Thomism

“ And if experimentalists would be sure to cry out, did I attempt to install the Thomist philosophy in the schools of astronomy and medicine, why may not I, when Divine Science is ostracized, and La Place, or Buffon, or Humboldt, sits down in its chair, why may not I fairly protest against their exclusiveness, and demand the emancipation of Theology? ”

“ Thomas, soon provoked in the traditional Thomist school a strong reaction which gave birth to protracted discussions. Although the peace was thereby disturbed, and much time, energy, and acuteness were spent with little apparent profit, nevertheless the disputes gave proof of the enormous intellectual power and activity which distinguished the first half of this period. As the Religious Orders were still the chief teachers of Theology, we may group the theologians of the period under the schools belonging to the three great Orders. ”

“ Though not a profound and systematic philosophical thinker, but rather a clever eclectic of the common-sense school, Thomasius prepared the way for great reforms in philosophy, and, above all, in law, literature, social life, and theology. It was his mission to bring all the high matters of divine and human sciences into close and living contact with the everyday world. He made learning, law, philosophy, and theology look at everything from a rational common-sense point of view, and speak of everything in vigorous German. ”

“ But if the world is the object of the divine intelligence, God is not perfect as intelligence in himself alone, but is conditioned and perfected by that which is inferior to his own being. Thus we see that the objection to the divine foreknowledge of the contingent in its objective verity which is found in scholastic theology, is one derived from Aristotle, and that the extremely subtle and acute reasoning of St. Thomas and the Thomists were directed toward a reconciliation of the Aristotelian philosophy with the Catholic dogmas. ”

“ The opponent and rival of Thomas, he controverted his doctrine at every point, as well as the doctrines of Alexander and Bonaventura of his own order, and other shining stars of the 13th century. In subtlety of thought and dialectic power he excelled them all, but in depth of feeling, profundity of mind, and ardour of faith he was far behind them. Proofs of doctrines interested him more than the doctrines themselves. To philosophy he assigns a purely theoretical, to theology a pre-eminently practical character, and protests against the Thomist commingling of the two. ”

“ Those who are familiar with metaphysics will understand at once where the apparent opposition between scholastic psychology and mystical theology is found. For others it may suffice to explain that, in the metaphysics of the Thomists, no origin of ideas is recognized except that which is called abstraction from the sensible object, and that the precise difference of the human mind in respect to the angelic intellect is that the former is naturally turned to the intelligible in a sensible phantasm or image, whereas the latter is turned to the purely intelligible itself. ”

“ Prosper, God bestows even upon his elect the will to persevere, in such a way as not to deprive them of the power to will the contrary." And, in one word, judge if he does not agree with the Thomists, from the following declaration in chapter 4th: "That all that the Thomists have written with the view of reconciling the efficaciousness of grace with the power of resisting it, so entirely coincides with his judgement that to ascertain his sentiments on this subject we have only to consult their writings." ”

“ And since, without faith, no one can assent to those verities which are to be believed (veritatibus credibilibus) , there is no scientia proprie dicta respecting them. So the breach in the old scholastic, Thomist, unity was made utter and irreparable. Theology stands on the surest of bases, but isolated, unsupported; philosophy, all human knowledge, extends [Pg 520] around and below it, and is discredited because irrelevant to highest truth. ”

“ Your explanation will be held as odious in the world, where men speak far more sincerely of less important things. The Jesuits will triumph. It will be their sufficient grace, and not yours—which is only a name—which will be accepted. It will be theirs, which is the reverse of yours, that will become an article of faith.”
In vain the New Thomist proclaims his readiness to suffer martyrdom rather than allow this, and to maintain the great doctrine of St Thomas to the death. ”

“ To it likewise conduce the Incarnation, and the Sacraments springing therefrom; in accord with it, Thomas accepts or constructs his [Pg 437] metaphysics, his psychology, his entire thought of human capacity and destiny, and sets forth how nearly man’s reason may bring him to this goal, and where there is need of divine grace. In this goal, moreover, shall be found the sanction of human knowledge, and the justification of the right enjoyment of human faculties; it determines what elements of mortal life may be gathered up and carried on, to form part of the soul’s eternal beatitude. ”

“ Thomas, or of Newton, or of Goethe, (I purposely take instances within and without the Catholic pale, when I would speak of the intellect as such,) is one which takes a connected view of old and new, past and present, far and near, and which has an insight into the influence of all these one on another; without which there is no whole, and no centre. It possesses the knowledge, not only of things, but also of their mutual and true relations; knowledge, not merely considered as acquirement, but as philosophy. ”

“ Thomas can draw out a whole system of theology from principles impalpable and invisible, and fix upon the mind by pure reason a vast multitude of facts and truths which have no pretence to a bodily form. But, taking man as he is, we shall commonly find him dissatisfied with a demonstrative process from an undemonstrated premiss, and, when he has once begun to reason, he will seek to prove the point from which his reasoning starts, as well as that at which it arrives. ”

“ But while reason and revelation are two distinct sources of truths, the truths are not contradictory; for in the last resort they rest on one absolute truth—they come from the one source of knowledge, God, the Absolute One. Hence arises the compatibility of philosophy and theology which was the fundamental axiom of scholasticism, and the possibility of a Summa Theologiae, which is a Summa Philosophiae as well. All the many writings of Thomas are preparatory to his great work the Summa Theologiae, and show us the progress of his mind training for this his life work. ”

“ But though we place our programme and teaching under the patronage of the illustrious name of this prince of scholastics, we do not regard the Thomistic philosophy as an ideal beyond possibility of amelioration, or as a boundary to the activity of the human mind. We do think, however, on mature reflection, that we are acting no less wisely than modestly in taking it as our starting-point and constant standard of reference. ”

“ Thomas, clearly demonstrates that our theology is but a result of the life of the fundamental dogmas of Christianity as it has been lived by humanity in the different periods of its development. This theology contains the dogmas of the Creation, of the Fall, of Christ's redemptive work, of Grace, as seen in the light of the faith of humanity believing and living in Christ throughout its own moral and intellectual progress. ”

“ The doctrines of those illustrious men, like the scattered members of a body, Thomas collected together and cemented, distributed in wonderful order, and so increased with important additions that he is rightly and deservedly esteemed the special bulwark and glory of the Catholic faith. With his spirit at once humble and swift, his memory ready and tenacious, his life spotless throughout, a lover of truth for its own sake, richly endowed with human and divine science, like the sun he heated the world with the warmth of his virtues and filled it with the splendor of his teaching. ”

“ The function pertains not to any Person, but to the whole Trinity in common. And there is found some image of the Trinity in rational [Pg 457] creatures in whom is intelligence and will; and in all creatures may be found some vestiges of the creator.
Thomas, after a while, takes up the distinction between spiritual and corporeal creatures, and considers first the purely spiritual, called Angels. We enter with him upon the contemplation of these conceptions, which scholasticism did not indeed create, but elaborated with marvellous logic, and refined to a consistent intellectual beauty. ”

“ Yet we cannot approve of such a complete abdication of original and independent investigation and reasoning as a rule to be followed in philosophical teaching. We do not find that the system of the strict Thomists is proved in a manner entirely satisfactory and conclusive, in some of its details, particularly in that part which relates to the harmony of physical with metaphysical science. There is such a thing as progress and development in theology and philosophy. The opinions of private doctors are not final. ”

“ It must be noted that the Thomists, no less than the Scotists, recognize as morally indifferent acts done without deliberation, such, for instance, as the stroking of one's beard or the rubbing of one's hands together, as these ordinarily take place. ”

“ Thomas, and as indifferent to the mind of Scotus, must according to these theologians, be deemed nothing else than bad. Wrongly styled Thomists, the advocates of this opinion are one with the Angelic Doctor only in declaring that there are no indifferent deliberate acts. They differ from him radically in the unwarrantable rigour, and their teaching is condemned by the sense and practice of even the most delicately conscientious persons. ”

“ For us these doctrines have but the validity of all human striving after truth. Moreover, perhaps a truer view of Thomas, the theologian and philosopher, is gained from following a few typical forms of his teaching presented in his own exposition, than by analyzing his thought with later solvents which he did not apply, and presenting his matter classified as he would not have ordered it, and in modern phrases, which have as many meanings foreign to scholasticism as scholasticism has thoughts not to be translated into modern ways of thinking. ”

“ The doctrine of St. Thomas is that all knowledge is by ideas, in the sense of image, likeness, or similitude. In God the idea, image, likeness, or similitude, the species, is not distinguishable from the divine essence, for he is in his essence similitudo omnium rerum. Now, though we are created after the idea exemplaris, or model eternal in his essence, and therefore in our degree copy or imitate him, we have not in us the types or models of all things, are not in ourselves similitudo omnium rerum, and therefore are not intelligent in ourselves alone. ”

“ You are bound in conscience, by thus altering the sense of the ordinary terms of theology, to tell that, when you admit a sufficient grace in all men, you understand that they have not sufficient grace in effect. All classes of persons in the world understand the word sufficient in one and the same sense; the New Thomists alone understand it in another sense. ”

“ But I cannot recite, even thus rudely, laws of the intellect, without remembering that lofty and sequestered class of men who have been its prophets and oracles, the high-priesthood of the pure reason, the Trismegisti, the expounders of the principles of thought from age to age. When, at long intervals, we turn over their abstruse pages, wonderful seems the calm and grand air of these few, these great spiritual lords, who have walked in the world—these of the old religion—dwelling in a worship which makes the sanctities of Christianity look parvenues and popular ”

“ Thomas the realm of the divine Ideas. As the divine ideas, in the created world, receive discrete and individual embodiments, it seems at first natural to say that God, by various acts of knowledge, comprehends, and, by various acts of will, realizes, or leaves unrealized, the beings whom his wisdom, in advance of creation, conceives. But this way of stating the case not only would endanger the absolute unity of the divine essence, but also would seem to give the various ideas of the possible created beings a certain independence of one another, and of the divine essence itself ”

“ Such, in the East as well as in the West, were the perils besetting the true Christian spirit at the very cradle of our holy religion.
Nor was the danger confined to the mythology of paganism, its literature and poetry. Philosophy itself became a real stumbling- block to many, who would fain appear disciples of faith, when they gave themselves up to the most unrestrained wanderings of human reason.
The truth is, that Greek philosophy, divided into so many schools in order to please all tastes, had become a wide-spread institution throughout the Roman world. ”

“ He is true about the outsides of God; and in Thomson we begin to feel that the revelation of God as meaning and therefore being the loveliness of nature, is about to be recognized. I do not say—to change my simile—that he is the first visible root in our literature whence we can follow the outburst of the flowers and foliage of our delight in nature: I could show a hundred fibres leading from the depths of our old literature up to the great root. ”

“ Your doubts, Thomas, always most stubbornly assert themselves just as they are about to crumble. Thomas, I bid you be not faithless but believing—and I know you will believe, even with a whole heart."
When Thomas heard these words, he fell on his knees before the morontia Master and exclaimed, "I believe! My Lord and my Master!" Then said Jesus to Thomas: "You have believed, Thomas, because you have really seen and heard me. Blessed are those in the ages to come who will believe even though they have not seen with the eye of flesh nor heard with the mortal ear." ”