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Fides et Ratio and the Twentieth Century Thomistic Revival

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

John F. X. Knasas
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I want to speak about the place of Fides et Ratio within the parameters of the twentieth century Thomistic revival. To do that I must first describe the revival Three strains of Thomistic interpretation characterized the revival before Vatican II: Aristotelian Thomism, Existential Thomism and Transcendental Thomism. The first two were a posteriori in their epistemology. The mind abstractly draws its fundamental conceptual content from the human knower’s contact with the self-manifestly real things given in sensation. Among the concepts abstracted are the transcendentals, chief among which is the ratio ends, the notion or concept of being. It is an analogical commonality, and so a sameness within difference, whose analogates are absolutely everything, actual and conceivable.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 81 , Issue 956 , October 2000 , pp. 400 - 408
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Speaking of classical realism, Gilson, an Existential Thomist, asks, “Is it so difficult, then, to understand that the concept of being is presented to knowledge as an intuitive perception since the being conceived is that of a sensible intuitively perceived? The existential acts which affect and impregnate the intellect through the senses are raised to the level of consciousness, and realist knowledge flows forth from this immediate contact between object and knowing subject.” Gilson, Etienne, Thomist Realism and the Critique of Knowledge, trans. Wauck, Mark A (San Francisco. Ignatius Press, 1986), 206Google Scholar and passim. Likewise, Maritain remarks. “in the final reckoning, the primary basis for the veracity of our knowledge” is the “resolving of the sense's knowledge into the thing itself and actual existence.”The Degrees of Knowledge, trans by Phelan, Gerald (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1959). 118Google Scholar. n. 1, also Peasant, 100, and Maritain's many remarks on his “intuition de I'ectre.” For the Aristotelian Thomists (viz., the “River Forest” Dominicans—William Kane, Benedict Ashley, James Weisheipl, and William Wallace) the a posteriori origin of knowledge is reflected in the methodological primacy of natural philosophy (Aristotelian physics) over metaphysics. Natural philosophy has ens mobile as its subject, viz., sensible things as changeable. For a description of this neo‐Thomist camp, see Ashley, Benedict, “The River Forest School and the Philosophy of Nature Today,” in Philosophy and the God of Abraham, ed. Long, R. James (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1991), 1–16Google Scholar.

2 On Aquinas' understanding of analogical conceptualization, see my “Aquinas, Analogy, and the Divine Infinity,” Doctor Communis, 40 (1987). 71–6Google Scholar.

3 See Ashley article cited supra n. 1

4 For Gilson, vd., God and Philosophy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964)Google Scholar. 63, 65, 67, 70; Being and Some Philosophers (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. 1952)Google Scholar. 5, 202, 214; The Elements of Christian Philosophy (New York New American Library, 1963), 143Google Scholar. For Maritain, Existence and the Existent, trans. by Galantiere, L. and Phelan, G. B. (New York: Vintage Books, 1966)Google Scholar. “The Concept of Existence or of To‐exist (esse) and that of Being or of That‐which‐is (ens), 22–25.

5 For the existential act understanding of being. “Sicut autem motus est actus ipsius mobilis inquantum mobile est; ita esse est actus existentis, inquantum ens est.” (In I Sent., d. 19, q. 2 a. 2c);….esse dicitur actns entis in quantum est ens, idest quo denominatur aliquid ens actu in rerum natura. “(Quodl. IX, q. 2, a. 3c); “Nam ens dicitur quasi esse habens.,” (In XII Meta., lect. 1). Also, In 1 Sent, d. 19, q 5, a 1c. De Ver., I, 1, ad 3m, second set, S.C.G II, 54; S.T. I 44, 2c.

6 For a sympathetic description with references, see Donceel, Joseph, “Transcendental Thomism,” The Monist, 58 (1974), 67–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a critical description with references, see my “intellectual Dynamism in Transcendental Thomism: A Metaphysical Assessment,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 69 (1995), 15–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 “Whenever we think of a being, we can think of a greater being; in fact, we do so spontaneously, at least in this sense: that whenever we think of a being, we realize at once that this being is finite, limited. But — and this is a remark of utmost importance—in order to know a limit as limit, we must, in fact or in our striving be beyond that limit.” Donceel, Joseph, Natural Theology (New York Sheed and Ward, 1962), 20Google Scholar. Also 59 and 66.

8 “This explains the great importance of ‘retorsion’ in Transcendental Thomism. ‘Retorsion’ is a technical term which refers to the method of demonstrating an assertion by showing that he who denies the assertion affirms it in his very denial.” Donceel, “Transcendental Thomism,” p. 81. For Maréchal's key exercise of retorsion, see Donceel, Joseph, A Marécha1 Reader, (New York. Herder and Herder, 1970). 215–17Google Scholar, 227–8; for Rahner, Karl. Aquinas: The Notion of Truth” (Continuum, 2 (1964), 69Google Scholar; for Bernard J. E Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, (New York: Longmans, 1965). 352 on being as unrestricted.

9 See Knasas, “Intellectual Dynamism.,” pp. 23–25.

10 McCool, Gerald, Catholic Theology in the Nineteenth Century: The Quest for a Unitary Method (New York: The Seabury Press, 1977). 257–9Google Scholar. From Unity to Pluralism: The Internal Evolution of Thomism (New York: Fordham University Press, 1992). ch. 9 but esp 214–19Google Scholar.

11 Paul, John II, “Perennial Philosophy of St. Thomas for the Youth of Our Times,” Angelicum, 57 (1980), 139–40Google Scholar.

12 Ibid. pp. 140–1.