Thomas Aquinas (Scott Oliphint)

[RamistThomist]

Oliphint, K. Scott. Thomas Aquinas. Presbyterian & Reformed.

P&R’s Great Thinkers Series has many excellent books in them. This is not one of them. Strangely enough, despite its many errors, it is worth getting. It is relatively inexpensive and is filled with numerous passages from Richard Muller’s Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics. That is why you should get this book. You should also read Richard Muller’s critique of this book as you work through it.

I do not want to give a point-by-point analysis, since such analyses tend to turn into essays. I will simply state Oliphint’s reading of Aquinas in light of the current discussions of Aquinas. In conclusion, I will call attention to some problematic areas of Oliphint’s thought.

Pros

In terms of clarity, it is well-written and can be read in a few sittings. Even if Oliphint gets most of his subject wrong, at least he introduces readers to Aquinas, provided they move on to better sources. Oliphint also has several other strengths. He is aware of the thorny problems that modal logic and analytic philosophy have raised for metaphysics. Indeed, he has capitalized on them elsewhere (cf. Reasons for Faith).

Introduction

To his credit, Oliphint is not shy on where he stands: There can be no rapprochement between the Reformation and Thomism: “significant aspects of Thomas’s thought…cannot be incorporated” into Reformed theology (Oliphint 22). That is ominous, but we quickly move to better material: the distinction between the principle of existence and the principle of knowledge. He ends the chapter with a summary of Aquinas’s life.

The Foundation of Knowledge

Oliphint reads Thomas as saying that natural reason provides the structure of knowledge upon which special revelation provides the superstructure. Is that a fair reading of Thomas? Maybe. Muller has criticized Oliphint’s reading of the Praeambula Fidei. The reader can judge who is correct.

Oliphint has a long section on Aquinas’s reading of John 1:9 and whether God’s existence is self-evident. The best thing to do is simply read Richard Muller’s critique of this section.

Metaphysics

Oliphint has a very good section on metaphysics–not necessarily Thomas’s metaphysics, for I do not think he is a good reader of Thomas, but on modal metaphysics. Ironically, Oliphint came very close to some important discussions the Reformed Scotists of the Utrecht School have on freedom and necessity. For Oliphint, following, of all people, Muller, there is the necessity of the consequence, which is a hypothetical necessity, and the necessity of the consequent thing, an absolute necessity. For the former, a condition can be attached to it and it will still remain a necessity. This move, which Oliphint understandably cannot develop here, offers some fascinating suggestions for free human choices.

What does the above have to do with Thomas Aquinas? I do not know. It was a worthwhile section, though.

Criticisms

Oliphint’s section on Aquinas’s doctrine of simplicity was like a small cloud the size of a man’s hand. Whether one thinks he did a good job here, these were the views that would later get him in trouble–and not just from Thomists. On another note, he called the Luis de Molina a Thomist. I…um…yeah, I got nothing.

Conclusion

This volume will remain a black mark on this series. That is unfortunate. If you want a decent exposition of Thomas’s thought, do no get a Van Tillian to write it. By the same standard, I cannot be trusted to write a sympathetic survey of Van Tillianism, and no publisher should ask me to do that.

 

[jwright82]

Oliphint, K. Scott. Thomas Aquinas. Presbyterian & Reformed.

P&R’s Great Thinkers Series has many excellent books in them. This is not one of them. Strangely enough, despite its many errors, it is worth getting. It is relatively inexpensive and is filled with numerous passages from Richard Muller’s Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics. That is why you should get this book. You should also read Richard Muller’s critique of this book as you work through it.

I do not want to give a point-by-point analysis, since such analyses tend to turn into essays. I will simply state Oliphint’s reading of Aquinas in light of the current discussions of Aquinas. In conclusion, I will call attention to some problematic areas of Oliphint’s thought.

Pros

In terms of clarity, it is well-written and can be read in a few sittings. Even if Oliphint gets most of his subject wrong, at least he introduces readers to Aquinas, provided they move on to better sources. Oliphint also has several other strengths. He is aware of the thorny problems that modal logic and analytic philosophy have raised for metaphysics. Indeed, he has capitalized on them elsewhere (cf. Reasons for Faith).

Introduction

To his credit, Oliphint is not shy on where he stands: There can be no rapprochement between the Reformation and Thomism: “significant aspects of Thomas’s thought…cannot be incorporated” into Reformed theology (Oliphint 22). That is ominous, but we quickly move to better material: the distinction between the principle of existence and the principle of knowledge. He ends the chapter with a summary of Aquinas’s life.

The Foundation of Knowledge

Oliphint reads Thomas as saying that natural reason provides the structure of knowledge upon which special revelation provides the superstructure. Is that a fair reading of Thomas? Maybe. Muller has criticized Oliphint’s reading of the Praeambula Fidei. The reader can judge who is correct.

Oliphint has a long section on Aquinas’s reading of John 1:9 and whether God’s existence is self-evident. The best thing to do is simply read Richard Muller’s critique of this section.

Metaphysics

Oliphint has a very good section on metaphysics–not necessarily Thomas’s metaphysics, for I do not think he is a good reader of Thomas, but on modal metaphysics. Ironically, Oliphint came very close to some important discussions the Reformed Scotists of the Utrecht School have on freedom and necessity. For Oliphint, following, of all people, Muller, there is the necessity of the consequence, which is a hypothetical necessity, and the necessity of the consequent thing, an absolute necessity. For the former, a condition can be attached to it and it will still remain a necessity. This move, which Oliphint understandably cannot develop here, offers some fascinating suggestions for free human choices.

What does the above have to do with Thomas Aquinas? I do not know. It was a worthwhile section, though.

Criticisms

Oliphint’s section on Aquinas’s doctrine of simplicity was like a small cloud the size of a man’s hand. Whether one thinks he did a good job here, these were the views that would later get him in trouble–and not just from Thomists. On another note, he called the Luis de Molina a Thomist. I…um…yeah, I got nothing.

Conclusion

This volume will remain a black mark on this series. That is unfortunate. If you want a decent exposition of Thomas’s thought, do no get a Van Tillian to write it. By the same standard, I cannot be trusted to write a sympathetic survey of Van Tillianism, and no publisher should ask me to do that.

Yeah every review I've read have taken him to task on this same stuff. But Lane Tipton has been very critical of Thomas and I haven't read anything that takes him to task. So it's possible that a Vantillian can be fair to Thomas, just like it's possible that a Reformed Thomist can be fair to Van Til.

 

[RamistThomist]

So it's possible that a Vantillian can be fair to Thomas, just like it's possible that a Reformed Thomist can be fair to Van Til.

True, and this probably would have been a better volume if by Tipton. Tipton just paints with a broad brush and in his published works he never actually, at least not yet, cites Aquinas. Writing this book would have forced him to. That could have been interesting.

 

[jwright82]

True, and this probably would have been a better volume if by Tipton. Tipton just paints with a broad brush and in his published works he never actually, at least not yet, cites Aquinas. Writing this book would have forced him to. That could have been interesting.

I don't know but in a lecture, I believe on YouTube, he does quote Thomas directly. I'll try to find it.

 

[MW]

Thanks for the link to the Muller review. It should be interesting.

I think Van Til's criticisms, as they come from the old Amsterdam tradition, are valid in general, especially the relationship between faith and reason. The problem is that Van-Tillianism as a system has gone past this and has tinkered with the metaphysics.

 

[MW]

I was wrong. That was more than interesting.

In effect, Muller defends Aquinas by reading him as assuming biblical revelation, thus bringing him in line with what the Reformed orthodox would later do. His basic assertion is that Aquinas begins biblically and works within its framework. Hence reason is not neutral. The clearest statement is as follows:

"Both Aquinas and the Reformed orthodox writers begin with prolegomenal discussions in which Scripture is set forth as the primary authority in doctrinal matters—so that both actually do begin biblically."

It is an intriguing way of reading Aquinas, but I have to excuse Oliphint if he did not pick up on this. I have had my suspicions that something like this was working in the background since Aquinas was embedded in Christendom. But I would not have claimed his stated methodology begins with Scripture.

This is the basic challenge with reading historical figures. We must read their writings in context. At the same time there is a tendency to read their context back into their writings -- to make explicit what is only implicit. I dread the thought of disagreeing with Muller, but it appears to me that is what he has done in this instance. Having said that, I would be very happy to be proven wrong.

Of course Aquinas isn't a presuppositionalist for all this. Why? The self-revealing God of Scripture is Trinitarian, not Unitarian. Muller addresses Oliphint on this point and basically refutes his own thesis that Aquinas "began biblically." He claims:

"Neither Aquinas nor the Reformed orthodox begin with the “ontological Trinity” because both recognize that the proper beginning point of knowledge (as distinct but not separate from faith) cannot be a point of doctrine like the Trinity that is neither self-evident nor demonstrable."

Here Muller insists that the beginning point of knowledge is not biblical revelation, but must be something self-evident or demonstrable. How does this square with his original point "that both actually do begin biblically"? It doesn't.

To undermine Oliphint's point about the Trinity Muller asserts that the distinction between essence and subsistence is "post-biblical." That is true so far as formulation is concerned; but it is a "biblical" distinction nonetheless. It is maintained because it is revealed in Scripture. It is not based in what is self-evident or even demonstrable. At this point both Aquinas and Muller are faced with a problem.

How do you get from the unitarian being of reason to the Trinitarian God of revelation? At some point in the two-step method of apologetics you have to concede your right to be governed by the self-evident and demonstrable. You have to silence reason and yield to the authority of Scripture. If that is the case, then you have not really "begun biblically." You are now in a conflict between reason and Scripture, trying to work out where one ends and the other begins. And this tension will manifest itself again and again. Reason will impose its rights upon you to demand only what is self-evident and demonstrable and insist that you interpret Scripture accordingly. This is the basic tension which emerges in the twilight of high orthodoxy.

History is important; but historians can fall into the trap of making the descriptive normative. What is and what ought to be are two different things. If the history manifests fault-lines that are going to lead to earthquakes and wholesale destruction, it borders on insanity to suppose we will be fine if we do what the ancients did and build our houses where theirs lie crumbling in the dust.

 

[RamistThomist]

I was wrong. That was more than interesting.

In effect, Muller defends Aquinas by reading him as assuming biblical revelation, thus bringing him in line with what the Reformed orthodox would later do. His basic assertion is that Aquinas begins biblically and works within its framework. Hence reason is not neutral. The clearest statement is as follows:

"Both Aquinas and the Reformed orthodox writers begin with prolegomenal discussions in which Scripture is set forth as the primary authority in doctrinal matters—so that both actually do begin biblically."

It is an intriguing way of reading Aquinas, but I have to excuse Oliphint if he did not pick up on this. I have had my suspicions that something like this was working in the background since Aquinas was embedded in Christendom. But I would not have claimed his stated methodology begins with Scripture.

This is the basic challenge with reading historical figures. We must read their writings in context. At the same time there is a tendency to read their context back into their writings -- to make explicit what is only implicit. I dread the thought of disagreeing with Muller, but it appears to me that is what he has done in this instance. Having said that, I would be very happy to be proven wrong.

Of course Aquinas isn't a presuppositionalist for all this. Why? The self-revealing God of Scripture is Trinitarian, not Unitarian. Muller addresses Oliphint on this point and basically refutes his own thesis that Aquinas "began biblically." He claims:

"Neither Aquinas nor the Reformed orthodox begin with the “ontological Trinity” because both recognize that the proper beginning point of knowledge (as distinct but not separate from faith) cannot be a point of doctrine like the Trinity that is neither self-evident nor demonstrable."

Here Muller insists that the beginning point of knowledge is not biblical revelation, but must be something self-evident or demonstrable. How does this square with his original point "that both actually do begin biblically"? It doesn't.

To undermine Oliphint's point about the Trinity Muller asserts that the distinction between essence and subsistence is "post-biblical." That is true so far as formulation is concerned; but it is a "biblical" distinction nonetheless. It is maintained because it is revealed in Scripture. It is not based in what is self-evident or even demonstrable. At this point both Aquinas and Muller are faced with a problem.

How do you get from the unitarian being of reason to the Trinitarian God of revelation? At some point in the two-step method of apologetics you have to concede your right to be governed by the self-evident and demonstrable. You have to silence reason and yield to the authority of Scripture. If that is the case, then you have not really "begun biblically." You are now in a conflict between reason and Scripture, trying to work out where one ends and the other begins. And this tension will manifest itself again and again. Reason will impose its rights upon you to demand only what is self-evident and demonstrable and insist that you interpret Scripture accordingly. This is the basic tension which emerges in the twilight of high orthodoxy.

History is important; but historians can fall into the trap of making the descriptive normative. What is and what ought to be are two different things. If the history manifests fault-lines that are going to lead to earthquakes and wholesale destruction, it borders on insanity to suppose we will be fine if we do what the ancients did and build our houses where theirs lie crumbling in the dust.

That seems fair. Although I've defended Thomas in the past, he has his shortcomings. I just defend Thomas against the biblicists who play fast and loose with church doctrine. One of my pet projects is to explore Scotus's thought.

 

[MW]

One of my pet projects is to explore Scotus's thought.

Sounds painful. No pain, no gain!

 

[paranymph]

"Both Aquinas and the Reformed orthodox writers begin with prolegomenal discussions in which Scripture is set forth as the primary authority in doctrinal matters—so that both actually do begin biblically."

It is an intriguing way of reading Aquinas, but I have to excuse Oliphint if he did not pick up on this. I have had my suspicions that something like this was working in the background since Aquinas was embedded in Christendom. But I would not have claimed his stated methodology begins with Scripture.

Have you all listened to this? Horton includes Aquinas in here as holding to sola Scriptura.

Michael Horton CCT Lecture - If Reformed, the catholic: Revisiting Sola Scriptura - Credo Magazine

Was sola scriptura the invention of the Reformation? Or were Protestants retrieving the church’s view of scritpure, from the church fathers to the best of the medieval scholastics? At the 2024 Center for Classical Theology in San Diego, Michael Horton delivered a lecture answering these very...

credomag.com

 

[MW]

Francis Turretin certainly distinguishes himself from Aquinas in the following quotation:

"But when God is set forth as the object of theology, he is not to be regarded simply as God in himself (for thus he is incomprehensible [akatalēptos] to us), but as revealed and as he has been pleased to manifest himself to us in his word, so that divine revelation is the formal relation which comes to be considered in this object. Nor is he to be considered exclusively under the relation of deity (according to the opinion of Thomas Aquinas and many Scholastics after him, for in this manner the knowledge of him could not be saving but deadly to sinners), but as he is our God (i.e., covenanted in Christ as he has revealed himself to us in his word not only as the object of knowledge, but also of worship). True religion (which theology teaches) consists of these two things."

It would be very difficult to reconcile this fundamental point in the prolegomena of the reformed orthodox with the methodology of Thomas.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Calvin:

For if we reflect how prone the human mind is to lapse into forgetfulness of God, how readily inclined to every kind of error, how bent every now and then on devising new and fictitious religions, it will be easy to understand how necessary it was to make such a depository of doctrine as would secure it from either perishing by the neglect, vanishing away amid the errors, or being corrupted by the presumptuous audacity of men. It being thus manifest that God, foreseeing the inefficiency of his image imprinted on the fair form of the universe, has given the assistance of his Word to all whom he has ever been pleased to instruct effectually, we, too, must pursue this straight path, if we aspire in earnest to a genuine contemplation of God; - we must go, I say, to the Word, where the character of God, drawn from his works is described accurately and to the life; these works being estimated, not by our depraved judgment, but by the standard of eternal truth. If, as I lately said, we turn aside from it, how great soever the speed with which we move, we shall never reach the goal, because we are off the course. We should consider that the brightness of the Divine countenance, which even an apostle declares to be inaccessible, (1Ti 6: 16) is a kind of labyrinth, - a labyrinth to us inextricable, if the Word do not serve us as a thread to guide our path; and that it is better to limp in the way, than run with the greatest swiftness out of it. Hence the Psalmist, after repeatedly declaring (Psa 93, 96, 97, 99, &c.) that superstition should be banished from the world in order that pure religion may flourish, introduces God as reigning; meaning by the term, not the power which he possesses and which he exerts in the government of universal nature, but the doctrine by which he maintains his due supremacy: because error never can be eradicated from the heart of man until the true knowledge of God has been implanted in it.

Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion Book I, Chapter 6, Section 3

 

[MW]

Have you all listened to this? Horton includes Aquinas in here as holding to sola Scriptura.

Michael Horton CCT Lecture - If Reformed, the catholic: Revisiting Sola Scriptura - Credo Magazine

Was sola scriptura the invention of the Reformation? Or were Protestants retrieving the church’s view of scritpure, from the church fathers to the best of the medieval scholastics? At the 2024 Center for Classical Theology in San Diego, Michael Horton delivered a lecture answering these very...

credomag.com

I haven't listened to his presentation. Maybe next week if there is time. I wonder what sola scriptura would look like if Aquinas is claimed to have held to it. I think it might become unidentifiable, or too broad to be of any use as a term.

 

[ZackF]

I haven't listened to his presentation. Maybe next week if there is time. I wonder what sola scriptura would look like if Aquinas is claimed to have held to it. I think it might become unidentifiable, or too broad to be of any use as a term.

Aquinas was known to have rejected RC doctrines that were not officially “defined” in his day like Mary’s Immaculate Conception. He also made no special case for papal infallibility.

 

[Phil D.]

He also made no special case for papal infallibility.

Indeed. I have found several places where he specifically disputed papal statements.

 

[CasualWestminsterEnjoyer]

Thomas Aquinas presents something like "sola scriptura" when he says that all doctrines are contained in the bible, but then he treats the Church as the interpreter of Scripture, which is a way of sneaking in tradition and the magisterium through the backdoor as the sources of theology, and fundamentally undermines sola scriptura.

 

[MW]

Thomas Aquinas presents something like "sola scriptura" when he says that all doctrines are contained in the bible, but then he treats the Church as the interpreter of Scripture, which is a way of sneaking in tradition and the magisterium through the backdoor as the sources of theology, and fundamentally undermines sola scriptura.

That is what I would have thought. I don't see the point in claiming him for an advocate.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Thomas Aquinas presents something like "sola scriptura" when he says that all doctrines are contained in the bible, but then he treats the Church as the interpreter of Scripture, which is a way of sneaking in tradition and the magisterium through the backdoor as the sources of theology, and fundamentally undermines sola scriptura.

Yeah, it's a little bit anachronistic to claim Aquinas even when he argues that the Scriptures will ultimately settle who ought to be trusted as an authority.

On the one hand, he does silence those who claim that the Magisterium is infallible, but it is not a Sola Scriptura that came to fruition in the Reformation period.

I appreciate Muller's volume on the topic as it helps you understand that the Church operated with a basic respect that the Wrod was infallible or inerrant, but the Scriptures operated functionally to "find" whatever meaning they needed to use to uphold their traditional formulations.

 

[RamistThomist]

On the one hand, he does silence those who claim that the Magisterium is infallible, but it is not a Sola Scriptura that came to fruition in the Reformation period.

I'm writing my term paper on that topic. Essentially, you don't see sola scriptura defined the way a "conference b r o" would use it, but neither do you see commentaries on the unwritten traditions, either (which would be kind of paradoxical).

 

[clawrence9008]

I am certainly not claiming that Thomas held to exactly the same view of sola scriptura as the Reformers did, but it does seem like he held to a form of it. How do we reconcile these statements with his understanding of the magisterium and tradition? I have only read a very tiny amount of Thomas so I don't even really know what he believes on unwritten tradition/the magisterium/etc.

"Nevertheless, sacred doctrine makes use of these authorities as extrinsic and probable arguments; but properly uses the authority of the canonical Scriptures as an incontrovertible proof, and the authority of the doctors of the Church as one that may properly be used, yet merely as probable. For our faith rests upon the revelation made to the apostles and prophets who wrote the canonical books, and not on the revelations (if any such there are) made to other doctors. Hence Augustine says (Epis. ad Hieron. xix, 1): 'Only those books of Scripture which are called canonical have I learned to hold in such honor as to believe their authors have not erred in any way in writing them. But other authors I so read as not to deem everything in their works to be true, merely on account of their having so thought and written, whatever may have been their holiness and learning.'" (ST I, q. 1, a. 8)

"Now John states that his Gospel is true, and he speaks in the person of the entire Church which received it: 'My mouth will utter truth' (Prov. 8:7). We should note that although many have written about Catholic truth, there is a difference among them: those who wrote the canonical scriptures, such as the evangelists and apostles and the like, so constantly and firmly affirm this truth that it cannot be doubted. Thus John says, we know that his testimony is true: 'If any one is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed' (Gal 1:9). The reason for this is that only the canonical scriptures are the standard of faith. The others have set forth this truth but in such a way that they do not want to be believed except in those things in which they say what is true." (Lecture 6 on John 21, commenting on John 21:24)

 

[ZackF]

I'm writing my term paper on that topic. Essentially, you don't see sola scriptura defined the way a "conference b r o" would use it, but neither do you see commentaries on the unwritten traditions, either (which would be kind of paradoxical).

Curious, how would a conference bro define it?

 

[RamistThomist]

Curious, how would a conference brother define it?

He would say whatever the latest beard dude podcast guys have said.

 

[MW]

I am certainly not claiming that Thomas held to exactly the same view of sola scriptura as the Reformers did, but it does seem like he held to a form of it. How do we reconcile these statements with his understanding of the magisterium and tradition?

He includes the teaching of the church as the formal object of faith. In this he is proto-Tridentine. Protestants make Scripture the object of faith and the teaching of the church must be judged in the light of it.

You will notice in the first quotation that he speaks of "revelation." That does not mean what we think it means. For us that revelation is wholly committed to writing. This is the doctrine of sola scriptura as we know it. Not for Thomas. Some truths come from tradition. So he urges us to believe all that the church teaches.