Aquinas (Arguments of the Philosophers)

632 Pages·2005·2.7 MB·English

by  Eleonore Stump

AQUINAS
Thomas Aquinas ranks amongst the most important of Western philosophers;
certainly, few philosophers or theologians had as much influence on the
medieval period as he did. He played a significant role in bringing the philos-
ophy of Aristotle into harmony with medieval philosophy and theology in the
Latin West. His own original contributions to virtually every area of philos-
ophy and theology shaped much of medieval thought after him, and they
continue to be influential today.
In this extensive and deeply researched study, Eleonore Stump explores
the full range of Aquinas’s writings. She presents and assesses the vast range
of Aquinas’s thought, including his metaphysics and theology, philosophy of
mind, philosophical psychology, epistemology, ethics and political theory,
and philosophy of religion. In the process, she brings Aquinas’s thought into
dialogue with current discussions in contemporary philosophy in ways that
illuminate both the Thomistic and the contemporary positions.
Eleonore Stump is the Robert J. Henle, S.J., Professor of Philosophy at
Saint Louis University. Her previous books include Boethius’s De topicis differ-
entiis (1978; reprinted 1989); Boethius’s In Ciceronis Topica (1988); Dialectic
and Its Place in the Development of Medieval Logic (1980); The Cambridge
Companion to Aquinas (ed. with Norman Kretzmann) (1993); Aquinas’s Moral
Theory: Essays in Honor of Norman Kretzmann (ed. with Scott MacDonald)
(1999); and The Cambridge Companion to Augustine (ed. with Norman
Kretzmann) (2001).
ARGUMENTS OF THE PHILOSOPHERS
The purpose of this series is to provide a contemporary assessment and
history of the entire course of philosophical thought. Each book contains a
detailed, critical introduction to the work of a philosopher or school of
major influence and significance.
Also available in the series:
Aquinas Eleonore Stump
*Descartes Margaret D. Wilson
*Hegel M. J. Inwood
*Hume Barry Stroud
*Kant Ralph C. S. Walker
*Kierkegaard Alastair Hannay
*Locke Michael Ayers
*Karl Marx Allen Wood
Malebranche Andrew Pyle
*Merleau-Ponty Stephen Priest
*Nietzsche Richard Schacht
*Plato Justin Gosling
*Plotinus Lloyd P. Gerson
*Rousseau Timothy O’Hagan
*The Presocratic
Philosophers Jonathan Barnes
*Santayana Timothy L. S. Sprigge
*Sceptics R. J. Hankinson
*Wittgenstein,
2nd edition Robert Fogelin
* also available in paperback
AQUINAS
Eleonore Stump
First published 2003
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge, 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library,2007.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
© 2003 Eleonore Stump
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Stump, Eleonore, 1947–
Aquinas/ Eleonore Stump.
p.cm.– (Arguments of the philosophers)
Includes bibliograpical references and index.
1. Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, 1225?–1274. I. Title. II. Series.
B765.T54 S78 2003
189'.4–dc21 2002036629
ISBN 0-203-92835-0 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0–415–02960–0 (Print Edition)
FOR MY DEARLY LOVED CHILDREN
We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto you do well that ye
take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn,
and the day star arise in your hearts.
He that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end … I will give him
the morning star … I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the
first and the last … I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright and
morning star.

CONTENTS
Preface ix
List of abbreviations xv
List of Aquinas’s works xvi
Introduction: life and overview of Aquinas’s thought 1
Part I
The ultimate foundation of reality 33
1 Metaphysics: a theory of things 35
2 Goodness 61
3 God’s simplicity 92
4 God’s eternity 131
5 God’s knowledge 159
Part II
The nature of human beings 189
6 Forms and bodies: the soul 191
7 The foundations of knowledge 217
8 The mechanisms of cognition 244
9 Freedom: action, intellect and will 277
CONTENTS
Part III
The nature of human excellence 307
10 A representative moral virtue: justice 309
11 A representative intellectual virtue: wisdom 339
12 A representative theological virtue: faith 361
13 Grace and free will 389
Part IV
God’s relationship to human beings 405
14 The metaphysics of the incarnation 407
15 Atonement 427
16 Providence and suffering 455
Notes 479
Select bibliography 581
Index 598
viii
PREFACE
There are some books which only a young and inexperienced scholar would
undertake to write but which only a senior scholar who knows enough to
shrink from the task might conceivably be able to write. This is one of those
books. Its explicit purpose is to explicate the views of Aquinas with some
historical accuracy and to bring them into dialogue with the corresponding
discussions in contemporary philosophy. On the face of it, of course, this sort
of twinned investigation should be the aim of any philosophical study of the
texts of a thinker from some previous age. If such a study is not carried out
with historical accuracy, the result may be philosophically interesting, but it
will not count as a study of the thought of that historical figure. On the
other hand, if the views of preceding periods are presented in such a way
that they make no contribution to current philosophical discussion, then the
historical views are preserved only as museum specimens, and not as living
interlocutors still able to influence philosophical thought. The explicit aim
of this book is therefore a good one. The problem comes in the attempt to
execute it. Aquinas wrote on a very broad range of issues, in highly technical
and sophisticated ways, so that understanding and presenting his thought is
a daunting undertaking. Connecting it with related discussions in contem-
porary philosophy is a Herculean task.
In one way or another, I have been engaged in this task for more years
than I care to acknowledge. In the process, I have learned a great deal,
including lessons about the need for compromise. The compromise is what
some readers may notice first.
Readers familiar with Aquinas will find that some part of Aquinas’s
thought – or, perhaps more offensively, some standard explication of it –
which strikes them as particularly important is not represented in this book
at all. The list of things I have left out of this book is at least as long as its
table of contents. So, to take just one of many things which could be given as
an example, I have said virtually nothing about the relationship of Aquinas’s
views to the views of preceding thinkers, either those in the ancient Greek
and Hellenistic world or those in the earlier Latin-speaking medieval period
or about the way in which Aquinas’s thought was influenced by the
ix