Or rather, is the set of question I am really asking is this: what should by church leaders say about such matters? JP2 has a watchful sort of agnosticism about these issues in Fides et Ratio. On the one hand he wants to allow philosophy to work itself out without over-weaning border guards of theology; on the other hand he wants to say that certain philosophies generally don’t cohere with the Christian gospel and so are generally ‘wrong’ and misguided. I am more or less in agreement with JP2 on this. I’d want to point my finger at clear or evident enough incoherences btwn. philosophy x and the Christian gospel, on the other hand, I think the Pope (or some Protestant equivalent) should keep their hands out of policing the details of a philosophy. On this view, Christians can learn, appreciate and employ various philosophies without strictly identify philosophy x with the gospel, however much philosophy x might cohere with the faith. For me, this is a methodological point, not an ontological one. I do think philosophy x can actually be right or wrong about something, and so as a person and as a Christian I should acknowledge x’s claim–it is just that I’d keep in mind that the historical context of x’s claim (whether made in the technical univ. of Paris in 1275, or in Oxford in 2007) may influence or motivate us to accept x’s claim for some other contextual reason y (e.g. some ad hominiem judgment about the person’s or societies enabling such claims).

How’s that?

Well said. At least for Catholics, one thing Thomas was without doubt wrong about is the Immaculate Conception. Not to mention, like most medievals, any teaching of his that concerns sexuality….

He was a man of his time, and for this reason was limited as all men and women are. I too cringe when anyone has a hard time admitting Thomas, or any thinker for that matter, might be wrong on something. Flaws are necessary to every thinker (except William Desmond of course…….joking).

I suppose what my basic concern is that the analytic approach, or what you referred to as the ’scientific’ approach (I think your exact words were, “if we want to remain scientific”), to Aquinas tends to eclipse all others. Of course this could be simply a difference in views as to what philosophy is and/or should be. I take a very Desmondian approach to philosophy (which is in part similar to Vico), and quite naturally apply this to Aquinas, in the same way that one might take a very analytic, or scientific approach to philosophy and thus apply this to Aquinas. I suppose that’s the beauty of his thought, and evidence that he couldn’t always be right (then how could there be varying views, many of which are at odds, right?): his thought gives itself to so many interpretations.

But as I said in my last note, I agree with you that solid understanding is always fundamental. My own studies of medieval aesthetics has illuminated many aspects of Thomas’s metaphysics that I think get subsumed by assumptions which miss the mark. So I think there is still much work to be done on all medieval thought, especially Aquinas.

Anyway, I’ll be interested to read more of your input in this matter in the future.

your favorite spiritual or theological authority to be INfallible in >your own eyes

Thanks for your response, which was much more elaborate than my own comments merited.

It seems that my comments either inspired in you, or perhaps prompted unwittingly, the need to explain your hermeneutical method with respect to reading Thomas. Please understand I had no intention of giving the impression that I was questioning your approach to Aquinas. As I mentioned, I have tremendous respect and admiration for the approach you take. Having studied Aquinas with John Wipple, who I would consider the “Father” of my thinking on Thomas in many regards, I have a great affinity for the approach you outline. So please understand there is no need to submit it as a rejoinder (forgive me if I speak too hastily in seeing it as a rejoinder).

To answer your question (is the debate over methodology?) more directly, though, I would have to insist that every debate concerns methodology, though it may not always be the initial nor explicit element in a debate. But it did seem as though that was where the discussion was going between you and Dan, and then you and Janet.

But this in my view is a necessary concommitant within any philosophical discussion. Questions of modes of mindfulness - or methodologies - will eventually be brought to light since what is really at stake in most philosophical investigations is really the intelligibility of being, as well as its source. Investigation into being’s intelligibility requires examination of one’s ontological presuppositions, which for the most part involve hermeneutics and questions of determinacy.

Sure, debates can involve various arguments of a particular thinker or thinkers [your “(1)”], or they can involve their historical influences [your “(2)”]. But the human spirit more often than not uses these to excavate its way into the truth, goodness and beauty of being in its own personal quest for union. When we love a thinker it is, as I see it, for the same reasons we love a poet: because they convey the truth, goodness and beauty of being in a way that reaches into the very depths of our souls, inspiring us to do the same for others.

As to your methodological triad, I think it rather goes without saying. I think any historical figure, or any person for that matter, would like us to understand him or her to the fullest of our capacities. Then, we may investigate their influences in an effort to ‘know’ them better. So please understand that I agree with you on these two points. My own dissertation moves in the same way: with confidence as to (1) I am writing about (2).

But it’s (3) that I’m not sure I would posit as a viable approach to a given thinker, at least not in the way it was worded in your fine reply. Rather, and maybe this is what you meant, I would suggest that what is at stake is the way a given thinker - any thinker - teaches the unknown reader about the highest reality, and in doing so invites the reader to participate in this in some capacity. The better thinkers are those that inspire the reader not only to desire that thinker’s thought more, but to begin to see the reader’s own original contribution to the communal act of bringing being to greater intelligibility. Great thinkers launch our ships triumphantly out of the harbor and into the sea of mystery, inviting us to explore and perhaps giving them a position on our crew.

Of course for Aquinas, his mode of inspiration involves a pedagogy that is everywhere interested in promoting the truth of the Catholic Faith. But he does this by promoting not only the truth of the faith, but also the beauty of the faith, which is why I credit him with being the artist par excellence.

This conclusion comes from no eisegetical reading of Thomas, but rather my own development with respect to his work. When I began to read his thought, it was well beyond me, but I was attracted to it. I couldn’t at the time explain why I spent hours sometimes reading one question over and over, wrestling with his logic, his principles, trying to figure out his presuppositions. There was something in his words, in his thought, his vision, his portrait of the Godhead that attracted me beyond reason and beyond explanation. This was not the cold dead objectivism of which so many of his critics accuse him. That kind of thinking can’t attract much of anything. My own work on Aquinas has only confirmed the substance of this attraction. This is the foundation of my claim to the beauty of his thought (which, as you wrote, you also recognize). And as I tried to explain, this beauty should at some point elicit the desire to carefully read his work, ideally in its original form, to guarantee that it is understood. I think to begin with the desire for a “scientific explanation” is to risk missing a great deal of this beauty. Reception of this beauty requires a different mode of mindfulness.

So I would also be reluctant to hold too firmly to the division between understanding and ‘overstanding’ based upon your account. I think all hermeneutics is marked by a complex hybrid of both of these operating simultaneously. To suggest, as you (or perhaps Vanhoozer) seem to do, that it is possible for a person to approach a text free from any a priori questions is to subscribe to an anthropology that abstracts the human person from his or her historial context. It is simply impossible to approach any text as if one were in a vacuum - in fact, even that aspiration itself would already fulfill the requirements of a presupposition out of which questions naturally arise. At the very least, one would approach a text with the question, “can I approach this text without my own questions?” If it is possible for me to recognize the questions being asked by the text, it requires that I recognize them at some point as questions worth asking and so as my questions. The image that arises in your account is one of a computer being inputted with data; as if I approach a text from a position of utter neutrality in hopes that the text will give my questions (and again, forgive me if I speak hastily to this). To put it more pointedly: the recognition of a question as a valuable question presupposes that I already affirm its content in my mind in some capacity. Any given text asks a multitude of questions. The one’s which I will recognize as more valuable (understanding) depend upon the questions I also bring to it (overstanding). Maybe I’ve overanalyzed the point, but I think the subtleties are significant.

I do agree with you if you are saying that good ‘overstanding’ comes from solid understanding - I can only begin to ask good questions of a text if I hear the questions that the text is addressing. But it is simply false to think the two aren’t always working side by side.

Ultimately, I agree with your point that doing justice to Aquinas is the key. But even this is not a self-evident matter. There are many who believe that doing justice to the treasures Aquinas bequeathes to us means to remain in the treasurehouse, compulsively shining each gem with a dust rag, only to put it back on the shelf. “Don’t touch,” they command, “just look… Those are Thomas’s jewels… They aren’t meant to be removed from the museum of his memory.” And when an overly zealous young mind (or in the case of Milbank, e.g., an overly zealous older mind) comes along to try and cash in on those treasures, they are quickly accused of theft by these Thomist hoarders.

Case in point: not too long after Milbank had written Truth in Aquinas, he came to CUA to discuss it. During the Q&A, Wipple stood up and modestly proclaimed something like: “before one writes on Aquinas, one should make sure one understands Aquinas.” Was Wippel wrong to do this? Not likely. As I’m sure you know, Wippel is one of the foremost, if not the foremost, authority on what Aquinas has written. But he is really a historian of philosophy. I don’t think it would be an insult to him if one were to say he isn’t a proper philosopher. It just isn’t what he is about. Granted, he knows the nature of philosophy better than most postmodern philosophers, and his knowledge of Thomas is practically flawless. But this is because he chose to focus on that element of Thomas’s thought, and of thought in general. Does that make him the spokesman for authentic Thomism (as if there could be such a claim…)? Sure Milbank’s work was etymologically insufficient, his conclusions rather hastily drawn and entirely bereft of an awareness of the numerous debates surrounding the issues. But that doesn’t mean Milbank’s work didn’t offer some contribution to Thomist scholarship in particular and theological/philosophical thought in general. What, then, is the point to polemics in such a case? Why haord Thomas’s treasures?

So, yes, in the end, it is about methodology - but it’s also about the overall goal of discourse. I respect and assume that you have read Aquinas and understood him to the best of your capacity. At the level where we are in our studies, that assumption is, in my view, well founded. It would be odd if one were to go around blog commenting on Aquinas without at least some knowledge of his thought, and some desire to know it better. Of course, there is the occasional “Thomistic drill sergeant” who feels it necessary to transform every discussion on Aquinas into his own personal “Thomas boot camp.” But those discussion tend to fizzle out rather quickly. Yours hasn’t done that. What this means is that methodology is foundational to every discussion, though other issues may lead into that one, and continue to remain germane throughout the discussion.

Finally - and if you’ve bore with me this long, you have my admiration and respect - I don’t think it is tough to get at a historical figure’s particular motivation. Most of one’s work is a direct expression of intention and motivation. I don’t accept the view that there is a motivation hidden behind the work that is unspoken, available to only the select few. I DO think it is difficult to advance propositions claiming to know those hidden motivations that are beyond verifiability. As long as one can support one’s interpretation of a given thinker, then the reading is worthy of discussion in my view. It’s really a symptom of youth and eagerness to see things that aren’t even implicitly there. But this error is usually due to one’s inability to express oneself, not a malicious intent to distort a thinker’s thought. All good debates that surround Thomas can be attributed to the fact that his work merits it. As de Lubac insightfully explains in his Surnaturel, “the ambivalence of Thomas’s thought in unstable equilibrium, ransom of its very richness, explains how it could be interpreted in such opposed senses.”

Anyway, my sincerest apologies for the long windedness.

Much gratitude to you for your engagement in all this.

Thanks for your comments; I’ve not read most of the books you mentioned–though I have looked through A.N. Williams’s for a paper I wrote on the nature of grace acc. to Aquinas a long while back.

Is the debate then over methodology about how to read Aquinas, or other scholastics? There are various ways to approach of course: (1) we could be interested in the arguments as such, and so try to understand and report about them, (2) we could be interested in the historical influences certain author’s had in Aquinas’s work (i.e. how Aquinas understands and in turn appropriates a given thinker), (3) we could be interested in how his work (1)-(2) manifests his love for God and the communion of saints, … and on, I am sure.

Generally, as a student I start with (1) and work toward (2), and if I’m lucky, get to (3) after (1) and (2). Why do I proceed in this way? Generally, I think that Aquinas himself is interested in making arguments and teaching me about something. So, I choose (1) as a first step b/c that is how I think Aquinas would like me to understand him. This is a matter of doing justice to Aquinas’s texts and to him. As Kevin Vanhoozer argues in _Is There a Meaning in This Text?_, we are obliged to understand some author’s text, before we ‘overstand’ it. Overstanding a text is when I bring my own sorts of questions to the text and ask the text to answer my own questions, rather than its own questions. Understanding should come before overstanding. So, b/c I believe that Aquinas generally is interested in making arguments, I try to understand these first. Once I understand these, or at least as best as I can, then I can go on to see how Aquinas appropriates his sources (2) b/c then I can compare what his argument is and what the sources’s arguments or views are. And once I’ve done (1)-(2) I will entertain questions about why Aquinas might make theological arguments in the first place–which is to ask about Aquinas’s own motivations. I can generally say, he wrote X b/c he loves God; but I could say more, he wrote X b/c he wished to correct some other person so that they might know God a little more clearly and in turn love God a bit more intensely. I could go on and ask why Aquinas cares about what other people believe or what positions they hold, and I could say, ‘well, he loved God and loved his neighbor–and was interested/desired to know the truth and make it known for its own sake’. I could go on and ask, but why did he desire such things? Or why did he give into this desire? And at this point, I am asking a metaphysical sort of question–’why does the will will?’ At this point, I have to return to the arguments- but even then, even if I understand Aquinas’s argument about the will’s freedom, I could still be wrong to attribute this metaphysical view to explain Aquinas’s own motivations–what if Aquinas was a hypocrite from time to time? What if he willed some x and not some y, but only willed x b/c he willed x rather than y. What if at another time he willed some x and not some y b/c he thought x was more compelling a good to pursue.

In other words, this historical work of uncovering Aquinas’s very own motivations is tough going-at least if I want a scientific explanation. I can fall back on his own theory, but people can contradict there own theories from time to time, no?

I would also recommend A.N. Williams, The Ground of Union: Deification in Aquinas and Palamas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Although I woundn’t be surprised if Janet has already known of this work. It investigates the idea, echoed by Janet, that Aquinas is best understood as a mystical theologian whose work is concerned first and foremost with the possibility and conditions of union with God. I’m not saying that it’s a work not without shortcomings, but it certainly uncovers a very relevant and often missed element in Aquinas’s thought - probably his most relevant. Thomas was in love with God, I think it is safe to say. And while he was an intellectual giant, and a brilliant scholastic technician, we shouldn’t allow the former to eclipse the latter based upon the agenda largely set by modernity.

Thanks so much!

If I may offer some thoughts:

First, and foremost, I would recommend Thomas Gilby O.P. Poetic Experience, An Introduction to Thomist Aesthetics. New York: Sheed and Ward Inc., 1934. This work offers a profound vision of the mode of knowing in Thomas Aquinas. It speaks to the issue of the distinctions that Aquinas, like all good scholastics, made in order to unite. Aquinas made distinctions but he did not maintain discontinuities, but to further illuminate the unity that can never be assumed as an apriori given. It’s not until modernity, really, that unity, much like being, becomes ‘objectified’ so to speak, as if it were a category to be wrenched out of reality. As I’m sure you - Janet and Scott (and I know Dan) - knows, the fundamental doctrine for Aquinas was analogia, right alongside participation (something that Cornelio Fabro brought to light in the last century). Anyway, the point is that for Aquinas the distinction between sensual and intellectual cognition must be udnerstood in the context of his metaphysics, which is thoroughly analogical. (I should note that I side with Bernard Montaigne against, e.g., Ralph McInerney in holding that analogia is real and not simply notional for Aquinas). This means that all distinctions serve a greater unity, but neither of the two has priority as such. Thomas was not an equivocal thinker, nor was he dialectical in the Platonic or even the Hegelian sense. He is, instead, a metaxological thinker (see the work of William Desmond for a fuller understanding of this mode of metaphysics, or just keep reading Aquinas).

So, in short, I have a tremendous amount of affinity for Janet’s position: Aquinas was an artist in the truest (i.e., classical, and medieval) sense of the term. There has been a reduction of his thought to a kind of rigid scietistic (in the modern sense of the term) by many of his admirers.

But, I also have tremendous respect for Scott’s position, insofar as Thomas’s though, like all scholastic thought, was riddled with technicalities that require a great deal of historical work to fully grasp. (Though I don’t imply that Janet doesn’t also hold this).

I also love Aristotle, and everything you say about him is true and yet is also turned on its head when you realize that he thought that real being was always and ultimately an individual, and not the formal category. (He is such a dialectical thinker.) Everything for Aristotle begins with and in the experiential — and the Form-al is always “in” the particular and fully realized only in the particular. Nothing in either thinker is dry or basic. I think it is all an incandescent ladder from the wonder-ful to the even more wonder-ful.

We are trained as moderns to think the details and pin down the specifics. But they thought like poets and visionaries. They thought passionately. I humbly believe that we have to work as dialectically as they did, and be as visionary as they were, and keep the whole in mind even as we look at the part — and the end or telos is what matters most at all times. And I really do appreciate and respect your hard work, Scott. Maybe I’m wrong, and in some respects I’m bound to be wrong, aren’t I? But I have to keep faith with these writers and thinkers as best I can and be honest about it, right? That’s certainly how they felt about it, trying to keep faith with and do some justice to the vision of God they found in their faith, using the mind as a desiring search engine into what they loved.