The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Clarendon Paperbacks)

407 Pages·1993·1.67 MB·English

by  Brian Davies

The Thought of Thomas Aquinas
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The Thought of Thomas Aquinas
Brian Davies
CLARENDON PRESS · OXFORD
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Davies,Brian,1951–
ThethoughtofThomasAquinas/ BrianDavies.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.Thomas,Aquinas, Saint,1256–1274. 2.Theology,Doctrinal—
History—MiddleAges,600–1500.3. CatholicChurch—Doctrines—
HistoryI.Title.
B765.T54D351992
230′.2′092—dc20
ISBN0-19-826753-3
For
Richard Finn, James Claffey
Mark Wynn, and Sean Fernandez
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Preface
Inthelate1270s rumours of theologicalcontroversyreached theears ofPopeJohnXXI. He responded by asking the
bishop of Paris (Stephen Tempier) to set up an inquiry and to produce a full report.
Thebishopsetupa commissiontoexamine‘errors’ currentintheArtsFacultyattheUniversityofParis. On7 March
1277 he condemned a long list of propositions supposed to derive from the faculty. Attention was subsequently
1
focused on the work of certain theologians, one of whom was Thomas Aquinas.
A commission of Masters of Theology, with only twoexceptions, agreed to condemn a series of propositions derived
from his writings. The scenewas set for a formal censure, though none, in fact, occurred. But on 18 March 1277 the
archbishop of Canterbury (Robert Kilwardby) issued a list of condemned propositions. These did not mention
Aquinas by name, but some of them were clearly thought to derive from him. Kilwardby's successor at Canterbury,
2
John Pecham, reiterated the condemnation and also excommunicated at least one of Aquinas's followers.
3
As things turned out, Aquinas was canonized in 1323. And he subsequently came to be ranked amongthegreatest of
Christian writers. His influence on Christian thinking is second only to writers like St Paul and St Augustine. In one
modern dictionary of Christiantheology he rates more references than anyoneexcept Jesus of Nazareth. Nor has his
4
stature been recognized only by Christians. Speaking from the viewpoint of secular philosophy, Anthony Kenny can
say:
1 TheParisiancondemnationisdocumentedinChartulariumUniversitatisParisiensis, ed.H.Denifle,OPandE.Chatelain,i(Paris,1889),543ff.EnglishtextinArthurHyman
andJamesJ.Walsh(eds.),PhilointheMiddleAges (2ndedn.,Indianapolis,1987),584ff.
2 For the Oxford condemnation see Daniel A. Callus, OP, The Condemnation of St Thomas at Oxford (London, 1955). For a discussion of the Parisian and Oxford
condemnations,seeSimonTugwell,OP,AlbertandThomas:SelectedWritings (NewYork,1988), 237ff.
3 ThepersonexcommunicatedbyPechamwasRichardKnapwell.ForanaccountofhimseeFrederickJ.Roensch,EarlyThomisticSchool (Dubuque,1a.1964), 34ff.
4 AlanRichardsonandJohnBowden(eds.),ANewDictionaryofChristianTheology (London,1983).
viii PREFACE
Aquinas is, I believe, one of the dozen greatest philosophers of the western world. His philosophy of nature has
beenantiquated,ingreatpart,bytheswiftprogressofnaturalsciencesincetheRenaissance.Hisphilosophyoflogic
has been in many respects improved upon by the work of logicians and mathematicians in the last hundred years.
But his metaphysics, his philosophical theology, his philosophy of mind and his moral philosophy entitle him to
rank with Plato and Aristotle, with Descartes and Leibniz, with Locke and Hume and Kant.
5
ThesamenoteisstruckbytheauthorofarecenteditorialcommentinPhilosophy,ajournalwhichcannotbeaccusedof
beinginthepayoftheChristianChurch.‘StThomas Aquinas’, soour author declares, ‘isa genius whoseclaimtothat
accolade is barely debatable.’
6
In this book I aim to give a general and introductory overview of Aquinas's teaching. There is, however, a problem
with such a project. His writings run to thousands of pages. One simply cannot do justice to them in one volume.
To a large extent, Aquinas himself comes to the rescue here. For, though there are significant developments in his
thinking, there is also enormous continuity. His major conclusions can all be found in his first important work, the
Commentary on the Sentences. He shifted in his emphases, but he did not change his mind radically. One cannotseriously
speak ofan ‘Early Aquinas’ and a ‘LaterAquinas’. Hewas a man of many thoughts, but healways had a singlevision,
albeitonepresentedwithvariednuancesandwithdifferentdegreesofattentiontodetail. Onthatcountheisrelatively
7
easy to expound.
But the details in Aquinas are important. And the problem of quickly doing him justice is augmented by a feature of
his writings which can be fully appreciated only by someone who has worked through them in detail. For he is
enormously systematic. What he says on one topic almost always needs clarification in terms of what he says about
something else. Expounding him on one subject can quickly lead to one feeling the need to expound him on almost
5 AnthonyKenny(ed.),Aquinas:ACollectionofCriticalEssays (London,1969), 1.
6 Philosophy, 65(1990),116.
7 Cf.JamesA.Weisheipl,OP,FriarThomasd'Aquino (Oxford,1974; republishedwithCorrigendaandAddenda,Washington,DC,1983), x:‘EarlyinlifeThomasgrasped
certainfundamentalphilosophicalprinciplesthatneverchanged.Alwaystherewasdevelopment,deeperunderstanding,andevenrejectionofearlierviews.Buttherewas
neverametamorphosisinhisapproachtoreality.Therewasnevera“conversion”orviolentrejectionofearlierthought,butonlycorrectionsandmodificationsthatledtoa
fuller,morehuman,andmoredivineappreciationofthebasicproblemsoflife.’
PREFACE ix
everything he writes about, as the reader may appreciate if only from the number of times I have in this book sought
refuge in expressions like ‘as we have seen’ and ‘as we shall see’.
I have therefore decided to follow him broadly in accordance with the scheme he provides in the Summa theologiae,
whichis hisgreatestachievement,and whichis also thebest-known synthesis ofhisthinking. Itpresentstheessentials
of a lifetime's reflection in an order which he felt appropriate, so I presume that one will hardly be doing him an
injusticeifonetriestointroducehimwiththattext,thoseessentials,andthatorder inmind.Tosuitmyownpurposes,
however, Ishallsometimesdepartfromtheorder inwhichtopicsIturntoarediscussedintheSumma theologiae.AndI
shall be noting ways in which the contents of that work differ from the teaching of Aquinas as presented by him
elsewhere. Inevitably, I shall also have to be selective in the topics on which I try to indicate what Aquinas thought.
Readerswillnoticethat,forexample,IdonotdealwithdetailsofAquinasonpoliticsandaesthetics—thoughsomeof
the matters I turn to have a bearing on these subjects. I have also omitted discussion of Aquinas's contribution to
8
thirteenth-century debates about the legitimacy and running of certain religious orders in the Catholic Church (a
question which much engaged him but is now of merely historical interest).
Aquinas wroteinLatin, thoughhis first language was a Neapolitandialect.Many of hisworksare availableinEnglish,
and, where the translation is not misleading, I quote from available English editions, though sometimes with
modifications, and not always from the same edition even in the case of quotations from a single work. Most
quotations from the Summa theologiae come from the sixty-one-volume Blackfriars edition, which is, overall, probably
9
thebestEnglishversion,evenifitfaresilloncertaincountswhencomparedwiththemoreliterallyaccuratetranslation
published by the English Dominican Fathers in 1911/1920, which has been recently reprinted,
8 ForintroductionstoAquinasonpolitics,aswellasforbasictextsbyAquinasonpolitics,seeWilliamP.BaumgarthandRichardJ.Regan,SJ(eds.),SaintThomasAquinason
Law,MoralityandPolitics (Indianapolis,1988)andPaulE.Sigmund(ed.),StThomasAquinasonPoliticsandEthics (NewYork,1988). ForAquinasonaesthetics,seeUmberto
Eco,TheAestheticsofThomasAquinas (London,1988) andArmandA.Maurer,AboutBeauty:AThomisticInterpretation (Houston,Tex.,1983).
9 London,1964–80.