St. Thomas Aquinas

by Jacques Maritain

In his preface to ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, Jacques Maritain writes:

This work is not an exposition of Thomist doctrine. Rather, it is an attempt to bring to light certain essential aspects of the personality and work of the Angelic Doctor. For it is not of a medieval Thomism, but of a lasting and present Thomism that I speak.

With this view in mind St. Thomas Aquinas emerges, not as a figure of peculiar relevance to the medieval tradition as such, but as an intellectual and spiritual figure of emormous contemporaneity. Peter O'Reilly retranslated ST. THOMAS AQUINAS and brought its appendices up to date.

Genres: Philosophy

281 pages

First published January 1, 1958

About the author

T. S. Eliot once called Jacques Maritain "the most conspicuous figure and probably the most powerful force in contemporary philosophy." His wife and devoted intellectual companion, Raissa Maritain, was of Jewish descent but joined the Catholic church with him in 1906. Maritain studied under Henri Bergson but was dissatisfied with his teacher's philosophy, eventually finding certainty in the system of St. Thomas Aquinas. He lectured widely in Europe and in North and South America, and lived and taught in New York during World War II. Appointed French ambassador to the Vatican in 1945, he resigned in 1948 to teach philosophy at Princeton University, where he remained until his retirement in 1953. He was prominent in the Catholic intellectual resurgence, with a keen perception of modern French literature. Although Maritain regarded metaphysics as central to civilization and metaphysically his position was Thomism, he took full measure of the intellectual currents of his time and articulated a resilient and vital Thomism, applying the principles of scholasticism to contemporary issues. In 1963, Maritain was honored by the French literary world with the national Grand Prize for letters. He learned of the award at his retreat in a small monastery near Toulouse where he had been living in ascetic retirement for some years. In 1967, the publication of "The Peasant of the Garonne" disturbed the French Roman Catholic world. In it, Maritain attacked the "neo-modernism" that he had seen developing in the church in recent decades, especially since the Second Vatican Council. According to Jaroslav Pelikan, writing in the Saturday Review of Literature, "He laments that in avant-garde Roman Catholic theology today he can 'read nothing about the redeeming sacrifice or the merits of the Passion.' In his interpretation, the whole of the Christian tradition has identified redemption with the sacrifice of the cross. But now, all of that is being discarded, along with the idea of hell, the doctrine of creation out of nothing, the infancy narratives of the Gospels, and belief in the immortality of the human soul." Maritain's wife, Raissa, also distinguished herself as a philosophical author and poet. The project of publishing Oeuvres Completes of Jacques and Raissa Maritain has been in progress since 1982, with seven volumes now in print.

Reviews

[Adam Marischuk · Rating 3 out of 5]

More a defense of Thomism in contemporary (1946) philosophy than a biography of St. Thomas nor an exposition of his ideas

I have the Sheed & Ward 1946 translation from Scanlan, which is a fine translation of Maritain's work. I bought the book hoping for a philosophic examination of Aquinas' ideas but most of the book is directed at justifying Thomas' continued relevance today. Really this book is a prolongued justification of Aeterni Patris (in fact, the last 40 pages or roughly 1/4 of the book are appendices, beginning with Aeterni Patris from Leo XIII, followed by Doctoris Angelici from Pius X, then Studiorum Ducem from Pius XI).

I was hoping for an interaction between contemporary philosophy and Thomism, such as an examination of certain philosophical problems or dead ends and an examination of how Thomism offers a solution (to things with the problem of universals, language and meaning, the mind-body problem of Descartes, Hume's critique of causation or Kant's distinction between the noumena and phenomena).

Instead, after a brief biography (chapter The Saint) and a brief survey of Thomas' ideas (The Wise Architect), then a chapter on criticism of modern thought (Apostle of Our Time) the builk of the book is, in Maritain's own words, "I would not have the intention of this chapter misunderstood. It is merely an attempt to define the attitude adopted by the Catholic Church in regard to the philosophy of St. Thomas" (p. 82, the introduction to the chapter The Common Doctor).

This might be interesting to some, but Maritan essentially comes away say that Thomism is the only legitimate Catholic philosophy, even though one is not obliged to follow it because it is a philosophy and not part of the deposit of the faith. I was hoping for something more like Mortimer Adler's Ten Philosophical Mistakes with solutions from Aquinas. There is little engagement with the problems in modern philosophy, other than repeating the undefended claim that Thomas offers solutions to these problems. How Thomism does this is not addressed.

[Ian Clary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jacques Maritain was a great interpreter and populariser of Thomas' thought for the twentieth century. This book serves more as a manifesto for Thomism rather than a proper introduction, and so on that score, I don't recommend it for someone just getting into things. And boy oh boy, if you ever want to read more academically sophisticated hagiography, this is the book for you! As an historian who has published on the problems of hagiography, this book definitely caught my attention! Yet, maybe just this once, given the subject matter, hagiography is appropriate? Thomas really is that shocking of a thinker. But I do think Maritain could have toned the rhetoric down a little and would have still made a convincing point about Thomas' genius.
One of the values of this book, beyond just Maritain's reasons for why we should use Thomas to engage modern thought, is that it provides appendices to resource those looking to get into Thomas. Especially useful is the exhaustive list of Thomas' works as well as key papal documents that mandate the study of Thomas in all Roman Catholic institutions of education. Leo XIII's classic encyclical "Aeterni Patris" is especially good even for a Protestant like myself to read. "Humani Generis" by Pius XII not so much.
So, for those who are seriously interested in Thomas and Thomism, and especially how Thomas has a general, indeed common, quality, such that he is a devastating critic of modern philosophy, I would certainly recommend this book. But it won't serve to introduce the reader to detailed engagements with specific elements of Thomas' thought. For that, the reader will have to look elsewhere.