Abstract

Readers concerned with understanding how to appropriate St. Thomas Aquinas’s thinking for the twenty-first century will be greatly assisted in this task by reflecting upon this volume. They will learn much about the last century’s attempts to rethink St. Thomas from the varied positions of neo-Thomists in movements such as Transcendental and Existential Thomism. They will understand the ways in which thinkers such as Marechal and Phelan, were recrafting or, perhaps, abandoning classical Thomism, and how contemporary thinkers, such as Rev. Christopher Cullen, S.J. were countering with arguments defending traditional Thomism. And, importantly, they will confront the thought of one important figure connected with this appropriation: Rev. Norris W. Clarke, S.J., with whom I had contact in many ways as a fellow faculty member and as a popular lecturer. This book is an analytically precise, thoughtful, fruitful exercise in philosophy. It renders appropriate homage to that important twentieth-century Jesuit philosopher and teacher, and prepares the ground for critical appraisal of other various creative appropriations of St. Thomas Aquinas in the past century. —William P. Baumgarth, Sr., PhD, Associate Professor of Political Philosophy, Fordham University.