Thomas Aquinas's Summa theologiae

by Bernard McGinn

  50. All three forms of wisdom are primarily intellectual virtues, though they have an intimate relation to the will and affectivity not found in pure scientia; see Conley, Theology of Wisdom, 45–46, 86–88, 113–21, and 130–32.

  51. Weisheipl, “Meaning of Sacra Doctrina,” 75, summarizes, “[T]he definition of sacra doctrina is simply wisdom (art. 6), about God (art. 7) in faith, derived from divine revelation (art. 1).” Wisdom is the goal of all Thomas’s writings, as we can see from texts like SCG I.2 (“Quae sit hoc opera auctoris intentio”), which begins, “Among all human pursuits the pursuit of wisdom is more perfect, more sublime, more useful, and more pleasing.” The basis for the position of wisdom is summarized in Thomas’s In I Cor. 1:17–25, lect. 3: “Wisdom is the knowledge of divine things and so belongs to contemplation.”

  52. Thomas reflected on the role of reason and rational argument in sacred teaching in a number of other places: e.g., Ia, q. 32.1; Ia, q. 46.2; SCG I.2–3, 8–9; De Trinitate, q. 2.3; and Quod. IV, q. 9.3.

  53. De Trinitate, q. 2.3, ad 5.

  54. Thomas’s role as a scriptural interpreter is studied in Wilhelmus G. B. M. Valkenberg, Words of the Living God. Place and Function of Holy Scripture in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas (Leuven: Peeters, 2000); and Thomas Prügl, “Thomas Aquinas as Interpreter of Scripture,” in Theology of Thomas Aquinas, 386–415.

  55. On the apophatic nature of both sapiential theology and the gift of wisdom, Conley, Theology of Wisdom, 104, 132–37, and 142–43.

  56. Thomas has further reflections on the relation between reading the Bible and the construction of sacra doctrina in IIaIIae, q. 1.9. Other explorations of Thomas’s hermeneutical theory include De pot. q. 4.1, and Quod. VII, q. 6.1–3.

  57. Ghislain Lafont, Structures et méthode dans la Somme Théologique de Saint Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Desclée, 1961), 34, says, “[T]he problem of the plan of the Summa, apparently so clear, is in reality complex.” For a recent survey, Brian V. Johnstone, “The Debate on the Structure of the Summa theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas: From Chenu (1939) to Metz (1998),” in Aquinas as Authority, Paul van Geest, Harm Goris, and Carlo Leget, eds. (Leuven: Peeters, 2002), 187–200.

  58. Thomas F. O’Meara, Thomas Aquinas. Theologian (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), 53–68.

  59. The structure of the Summa is both linear, or diachronic, as well as synchronic in the sense that Thomas always keeps the meaning of the whole in mind. As Liam G. Walsh observes, “[Thomas] does not pass from one thing to another. He is looking at everything all of the time, but in a perspective that moves gradually from the more abstract and universal to the more particular.” Walsh, “Sacraments,” in Theology of Thomas Aquinas, 327.

  60. Lonergan, “Future of Thomism,” 46.

  61. M.-D. Chenu, “Le plan de la Somme théologique de saint Thomas,” Revue thomiste 47 (1939): 93–107, later incorporated in his Toward Understanding St. Thomas (Chicago: Regnery, 1964), 310–18.

  62. Thomas refers to the exitus-reditus paradigm in In I Sent., d. 2, div. textus; and d. 14, q. 2.2, sol.; as well as in In II. Sent., prol.

  63. Among the alternative suggestions, see André Hayen, St. Thomas et la vie de l’église (Louvain: Publications Universitaires, 1952), especially 77–100; Albert Patfoort, La Somme de Saint Thomas et la logique du dessein de Dieu (Saint-Maur: Éditions Parole et Silence, 1998); and Rudi Te Velde, Aquinas on God. The “Divine Science” of the Summa Theologiae (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006), chap. 1.

  64. In I Sent., d. 14, q. 2.2, sol.

  65. Thomas discusses both the immanent circulus of the Trinitarian processions and the external “processio in exteriorem naturam” in De pot. q. 9.9, corp.

  66. E.g., SCG I.9; II.1; III.1; and IV.1; as well as the argument advanced in Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:107–16.

  67. The triple pattern is part of the structure of the work and appears in such texts as De divinis nominibus 1.5. For Thomas’s comment on this passage, see his In Librum De divinis nominibus (Turin: Marietti, 1950), cap. I, lect. 3, ## 79–95 (pp. 27–29).

  68. Max Secklar, Das Heil in der Geschichte. Geschichtstheologisches Denken bei Thomas von Aquin (Munich: Kösel Verlag, 1964), 46, puts it as follows: “It [the schema of the Summa] signifies nothing else but a total and self-consistent structure of events, or, as we might say now, Aquinas’s theological design is based on a formula open to history and therefore enabling statements about history as meaningful. As a plan of the perspective, it is as much a source of historical understanding as an ordering of theological understanding: it defines the ordo disciplinae, because it had already defined the ordo rerum.” See also Yves Congar, “Le moment ‘économique’ et le moment ‘ontologique’ dans la Sacra Doctrina (Révélation, Théologie, Somme Théologique),” in Mélanges offerts à M.-D. Chenu (Paris: Bibliothéque Thomiste, 1967), 135–87.

  69. On the argument from fittingness, Gilbert Narcisse, Les raisons de Dieu: Argument de convenience et esthétique théologique selon saint Thomas d’Aquin et Hans Urs von Balthasar (Fribourg: Éditions universitaires, 1997).

  70. The reference to our resurrection in this passage led Johnstone, “Debate on the Structure of the Summa,” 195–98, to emphasize how Christ’s Resurrection (e.g., IIIa, qq. 53–56) functions as a paradigm for Thomas’s structuring of sacred history in the Summa.

  CHAPTER 3 A Tour of the Summa theologiae

  1. For an analysis of qq. 1–26, Te Velde, Aquinas on God.

  2. Contrasting evaluations of the five ways can be found in Edward Sillem, Ways of Thinking about God. Thomas Aquinas and the Modern Mind (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1961), who defends a reworked version of the five ways, and Anthony Kenny, The Five Ways. St. Thomas Aquinas’s Proofs for God’s Existence (New York: Shocken Books, 1969), who subjects the ways to a strong critique.

  3. In SCG I.13 Thomas gives a longer and somewhat different version of the five ways more directly based on Aristotle.

  4. Jean-Luc Marion, “Thomas Aquinas and Onto-theo-logy,” in Mystics. Presence and Aporia, Michael Kessler and Christian Sheppard, eds. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 38–74.

  5. Etienne Gilson, Being and Some Philosophers, 2nd ed. (Toronto: PIMS, 1949).

  6. For a succinct presentation, John F. Wipple, “Being,” in The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, Brian Davies and Eleonore Stump, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 77–84.

  7. David Burrell, Aquinas. God & Action (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979).

  8. Te Velde, Aquinas on God, 77–85.

  9. David Burrell, Analogy and Philosophical Language (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), puts Aquinas’s teaching in historical context.

  10. Gilles Emery, Trinity in Aquinas (Ann Arbor, MI: Sapientia Press, 2003).

  11. See David Burrell, Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993).

  12. My understanding of Thomas’s teaching on creation and the role of Aristotelian and Platonic elements in it owes much to Joseph de Finance, Être et Agir dans la Philosophie de Saint Thomas, 2nd ed. (Rome: Librarie Éditrice de l’Université Grégorienne, 1960).

  13. On humanity as made in the image of the Trinitarian God, D. Juvenal Merriel, To the Image of the Trinity. A Study in the Development of Aquinas’ Teaching (Toronto: PIMS, 1990).

  14. The question of the so-called natural desire for God, often misunderstood in later Thomist tradition, was clarified by Henri de Lubac, The Mystery of the Supernatural (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967); see also William R. O’Connor, The Natural Desire for God (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1948).

  15. Anton C. Pegis, At the Origins of the Thomistic Notion of Man (New York: Macmillan, 1963), pts. 2 and 4.

  16. There is a multiauthor introduction to Thomas’s moral theology in The Ethics of Aquinas, Stephen J. Pope, ed. (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2002). See also Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, pt. 4.

  17. An analysis of the IaII
ae can found in Brian Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), chaps. 12 and 13 (pp. 207–73).

  18. Bernard Lonergan, Grace and Freedom. Operative Grace in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas (New York: Herder & Herder, 1971).

  19. For an overview, Joseph Wawrykow, “The Theological Virtues,” in Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, 287–307.

  20. On the importance of friendship in Aquinas, Turner, Thomas Aquinas, chap. 5 (145–68); and Jean-Pierre Torrell, Christ and Spirituality in St. Thomas Aquinas (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, 2011), chap. 3.

  21. For a Thomistically inspired account, Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966).

  22. For Thomas’s Christology and its context, Corey L. Barnes, Christ’s Two Wills in Scholastic Thought. The Christology of Aquinas in Its Historical Context (Toronto: PIMS, 2012), as well as Joseph Wawrykow, “Hypostatic Union,” in Theology of Thomas Aquinas, 222–51.

  23. On the structure of Thomas’s Christology, John F. Boyle, “The Twofold Division of St. Thomas’s Christology in the Tertia Pars,” Thomist 60 (2010): 439–47.

  24. For an introduction, Walsh, “Sacraments,” 326–64.

  25. Here Thomas does not use his succinct formulation of sacramental causality found in De ver. q. 27.4, ad 13; and q. 28.2, ad 12: “sacraments cause by signifying” (sacramenta significando causant).

  26. Walsh, “Sacraments,” 335.

  CHAPTER 4 The Tides of Thomism, 1275–1850

  1. On the notion of creative misreadings, Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), chap. 2.

  2. The last attempt at a general history was Karl Werner, Der heilige Thomas von Aquin. Vol. III. Geschichte des Thomismus (Regensburg: Manz, 1859). Many brief surveys exist, e.g., J. A. Weisheipl, “Thomism,” in The New Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Macmillan, 2003), 14:40–52.

  3. For an introduction, Martin Grabmann, “History of the Theological Summa. Its Commentators,” in Introduction to the Theological Summa of St. Thomas (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1930), 43–59.

  4. Lawrence A. Kennedy, A Catalogue of Thomists, 1270–1900 (Houston: Center for Thomistic Studies, 1987).

  5. For this distinction, Romanus Cessario, A Short History of Thomism (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, 2005); a more flexible view is found in Torrell, Aquinas’s Summa, “The Summa through History” and “The Summa in the Twentieth Century.”

  6. These two ways of reading Thomas on the relation of theology and philosophy are analyzed in Géry Prouvost, Thomas d’Aquin et les thomismes (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2007), chap. 1.

  7. Henri de Lubac, At the Service of the Church (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993), 144.

  8. Gerald Vann, St. Thomas Aquinas (New York: Benzinger Brothers, 1947), 71.

  9. The Roman Provincial Chapter of Perugia in 1308 forbade the friars substituting the Summa for the Lombard’s Sentences (Mulchahey, “First the Bow Is Bent,” 155–56, 161). The Dominican Order did legislate that the Sentences be taught along with certain “articles” of the teaching of Thomas, mostly taken from the Summa.

  10. The Paris Condemnation is document 473 in H. Denifle and A. Chatelain, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, vol. 1 (Paris, 1889), 543–58. The Oxford Condemnation follows as document 474 (558–60).

  11. Etienne Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (New York: Random House, 1955), 408.

  12. Alain de Libera, Penser du moyen âge (Paris: Seuil, 1993).

  13. Luca Bianchi, “1277: A Turning Point in Medieval Philosophy?,” in Was ist Philosophie im Mittelalter?, Jan A. Aertsen and Andreas Speer, eds. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1998), 90–110.

  14. For an introduction, John F. Wippel, “The Condemnations of 1270 and 1277 at Paris,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 7 (1977): 169–201. More detail can be found in Roland Hissette, Enquète sur les 219 articles condemnés à Paris le 7 mars 1277 (Louvain: Université Louvain, 1977); and the papers in Nach der Verurteilung von 1277. Philosophie und Theologie an der Universität Paris im letzten Viertel des 13. Jahrhunderts, Jan A. Aertsen, Kent Emery, Jr., and Andreas Speer, eds. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2001).

  15. The Dominicans mustered their forces to prevent a formal condemnation of Thomas. A story that seems worthy of credence is that the aged Albert the Great came to Paris in 1276 or 1277 to defend his former student.

  16. The Dominican legislation is found in Maur Burbach, “Early Dominican and Franciscan Legislation Regarding St. Thomas,” Mediaeval Studies 4 (1942): 139–58.

  17. The respondents to William de la Mare, as well as other early followers of Thomas, such as the English Dominican Thomas Sutton, the French Bernard of Trilia, and the Belgian Giles of Lessines, are studied by Frederick J. Roensch, Early Thomistic School (Dubuque, IA: Priory Press, 1964). See also J.-P. Torrell, “Le savoir théologique chez les premiers Thomistes,” in his Recherches Thomasiennes. Études revues et augmentées (Paris: Vrin, 2000), 158–76.

  18. The five correctoria defending Thomas include the Correctorium corruptorii Quare, probably written by Richard Knapwell ca. 1280–83; the Correctorium Sciendum, an English work of ca. 1283, possibly by Robert Orford; the Correctorium Circa by John Quidort of Paris, written about 1283–84; the Correctorium Quaestione, most likely the work of the Englishman William of Macclesfield in 1284; and the Apologeticum veritatis by the Italian Rambert di’Primadizza, written at Paris ca. 1286–88.

  19. Mark D. Jordan, “The Controversy of the Correctoria and the Limits of Metaphysics,” Speculum 57 (1982): 292–314; and Maarten J. F. M. Hoenen, “Being and Thinking in the ‘Correctorium fratris Thomae’ and the ‘Correctorium corruptorii Quare,’” in Nach der Verurteilung von 1277, 413–35.

  20. On John of Freiburg’s Summa Confessorum (ca. 1298), L. E. Boyle, “The Summa Confessorum of John of Freiburg and the Popularization of the Moral Teaching of St. Thomas and Some of His Contemporaries,” in St. Thomas Aquinas, 1274–1294. Commemorative Studies, 2 vols. (Toronto: PIMS, 1974), 2:245–68.

  21. J. N. Hillgarth, “Who Read Thomas Aquinas?”, in The Gilson Lectures on Thomas Aquinas, James P. Reilly, ed. (Toronto: PIMS, 2002), 46–72.

  22. For an introduction, Richard Cross, Duns Scotus (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). Because of Scotus’s early death, his major writings are versions of his commentaries on the Lombard’s Sentences given at Oxford and Paris. The Oxford Lectura seems to date from 1298–99, while the longer Ordinatio and Reportatio Parisiensia reflect his teaching in Paris (1301–4).

  23. See Cross, Duns Scotus, chap. 1; Stephen F. Brown, “Scotus’s Method in Theology,” in Via Scoti. Methodologica ad mentem Joannis Duns Scoti, Leonardo Sileo, ed. (Rome: Edizioni Antonianum, 1995), 229–43; and Oleg Bychkov, “The Nature of Theology in Duns Scotus and His Franciscan Predecessors,” Franciscan Studies 66 (2008): 5–62.

  24. This Prologue takes up the first volume of the critical edition, Iohannis Duns Scoti Opera Omnia (Rome: Vatican Press, 1950–).

  25. Reportatio Parisiensia, Liber Tertius, d. 24, can be found in Joannis Duns Scoti Opera Omnia (Paris: L. Vivès, 1894), 13:446–59.

  26. Ordinatio, Prol., Pars 1, q. unica, n. 79, cites and rebuts STh Ia, q. 1.1, ad 2. See also Pars 5, qq. 1–2, n. 313.

  27. See Bychkov, “Nature of Theology in Duns Scotus,” 44–62.

  28. The surviving parts of the Opus Tripartitum are in Meister Eckhart. Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1936–), Die lateinischen Werke, vols. 1–3. I count 122 explicit references to Thomas in these volumes, while the indices list no fewer than 516 direct or indirect uses of the Prima Pars, 202 of the IaIIa, 75 of the IIaIIae, and 38 of the IIIa.

  29. For an introduction, Alain de Libera, La mystique rhénane. D’Albert le Grand à Maître Eckhart (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1994). The texts of these Dominicans are being edited in the Corpus Philosophorum Teutonicorum Me
dii Aevi.

  30. For aspects of the relation of Thomas and Eckhart, Bernard McGinn, The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart (New York: Crossroad, 2001), which also contains references to further literature.

  31. On the contrast between Eckhart’s ethical thought and that of Thomas, John M. Connolly, Living Without Why: Meister Eckhart’s Critique of the Medieval Concept of Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

  32. For an overview, Thomas Tyn, “Prochoris und Demetrios Kydones. Der Byzantinische Thomismus des 14. Jahrhunderts,” in Thomas von Aquino. Interpretation und Rezeption, Willehad Paul Eckert, ed. (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, 1974), 837–912.

  33. John Monfasani, Bessarion Scholasticus. A Study of Cardinal Bessarion’s Latin Library (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), “The Thomism of Cardinal Bessarion” (61–81).

  34. For a sketch of medieval Jewish uses of Thomas, Giuseppe Sermonetta, “Per una storia del Tomismo Ebraico,” in Tommaso d’Aquino nella storia del pensiero. Vol. II. Dal Medioevo al Oggi (Naples: Edizioni Domeniche Italiane, 1974), 354–59.

  35. Lonergan, “Future of Thomism,” 53.

  36. Paul J. Griffiths, Religious Reading (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 77–97.

  37. Johannis Capreoli Defensiones Theologiae Divi Thomae Aquinatis, Ceslaus Paban and Thomas Pègues, eds., 7 vols. (repr., Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1967), 1:1.

  38. Defensiones Q. 1, a. 1, 5th conclusion (1:4).

  39. On this development, Yves Congar, A History of Theology (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968), 154–62.