The Middle Ages are over and distant. Theology is no longer considered the “queen of the sciences.” So, what does a medieval theologian like Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–74) have to say to our contemporary age?
A great deal, according to Oliver Keenan, a Dominican theologian and Oxford lecturer, writing in Why Aquinas Matters Now. He argues, “Aquinas matters now, not because he was right about everything he said (or even about most things on which he had his say) but because he can teach us a way of looking at the world that we ignore at our peril” (1).
Keenan suggests using “architecture” rather than “archeology” as the primary way of appreciating Aquinas’s legacy (6). Following these analogies, Thomas’s structures of thought are more relevant than the individual bricks. (Scholars refer to Thomas Aquinas as both “Aquinas” and “Thomas.”) Evangelicals are likely to find the opposite approach more helpful.
Why Aquinas Matters Now
Oliver Keenan
Thomas Aquinas is more than a medieval curiosity. He was a reluctant revolutionary, a scholar, poet, and saint whose work unleashed an epoch-defining explosion of philosophical creativity in the thirteenth century. Writing at a time of war, injustice, poverty and alienation, Aquinas’s thought reaches across the ages and speaks to us today. As Oliver Keenan argues, Aquinas matters now not because he was right about everything but because he can teach us a new way of looking at the world.
Aquinas Then and Now
Aquinas matters because he’s second only to Augustine in his influence on Western Christianity. For centuries, Roman Catholicism has regarded Aquinas as its champion—the highest, most resounding, most complete voice of Roman Catholic thinking and believing. Pope John Paul II expressed deferential appreciation by pointing to him as a “master of thought and model of the right way to do theology.”
Contemporary interest in Aquinas goes well beyond Roman Catholic and indeed religious circles and touches on studies on political and legal theory, philosophy, psychology, and social ethics. Borrowing from Foucault, Keenan calls Thomas a “producer of discursivity,” highlighting how his work has generated multiple waves in many disciplines (5).
Keenan sympathetically explores the master plan of Aquinas’s work. While showing a high degree of familiarity with the details of Thomas’s work, Keenan provides an informed bird’s eye view of its building blocks and the overall shape. According to Keenan, “Aquinas intentionally crafted his writings so as to stimulate conversation . . . with reality” (11–12). He argues that Thomas understands human life and God himself in communicative terms. Thus “human beings belong to the world-conversation by shaping their lives in projects of meaning” (12). Keenan’s assessment reveals why he believes Aquinas is useful for understanding our liquid modernity.
In more traditional terms, the book is a primer on Thomas’s metaphysics (e.g., existence and essence, matter and form, substance and accidents), epistemology, theology, anthropology (e.g., emotions and virtues), the transcendentals (the good, beautiful, and true), and their interconnections. It’s an accessible yet engaging introduction to Aquinas’s worldview, always trying to show why he still matters.
Great Insights, Structural Flaw
Keenan’s account helps evangelical readers appreciate Aquinas’s robust theology proper. For example, the book’s section on divine simplicity illustrates Thomas’s commitment to Scripture and creedal Christianity in presenting the reality of God as a pure presence of perfection. His overall doctrine of creation is also biblically rich and sound with its inner and ordered dynamism mirroring created reality. These are some of the “archaeological” benefits Thomas provides.
Keenan’s account helps evangelical readers appreciate Aquinas’s robust theology proper.
However, the problem begins to emerge when Thomas deals with the account and consequences of sin. Aquinas seems to overestimate our natural capacities even after the fall. In Keenan’s words, “Thomas exhibits great confidence in the universality and power of human reason as the basis upon which humanity can communicate in the shared task of getting to the truth of things” (7). Again, echoing Thomas, Keenan writes, “Our endowment with intellect renders us capax Veritatis [capable of the truth]” (121).
Keenan’s affirmative reading of Aquinas supports the assessment of some of Thomas’s evangelical critics: There’s no sense of the radical influence of the noetic effects of sin. It’s as if sin only mildly affects us, bending and blurring our capacity for truth but not irreversibly breaking it at a fundamental level. Although recognized, in Thomas’s architecture sin doesn’t receive the importance it should receive biblically. This underestimation has architectural consequences on the whole of his thought. While dedicating long sections to other aspects, the book only needs one page to expound Thomas’s view of sin, and this proportion accurately reflects the theological weight he gives to it.
Nature and Grace Metaphysically Married
Pervasive optimism permeates Thomas’s anthropology, epistemology, ethics, and ultimately soteriology. Structurally speaking, this optimism comes from the way he relates nature and grace. According to Thomas’s architectural thought, Keenan argues, “Grace and nature exist in a kind of metaphysical marriage. They are only truly comprehensible together, they are bound together by divine will, and yet they retain their own particular character and distinctness” (164).
But where is sin in this metaphysical marriage? Thomas’s worldview seems entrenched in metaphysical categories and pays little attention to the historical-redemptive flow of the Bible’s story of creation, fall, and redemption.
Keenan argues that for Aquinas, the nature-grace relationship works between theology and philosophy in ways that should raise concern. He writes, “Dogmatic theology in no way nullifies what has been gained by philosophical reflection, but the knowledge given to faith does perfect and surpass mere reason” (83). This looks like a pre-fall, creational perspective, but what about the situation after sin entered the world? Sin’s distorting power is reduced to a mitigated echo.
As far as salvation goes, Keenan argues, “Every human person is a unique child of God—a product of God’s love and freedom—who consequently belongs, whether actually or potentially, within the Church” (129). Here our natural humanity is already and inherently ordered to the church. Sin isn’t even mentioned, thus fundamentally altering the biblical account of salvation from sin. Keenan’s analysis shows why evangelicals should retrieve Aquinas’s ideas with care.
Roman Catholic Architecture
According to Keenan’s account, Thomas serves the catholicity of Roman Catholicism, especially in its willingness and ability to include everything in its “synthesis,” a term Keenan often returns to (e.g., 16–17, 24, 177, 186). Aquinas may appeal to many contemporary thinkers because of his inclusive trajectory. As a result, Thomism can lose sight of the integrity of the biblical gospel because it loses sight of the antitheses of the gospel (God vs. the idols, either with me or against me, light vs. darkness, sin vs. holiness), and the call to take every thought captive to Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 10:5).
Aquinas may appeal to many contemporary thinkers because of his inclusive trajectory.
According to Keenan, Aquinas matters now because of his nonoppositional worldview capable of integrating old and new elements. Thomas invites all to participate in the extended synthesis that Roman Catholicism aspires to, in the melding of Bible and traditions, nature and grace, faith and reason, Christians and non-Christians, and Christianity and other religions.
Evangelicals can appreciate much of Thomas, eclectically benefiting from some building blocks of his thought. Welcoming Keenan’s invitation, for them too Aquinas matters now, but more in “archeological” terms than “architectural” ones.