Wisdom’s Apprentice: Thomistic Essays in Honor of Lawrence Dewan, O.P.

329 Pages·2007·2.17 MB·English

by  Peter A. Kwasniewski Lawrence Dewan

Wisdom’s Apprentice

Wisdom’s Apprentice
Thomistic Essays in Honor of
LAWrence deWAn, o.p.
Edited by Peter A. Kwasniewski
The Catholic University of America Press
Washington, D.C.
copyright © 2007
The catholic University of America press
All rights reserved
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American national standards for information science—permanence of
paper for printed Library materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wisdom’s apprentice : Thomistic essays in honor of Lawrence dewan, o.p. /
edited by peter A. Kwasniewski.
p. cm.
includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8132-1495-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8132-1495-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Thomas, Aquinas, saint, 1225?–1274.
i. dewan, Lawrence, 1932– ii. Kwasniewski, peter A., 1971–
iii. title.
B765.T54W495 2007
149´.91—dc22 2006026713
contents
editor’s introduction vii
Biography of Lawrence dewan, o.p. xiii
publications of Lawrence dewan, o.p. xv
Part I. Metaphysics
is truth Not a transcendental for Aquinas? 3
Jan A. Aertsen
Thomas Aquinas and “What Actually exists” 13
Stephen L. Brock
really distinguishing essence from Esse 40
David B. Twetten
The real distinction between supposit
and nature 85
J. L. A. West
Part iI. Natural Theology
From shadows and images to the truth 109
Ralph McInerny
re-thinking the infinite 122
Leslie Armour
is Thomas’s doctrine of divine ideas
Thomistic? 153
Gregory T. Doolan
vi contents
Part iiI. Philosophy of Nature
The impossibility of Action at a distance 173
Christopher A. Decaen
physics and philosophy 201
Jude P. Dougherty
two masters, two perspectives: maritain
and Gilson on the philosophy of nature 214
Ralph Nelson
Part Iv. Ethics and Spirituality
moral taxonomy and moral Absolutes 237
Kevin L. Flannery, S.J.
interior peace: Inchoatio vitae aeternae 260
Heather McAdam Erb
Works cited 283
contributors 299
index of names 303
editor’s introduction
it is with commingled pleasure and reverence that i introduce this vol-
ume of essays offered to Lawrence dewan, o.p., for the occasion of his
seventy-fifth birthday on march 22, 2007. For all of the contributors to this
volume, Father dewan has been a redoubtable interlocutor, a vitally impor-
tant teacher, or an esteemed colleague—in some cases, all three. to those
who have had the good fortune to know him and work with him, he has
been a model of that loving pursuit of wisdom in which socrates, and the
whole Western tradition inspired by his incisive questions, locates the high-
est natural aspiration of man. Beyond this, Father dewan is a faithful son of
saint dominic who has placed his immense intellectual gifts at the service
of the church, carrying forward her mission of illuminating natural reality
with supernatural light. His more than one hundred publications on a wide
variety of subjects have made a decisive contribution to the development of
Thomistic thought in recent decades. in addition to his own research and
writing, which one would think of as more than enough work to fill his
days, dewan has shown a signal dedication over the years to instructing
students even at the humblest beginnings of undergraduate philosophy, and
has spared no effort to assist those who approach him for help (the num-
ber of e-mail consultations or requests for critiques of papers in progress is
probably incalculable). to young and old, Thomist and non-Thomist, cath-
olic and non-catholic, he has made himself available as thinker and critic,
as pastor and friend. For all this, we are deeply grateful, and it seemed only
dignum et iustum to seize an opportunity to pay tribute with a collection of
essays focusing on some of the many topics that have exercised his genius.
The title of this volume, Wisdom’s Apprentice, is largely intended as a ref-
erence to the wisdom literature of the old testament, in which we so often
read about the wise man who instructs others in the way of truth and right,
the way pleasing to God. The church in her liturgy applies such texts to
her teachers of sacred doctrine. “The mouth of the just shall meditate wis-
vii
viii editor’s introduction
dom” (ps. 36:30); “The mouth of the just shall bring forth wisdom” (prov.
10:31); “i have taught you the way of wisdom” (prov. 4:11). one of my favor-
ite verses—“in the ancient is wisdom, and in length of days prudence” (Job
12:12)1—is particularly well-suited for the honoree of this volume, and in a
double sense. in an age when every attempt had been made to relegate clas-
sical metaphysics (and not infrequently classical ethics) to the dustbin of
historical curiosities or to reinterpret them into irrelevance, dewan, among
others, continues patiently to expound truths metaphysical and moral, il-
luminating and defending them with the aid of his great spiritual mentor,
saint Thomas Aquinas. But it is not Aquinas alone who features in dewan’s
writings; he shows an abiding interest in the presocratics, plato, Aristotle,
Boethius, dionysius, Augustine, capreolus, cajetan, and a range of other
“ancients,” to whom we must always be prepared to look for guidance and
inspiration. indeed it was Father dewan who, in his presidential address to
the American catholic philosophical Association, referred to himself as a
mere “apprentice.” referring to his choice to speak about truth as happiness
“according to Thomas Aquinas,” he stated (with characteristic humility):
i almost always give papers presenting what i take to be the doctrine of st. Thomas.
Usually they get placed in the “history of philosophy” category. Generally my aim
is philosophical, and, with Thomas, i insist that “..... the study of philosophy is not
in order to know what it is people have thought, but what is the truth about reality.”
However, agreeing as i do with my teacher Étienne Gilson that “great philosophers
are very scarce,” and that the soundest approach in philosophical education is to live
a sort of apprenticeship with a great philosopher, i have lived an apprenticeship with
Thomas Aquinas. That at this relatively late date in my life i am still presenting his
views, as well as i can, simply means that i am still an apprentice.2
Today, after some decades of motley and meandering pluralism in Catholic
philosophical circles, we are witnessing a renaissance not only of Thomistic
studies but of classical philosophical inquiry in general, with the philoso-
phy of being at the forefront. Dewan has demonstrated in a sustained and
convincing way just how “relevant” and even, one might say, ahead of us are
so many remarkable thinkers of former centuries—or millennia. In this way
he has underlined the truth we find eloquently expressed in the Book of Job:
1. As translated in the douay-rheims version, rendering the Vulgate’s in antiquis est sapien-
tia et in multo tempore prudentia.
2. “truth and Happiness,” in The Importance of Truth: Proceedings of the American Catholic
Philosophical Association, vol. 67 (Washington, dc: The American catholic philosophical As-
sociation, 1993), 1–21; here, 1.
editor’s introduction ix
“In the ancients there is wisdom”—sophia, the highest virtue of the specu-
lative intellect, preoccupied with ultimate questions, poised to contemplate
God, the first and best of causes—“and in length of days, prudence,” that
sublime and indispensable virtue of the practical intellect, which directs
and harmonizes human actions with a view to man’s final end, happiness.3
But inquiries of such magnitude and difficulty are neither mastered over-
night nor quick and easy to pass on. Hence this book’s title is meant also
to emphasize the personal commitment of a philosopher and scholar who,
ever since his studies in toronto and paris in the 1950s, has been “at the
books” for over fifty years. His is a knowledge that has matured and ripened,
and we have benefited from that process. Though occasionally sapientia and
prudentia will be found in iuvenibus (as when Friar Thomas d’Aquino be-
tween the ages of twenty-seven and thirty-one composed the De ente et es-
sentia, and soon showed himself capable of juggling many occupations at
once), it is rare; in antiquis is its customary home.
The Festschrift is divided up into four parts, representing four areas of
steady interest to Father dewan and to people who work within the Thomis-
tic tradition, the philosophia perennis: i. metaphysics, ii. natural Theology,
iii. philosophy of nature, and iV. ethics and spirituality.
part i contains four essays bound together by their common endeavor to
clarify the precise meanings and relationships of basic aspects of metaphys-
ical analysis: essence, nature, suppositum or existent, and esse or the act of
being. Jan Aertsen respectfully continues a debate with dewan concerning
truth as a transcendental, stephen Brock and david twetten tackle, from
different perspectives, st. Thomas’s doctrine of esse (on which, be it recalled,
dewan defended his doctoral dissertation in 1967, choosing capreolus as
his route of entry), and Jason West explores a real distinction different from
the one that attracts so much attention.
part ii climbs further up the mountain of inquiry, into the domain of
natural theology. ralph mcinerny and Leslie Armour pose questions about
the basis, limits, and naturalness of man’s knowledge of the divine, Armour
as a non-Thomist wondering his way through the paradoxes of traditional
theological discourse and mcinerny reflecting on why John paul ii urged
3. Admittedly, the verse, translated more literally from the Hebrew, is more an adage about
experienced people: “Wisdom is found in the old, and discretion comes with great age” (as the
new Jerusalem Bible renders it). our more “patristic” reading is based on the Vulgate’s choice
of the words sapientia and prudentia.