, 2nd. Edition, (October 2004)
• Natura Pura: On the Recovery of Nature in the Doctrine of Grace, by Steven A. Long. Fordham University Press, (April 2010).
• Praeambula Fidei: Thomism And the God of the Philosophers, by Ralph McInerney. Catholic University of America Press. (2006)
• Aquinas's Notion of Pure Nature and the Christian Integralism of Henry de Lubac, by Bernard Mulcahy, O.P. (Peter Lang International Academic Publishers. (April 2011).
• Surnaturel: A Controversy at the Heart of Twentieth-Century Thomistic Thought, edited by Serge-Thomas Bonino. The Catholic University of America Press (July 1, 2007).

I have read and praised McInerney's book elsewhere on this blog -- one of the first of its kind and narrow in scope (focusing specifically on Etienne Gilson and De Lubac's error-ridden interpretation and criticism of Cajetan and Aquinas. My father gifted Feingold's Natural Desire to See God to me on my birthday. Comprehensive in scope and exhaustive in detail, it will likely take several years for me to digest but it is clearly an invaluable resource in this whole debate. Steven A. Long's shorter treatment is on my "to read" list (particularly interesting as it reportedly examines the work of Joseph Ratzinger / Pope Benedict XVI on the topic). Surnatural, likewise on my "to read" list is a collection of various papers pro and con, following a symposium held in 2000 on the controversy of de Lubac's surnaturel.

Having just completed my reading, I wish to commend Mulcahy's Aquinas's Notion of Pure Nature and the Christian Integralism of Henry de Lubac, the publication of his doctoral thesis under the title "Not Everything is Grace" for the Australian Catholic University (full text of which can be found here). Here is the abstract:

Henri de Lubac argues that, in early modern times, a pernicious concept began to become commonplace in Roman Catholic theology: this concept is “pure nature.” Pure nature is human nature, considered without reference to grace or to the supernatural destiny of personal union with God. Further, de Lubac argues that Catholic theology, in assimilating this idea, has departed from the sound tradition represented by St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas. He holds that the notion of pure nature leads inevitably to the self-exclusion of Christianity from the affairs of the world -- when, in fact, the light of the Gospel ought to be shed on all aspects of human existence.

This dissertation tests de Lubac’s thesis concerning the history of the idea of pure nature, showing that this notion is not, in fact, a modern novelty. This study examines the role of the idea of pure nature in the Bible and early Church, in the theology of Thomas Aquinas, in the early modern Jansenist controversy, in the theology of Henri de Lubac, and in the theology of the contemporary Radical Orthodoxy movement, paying particular attention to the historical circumstances which made the repudiation of “pure nature” attractive.

Today, some theologians follow de Lubac in contending that Catholic doctrine must eschew the idea of pure nature in order to resist secularism and maintain Christianity’s relevance to all aspects of human life. This dissertation contends that the idea of pure nature is not only traditional, but necessary for Christian theology. It argues that a Christian “integralism” which refuses to prescind from grace when considering nature can do justice neither to nature nor to grace.

Further review by Reinhard Hutter, Duke Divinity School:

Characterized by acuity of analysis, fairness of judgment, and lucidity of thought and style, Matthew Bernard Mulcahy’s ‘Not Everything Is Grace’ is an indispensable reading for any serious student of theology with an interest in the recent renewal of the debate over ‘nature and grace’ and especially the idea of a ‘pure nature’.

Mulcahy convincingly demonstrates first that theologians of the patristic era were well familiar with a human nature and a common final human discernible apart from revelation and grace and, secondly and more extensively, that the idea, though not the term, of pure nature plays a significant role in the writings of Thomas Aquinas. Furthermore, by showing that Henri de Lubac’s characterizations of Baianism and Jansenism occluded the political and historical contexts and impacts of these theological movements, Mulcahy successfully questions Henri de Lubac’s familiar, but historically unsubstantiated claim, that the modern scholastic use of ‘pure nature’ facilitated the rise of modern secularism and atheism.

Last but not least, Mulcahy offers an accurate and illuminating reading of the most recent radicalization of de Lubac’s vision into a comprehensive theological integralism - Radical Orthodoxy. Mulcahy’s perspicuous analysis of its central tenets constitutes a critique that is as charitable as it is devastating. Mulcahy makes a powerful case for the indispensability of the idea of pure nature for a Catholic theology that wants to account for the full scope of the complexity of creaturely existence. This is a ‘must’ on the reading list for every class that tackles the ‘nature-grace-debate’ in the 20th century. Its clarity and even-handedness make it a welcome contribution to a complicated and often heated debate. Tolle, lege!

Ralph McInerny: "Praeambula Fidei: Thomism and the God of the Philosophers"

Every once in a while you encounter a book that reorients your perspective and forever changes you. Dr. McInerny's Praeambula Fidei: Thomism and the God of the Philosophers is one of those books -- any further reading of Henri DeLubac and particularly Etienne Gilson (one of my erstwhile favorite 20th century Thomists) will be through the critical lens of McInerny's 'Praeambula Fidei'. There is no going back.

A summary from the publisher:

In this book, renowned philosopher Ralph McInerny sets out to review what Thomas meant by the phrase and to defend a robust understanding of Thomas's teaching on the subject. After setting forth different attitudes toward proofs of God's existence and outlining the difference between belief and knowledge, McInerny examines the texts in which Thomas uses and explains the phrase "preambles of faith." He then turns his attention to the work of eminent twentieth-century Thomists [De Lubac, Gilson, Chenu] and chronicles their abandonment of the preambles. He draws a contrast between this form of Thomism and that of the classical Dominican commentators, notably Cajetan, arguing that part of the abandonment of the notion of the preambles as philosophical involves a misreading and misrepresentation of Cajetan. McInerny concludes with a positive rereading of Aristotle's Metaphysics and Aquinas's use thereof. In the end, the book argues for a return to the notion of Aristotelico-Thomism--Thomistic philosophy as the organic development of the thought of Aristotle.

As somebody who has read a considerable amount of Gilson's work (and with an interest in neo-Thomism in general) McInerny's exquisite and thorough dismantling of Gilson's reading of Aguinas, and Cajetan-on-Aquinas, made for some painful reading at times.

Reviews

• Review: Praeambula Fidei: Thomism and the God of the Philosophers, by Anthony J. Lisska, Denison University. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 8/19/07.
• Neo-Neo-Thomism. Review by Romanus Cessario. First Things May 2007.
• From Ralph McInerny himself interview with Harm Goris, Thomas Instituut te Utrecht. (July 15, 1998):

  In acknowledging that Thomas in primarily a theologian, we are also acknowledging that he is a philosopher. Any effort to remove Aristotle, or philosophy, from Thomism puts me in mind of the joke about two men painting a wall. One says to the other, “Hang on to your brush, I’m taking away the ladder.”

• Ralph McInerny (1929-2010)

Feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church

January 28th, is the feast day St. Thomas Aquinas, my chosen saint as a convert. (It was a toss-up between Thomas the philosopher-theologian and Thomas Merton, the not-quite-saintly Trappist -- both exercising an influence on my journey to Rome).

Here is a favorite prayer of St. Thomas Aquinas -- for a holy life. It was said that he prayed this every day before the image of Christ:

Grant me, O merciful God, that what is pleasing to Thee I may ardently desire, prudently examine, truthfully acknowledge, and perfectly accomplish for the praise and glory of Thy name.

Ordain, O my God, my whole life, and what Thou requirest that I should do, grant me to know it and to fulfill as is meet and profitable to my soul.

Give me Thy grace, O Lord my God, that I may not fail in prosperity or in adversity, avoiding pride in the former and discouragement in the latter.

May I rejoice in nothing but what leads to Thee, grieve for nothing but what turns away from Thee. May I wish to please or displease n one but Thee.

May I despise, O Lord, all transitory things, and prize only that which is eternal. May I shun ant joy that is without Thee, nor wish for anything outside of Thee.

May I delight in any work taken up for Thee, and tire of any rest which is without Thee. Grant me, O my God, to direct my heart toward Thee, and in my failings constantly grieve, with the purpose of a amendment.

Make me, O Lord, my God, obedient without contradiction, poor without depression, chaste without corruption patient without murmuring, humble without pretence, cheerful without dissipation, mature without dullness, prompt without levity, fearing Thee without despair, truthful without duplicity, doing good without presumption, correcting my neighbor without haughtiness, and edifying him by word and example without hypocrisy.

Give me, O Lord God, a watchful heart, which no curious thought will turn away from Thee; a noble heart, which no unworthy affection will drag down; a righteous heart, which no irregular intention will twist aside; a firm heart, which no tribulation will break; a free heart, which no violent affection will claim for itself.

Grant me finally, O Lord my God, science in knowing Thee, diligence in seeking Thee, wisdom in finding Thee, a conduct pleasing to Thee, a perseverance trustfully awaiting Thee, and a confidence finally embracing Thee. May I endure Thy punishments by penitence; profit by Thy benefits by grace in this world, and enjoy Thy blessedness by glory in the next; Who livest and reignest, true God, forever and ever. Amen

* * *

St. Thomas Aquinas Online

• Saint Thomas Aquinas Stanford Enyclopedia of Philosophy
• Saint Thomas Aquinas Catholic Enyclopedia [1917]
• Thomas Aquinas' works in English courtesy of the Dominican friars of the Priory of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C.

Readings and studies of St. Thomas Aquinas

My very first introduction to The Doctor was by Peter Kreeft's A Summa of the Summa, by way of my dad, featuring a broad selection of his philosophical work along with Kreeft's commentary.

A few years ago I did a poll/post on introductions and studies of St. Thomas Aquinas for beginners or newcomers (and delving into the Summa from time to time is a good reminder that I'm exactly that). Here are some recommendations that were offered on my blog and elsewhere:

• Timothy McDermott’s Summa Theologiae: A Concise Translation
• Fritz Bauerschmidt’s Holy Teaching: Introducing the ‘Summa Theologiae’ of St. Thomas Aquinas
• Aquinas and His Role in Theology, by Marie-Dominique Chenu.
• A Guide to St. Thomas Aquinas, by Joseph Peiper.
• The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, by Etienne Gilson.
• A Companion to the Summa, by Walter Farrell, OP. [Online text].
• St. Thomas Aquinas: Selected Writings, by Ralph MacInerney. [Also Dr. MacInerney's online lectures on Aquinas].
• A First Glance at St. Thomas Aquinas: A Handbook for Peeping Thomists, by Ralph MacInerney.
• G.K. Chesterton's The Dumb Ox, of which Etienne Gilson remarked: "I consider it as being without possible comparison the best book ever written on St. Thomas."