# Enjoying Thomas Aquinas



## py3ak (Aug 6, 2010)

Carl Trueman had an interesting post on the Reformation 21 blog about Thomas Aquinas. While no expert, I can confirm that it is pleasant to read Aquinas.

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## dannyhyde (Aug 7, 2010)

I recently read his sermons on the Creed and they are filled with exegesis and practical application.


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## bookslover (Aug 7, 2010)

Trueman: "Reading a great theologian is always productive, and often no more so than at those points of disagreement where our own thinking is made necessarily sharper and clearer." Amen.

Not just Aquinas, either. Same applies to, for example, Karl Barth - if you know how to keep the meat and throw away the bones.

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## py3ak (Aug 7, 2010)

bookslover said:


> Not just Aquinas, either. Same applies to, for example, Karl Barth - if you know how to keep the meat and throw away the bones.


 
The difference being that Aquinas was actually a great theologian. "The master of Catholic truth", as Aquinas calls him, must care about communication and have a faculty for making himself understood. Without that, I don't think the name of "great theologian" is applicable.

But it ought to be clarified that the fact that some people can find profit in even the mistakes of great theologians doesn't translate into an obligation for ordinary laypeople to read them. While it may be part of the scholar's vocation to develop an acquaintance with even quite pernicious works if they have been influential, the nonscholar has the luxury of feeling no obligation to read anything but what is edifying.

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## Philip (Aug 7, 2010)

Just a note, please do not refer to Thomas Aquinas as "Aquinas" that's like calling William of Orange "of Orange." If you're going to abbreviate, just call him Thomas and most people will understand.


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## py3ak (Aug 7, 2010)

Philip, you might want to let the fine folks at the Aquinas Colleges in Grand Rapids or Tennessee know your rule - or how about F.C. Copleston? In his book titled _Aquinas_ he writes, "Aquinas was a Christian before he became a metaphysician."

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## Montanablue (Aug 7, 2010)

py3ak said:


> Philip, you might want to let the fine folks at the Aquinas Colleges in Grand Rapids or Tennessee know your rule - or how about F.C. Copleston? In his book titled _Aquinas_ he writes, "Aquinas was a Christian before he became a metaphysician."



Yes, but if you speak Italian, it does sound really odd. (I don't speak Italian, but it still sounds strange to me). Its like calling Gabriel Gracia Marquez, "Marquez." It pegs you as a non-native speaker every time. (And I'm shallow enough to care about that).


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## baron (Aug 7, 2010)

I tried to read Thomas Aquinas: Being and Essence which had me going in circles. Then I tried to read An Aquinas Reader selections from his work did not fare much better. So I packed up Saint Thomas Aquinas and put him away. A nun tried to give me his Summa Theologica I think it was 6 volumes but it was all in Latin. I explained to her I could not understand Thomas in English no way in Latin.

The one book I did enjoy was Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox by G.K. Chesterton.


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## py3ak (Aug 7, 2010)

Montanablue said:


> py3ak said:
> 
> 
> > Philip, you might want to let the fine folks at the Aquinas Colleges in Grand Rapids or Tennessee know your rule - or how about F.C. Copleston? In his book titled _Aquinas_ he writes, "Aquinas was a Christian before he became a metaphysician."
> ...



I've studied Italian: since we don't say "Tommaso d'Aquino" I think the non-native speaker cat has already been let out of the bag. Just because, if I'd been born in Russia, I'd be used to being called "Tomasovitch" doesn't mean that an Icelandic person couldn't call me "Tomasson," or that an Englishman couldn't drop the patronymic completely.


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## Peairtach (Aug 7, 2010)

bookslover said:


> Trueman: "Reading a great theologian is always productive, and often no more so than at those points of disagreement where our own thinking is made necessarily sharper and clearer." Amen.
> 
> Not just Aquinas, either. Same applies to, for example, Karl Barth - if you know how to keep the meat and throw away the bones.



As long as we don't get subtily sucked into their erroneous theological positions by our love of reading and ideas.

Evangelicals and the Reformed have been carried away before, sometimes by their breadth of reading, into erroneous views. 

_The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd. And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. (Ecclesiastes 12:11-12)_ 

Is Solomon lamenting that he was carried into his backslidings not only by his love of beautiful women, but his love of beautiful but erroneous books? 

I'm not saying that such a thing would be likely to happen with you guys, but it could/has with some. Plenty have been ruined by going to the wrong kind of seminary, where they were exposed to the wrong kind of books.

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## Philip (Aug 7, 2010)

baron said:


> I tried to read Thomas Aquinas: Being and Essence which had me going in circles. Then I tried to read An Aquinas Reader selections from his work did not fare much better. So I packed up Saint Thomas Aquinas and put him away. A nun tried to give me his Summa Theologica I think it was 6 volumes but it was all in Latin. I explained to her I could not understand Thomas in English no way in Latin.


 
Try reading sections of the _Summa_. He really is very straightforward because of his dialectic format of question-objection-answer and his extensive source citations. I actually find Thomas to be easier reading than Calvin!

Ruben, I've just had the whole name thing beaten into me by several people who had it beaten into them by Thomists. It's the same reason why art students refer to Leonardo da Vinci as "Leonardo" not "Da Vinci."


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## py3ak (Aug 7, 2010)

I'm sure some Thomists feel strongly about it, Philip. Dryden revised the _Essay of Dramatick Poesie_ to alter every sentence that originally ended with a preposition; but in neither case does that mean that the whole world must accept their strictures.


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## Montanablue (Aug 8, 2010)

P. F. Pugh said:


> baron said:
> 
> 
> > I tried to read Thomas Aquinas: Being and Essence which had me going in circles. Then I tried to read An Aquinas Reader selections from his work did not fare much better. So I packed up Saint Thomas Aquinas and put him away. A nun tried to give me his Summa Theologica I think it was 6 volumes but it was all in Latin. I explained to her I could not understand Thomas in English no way in Latin.
> ...


 
Ditto. My Med. Civ. professor made merciless fun of anyone who said Aquinas. I'm cured of it for life.


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## Staphlobob (Aug 8, 2010)

I like the name "Aquinas." Though Thomism - or Thomistic - is what his philosophy (theology?) is known as, I suppose I'm just a knuckle-dragging neanderthal. 

We had to read Aquinas when I was in the Roman seminary. Before we could understand his philosophy (theology?) we had to learn the meanings of several words/concepts, i.e., "substance", "accidens," "matter", etc. Even then I found him distasteful. One of our professors gave us a test that required us to say which statements came from Aquinas, and which from Aristotle ... and we simply couldn't. The prof ended up throwing our the test because, in the end, even HE couldn't tell.


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## Philip (Aug 8, 2010)

> philosophy (theology?)



Yes. He does both and makes no distinction between the two.



> we had to learn the meanings of several words/concepts, i.e., "substance", "accidens," "matter"



That's just basic post-Aristotelian metaphysics. The church fathers used this kind of terminology liberally during the great Christological debates of the 4th-5th century. Pretty much all trinitarian theology does as well (WSC Q6).


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## py3ak (Aug 8, 2010)

baron said:


> I tried to read Thomas Aquinas: Being and Essence which had me going in circles. Then I tried to read An Aquinas Reader selections from his work did not fare much better. So I packed up Saint Thomas Aquinas and put him away. A nun tried to give me his Summa Theologica I think it was 6 volumes but it was all in Latin. I explained to her I could not understand Thomas in English no way in Latin.
> 
> The one book I did enjoy was Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox by G.K. Chesterton.


 
I wouldn't feel badly about that, John. There is no Biblical mandate to read Aquinas! And since there is quite an abundance of things to read, if one person proves unprofitable it's often best to move on (unless the unappreciated person is Calvin or Luther, because there is no substitute for them).


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## CharlieJ (Aug 8, 2010)

I strongly recommend getting an overview of Plato through Aristotle, then jumping into Thomas. The sections of _Summa Contra Gentiles_ and _De Ente et Essentia_ were very edifying and provocative. Great Christian theologians are always at least decent philosophers, and vice versa. You can't go that far in one discipline without realizing that the domains overlap, and choices made in one realm will effect how you proceed in the other. Thomas is valuable because he so clearly illustrates both the value and the shortcomings of his metaphysics.


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## jwright82 (Aug 9, 2010)

I hope this is not off topic but has anyone read about the recent recasting, postmodern rereading?, of Thomas Aquinas by the new theological movement, senseability?, called Radical Orthodoxy? If not then they basically challenge what they claim is the traditional reading of Thomas that has a sharp distinction between nature and grace. They challenge it on the grounds that they say that he already understood nature as infused with grace. I have not read him that much personally so I can't say but we always have paridigms that we aproech authors with and sometimes we find out that the traditional reading of someone may not have been totally correct. I just threw that out there as food for thought.


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## Philip (Aug 9, 2010)

James, I think there's something to that. I don't think that Thomas drew nearly as sharp a distinction as many suppose. Indeed, his view of nature and grace is not too far from the reformed distinction between general revelation and special revelation. The main problem that I have with Thomas methodologically is that he doesn't think that the fall affected the intellect very seriously---it just unseated it from its proper place as master of the passions.


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## jwright82 (Aug 9, 2010)

From what little I understand Philip they basically are arguing against the many sharp distinctions that the traditional reading of Thomas has produced, nature/grace or faith/reason. They argue against any distinction that would make some area of life or reality autonomous. That there is no relation or dependence between like science or theology. They argue that Thomas never understood things in such a sharply distinct way. Then again they admit that they have unique take on him so who knows.


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