The Order of the Universe in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas

243 Pages·2016·15.57 MB·English

by  John H. Wright

Analecta Gregoriana
Cura Pontificiae Universitatis Gregorianae edita
VOL. LXXXIX
SERIES FACULTATIS THEOLOGICAE
Sectio B (n.!e)
The Order of the Universe in the
Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas
by
J0 h n H. W rig h t, S. I.
ROMAE
APUD AEDES UNIVERSITATIS GREGORIANAE
19,57
Analecta Gregoriana
Cura Pontificiae Universitatis Gregorianae edita
VOL. LXXXIX
SERIES FACULTA TIS THEOLOGICAE
Sectio B (n.lt)
The Order of the Universe in the
Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas
by
John H. Wright. 5.1.
ROMAE
APUD AEDES UNIVERSITATIS GREGORIANAE
19!57
mii\l,ii~~~\11 ~~I
H1G6-SC9-Z7US
IMPRIMI POTEST
Romae, die 5 Februarii 1957.
R. P. PETRUS M. ABELL.\N, S. I.
Rector Universitatis
IMPRIMATUR
E Vicariatu Urbis, die 5 Martii 1957.
t ALOYSIUS TRAGLIA
Archiep. Caesarien., Vicesgerens
TYPIS PONTIFICIAE UNIVERSITATIS GREGORIANAE - ROMAE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAG.
Introduction . v
CHAPTER ONE: THE INITIAL INSIGHT 1
I. The Doctrine of St. Thomas • 2
General Doctrine on the Universe 2
Man and the Angels 8
Evil • 10
The Incarnation . 13
The Final Consummation of the Universe 14
Summary. 17
II. 'Comparison with St. Albert the Great and St. Bona-
venture • 17
General Doctrine on the Universe 18
Man and the Angels 22
Evil . 23
The Incarnation . 26
The Final Consummation of the Universe 26
Con,clusion 2,7
CHAPTER Two: THE ORDER OF THE UNIVERSE TO GOD
AS END. 30
I. General Consideration 31
II. Specific Consideration 45
Assimilation 46
Intellectual Activity. 51
Assimilation and Intellectual Activity Compared. 57
Conclusion 63
CHAPTER THREE: THE INTERNAL, ORDER OF THE UNI-
VERSE: GENERAL CONSIDERATION 7,3
I. The Universe as a Whole. 74
II. The Parts of the Universe in General 86
III. General Nature of the Relations between the Parts . 95
IV. Evil • 108
V. An Observation . 113
TABLE OJ' CONTENTS
PAG.
CHAPTER FOUR: THE INTERNAL ORDER OF THE UNI-
VERSE: PARTICULAR CONSIDERATION . 115
I. Beatitude: The Ultimate Perfection of the Universe. 115
II. The Parts of the Universe 135
Angels 135
Man • 139
Non-rational Creatures • 144
III. Relations within the Universe 148
Angelic Activity. 149
Human Activity • 153
The Activity of Non-rational Beings. 156
IV. Evil and Beatitude . 158
V. Predestination and Reprobation. 167
VI. Christ and the Order of the Universe. 177
VII. Conclusion • 184
CoNCLUSION: THE ORDER OF THE UNIVERSE IN THE
THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 187
I. St. Thomas's Doctrine on the Universe. 187
General Development 188
Particular Development • 191
II. St. Thomas's Use of this Doctrine 194
III. A Critical Appraisal . 213
Bibliography . 215
Index to citations from St. Thomas • 219
INTRODUCTION
It is dlaracteristic of genius to think in great and com
prehensive ideas. These ideas themselves are not always ex
pressed at length in a unified and developed manner, but they
are present' in the mind guiding and direeting its operations.
They manifest themselves in the solutions to other more spe
eifie and particular questions as the framework in whieh these
questions and their answers become intelligible. The more
comprehensive 'the idea and the more ordered the intelligence
which employs it, the more frequently will the idea appear,
manifesting the richness and variety of its content.
Such an idea is the order of the universe as used by St.
Thomas Aquinas. He understands the universe as the whole
ensemble of created beings ordered to one another and to
God. In all his works there are well over three hundred ref
erences directly bearing on this subject, though only a few
of them are of any appreciable length. The aim of this study
has been to gather together these texts, discover the unity and
organization of the master idea as it existed in St. Thomas's
mind, and to express the results as accurately as possible. In
our conelusion, besides, summarizing the doctrine on the uni
verse itself, we will assemble in a synthetic manner the dif
ferent uses St. Thomas made of this doctrine in his work as
a speculative theologian.
The essential work of the speCUlative theologian is to pen
etrate and explore the reality manifested by divine revelation.
He seeks to interpret in concepts of universal and timeless
validity the faets and truths whieh God has made known, and
from this interpretation to enrieh the life of faith. He may
gain these concepts anywhere, from any age, but they repre
sent not merely a contingent historieal expression of a certain
way of looking at things, but the necessary modes of organi
zation that a human intellect must follow if the penetration it
seeks is to be truly as ultimate as our conditions of knowing
vi INTRODUCTION
permit. Unquestionably, every thinker is a man of his own
age, and the organization of knowledge which he attempts
cannot fail to reflect the contingent conditions of time and
place and historical accident that surround his working. But
to the extent that he is a great thinker he transcends these
conditions, and the categories of his thought are not merely
the clever analogies and metaphors of a fertile imagination.
They are the inescapable ways the mind must think and judge
if it is to operate according to its nature and at its highest
level of knowing being as being.
The perennial greatness of St. Thomas Aquinas lies pre
cisely here; his fundamental categories of thought and the
way in which he employed them represent not merely some
individual interpretation of a restricted field of experience,
but the way the human mind must operate if it is not to be
false to itself in its confrontation of reality at its deepest
level. Many things in his works, of course, are contingent,
particular, and tied to a local situation; but such elements
ride the surface of his thought. The deep stream is a timeless
expression of universally valid wisdom.
Thomas's doctrine on the universe and its order belongs
to this expression of wisdom. For he sawall reality divided
into what is God and what is not God. All that is not God
constitutes the universe, whose unity arises from the order
which binds all finite things to one another and to God. By
considering the relations between God and the universe as
such, and between the parts of the universe and the whole,
a framework of thought is set up which illuminates, in one
way or another, every consideration of created things in their
relationships to God, relationships which are the principal
content of divine revelation.
The title of this WIOrk specifies a study of the order of
the universe in the theology of St. Thomas. However, this is
not said as an indication of limitation but of extension. For
all St. Thomas's observations on the universe are theological
either in essential content or in purpose. These observations
frequently and necessarily involve the expression of philoso
phical principles. It is possible to disengage these expressions
and construct a study of St. Thomas's philosophy of the uni
verse. And, indeed, this was the object of a work written by
Father Joseph Legrand, S. J., entitled L'Univers et l'Homme
INTRODUCTION vii
dans la Philosophie de Saint Thomas (Bruxelles: L'Edition
UniverseUe, 1946, 2 vols.). However, a purely philosophical
study is of its nature unable to express the full breadth and
vitality of this thought as St. Thomas conceived it; for he is
rarely simply a philosopher, and the idea of the universe cor
responds to an existential situation whose full reality and
complexity are not attainable apart from revelation.
I wish to express sincere thanks to Father Bernard Lo
nergan, S. J. for his many valuable and wise suggestions in
the course of writing this work, and to Father Joseph de Fi
nance, S. J. both for the help gained from his written works
and for the kind assistance given in informal conversations.
I should like also to use this occasion to discharge another
great debt of gratitude, to Father Alexander D. Tourigny,
S. J., my first teacher in the wisdom of St. Thomas, a man
whose brilliant insights and keen enthusiasm for the truth
of the Angelic Doctor have been a continual guide and en
couragement over many years.
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CHAPTER ONE
THE INITIAL INSIGHT
More than twenty years separate the earliest writings of
St. Thomas from the last productions of his mature mind. But
one cannot fail to see that all his works are of one piece. His
initial insights are sure and strong. His subsequent growth is
nearly always a deepening and broadening of his earlier views,
seldom a radical departure from them. Hence an examination
of these earlier views gives a deeper understanding of his ma
ture mind, by letting us see the kernel from which his thought
developed. Changes, qualifications, and additions in his later
writings become meaningful when viewed in the light of his
first p'Ositions.
The purpose of this chapter is twofold: first, to discover
St. Thomas's early understanding of the order of the universe,
by examining his teaching in his first major work, his commen
tary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard; and secondly, to form
some estimate of his indebtedness for this understanding to the
intellectual milieu in which he lived, by comparing it with the
teaching of St. Albert the Great and St. Bonaventure.
The comparison with St. Albert and St. Bonaventure is in
no sense an effort to determine the sources of St. Thomas's
teaching, the origins of his intellectual heritage. It is aimed
rather at seeing how much of his early treatment was
original and how much he was drawing on the common fund
of knowledge of his day. For here, as in so many other
matters, the genius of St. Thomas is manifested not so
much in saying something entirely new as in his order and
method of treatment.
At the end of the chapter we will indicate certain questions
or problems implicit in St. Thomas's early exposition. For his
subsequent growth was precisely the process of answering
these questions and solving these problems.
1 - JOHN H. WRIGHT, s. J.