J.J. Buckley - Review of Davies's 'the Thought of Thomas Aquinas

8/12/2019 J.J. Buckley - Review of Davies's 'the Thought of Thomas Aquinas'

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book rich and profound is the way in which he connects the contempora ry theologicalissues of ethnic minorities to traditional historical materials with the critical eyes of ahistorian.

One thing that the readers of this book will miss is the rich experience of sharing

and discovering different ethnic cultural heritages in different locations. Although itis beyond the scope of this book, readers should be informed that the ethnic minoritytheologians were not simply sitting around the table to discuss theological issues. Infact, they also spent time in the field and among the poor people of ethnic minoritieswho were struggling to survive. To call their setting the roundtable is somewhatmisleading.

This slim volume contains rich resources and ideas that help ministers and theological students interested in multicultural ministries in this country and beyond.

Jung Young Lee

TheTheologicalSchoolDrew UniversityMadison, NJ 07940USA

The Thought of Thomas Aquinas, by Brian Davies , Oxford: Cla re nd on Press ,

1992, xv + 391pp.

There is no doubt that Aquinas remains (or, some might say, has re-emerged as) amajor theological voice in English speaking theology. One thinks of the continuingcontributions of the Dominican community in England and North America. There isalso the influence of Alasdair Maclntyre, some members of the Society of ChristianPhilosophers, and individuals like David Burrell or George Lindbeck. Needless tosay, these represent diverse and sometimes opposed readings of Thomas.

These uses of Thomas raise two questions. What does Thomas think about therange of theological questions? And how does Thomas' thinking become a voice inthe modern theological conversation? Davies' book is the best answer to the firstquestion in English; it is, however, less useful as an answer to the second because ofa peculiar tension in his reading of Aquinas. To use Otto Hermann Pesch'sdistinction, Davies' book provides a very good "survey", although it will be lessuseful as an "introduction" (Thomas von Aquin. Grenze und Grosse mittelalterlicherTheologie. Eine Einfeuhung. Second edition [Mainz: Matthias-Gruenewald-Verlag,1989], pp. 23, 38f). Let me explain.

With regard to the first question, despite the continuing importance of Aquinas, ithas been impossible to find a single text which surveys Aquinas' thought, particularly his theology. No longer. Brian Davies has written a fine "general and introductory overview of Aqu inas's tea ching" (p. viii). The book is clear, comprehens ive,and wri tten in a style that will be accessible to students as well as teachers of theologywho are interested in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. After an introductory chapter

on Thomas' life, Davies takes the reader on a journey through the Summa, from thePrimathrough theTertia Pars. In particular, the inclusion of theTertia Parsfills a gapinexcusably left by most of the literature on Thomas in English


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Sometimes he begins by immediately explicating a text from Aquinas. At other timeshe summarizes the background to Aquinas before dealing with specific texts inAquinas (pp. 58f, 185f). Sometimes he begins with Scripture - almost always hisown (quite appropriate) uses of Scripture rather than Aquinas' (pp. 98, 274, 320).

Sometimes he begins with contemporary debates about the relation between personsand their bodies (pp. 207ff) or about Bultmann on faith as personal engagement(pp. 345f). The resul t is that the setting for his reading of specific texts from Aquinasincludes both appeals to Scripture as well as to contemporary philosophical andtheological debates.

However, thead hocstrategy so useful for purposes of a survey is not as useful if weseek an introduction into the way Thomas thinks theologically. That is, I find atension in Davies' book if we ask a second question: What does Davies' surveycontribute to the diverse and sometimes opposed readings of Aquinas in moderntheology? Chapter 1 offers a brief biography that judiciously narra tes Aquinas'

career. Davies argues that Aquinas was both a Christian thinker (and, as such, botha philosopher [AristotelianandPlatonist] and theologian) and a saint. The book as awhole is pervaded by the spirit of Aquinas as a thinker (and perennial debates aboutwhether and when Aquinas is primarily philosopher or theologian are placed on theback burner); even more importantly, Aquinas is treated as a thinker whose life alsohas " th e shape of a sain t" (to use the title of this first chapter), and so the importanceof Scripture and prayer form a constant background to Aquinas' thought. Finally,Davies gives a useful catalogue of the ways Aquinas is "off-putting" to "modernreaders" (from his writing style through the triviality of some of his questions toconclusions which are sometimes "genera lly unacceptable, if not absurd ") (pp . 17 -18), and offers a reason why we should read Aquinas anyway: Aquinas strove forenlightenment on "perennial problems which are still at the centre of everyone'sbasic interests" (p. 20).

But in this universalistic appeal we have a tension in Davies' book, almost despiteitself. The sensibility (if I might put it that way) of the book is focused on Aquinas'thought as the thought of a Christian saint; but the dominant issues treated canroughly be called more "philosophical" than "theological". For example, I havenoted that chapters two through seventeen take the reader on a journey through theSumma Theologiae.This is a very useful way to organize a survey of Aqui nas ' though t.However, eleven of the chapters (and over half of the total pages) deal with thePrimaPars,while there are only three chapters on theSecundaPars(on ' 'How to be H ap py ",

"How to be Holy", and "The Heart of Grace") and three on theTertia Pars.

I am speaking here of a tension in Davies' survey rather than some debilitatingdefect, for Davies knows very well how central the theological vision is to thePrimaPars. At the center of Davies' reading of Aquinas is Davies' claim (in one of hisformulations) that, for Aquinas, "the Trinity makes us divine since God, who isFather, Son, and Holy Spirit, brings us to the final or ultimate good or end of rationalcreatures, which is nothing less than Godhimself;" the Trinity "is God in love withus making us his fri ends" (p. 250). Thus , Davies rightly argues that for Aquinas "t hekey Christian doctrine is that of the Trinity" (p. 185) rather than christology. But itwould have been helpful if Davies had more explicitly explained the logic of Aquinas'

five ways in this context to help students of Aquinas in the twentieth centuryunderstand why the so-called proofs are needed as a stage in a treatment that bothpresupposes and moves toward the Trinity I doubt that Davies' strategy on this score


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There are times when more argument with non-English speaking readers ofAquinas would have helped explicate Aquinas. For example, Davies agrees withAllster McGrath's contrast between medieval and Reformation theologies of

justification (pp. 337-338). Davies also rightly no tes the common ground betweenAquinas and the Reformers on justification as a gift of grace (p. 338). But Davies doesnot take account of those like Otto Hermann Pesch who find even more commonground than this in (for example) Aquinas' and Luther's reading of Paul's Romans.If Davies had, he might have been able to recover an Aquinas more helpful toecumenical arguments today precisely because Aquinas pre-dated the sixteenthcentury debates.

Thus, I think that there is no better survey of the range of Aquinas' thought inEnglish than Davies' book. And a survey, it might be argued, is precisely what Daviesset out to write. However, readerso ModernTheologywill want to continue to consultthe introductions of Chenu and Pesch in order to pursue the debate over the

contributions of Thomas to modern theology.

James J. BuckleyDepartment of TheologyLoyolaCollegein MarylandBaltimore, MD 21210USA

Logic and Sin in the Writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein, by Philip R. Shi eld s,

Chi cag o a n d Lo nd on : The Un ive rsi ty of Chi cag o Pr es s, 1993, xi + 146 pp.

According to a funny story which Bertrand Russell liked to tell, Wittgenstein (agedtwenty two) had been pacing up and down Russell's room in Trinity College,Cambr idge, in 'agi tated silence' for a considerable t ime whe n Russell (forty years oldby 1912) asked teasingly if he was thinking about logic or his sins - 'Both ',Wittgenstein exploded. What seemed a joke to Russell may, however , point to a deepconnection in Wittgenstein's work. In this well documented and lucidly writtenbook, Philip Shields (who teaches philosophy at Carleton College) suggests that,

thr oughou t his whole career, Wittgenstein' s work on logic, language, mathematicsand so on, always already had an ethical and religious dimension. His sense of ourhaving to submit to the logic of language may be aligned and even equated with hissense (often expressed) of our having to live under the judgment of an all-powerfuldeity. Standards are thrust upon us, in logic as in ethics, which are not of ourchoosing or making - we run up against the limit of language just as we are limitedby the inexorable will of God.

The theme of 'uncompromising limitation', so Shields claims, runs all the waythrough Wittgenstein's work. 'The thought of God as the fearful judge', notuncommon in Wittgenstein's notes, 'is the thought of absolute dependence onarbitrary power' (p. 33). 'The inexplicable agreement in judgments', which makes

communication possible (Shields directs us toPhilosophicalInvestigationssection 242),is 'like a covenant of God made towards the undes erv ing' (p. 34). The logical

di i f f l f h bi i f h ill f G d


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J.J. Buckley - Review of Davies's 'the Thought of Thomas Aquinas