Nova et vetera

Recent years have seen a large number of publications introducing Thomas Aquinas and his work to newer audiences. The sheer number of these publications attests to what Aidan Nichols referred to in his 2002 introduction as the "new renaissance" in the study of this master [End Page 290] in theology, philosophy, and biblical exegesis.¹ This new renaissance seems to have at least two features. Firstly, Aquinas's thought is taken on its own merits, instead of the uncritical adaptations of his thought to modern forms of thinking. Secondly, and without discarding the necessary contribution of a purely historical approach to Aquinas's thought, this renewed interest seeks to delineate Aquinas's intellectual coherence.

However, it is no coincidence that, alongside this renewed interest, one can witness a growing appreciation for the intellectual movement of Thomism that has sprung up from a continuous study of Aquinas's writings. Just as Aquinas's thought cannot be separated from his sources, as the historical approach has rightly argued, so also Aquinas himself cannot be detached from the tradition of his commentators. Such an abstraction of Aquinas from the tradition that has brought him to us would, in the words of the French Dominican Serge-Thomas Bonino, "fall into the trap that one had hoped to avoid: that is, to make of St. Thomas a thinker removed from history, and of Thomism a Platonic Idea."²

The authors of the volume under review have written an insightful and exciting analysis and a vibrant defense of the concrete reality that is the Thomist tradition. It all starts with the "unique genius" of Aquinas: his ability to lead his readers "to discover the real truth about real things that originate from the real God" (xii). In a dense but accessible analysis, the authors explain how, from the fundamental real distinction between being and nonbeing, Thomas discovered the real distinction between act and potency and how he "applied" this distinction to matter and form, as well as to essence and existence, resulting in the truth that, whereas God is his own existence, "everything else enjoys only borrowed existence" (xiii). The reader might recall at this point the vexed question regarding the essence of Thomism in which such giants as Gallus Manser, O.P. (1866–1950),³ and Norberto del Prado, O.P. (1852–1918), took part, emphasizing (respectively) the distinction between act and potency and that between essence and existence. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. (1877–1964), harmonized both approaches and emphasized the unity of the via inventionis and the via synthesis, since both have as their terminus and principium "the supreme truth of Christian philosophy," the clavis [End Page 291] aurea totius aedificii of the Angelic Doctor—namely, Deus est ipsum suum subsistens.⁴ The veiled presence of these Thomists in the opening pages of the book is but one of the many instances in which the erudition of the authors becomes apparent.

Perhaps an even more vexed question concerns the unity of the Thomist tradition. Again, the opening pages are representative of the authors' approach throughout the book. They start with an insightful negative criterion when they note that, although St. Augustine has a greater following in the Christian tradition than St. Thomas, "most will agree that those who cite Augustine make up a more diverse group than the Thomists treated in this volume" (xiv). For a positive criterion to discern "authentic followers" (xv) of Aquinas, the authors turn to his comments on John 17:17 ("Consecrate them in the truth. Your worth is truth"), in which he emphasizes sanctification in the truth that is Christ, by faith and the knowledge of the truth as sent by the Holy Spirit.⁵ What this means for the authors is that "those who follow and interpret Aquinas faithfully commit themselves to the project as an ecclesial vocation...