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Tasks for Thomists

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2024

Victor White O.P., S.T.L.
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Extract

The address by His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury to the London Aquinas Society was a memorable and important event. To such of us as are students of St. Thomas, teachers and thinkers guided by his principles and thought, it was a very great encouragement. The mere fact that a contemporary thinker and scholar of the calibre of Dr. Temple, who is holder of the most eminent position in the Anglican Communion and exercises so considerable an influence on national life, should think it worth his while to turn from his many and pressing public duties to address us, was an event which should not lightly be forgotten, and which should provide us with stimulus for many years to come.

But his address was something more than an encouragement; it was a very serious challenge. Dr. Temple is a Christian leader who has shown himself to be quite exceptionally keenly aware of ‘modern needs ‘and full of ‘compassion for the multitude.’ His realisation of the unique role which pupils of St. Thomas have to play in meeting those needs and in providing for the hunger of the multitude presents us with claims which we dare not disregard. The very fact that he addresses us ‘from outside ‘makes his claims upon our attention all the more compelling. For must it not be admitted that we thomists are sometimes apt to forget our responsibilities to the world and the age in which we find ourselves, to live and work in academic isolation, too little heedful of the crying spiritual and intellectual needs of others and of our own obligation to impart to them the heritage entrusted to us—forgetful even of the opening words of the Summa itself anti of the whole purpose for which it was written?

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Type
Research Article
Information
Blackfriars , Volume 25 , Issue 288 , March 1944, pp. 93 - 117
Copyright
Copyright © 1944 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 All references in the text of this paper arc to works of St. Thomas. When the title of the work is not given, the reference is to the Summu Theologica.

2 Blackfriars, Jan., 1943, pp. 8 ff.; April, 1943, pp. 126 ff.

3 Pierre Mandonnet, O.P., Saint Dominique (1921), pp. 19 ff. Cf. his Siger de Brabant, c.i. For a similar estimate of 13th century social and economic conditions, see Bade Jarrett, O.P., Mediaeval Socialism, pp. 20, 21.

4 The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, Vol. I, pp. 318–9Google Scholar.

5 Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (Pelican edn.), p. 44.

6 Cf. Spengler views the Machine Age. Blackfriars, Jan. 1932, p. 17.

7 Cf. Christendoms, New or Old? Blackfriars, Nov. 1938, pp. 795 ff.

8 Cf. the excellent preface to Mr. Middleton Murry's Heaven—and Earth.

9 This is not only the ‘philosophia perennis’ of European tradition; it is even more strongly enlphasised in the ancient wisdom of the East. Cf. Dr. K. (Guénon, The Crisis of the Modern World, pp. 100 ff. Kierkegaard's The Present Age and Maritain's essay on Human Equality (in Redeeming the Time) are a'lso full of salutary reflections on the matter.

10 Nature, Man and God. ‘The Cartesian Faux‐Pas,’ p. 57.

11 Ib. p. 79. Cf. von Hügel, The Reality of God, p. 188. Regarding the thomist premisses for this line of criticism, see Blackfriars, April, 15))3, ip. 120–7.

12 Dec. 29th. 1043. ‘What Christians Stand for in the Secular World.’ re‐published by the S.C.M. Press, price 6d., p. 9).

13 Nature, Man and God, p. 57.

14 J. Maritain, True Humanims, p. 134.

15 Most obviously, perhaps, iq Fr. Gerald Vann's Morals Makyth Man, especially Part II.

18 January, 1944, p. 38.

17 In La Structure de l'âme et l'experience mystique.

18 At the beginning of the Summa St. Thomas establishes that it is not a diversity of spheres of reality or ‘material objects’ which àiversifies Sciences, but a ‘diversa ratio cognoscibilis'; hence there is no reason why, those same things which are treated of in the philosophical sciences to the extent that they are knowable by the light of natural reason, should not be treated of by another science [Theology] to the extent that they are known in the light of Revelation (1.1.1. ad 2; cf. ib. 3 ad 2). St. Thomas thus rightly eliminates at the outset ‘that false division of spheres’ against which the first of Dr. Temple's Gifford Lectures was directed (Nature, Man and God, pp. 3 ff.). St. Thomas will emphatically agree that ‘The truth quite plainly is that the distinction between Natural and Revealed Theology is in no way directly concerned with the content of the beliefs examined, but with the principle detenmining the method of examination’ (ib., p. 7). But he could not confuse ‘Natural Theology’ with ‘Natural Religion, or with any philosophy of religion’ (for religion is a human activity), and he will define more precisely than did Dr. Tesmmple the manners in which the respective ‘beliefs’ are subject to rational investigation (1.1.8).

19 Dict. de Theologie catholique, Vol. xiiiGoogle Scholar, col. 437, S.V. ‘Probabilisme.’

20 Notably by J. R. Kors. O.P., La justice primitive et Ze péché original d'après S. Thomas, and L. Billot, S.J., De personali et originali peccnto.

21 The present writer has dealt at greater length with this in his essay in the recent symposium, what the Cross means to me.

22 St. Thomas and thP Problem of Evil (Marquette University Aquinas Leture 5, 1943), § 3.

23 ‘On a Bus,’ Blackfriars, March, 1043.

24 Especially in his De Fide et operibus.

25 November, 1943, p. 413.

26 Nature, Man and God, pp. 308, 316.

27 ‘Not necessarily.’ because when Revelation is given by ‘voice from heaven’ (‘I am who am,’‘This is my beloved Son,’‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?’) there is coincidence of, the medium and the formula; though even here it would seem to be the truth expressed rather than the expression which is ‘revealed.’

28 ‘Nature, Man and God,’ p. 350.

29 ‘The Platonic Tradition and St. Thomas Aquinas,’Eastern Churches Quarterly. Jan. 1941. pp. 213 ff.