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St. Thomas Aquinas in Historical Perspective: The Modern Period
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
Extract
Witnessing as it did the seven hundredth anniversary of the death of St. Thomas Aquinas, the year 1974 was marked by multiple conferences and publications dedicated to his life, his thought and his place in medieval intellectual history. The recently completed septicentennial also provides a useful vantage point from which to examine the current historiographical assessment of St. Thomas' influence in modern intellectual history. Aquinas scholars devoted little systematic attention to this topic in 1974, a fact which, in itself, reflects a striking and persistent imbalance within the field of Aquinas studies. It is a commonplace to state that St. Thomas enjoyed an authority in the period since the thirteenth century far exceeding any he achieved in his own day. Yet, a consideration of the historiography of Thomas' place in modern thought reveals the fact that the Angelic Doctor's substantial post-medieval reputation has not generally been matched by an equally plentiful measure of historical understanding. For two generations, historians of the Middle Ages have made great strides toward the systematic recovery of the historical Thomas Aquinas. But the task of uncovering the historical significance of his thought within the changing contexts of post-medieval culture still awaits its Grabmanns and Chenus.
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References
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79. Ibid., art. 16, Documents, p. 452.
80. Ibid., pp. 451–52.
81. Clarke, W. Norris, “The Future of Thomism,” New Themes, pp. 191–193.Google Scholar
82. Used as the epigraph for the essay of Mascall, E. L., “Guide-Lines from St. Thomas for Theology Today,” St. Thomas Aquinas, 1274–1974, 2:489.Google Scholar
83. A sampler of easily accessible positions at all points along the spectrum might include the following: as an exponent of the hard-shell, business-as-usual neo-Thomists, who see no imperatives for change articulated by Vatican II, see the Master General of the Dominican Order, Fernandez, Aniceto, “Il pensiero di S. Tommaso nell'epoca post-concillare,” Sapienza 19 (1956): 385–398Google Scholar [widely reprinted in translation, for esample Revue thomiste 16 (1966): 177–189Google Scholar] Ralph M. McInerny, Thomism in an Age of Renewal, while willing to concede that neo-Thomism should no longer be taught via stultifying manuals, also reads Vatican II as a reiteration of official neo-Thomism and is impatient with the view that it should be accommodated either to the historical Thomas or to modern thought: for him neo-Thomism is basically correct and satisfying as is: the new is not to be confused with the true; and in any event there is no maestro di color che sanno nowadays and it is tiresome to try to focus on a moving target. Closer to the middle of the spectrum is Steenberghen, Fernand Van, Le retour à saint Thomas a-t-il un sens aujoura'hui? (Montréal, 1967),Google Scholar who notes gaps and weaknesses in both neo-Thomism and in Thomas' thought itself but who concludes that neo-Tbomism should be retained as the Catholic philosophy. Speaking for the group urging neo-Thomists to get back to the historical Thomas, Pegis, Anton C., The Middle Ages and Philosophy: Some Reflections on the Ambivalence of Modern Scholasticism (Chicago, 1963)Google Scholar. notes the disjunction between the modern neo-Thomists' conception of their own work and the historical conception of medieval thought on which it was originally based, from DeWulf's picture of a monolithic medieval mind identical with Thomism through the inroads of the pluralistic picture of medieval thought contributed by Mandonnet to the recovery of the philosophia ancilla theologiae perspective in the work of Gilson. Pegis' historiographical overview is useful so far as it goes, but it neglects the fact that pluralism in medieval thought had been discovered as early as Hauréau's, B.Histoire de la philosophic scolastique, 2 vols. in 3 (Paris 1872–1880),Google Scholar and that the Christian philosophy-cum-pluralism perspective had been discovered as early as Picavet's, F.Esquisse d'une histoire générale et comparée des philosophies médiévales (Paris, 1905).Google Scholar He also omits the reassessment of Thomas' place in medieval thought brought about by the more positive re-evaluations of fourteenth-century scholasticism in the 1950s and 1960s. As far as the future of Catholic philosophy goes, Pegis argues that once purged of neo-Thomist accretions, Thomas' thought will serve as a perfectly satisfactory basis for Catholic thought in the twentieth century. At the more liberal end of the spectrum, Clarke, W. N., “The Future of Thomism,” New Themes, pp. 187–207,Google Scholar urges that those aspects of Thomas' thought which are still valid, of which he provides a very short list, be salvaged and synthesized with modern ideas. The Anglican neo-Thomist, Mascall, E. L., “Guide-Lines,” St. Thomas Aquinas, 1274–1974, 2:489–501,Google Scholar opts for the spirit of Thomas rather than the letter, arguing that those contemporary theologians who have grasped Thomas' spirit the best are the ones who eschew the literal sense of his teachings the most whole-heartedly. An outstanding representative of the most dégagé wing of the liberal group is Danielou, Jean, “Le pluralisme de la pensée,” Sapienza 19 (1966): 11–23,Google Scholar who points to the diversities that have always existed in Catholic thought, even among neo-Thomisms, who depreciates the utility of any version of Thomism as the best vehicle for the Catholic faith in the twentieth century, and who dismisses the need for any one official Catholic philosophy.
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