Following the significant The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (1992), twenty-two years later Brian Davies OP decided to publish another important book on Aquinas's most famous work. The English Dominican comments on the whole Summa Theologiae, treatise by treatise, according to the most recent results of historical criticism and in the light of his high philosophical competence. Nevertheless, this is not all. Indeed, Davies literally guides his readers (even those who are less familiar with Aquinas) into the world disclosed by the medieval theologian's monumental work. If he does not presume that readers of his book are able to read Latin, however he assumes that readers have a good English translation at hand, in order to follow his explanations of the text's key problems. In the restricted space of a review, it is quite difficult to express how this ‘guide and commentary’ to the Summa Theologiae details every section in order to introduce into Aquinas's horizon of thought. However, it is possible to present Davies's work by considering its frame, which embraces the presentations of all the treatises.
In the Introduction (‘Setting the Summa Theologiae’), and after a brief account of Aquinas's life, Davies summarizes critically the thesis of Leonard Boyle on the origins of the Summa Theologiae. This huge work was not devoted to friars designated for academic teaching, but to sustain the Dominican formation of ‘Aquinas's own brethren, whether students in formation, or those engaged in an active ministry, or those who had retired from such ministry but were still obliged […] to continue with studies’ (p.11). On this path, the author can conclude that the Summa is not a textbook on philosophy of religion, nor a tool to improve the skills of young promising theologians. Written for incipientes, for Davies, the Summa is a theological and a philosophical work which helps to think the Christian religion while holding together the Church's Tradition and the needs of reason. While this claim is unproblematic, difficulties arise when we question the relationship between the theological and the philosophical aspects within the whole plan of the Summa. This question is particularly important today, because the relationship between nature and grace – and so, from an epistemological viewpoint, the one between philosophy and theology – is once again at the centre of an intense debate. Although it seems that Davies takes an explicit position with respect to this discussion, he considers the Summa as a large series of disputations around traditional theological topics, which were subjects of controversy in the thirteenth century. At the same time, even if Aquinas uses ‘a lot of tight philosophical reasoning […] it is best to think of this work as primarily a theological one’ (p.16). From this point of view, we can add that the theological context contributes to the depth of the many philosophical arguments, instead of depriving them of rationality, as it might be considered from a secular position. Having commented the first question on the meaning and the features of Sacred Teaching, Davies can claim: ‘Aquinas is warning us that the Summa comes from a teacher of sacra doctrina, not a philosopher who doubts what Christians believe. But he also makes it clear that, though he relies on the Bible and certain Christian creeds, he thinks that human beings can arrive at some knowledge of God independently of Christian revelation’ (p.28). While this claim is shareable, one wonders what is the relationship between the human knowledge of God depending on revelation and that independent of it. Is it merely a matter of adding the ‘supernatural knowledge’ onto the ‘natural’ one? Or else, more probably, is there a relation of participation between these two distinct modalities of knowledge? Davies does not seem to go beyond what he writes commenting ST Ia,1,8 ad 2: ‘Aquinas also maintains that teachers of sacra doctrina can rightly employ human reasoning considered as able to assist faith in something like the way that our natural desires can serve us as we engage in act of charity’ (p.25).
After a brief Wirkungsgeschichte of the Summa, Davies devoted an ‘Epilogue’ to some reflections on certain critical points. From the viewpoint of known positions taken by contemporary thought, from Anthony Kenny to Richard Swinburne or from Hans Küng to Gerald O'Collins, Davies considers the strengths and weakness of Aquinas's thought. Building on his own [previous] analysis, Davies takes into account some of the objections to the philosophical tools employed by Aquinas. Expressed by exponent of the so-called analytic philosophy, these objections mostly concern the ontological or metaphysical field (particularly, the use of the verb esse), the natural theology and the anthropological question. On the properly theological side, the main difficulties come from the relationship between the historical acquisitions and systematic speculation. Connected to the latter and fundamental question, due to the modern refinement of historical consciousness, Davies underlines the criticism about the role of Christ's humanity in the Summa. Aquinas's Christology seems to some to be too close to Docetism (cf. p. 357), or to a mythological production, even if it is nothing less than a serious consideration of the effects of the mystery of Incarnation. Looking at the differences between the Doctor communis and the contemporary theologians, these diverse sensibilities derive, probably, from a different evaluation of the faith in the work of theology.
Holding this beautiful book in one's hands, the question probably arises: ‘What is the good news about the Summa?’. With the same words as Davies, you can answer: ‘The good news is that the text of the Summa is not a purely possible being but an actual one’ (p.17).
