In this excellent debut monograph, Paul Macdonald succeeds in showing ‘how Thomistic epistemology allows us properly to conceive the mind-world and mind-God relationships’ (p. xxii). Showing himself adept at navigating not only the writing of Thomas Aquinas himself but also contemporary scholars of Aquinas as well as other contemporary philosophical theologians and contemporary analytic philosophers, Macdonald presents a full-throated defence of theological realism.

Macdonald has divided the book into three sections. In the first he shows the problems which arise when philosophical theology falls into the errors of subjectivism and scepticism. Macdonald diagnoses the distinctly modern picture of human subjectivity whereby ‘the mind is bound in what it can know, and God radically transcends the mind’. As a result of this picture God is outside a ‘cognitive boundary’ and this ‘prevents the mind from coming to know God objectively’ (p. 43).

In the second section of the book, Macdonald turns to Thomas for an account of how to overcome this cognitive boundary. For Thomas, Macdonald argues, ‘what ensures direct realism in sensation is formal causality, or sensible forms inhering in the senses, thereby conforming our senses to the sensible forms or features that external objects actually possess’ (p. 102). Instead of the boundary between the mind and the world, Macdonald notes that ‘mind’ for Aquinas (and Aristotle before him) ‘is simply a capacity (and moreover a natural capacity) for being “informed” by the world’ (p. 113). One of the strengths of the book is that Macdonald puts Thomas into conversation with John McDowell's ‘naturalized Platonism’ and acquired ‘second nature’. Thus Macdonald's essay is not merely of historical interest, but puts Thomas' epistemology into conversation with contemporary concerns. Like Thomas, Macdonald's philosophical interest is at the service of increased theological understanding. In chapter 4, Macdonald considers the beatific vision and argues ‘the blessed know or “see” God because God unites the glorified minds of the blessed . . . to God's self . . . not because God eradicates a boundary that encloses the space in which those capacities are actualized or exercised’ (p. 171). Macdonald rounds out his discussion with a chapter on how Thomistic epistemology relates to knowing God in this life, when ‘even in faith we remain to God as to one “unknown”’ (p. 173).

In the third section of the book, Macdonald argues rightly that Thomas was unaware of the nature/grace dualism which has plagued so much modern theology. Macdonald argues ‘we can protect God's divine transcendence in theological epistemology by equating objectivity with openness’ (p. 283). This openness prevents ‘objectivity’ from becoming ‘onto-theology’.

I have one small reservation about this otherwise excellent book. I do not see why Macdonald included the last chapter. He spends the chapter defending his realist conception of theology against the objections of Peter Byrne, who argues that ‘realist’ disciplines must ‘show the accumulation of reliable belief’ (p. 265). Yet Byrne's challenge seems rather thin. Besides this reservation, I have a call for further study. As Macdonald notes, Thomas' philosophical work came at the service of his theological commitments. Those theological commitments were based on studying God's revelation in light of the tradition which handed it down. Unfortunately, much analytical Thomism neglects Thomas' scriptural commentaries and his use of earlier figures in the tradition. I hope Macdonald's future work brings his philosophical acumen and textual analysis to bear on, for example, Thomas' commentary on 1 Corinthians and Paul's teaching on faith and knowledge or Thomas' use of Augustine. In this way, philosophical theology will not be a prolegomenon to faith, but an exploration of what God has revealed to human beings.