In contrast to the many works that start from Aquinas's philosophy, this collection of essays by an international group of seventeen scholars (concentrated in the three universities of Fribourg, Utrecht and Notre Dame) emphasises his theology.

It is generally agreed that Thomas wrote as a theologian, even when he did philosophy. Gilson pointed out that many of his most original contributions to philosophy – his analyses of ‘being’ and ‘person’ and ‘word’ – emerged from his theological work. This volume reinforces these points, tracing his quest for a better intellectus fidei, an understanding of what is believed, with full appreciation for its aspects of mystery and surprise.

Along these lines, the essay by Emery is a marvellously thorough exploration of Thomas's conviction that the procession of the world from God is grounded in the procession of the trinitarian persons – and that the multiplicity of created things, while in one sense a deficiency, is nonetheless a participation in the fullness of the trinitarian life of God. The chapter by Merriell on theological anthropology points out that Thomas borrowed, to a degree unique in the Middle Ages, from Augustine's trinitarian analogies, which are fulfilled in movement towards immediate relation with the Word and the Spirit.

We are not spared difficult and controversial topics. The discussion of foreknowledge engages contemporary philosophical analyses of the many issues involved. Original sin is approached as ‘a conclusion of faith’, with the focus shifted from theory to a hermeueutic of actual human life, especially its experience of moral failure, along lines familiar since Kant and Schleiermacher. Death is analysed, as in Rahner, as the soul's privation of the body which it needs and ought to have by nature.

Medieval theologians were expected to be interpreters of scripture. Prügl calls attention not only to the commentaries but to the three large ‘exegetical blocks’ in the Summa (p. 415 n. 76), dealing with the six days of creation, the Old Testament law, and the ‘mysteries’ of the life of Christ. This last is, in effect, Thomas's own version of the Franciscan Meditations or the later Ignatian Exercises.

We are reminded that Aquinas made fresh textual discoveries at the papal court in Orvieto (1261-65): of Augustine's late writings on perseverance, with the result that his language sounded much less ‘semi-Pelagian’ than many other scholastics; and of the documents of the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, which convinced him that Christ's humanity has being only ‘in’ the being of the Word.

Both Wawrykow and Gondreau emphasise Aquinas's anti-docetic interest in what Christ ‘co-assumed’ – not only human perfections like grace and knowledge, but defects like vulnerability to suffering (pp. 213-15, 232-3, 256-60). It also meant an emphasis on the voluntary character of the crucifixion, meriting resurrection (cf. Phil 2:9). This, by the way, was a point on which Calvin vehemently disagreed (Inst. II.17.6), despite his own insistence that Christ's soul felt the full wrath of God (II.16.12). Theologians can understand the same data quite differently!

In the chapter on the cross, Van Nieuwenhove argues strenuously against penal substitution, emphasising instead that Christ shared humans' death so that they might participate in his life, death and resurrection (pp. 287-92). And this leads to the sacraments, where Walsh emphasises that ‘the grace-filled Christ, head of the Church, is the sanctifying reality signified in sacraments’ (p. 335); they are effective because of ‘the active presence of the mystery of Christ's death and resurrection within them’ (p. 349).

The fact that the Summa has no section on the church (it is dealt with only as a function of Christ and the sacraments) prompts O'Meara to ‘situate’ Thomas in the church life of the time. He abandoned his feudal origins, avoided appointment as an abbot or bishop, and ‘chose to live his life amid institutions being born or in flux’ – the city, the university and the mendicant orders, which also had a special relationship with women's houses, the Beguines (pp. 304, 315). Despite the emphasis of pseudo-Dionysius on ‘hierarchy’, with higher orders illuminating the lower ones, Thomas thought of prelates as existing for the sake of the church, which he defined as an ordered multitude assisted on its pilgrimage by specific acts and offices (ST III.8.4). And he ended his discussion of ministries in the Secunda Secundae by considering the perfections of bishops, yes, but climactically of the ‘religious life’ of monks, canons and friars.

The question how Thomas's theology relates to philosophy cannot be ignored. Indeed, there is controversy among several of these authors about it. Marshall and Rogers are champions of the anti-foundationalist perspective and try to show, in a historicising and relativising mode, that Aquinas moved towards it. (The difficulty with this argument, of course, is that it over-exploits the undeniable fact that Thomas wrote his Summa contra Gentes early in his career and his Summa Theologiae later.) They do make an important point when they suggest that Aquinas has a ‘coherence’ view of truth, especially when it comes to the mysteries of faith (pp. 16-20, 210, 429-30), for these can be backed up only by arguments from ‘suitability’.

O'Grady, in contrast, champions the independent role of philosophy. He even calls Thomas an ‘analytic’ philosopher in the broader sense of that term, drawing some interesting parallels with representatives of that approach in our own time (pp. 432-8).

Aquinas saw theology as approaching everything from God, thus as ‘revealable’, and philosophy as approaching everything from the created world, thus as ‘intelligible’. They were distinct, two overlapping but not coextensive disciplines; once he even used the controversial term ‘double truth’. While philosophy could be taken into service as a ‘handmaid’ of theology, Aquinas also highlighted the ‘preambles’ of faith. Repeatedly and firmly he asserted that God did not reveal these because they lie within the scope of reason (pp. 182, 227, 426-7; cf. pp. 34-5 n. 104). If faith perfects reason, it also presupposes it, and human beings are expected to take that responsibility to the full.