Though we can never reach a consensus determining who was the “world’s smartest man,” a significant number of scholars would vote for St. Thomas Aquinas. The “Angelic Doctor’s” genius lay not in his originality or creativity—both attributes he would have disdained—but in his unique ability to synthesize and persuasively explain the perennial truths of philosophy and theology, to effectively conjoin faith and reason. Commending him to the Church as her finest theologian, Pope Leo XIII said: “Because he had the utmost reverence for the Doctors of antiquity, he seems to have inherited in a way the intellect of all.” Still more, wrote Jacques Maritain: “St. Thomas cast his net upon the universe and carried off all things transformed into the life of the mind, towards the beatific vision.” While in graduate school I encountered thinkers such as Maritain, and I embraced Aquinas’ “moderate realism” with its common sense Christian approach to philosophy. I’ve read both his Summa Contra Gentiles and Summa Theoligica, and, as Flannery O’Connor wrote: “I couldn’t make any judgment on the Summa, except to say this: I read it every night before I go to bed.” Aquinas’ love for God elicited her love for him. Without question Aquinas is one of the handful of theologians who’ve shaped theological developments in the Christian Church. Yet anyone who’s tried to read his Summa Theologica will testify to some difficulty in plowing through it. Mainly this stems, I suspect, from its imposing length—several thousand pages in some editions!
If you like sober, down-to-earth folks like Aristotle, you’ll find Thomas congenial. He’s also congenial to those of us committed to historical Orthodoxy. Though not everyone would share the decision of the Council of Trent, placing St. Thomas’s Summa second only to the Bible as a source of theological authority, all Christians can find wellsprings of Orthodox doctrine pooled in the aquifers of Aquinas. That Richard Hooker, drank deeply of Aquinas helps us better grasp the thought of later Anglicans such as John Wesley and C.S. Lewis. Still more, the level of Aquinas’ thinking is far more elevated and intellectually demanding than most of us can handle Though his thought is, in the final analysis, almost always crystal-clear, it takes patient reading and re-reading to probe the depths of reality he explores. He’s one of the most coherent, understandable theologians, but he’s not interested in stylistic devices to entertain us! Fortunately, Peter Kreeft, provided us a great service with his edited and annotated A Summa of the Summa: The Essential Philosophical Passages of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica Edited and Explained for Beginners. He selected those excerpts which best introduce the reader to the substance of St. Thomas. To Kreeft: “St. Thomas Aquinas is certainly one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived (to my mind he is the greatest),” giving “at least eight reasons: truth, common sense, practicality, clarity, profundity, orthodoxy, medievalism, and modernity” (p. 11).
Aquinas had no interest in “language games,” for the “study of philosophy,” he insisted, “is not the study of what men have opined, but of what is the truth.” Rigorously—resolutely—he sought to see and clarify what is true, and he found truth to be down-to-earth and accessible. He dismissed professional skeptics (whose verbal puzzles defy resolution) as misguided folks out-of-touch with an eminently touchable reality. Ultimately, says Kreeft, “St. Thomas is important for us today precisely because of our lack. Timeless truth is always timely, of course, but some aspects of truth are especially needed at some times, and it seems that our times badly need seven Thomistic syntheses: (1) of faith and reason, (2) of the Biblical and the classical, the Judeo-Christian and the Greco-Roman heritages, (3) of the ideals of clarity and profundity, (4) of common sense and technical sophistication, (5) of theory and practice, (6) of an understanding, intuitive vision and a demanding, accurate logic, and (7) of the one and the many,m a cosmic unity or ‘big picture’ and carefully sorted out distinctions” (pp. 13-14).
Encouraging the beginner to read one brief section a day, Kreeft provides helpful footnotes and a glossary of terms which enable one to develop some understanding of “Thomism.” Though I’ve read lots of studies of Aquinas, I think Kreeft’s most helpful while digesting him.
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That Thomas Aquinas is a truly ecumenical thinker is evident in Thomas Aquinas: An Evangelical Appraisal, by Norman L. Geisler, a prolific scholar who was widely respected by conservative evangelicals. Geisler’s work on St. Thomas interests me because it shows how truly catholic he was, finding followers within the American “evangelicalism” Geisler and R.C. Sproul represented. Sproul, incidentally, says of Geisler’s work: “This is ‘must reading’ for every thinking Christian. I am thrilled by this careful analysis of St. Thomas.” Geisler dismissed those evangelicals such as Francis Schaeffer who disparaged Aquinas, finding them largely ill-informed. But there was a hardy handful of evangelicals—”a strong but too often silent minority [e.g. John H. Gerstner and R.C. Sproul] among us—who are directly dependent upon Aquinas for our basic theology, philosophy, and/or apologetics” (p. 14). In this they imitate C.S. Lewis, finding Aquinas a fertile field for healthy theological vineyards.
Geisler argues there are eight contributions Aquinas can make today. “First, Aquinas’s view of nature and interpretation of Scripture is helpful in the current debate on inerrancy and hermeneutics” (p. 21). A Fundamentalist Aquinas was not, but he had a lofty appreciation for Scripture’s divine inspiration. “Second, Aquinas can help us build a solid theistic basis for doing historical apologetics” (p. 21). “Third, Aquinas, can provide a philosophical answer to the growing influence of the finite god of process theology” (p. 21). “Fourth, Thomistic analogy seems to be the only adequate answer to the problem of religious language” (p. 22). We must refer to God either univocally, equivocally, or analogically, and the final option is the only one suitable for Christian theology. “Fifth, the value of Aquinas in overcoming the separation of the God of reason and revelation” (p. 22) cannot be ignored. “Sixth, Aquinas makes a major contribution in the area of epistemology,” (p. 22), for his sophisticated distinctions between the active and passive intellects, his balanced emphasis on both empirical learning and rational thinking, provide a viable modern theory of knowledge. “Seventh, Aquinas’s answer to the relation of faith and reason is a surprising synthesis of the best elements of rationalism and existentialism” (p. 22), for both faith and reason must be properly blended in a viable theology. “Finally, Aquinas addresses reconciliation of human freedom and divine sovereignty . . . the nature of divine and human law . . . and the problem of evil” (p. 22).
After a brief discussion of Aquinas’ life and an overview of his thought, Geisler considers such subjects as “The Bible,” “Faith and Reason,” “God’s Nature,” “Evil,” and “Law and Morality.” In my opinion, we who consider John Wesley and James Arminius our theological mentors should take note of Geisler’s appreciation for Aquinas, since in many ways he’s one of our finest forebears! If we’re neither Calvinistic nor Pelagian when discussing the freedom of the will, we’ll find useful Thomas’ defensible middle ground. If we believe grace perfects nature, as we suggest when we preach holiness, we side with Thomas, not Luther or Calvin. When we rely upon the Bible as the fully-inspired Word of God, we discover it’s Thomas, not Barth or Bultmann, who guides us. So if someone like Geisler, operating out of a thoroughly Reformed perspective, finds Aquinas worthwhile, how much more should we Wesleyans!
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It’s always delightful to discover an erudite scholar engaging his world with wit and wisdom. Edward Feser teaches philosophy at Pasadena City College. That a scholar of his caliber teaches at a community college reminds me of a remark Alexander Solzhenitsyn made when he addressed a gathering at Harvard University. While cognizant of Harvard’s elite standing, he noted that much of the best thinking in the nation took place in non-distinguished, out-of-the-way places where individuals were not subservient to the reigning dogmas of fashion and ideology. I’d guess he’d be delighted to find a man such as Feser working in an undergraduate college in Pasadena! For many years he was “a convinced atheist and naturalist.” But slowly, by carefully reading philosophers such as Gottlob Frege, he became persuaded that “there exists, in addition to the material world and the ‘world’ within the human mind, a ‘third realm’ of abstract entities, in particular of meanings and of mathematical objects like numbers.” He then discovered, through Elizabeth Anscombe and Alasdair MacIntyre, the perennial relevance of Aristotle. Finally, notable philosophers of religion, such as Alvin Plantinga and William Lane Craig whetted his appetite for St. Thomas Aquinas. “All of this led me eventually to a serious reconsideration of the Aristotelian tradition in philosophy in general, and of Aquinas’s adaptation of it in particular, and the end result was that I became convinced that the basic metaphysical assumptions with modern secular philosophers rather unreflectively take for granted, and which alone can make atheism seem at all plausible, were radically mistaken.”
Coupled with an appreciation for the ancient Greeks, Feser urges us to learn from Medieval thinkers such as Aquinas, the “greatest philosopher of the Middle Ages, and among the greatest philosophers, period.” His intellectual debt to Thomas is evident in his Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide, When one turns to Aquinas after reading “new atheists” such as Richard Dawkins (who failed to grasp even elementary differences between science and metaphysics), the luminous superiority of the Angelic Doctor becomes instantly apparent. Dawkins, for example, cannot think of creation except within a linear time frame, but when Aquinas endeavored to develop arguments demonstrating God’s existence, he aimed “to show that given that there are in fact some causes of various sorts, the nature of cause and effect entails that God is necessary as an uncaused cause of the universe even if we assume that the universe has always existed and thus had no beginning. The argument is not that the world wouldn’t have got started if God hadn’t knocked down the first domino at some point in the distant past; it is that it wouldn’t exist here and now, or undergo change or exhibit final causes here and now unless God were here and now, and at every moment, sustaining it in being, change, and goal-directedness” (The Last Superstition, p. 86).
Aquinas held this because he grasped the difference between “accidentally ordered” and “essentially ordered” events. The former occur as a series within time, as illustrated in the biblical lists of sons begotten by their fathers; the latter must be traced not backward but “‘downward’ in the present moment [as when a batter swings the bat, moving his hands and the bat simultaneously, the arm and shoulder and hands causing the bat to move] since they are series in which each member depends simultaneously on other members which simultaneously depend on turn on yet others, and so on” (Last Superstition, p. 93). When we grasp this distinction, and understand that God is “Pure Act,” we can see why it is that He must, necessarily, exist. Inasmuch as everything has an “essence”—what it is—it attains being by being actualized, deriving its existence from another, more basic Reality: Being Itself. “As Peter Geach puts it, for Aquinas the claim that God made the world ‘is more like “the minstrel made music” than “the blacksmith made a shoe”’; that is to say, creation is an ongoing activity rather than a once-and-for-all event. While the shoe might continue to exist even if the blacksmith dies, the music necessarily stops when the minstrel stops playing, and the world would necessarily go out of existence if God stopped creating it” (Aquinas, p. 88).
The natural world appears mysteriously ordered. As Aquinas noted, “things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result.” Trees grow upward, seeking the light; arrows follow a predictable trajectory; acorns drop to the earth, ready to become lofty oaks. In view of such manifest facts: “It follows,” Feser says, “that the system of ends or final causes that make up the physical universe can only exist at all if there is a Supreme Intelligence or intellect outside the universe which directs things towards their ends. Moreover, this intellect must exist here and now, and not merely at some beginning point in the past, because causes are here and now, and at any point at which they exist at all, directed towards certain ends” (Aquinas, p. 117). Far from being a probable hypothesis, an intelligently ordered cosmos demonstrates, as Aquinas argued, the reality of an Intelligent Agent.
Emphatically, Feser asserts: “the classical theistic arguments, and certainly the arguments of such major philosophical theologians as Anselm, Aquinas, and Leibniz, are not properly interpreted as ‘God of the gaps’ arguments at all. They are not ‘hypotheses’ or attempts to ‘postulate’ a quasi-scientific explanation for particular phenomena that science has not yet accounted for, but which it could in principle account for someday. They are rather attempts conclusively to demonstrate the existence of a Necessary Being or First Cause of the world on the basis of premises (concerning the metaphysics of causation, say, or the contingency of the material world, or the concept of a greatest possible being) about which empirical science has nothing to tell us. The question of whether they succeed or fail as proofs is thus independent of the current state of our scientific knowledge” (Philosophy Mind, pp. 236-237).
So for Feser it’s back to Aristotle and Aquinas!
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To make accessible important aspects of Aquinas’ work, Kevin Vost wrote The One Minute Aquinas: The Doctor’s Quick Answers to Fundamental Questions. Designed to address “the questions that matter most,” he explores some of Aquinas’ positions (primarily found in his Summa Theologica), treating the nature of human nature, God, and Christ. We naturally desire happiness. Exactly how to fully attain and enjoy it, however, perennially puzzles and eludes us! Many (indeed most) of the things we pursue—wealth, pleasure, status—wrongly promise to make us happy, and even the best and brightest of mortals generally die a bit discontent. To Aquinas this makes sense because we most deeply long for a joy impossible to attain on earth. At best we can only partially discover (through God’s grace and a virtuous life) what we will fully attain only in heaven (the beautific vision). We are special creatures, preeminently spiritual beings, created to share God’s eternal life, so we must rightly respond to His initiatives and commands.
To do so requires that we comply with our divine design to live as free moral agents, to act responsibly, to do the things conducive to true happiness. “As the intellect seeks to know the true, the will seeks to obtain the good.” Thus we must be free, for as Thomas said, “‘Man has free will: otherwise counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards and punishments would be in vain.’” We choose to do right or wrong, to resist or surrender to sinful temptations, to demand instant gratifications or consider long-term goods—and in making such decisions we develop the habits that shape our character. Good habits come through sustained repetition. “Good habits direct us toward good acts, and another word for a good habit is a virtue. Thus we need to practice the cardinal virtues (prudence; fortitude; temperance; justice—all nicely discussed by Voss in short sections) in order to live well. Helping us do so is the Law. To Aquinas, “‘The light of natural reason, whereby we discern what is good and what is evil, which is the function of the natural law, is nothing else than the rational creature’s participation of the eternal law’” (#1229). This law is given specificity in Scripture and informs human laws insofar as they are truly good.
Yet we need more than the Law to guide us to eternal goodness. Only the Grace of God grants the infused virtues (faith, hope, and love) that finally satisfy our hunger for happiness, enabling us to participate in the very life of God Himself. Responding by faith to His invitation, we find the forgiveness of sins and are born again. By faith we acknowledge the truth fully revealed to us in Christ and learn of Him as the Holy Spirit works within us, giving us understanding and strength to trust and follow God. Hope grants us the assurance that our future good, our eternal happiness, has been provided by Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the Cross and Resurrection from the grave. The best of the infused virtues, of course, is charity—“the friendship of man for God” that “resides not in our passions, but in the will, and the will desires, seeks, and loves the good. Love in the sense of charity seeks the highest good—the attainment of union with God.” Amazingly, God has entered into our world and encourages us to establish a lasting friendship with Him. Just as loving our neighbors means doing good for them, as well as wishing them well, so too loving God means doing what pleases him, not simply feeling certain things about Him.
To please God we must first know Who He Is! To this subject Aquinas devoted himself wholeheartedly. As a six-year old child he asked “Who is God?” and for the next 42 years he constantly sought to answer his question. By nature we have a vague awareness of a Supreme Being of some sort, though this innate awareness easily slides into denial or forgetfulness. We can, however, by careful thinking come to certainty regarding His existence. Thus Aquinas set forth, at the beginning of the Summa, five famous ways to “prove” or “argue for” God’s existence. Beyond this simple fact, we need Him to reveal Himself (primarily in Scripture) regarding his attributes, though we can reason cogently when deciding various things regarding the Great I Am who is Three-in-One. Until quite recently, natural scientists and philosophers took the universe to be eternal. By taking the Bible as his foundation, however, Aquinas said it was created. Matter began to be as God spoke it into being. Citing Dionysius, who said all things were divinely caused, Thomas said: “God’s ability to create belongs to his being or essence, which is common to the three Persons of the Trinity. God causes things by his intellect and will, as when a craftsman works through an idea or ‘word’ in his mind to craft something that he loves. So too did God the Father make creatures through the Word, who is his Son, and through his Love, which is the Holy Spirit. The Trinity, then, created creation” (#3054). He created simply because He is Good and sought to share His goodness with His creatures. So, as Augustine said, “the trace of the Trinity appears in creatures” and guides the studious mind toward the Creator.
The Second Person of the Trinity, Christ Jesus, most fully revealed God to us, and Aquinas labored to fully grasp His nature and work. With the memorable simplicity characteristic of him, he said of our Lord: “Being born, He became our friend. At supper, He became our food. Dying, He was our ransom’s price. And, reigning, is our eternal good” (#3432). “God became incarnate as the most fitting way to restore our corrupted sinful human nature so that many good things would follow, including the building up of our faith, since we could hear God Himself speak; our hope, since Christ’s presence shows us God’s love for us; our charity, so that we would desire to love God in return for his presence among us; and our well-doing, since God himself served as our example; and indeed, ‘the full participation of the Divinity, which is the bliss of man and end of human life; and this is bestowed on us by Christ’s humanity; for Augustine says . . . God was made man that man might be made God’” (#3467).
Summing up his commendation of Aquinas, Vost cites the 14th century Pope John XXII, who declared, in Doctoris Angelici: “He enlightened the Church more than all the other Doctors together; a man can derive more profit from his books in one year than from a lifetime spent pondering the philosophy of others” (#4321). Anyone desiring to do so will find in Kevin Vost a most helpful tutor.
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