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The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas
In this final edition of his classic study of St. Thomas Aquinas, Etienne Gilson presents the sweeping range and organic unity of Thomistic philosophical thought. The philosophical thinking of Aquinas is the result of reason being challenged to relate to many theological conceptions of the Christian tradition. Gilson carefully reviews how Aquinas grapples with the relation itself of faith and reason and continuing through the existence and nature of God and His creation, the world and its creatures, especially human beings with their power of intellect, will, and moral life. He concludes this study by discussing the life of people in society, along with their purpose and final destiny. Gilson demonstrates that Aquinas drew from a wide spectrum of sources in the development of his thought-from the speculations of the ancient Greeks such as Aristotle, to the Arabic and Jewish philosophers of his time, as well as from Christian writers and scripture. The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas offers students of philosophy and medieval studies an insightful introduction to the thought of Aquinas and the Scholastic philosophy of the Middles Ages, insights that are still revelant for today.
512 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1956
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About the author
Étienne Gilson
224 books165 followersÉtienne Henri Gilson was born into a Roman Catholic family in Paris on 13 June 1884. He was educated at a number of Roman Catholic schools in Paris before attending lycée Henri IV in 1902, where he studied philosophy. Two years later he enrolled at the Sorbonne, graduating in 1907 after having studied under many fine scholars, including Lucien Lévy Bruhl, Henri Bergson and Emile Durkheim.
Gilson taught in a number of high schools after his graduation and worked on a doctoral thesis on Descartes, which he successfully completed (Sorbonne) in 1913. On the strength of advice from his teacher, Lévy Bruhl, he began to study medieval philosophy in great depth, coming to see Descartes as having strong connections with medieval philosophy, although often finding more merit in the medieval works he saw as connected than in Descartes himself. He was later to be highly esteemed for his work in medieval philosophy and has been described as something of a saviour to the field.
From 1913 to 1914 Gilson taught at the University of Lille. His academic career was postponed during the First World War while he took up military service. During his time in the army he served as second lieutenant in a machine-gun regiment and was awarded the Croix de Guerre for bravery upon relief from his duties. After the war, he returned to academic life at Lille and (also) Strasbourg, and in 1921 he took up an appointment at the Sorbonne teaching the history of medieval philosophy. He remained at the Sorbonne for eleven years prior to becoming Professor of Medieval Philosophy at the College de France in 1932. During his Sorbonne years and throughout his continuing career Gilson had the opportunity to travel extensively to North America, where he became highly influential as a historian and medievalist, demonstrating a number of previously undetermined important differences among the period’s greatest figures.
Gilson’s Gifford Lectures, delivered at Aberdeen in 1931 and 1932, titled ‘The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy’, were published in his native language (L’espirit de la philosophie medieval, 1932) before being translated into English in 1936. Gilson believed that a defining feature of medieval philosophy was that it operated within a framework endorsing a conviction to the existence of God, with a complete acceptance that Christian revelation enabled the refinement of meticulous reason. In this regard he described medieval philosophy as particularly ‘Christian’ philosophy.
Gilson married in 1908 and the union produced three children, two daughters and one son. Sadly, his wife died of leukaemia in late 1949. In 1951 he relinquished his chair at the College de France in order to attend to responsibilities he had at the Institute of Medieval Studies in Toronto, Canada, an institute he had been invited to establish in 1929. Gilson died 19 September 1978 at the age of ninety-four.
Gilson taught in a number of high schools after his graduation and worked on a doctoral thesis on Descartes, which he successfully completed (Sorbonne) in 1913. On the strength of advice from his teacher, Lévy Bruhl, he began to study medieval philosophy in great depth, coming to see Descartes as having strong connections with medieval philosophy, although often finding more merit in the medieval works he saw as connected than in Descartes himself. He was later to be highly esteemed for his work in medieval philosophy and has been described as something of a saviour to the field.
From 1913 to 1914 Gilson taught at the University of Lille. His academic career was postponed during the First World War while he took up military service. During his time in the army he served as second lieutenant in a machine-gun regiment and was awarded the Croix de Guerre for bravery upon relief from his duties. After the war, he returned to academic life at Lille and (also) Strasbourg, and in 1921 he took up an appointment at the Sorbonne teaching the history of medieval philosophy. He remained at the Sorbonne for eleven years prior to becoming Professor of Medieval Philosophy at the College de France in 1932. During his Sorbonne years and throughout his continuing career Gilson had the opportunity to travel extensively to North America, where he became highly influential as a historian and medievalist, demonstrating a number of previously undetermined important differences among the period’s greatest figures.
Gilson’s Gifford Lectures, delivered at Aberdeen in 1931 and 1932, titled ‘The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy’, were published in his native language (L’espirit de la philosophie medieval, 1932) before being translated into English in 1936. Gilson believed that a defining feature of medieval philosophy was that it operated within a framework endorsing a conviction to the existence of God, with a complete acceptance that Christian revelation enabled the refinement of meticulous reason. In this regard he described medieval philosophy as particularly ‘Christian’ philosophy.
Gilson married in 1908 and the union produced three children, two daughters and one son. Sadly, his wife died of leukaemia in late 1949. In 1951 he relinquished his chair at the College de France in order to attend to responsibilities he had at the Institute of Medieval Studies in Toronto, Canada, an institute he had been invited to establish in 1929. Gilson died 19 September 1978 at the age of ninety-four.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 13, 2017
Longer review coming later.
A thorough handbook to Aquinas' thought, but not my favorite. Gilson has an excellent discussion on the 5 Ways and the Being of God. I was pleased to see his discussion of Thomas' view of predestination.
This isn't the easiest book to read, even for those who are familiar with Aquinas. Still, it's an essential one.
A thorough handbook to Aquinas' thought, but not my favorite. Gilson has an excellent discussion on the 5 Ways and the Being of God. I was pleased to see his discussion of Thomas' view of predestination.
This isn't the easiest book to read, even for those who are familiar with Aquinas. Still, it's an essential one.
April 20, 2024
Let's get the obvious out of the way: this is not a shortcut to understanding St. Thomas Aquinas. You'll have to at least try to tackle the Summa. But afterwards, books like this one by Etienne Gilson come in handy in reflecting upon the philosophy of that great saint.
The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas is not a summary of the Summa, though I could see how one could use it as such. Gilson has a point to make that is not accepted by all Thomists. His point concerns the famous debate concerning existence and essence in God, that God's essence is to exist. Gilson draws two ways of understanding this idea, the essentialist and the existentialist. The former takes being as a noun, the latter takes it as a verb, an act. Given the order of the Universe in St. Thomas, in which every being is striving to achieve its last end, which consists in the fulfillment of its act (as opposed to potency), that distinction is rather important. It helps to sidestep the pitfalls of Plato, in particular his rejection of the physical world and some very weird implications of his idea of the Forms. Essence is a substance that can be defined; if God's essence is existence, than God can be defined, and finding anything that fits that definition proves God. This is more or less St. Anselm's famous "the greatest thing conceivable is God; we can conceive it; ergo God is" argument.
The problem, and it was St. Thomas who pointed this out, is that we cannot define God. It's not just simply that God is so far above us; we're just barely above animals in terms of intelligence. We're absolutely feeble beings prodding along gathering facts from sensory experiences. Angels, as pure intellectual beings, blow us out of the water. We're not going to prove God by showing a fulfilled definition. We're barely able to speak about what God is at all, so much so that we almost have to exclusively speak of Him as what He is not (the via negativa).
Here St. Thomas does something interesting, revolutionary: if we cannot behold God directly in experience, than we shall have to prove His existence indirectly through His effects which our limited, sensory bound intelligence can pick up and analyze. St. Thomas, following Aristotle, sees value in the physical world of particulars as well as the universal world of ideas. Indeed, our only path to those universals is through the particulars.
And the key to this is Being itself, the first principle. From here, Gilson follows St. Thomas quite closely in argument and order, weaving the web of the most beautiful philosophy ever devised. I cannot summarize it here. All I can say is that it is the only philosophy that doesn't ask one to deny something we know is true.
The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas is not a summary of the Summa, though I could see how one could use it as such. Gilson has a point to make that is not accepted by all Thomists. His point concerns the famous debate concerning existence and essence in God, that God's essence is to exist. Gilson draws two ways of understanding this idea, the essentialist and the existentialist. The former takes being as a noun, the latter takes it as a verb, an act. Given the order of the Universe in St. Thomas, in which every being is striving to achieve its last end, which consists in the fulfillment of its act (as opposed to potency), that distinction is rather important. It helps to sidestep the pitfalls of Plato, in particular his rejection of the physical world and some very weird implications of his idea of the Forms. Essence is a substance that can be defined; if God's essence is existence, than God can be defined, and finding anything that fits that definition proves God. This is more or less St. Anselm's famous "the greatest thing conceivable is God; we can conceive it; ergo God is" argument.
The problem, and it was St. Thomas who pointed this out, is that we cannot define God. It's not just simply that God is so far above us; we're just barely above animals in terms of intelligence. We're absolutely feeble beings prodding along gathering facts from sensory experiences. Angels, as pure intellectual beings, blow us out of the water. We're not going to prove God by showing a fulfilled definition. We're barely able to speak about what God is at all, so much so that we almost have to exclusively speak of Him as what He is not (the via negativa).
Here St. Thomas does something interesting, revolutionary: if we cannot behold God directly in experience, than we shall have to prove His existence indirectly through His effects which our limited, sensory bound intelligence can pick up and analyze. St. Thomas, following Aristotle, sees value in the physical world of particulars as well as the universal world of ideas. Indeed, our only path to those universals is through the particulars.
And the key to this is Being itself, the first principle. From here, Gilson follows St. Thomas quite closely in argument and order, weaving the web of the most beautiful philosophy ever devised. I cannot summarize it here. All I can say is that it is the only philosophy that doesn't ask one to deny something we know is true.
October 3, 2016
It certainly is a remarkable feat to develop such a theosophy -meant as a real mishmash between theology and philosophy, not the later occult movement(s) - in the 13th century. I am not a specialist in this subject, but I can well imagine that this work is a very good, albeit bone-dry, historical overview of it.
But the almost 140 occurrences of the words "evident" or "obvious" in the main text illustrate the shaky ground of this theosophical model. This book is not only an explanation of Thomistic "philosophy", but also a very personal defence of it; it lacks any critical notes. The author believes that it is not the role of the historian to be critical and put things in a wider (and later) context. So be it, but it makes it less interesting reading.
But the almost 140 occurrences of the words "evident" or "obvious" in the main text illustrate the shaky ground of this theosophical model. This book is not only an explanation of Thomistic "philosophy", but also a very personal defence of it; it lacks any critical notes. The author believes that it is not the role of the historian to be critical and put things in a wider (and later) context. So be it, but it makes it less interesting reading.
December 18, 2008
Surprising as it may seem, Aquinas is neither the most transparent nor the most gripping writer. Gilson helps.
December 1, 2022
This is an impressive summary of Aquinas's philosophy. This book wrestles with the problem that Aquinas was a medieval and used types of argument that are unfamiliar to contemporary readers. This book presents the Aquinas often in his own terms instead of "translating" him for the more contemporary mindset. For something more introductory and that uses more contemporary terms, I prefer Denys Turner's book on Thomas Aquinas.
May 3, 2023
Thinking this will make Aquinas easier? It doesn’t.
Gilson is generally regarded as the greatest C20th Thomist, and I bought this foolishly thinking it might make it easier to approach the writings of the man himself. But it’s a bit like climbing Everest to prepare for the Matterhorn: Gilson adds to the intrinsic difficulty of the ideas the difficulty of his technical French as rendered, perhaps not optimally, into English (Gilson’s unimpressed-sounding comment on the translation is ‘it’s often more difficult to translate a book than to write it’!). For my money this is far more difficult – unnecessarily difficult – than the original texts themselves. I don’t doubt Gilson’s good intentions but the books is almost unreadable.
A large portion of the book is actually taken up with a catalogue of St Thomas’ works, something which would be needed by only the most serious research students. And the print isn’t the best.
My advice to the average reader interested in St Thomas is to go straight to the source, with Timothy McDermott’s accessible concise translation of the Summa Theologiae. But – as Gilson wryly remarks – God didn’t intend to save us through metaphysics.
Gilson is generally regarded as the greatest C20th Thomist, and I bought this foolishly thinking it might make it easier to approach the writings of the man himself. But it’s a bit like climbing Everest to prepare for the Matterhorn: Gilson adds to the intrinsic difficulty of the ideas the difficulty of his technical French as rendered, perhaps not optimally, into English (Gilson’s unimpressed-sounding comment on the translation is ‘it’s often more difficult to translate a book than to write it’!). For my money this is far more difficult – unnecessarily difficult – than the original texts themselves. I don’t doubt Gilson’s good intentions but the books is almost unreadable.
A large portion of the book is actually taken up with a catalogue of St Thomas’ works, something which would be needed by only the most serious research students. And the print isn’t the best.
My advice to the average reader interested in St Thomas is to go straight to the source, with Timothy McDermott’s accessible concise translation of the Summa Theologiae. But – as Gilson wryly remarks – God didn’t intend to save us through metaphysics.
December 1, 2021
A classic...
April 5, 2022
Mind nourishing
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 29, 2022
Fantastic.
December 13, 2024
Ipsum esse
November 16, 2019
"...this surprising fact perhaps only confirms the time-honored truth that God does not intend to save man through metaphysics. Still, if we must metaphysicize, it is important that we should do so in the proper way... Personally, I do not say of Thomas that he was right, but that he *is* right. This has not been a preconceived principle guiding my research; it is its conclusion. But only those who have chosen Thomas for their guide know how it is possible to prefer him without despising the rest. All the metaphysical truths contained in other doctrines acquire a still deeper truth in the light of Thomism. But for this proposition to make sense, one must have seen that light."
"What an enlarging of the perspectives which so limited Aristotle's moral teaching! We should see this much better if St. Thomas had himself believed it necessary to take the trouble to expound his own moral doctrine in purely philosophical terms. This is what we are making him do today, but he never actually did it himself. Why construct a completely self-standing moral philosophy as if there were no Christian revelation or as if it were not true? Christian revelation does exist, and it is true. This at least is St. Thomas' point of view. As a Christian Doctor it was his duty of state to live only with God in order to speak only with Him: aut de Deo aut cum Deo. Above all, he could not speak of morality in any other way because, if God exists, there are no personal duties prior to those toward Him."
"What an enlarging of the perspectives which so limited Aristotle's moral teaching! We should see this much better if St. Thomas had himself believed it necessary to take the trouble to expound his own moral doctrine in purely philosophical terms. This is what we are making him do today, but he never actually did it himself. Why construct a completely self-standing moral philosophy as if there were no Christian revelation or as if it were not true? Christian revelation does exist, and it is true. This at least is St. Thomas' point of view. As a Christian Doctor it was his duty of state to live only with God in order to speak only with Him: aut de Deo aut cum Deo. Above all, he could not speak of morality in any other way because, if God exists, there are no personal duties prior to those toward Him."
January 1, 2020
This book provides an in depth coverage of the rational approach to faith in Christianity.
February 22, 2021
Aquinas preemptively refutes Heidegger and phenomenology, among others, 600 years before the fact.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews