What is Thomism?

In beginning a blog on Thomism, it is appropriate to consider the nature of Thomism, hence the question of our title: what is Thomism?

Undoubtedly, Thomism is a system of thought drawn from the writings of St Thomas Aquinas. In being a system of thought, it presupposes that St Thomas had a systematic view on various issues that interweave to constitute Thomism. This is an important point.

St Thomas was a professional theologian and a university man. Unlike university professors today, he did not sit down to write the monograph that articulated his thought on a particular issue. Rather, there were pressing issues in theology which called for resolution; for instance, how do we explain Christ’s real presence in the eucharist? These concrete issues required for their resolution a more abstract set of tools by which the questions could be answered. Accordingly, in order to answer the issues with which he was faced, Thomas had to formulate a lot of background thinking which enabled him to address these issues. Whilst that background thinking was never really put forward in a monograph by St Thomas himself, it constitutes his system of thought, and the latter is Thomism.

We can look to St Thomas’s Summa Theologiae as evidence of this. In the Summa, you don’t see Thomas articulating at length important truths in metaphysics, epistemology, logic etc. Rather, you see Thomas answering very specific questions. But Thomas cannot answer those questions without the metaphysics, epistemology, logic etc. This gives us an insight into the nature of theology for Thomas.

According to Thomas, the subject matter of theology is God, and it is well known that we can come to know a lot about God by means of natural philosophical reason; indeed, Thomas is one of those classic thinkers who presents a very refined philosophical approach to God. However, it is also clear that God has revealed Himself in scripture and ultimately in Christ; and this revelation too tells us something about God. However, that revelation must be understood and interpreted and set forth in a systematic manner. The latter is what the theologian does, and in order to do that the theologian must have a system of thought drawn from philosophy that enables him to understand and interpret what God has revealed.

Philosophy then is a necessary aid to the theologian, since the theologian cannot give an account of God’s revelation without the aid of philosophy. Without philosophy, the theologian has nothing with which to work in order to consider revelation.

So what is Thomism?

Thomism is the system of thought devised by St Thomas Aquinas in order to answer the pressing questions of theology. This system of thought has its own philosophical commitments that are distinctive of it. When one adopts that system of thought (or a part thereof) one is a Thomist (or a Thomist in that respect).

The important question remains: if that is Thomism, then why aren’t all Thomists in agreement?

If we have two Thomists who have genuinely understood Thomas’s thought across his works (and not just simply misunderstood it) it is a good question to ask why Thomists are not in agreement. Of course, Thomists do agree on the major non-negotiable aspects of Thomism, e.g. that God’s existence is demonstrable, that essence and existence are distinct, that matter is the principle of individuation etc; but they disagree on e.g. whether Thomas’s proofs of God are in physics or metaphysics, which of Thomas’s arguments successfully establishes distinction of essence and existence, whether matter is the or a principle of individuation. In other words, Thomists emphasise different aspects of one and the same system of thought and in doing so they give precedence over some aspect of that system as a key to unlocking others thereby devising a certain type of Thomism.

For instance, Thomists who insist on the argumentation for real distinction prior to proof of God’s existence typically emphasise that the act of existence is discernible independently of establishing God’s existence. That being the case, the act of existence is of fundamental importance in metaphysics, so that Thomistic metaphysics is a metaphysics that bottoms out with the act of existence; all other metaphysical categories are ultimately understood in terms of the act of existence. Hence there emerges the school of Thomism known as existential Thomism.

Notice here that existential Thomism doesn’t deny any particular aspect of Thomism that non-existential Thomists affirm; rather it highlights the act of existence and maintains that other aspects of Thomism are illuminated in this regard.

Thomism then is a broad category of thought that is signified by the thinking of Thomas Aquinas and was put to use by him in answer the pressing theological questions that he considered. Given the latter, we must ask whether or not Thomism can grow and develop, or indeed be surpassed.

Insofar as Thomism is a system of thought put to use in answer pressing theological questions, the same system of thought can be put to use in answering theological (and indeed philosophical) questions that Thomas did not consider. For example, in the 21st century there are number of social and cultural issues with which Catholics are dealing that were not pressing for Thomas. These can be answered by Thomism, but they were not answered by Thomas. IN this respect, the Thomism remains the same, but the questions it answers have changed.

Can Thomism be surpassed? St Thomas of course was no infallible; yet he has offered us a system of thought that is constitutive of the major elements of Catholic theology. Thomas of course was inspired in this thought by major theologians that came before him, notably St Augustine. So in asking whether or not Thomism can be surpassed it would be well to consider whether Thomas surpassed St Augustine. There are some Thomist that would say Aquinas did surpass Augustine, but my own view is that all that was true and good in Augustine’s thought found its way into Aquinas’s thought and was given a home. This is not a surpassing of St Augustine, but an incorporation of his thinking into a larger system. It could be that some theologian will appear who stands to Aquinas as Aquinas to Augustine.

However, that will only occur when one has understood everything Aquinas understood, and can answer every question that Aquinas could answer. And it is the profundity of the latter that attracts us Thomists. We know that we have not understood everything that Aquinas understood or can answer every question that Aquinas can answer. But we have understood what he has written and we have understood his answers to questions, and we have found them to be true, in which case we have