Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought

by Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange

Dominican Garrigou-Lagrange was one of the most prominent thomistic neoscholastic theologians of the early and mid-twentieth century. This volume is his attempt to summarize a philosophical and theological worldview by interpreting the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas and his successors: Reality is seen in light of the central doctrines of the Trinity, of Creation, and of the Incarnation of the Son as Jesus Christ, in Whom humankind is drawn into the intimacy of the inner life of the Triune God. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange argues on behalf of 24 thomistic theses, which he presents as a lens through which to view salvation, the Sacraments, the Mother of the Redeemer, and the spiritual life whereby the divine image is restored in the soul. This work is of interest to any who wish to enhance their understanding of the Catholic theological tradition through an acquaintance with this major and often controversial figure. (Ex Fontibus Co.)

Genres: Philosophy, Theology, Catholic, Religion, Christianity

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1950

About the author

Réginald Marie Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. (February 21, 1877, Auch, France – February 15, 1964, Rome) was a Catholic theologian and, among Thomists of the scholastic tradition, is generally thought to be the greatest Catholic Thomist of the 20th century. He taught at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, commonly known as the Angelicum, in Rome from 1909 to 1960.

Father Garrigou-Lagrange initially attracted attention when he wrote against the theological movement later called Modernism. He is also said to be the drafter or "ghostwriter" of Pope Pius XII's 1950 encyclical Humani Generis, subtitled "Concerning Some False Opinions Threatening to Undermine the Foundations of Catholic Doctrine."

He is best known for his spiritual theology. His magnum opus in the field is The Three Ages of the Interior Life, in which he propounded the thesis that infused contemplation and the resulting mystical life are in the normal way of holiness of Christian perfection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald...

Reviews

[Paul Bard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazingly clear rendition of thomistic truth and denial of extremes either side of truth.

"This power of assimilation is therefore a genuine criterion whereby to appraise the validity and scope of Thomism, from the lowest material elements up to God's own inner life. Economy demands that any system have one mother-idea, as radiating center. The mother-idea of Thomism is that of God as pure act, in whom alone is essence identified with existence. This principle, the keystone of Christian philosophy, enables us to explain, as far as can be done here below, what revelation teaches of the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation, the unity of existence in the three divine persons, the unity of existence in Christ. It explains likewise the mystery of grace. All that is good in our free acts comes from God as first cause, just as it comes from us as second causes. And when we freely obey, when we accept rather than resist grace, all that is good in that act comes from the source of all good. Nothing escapes that divine and universal cause, who without violence actualizes human freedom, just as connaturally as He actualizes the tree to bloom and bear fruit."

Exactly!

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a good overview of Aquinas, covering everything from his applications of the Act/Potency distinction to his Angelology to his writings on Grace and Predestination.

If you're looking for something on the "five ways," you will not find it here. I think the five ways get, maybe, a page or two. The author simply had other concerns.

Considering how long the Summa is, 456 pages is not bad for a summary of the major points.

If I had any complaints, it would be that the author trots out Scotus and Suarez to tell us how they were wrong, but does so without treating them too rigorously. They may have been wrong, but I feel I also need to read them eventually for fairness' sake.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is completely online for free here.

See my full review here.

This is an absolutely incredible, concise yet thorough overview of Thomistic philosophy and theology, by the contemplative Dominican philosopher-theologian Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, the greatest 20th century Catholic theologian and also Bl. Pope John Paul II's thesis adviser.
(continued…)

[Ray Ciervo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Garrigou-Lagrange is my favorite thomistic authors. He has unraveled so much of Thomas' thought's for me. His clarity in thought and perceptions of God strengthen your heart and mind. More than that he makes one of the greatest thinkers of all time accessible and also makes you hungry for more.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Reality" is a masterful exposition of the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas by a major authority. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange OP was a professor at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome from 1909 to 1959 where amongst many other things he acted as the supervisor of the doctoral thesis of John Paul II and was a member of the commission that developed the Dogma of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary proclaimed in November 1950.
Garrigou-Lagrange very carefully explains the profoundly Aristotelian nature of the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas taking great care to show that the theses of Aristotle differed from those of Heraclitus and Parmenides. He repeatedly assets that that God was Aristotle's prime mover. He argues that when God asserted to Moses from the burning bush "I am what I am" God was essentially claiming the status of prime mover.
While analyzing Thomas Aquinas, Garrigou-Lagrange also reviews the positions of other prominent theologians on the particular topics. In this way he discusses:
1. Nominalists - Peter Abelard, William of Ockham
2. Scotists - Duns Scotus, William of Auvergne
3. Thomists - Cajetan (Thomas de Vio), Sylvester de Ferraris, Francisco Suárez, Francisco de Vitoria and his school of Salamanca
I found that Garrigou-Lagrange was at his very best on the topic of God as the prime mover. I had expected a great deal from his discussion of the Immaculate Conception given his involvement in the elaboration of the dogma and was quite disappointed by his muddled exposition. I was frustrated when he insisted we must accept as a mystery that the contradictory doctrines that (a) man is free and (b) that man predestined to be simultaneously true. Finally, I was surprised by the long discussion on the will, quiddity, final cause and personality of Angels which simply reflects how little I know about theology..
Garrigou-Lagrange finishes on a positive note asserting that Thomism has triumphed over all other schools of modern philosophy (phenomenology, positivism, nominalism, etc.) He is of course being very optimistic but as one finishes his fine book, one almost believes that he is right. I wonder he what Garrigou-Lagrange would have thought of the efforts of his pupil John Paul II to promote the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas.

[Rory Fox · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ranging over a wide variety of topics from philosophy and theology, this is one of the clearest presentations of Pre-Vatican II neo-scholastic theology. It is less detailed than one of the theological ‘manuals’ that were in use in that era, but it is more detailed than simply a reiteration of what Aquinas says. It lies somewhere in the middle, mainly summarising Aquinas albeit with occasional recognitions and dismissals of what other historical figures have said, like Scotus and especially like Jesuits such as Suarez and Molina.

However, this should not be misunderstood to be a detailed presentation (and/or defence) of Aquinas’ views. Where it does engage with other historical figures it does it relatively cursorily. So, for example, we are told that Aquinas’ views on analogy are rejected by Scotus and also rejected in a slightly different way by Suarez. But there is no in depth analysis of why they rejected Aquinas’ views. Their rejection is simply counter-rejected here with a very few words of explanation. Readers interested in a serious understanding of why and to what extent Aquinas and Scotus disagreed will need to turn to more detailed monographs in the history of philosophy.


While the book is generally very clear in presenting Thomist ideas, it is less clear in defending them against some of the serious objections raised by (among others) Kant. Thomism assumes a realist intellectual grasp of reality, such that people see it as it is. Kant said that people are limited by the architecture of their brains, and they see it as their brains represent it. That Kantian viewpoint is a major challenge to the fundamental assumptions of the author's Realism. Yet it is unclear in this book how he manages to refute it, other than by counter assertion. It is worth readers being mindful of the fact that part of the attraction of the transcendental Thomism of Marechal (and Lonergan and Rahner) was that they believed it offered a better response to Kant (than the Thomism presented by the author in books like this one).

One of the other surprising features of the book is that it shows almost no meaningful engagement with the contemporary 1950s problem of Modernism, other than to just dismiss it. As such, the book illustrates a flaw evident in some Pre-Vatican II theology. By refusing to engage with specific issues of theological (cultural) relativism which was at the heart of modernism, all it did was drive those issues underground, so that they would eventually erupt anew on the floor of Vatican II.

We see examples of those problems particularly clearly in chapter 6 article 3, where the author discusses the evolution of dogma. Neo-scholasticism assumed that the only meaningful sense of development occurred when theologians were initially grasping concepts and moving in their understanding towards a full understanding. The author believes that that full understanding had occurred in the historical statements of Ecumenical Councils, so there was no more scope for evolution or development in the meaning or understanding of the dogma proclaimed at councils.

Modernists took a completely different approach, assuming that truth could never be fully understood by humans. So, in their far more extreme opinion, there was constantly a need to change the words, or the meanings of dogmas to match how human understandings of truth changed (and even contradicted each other) from generation to generation.

Between these two positions is the view which was to eventually triumph at Vatican II in 1965. It is a view which can be traced back to a different set of neo-scholastic assumptions about the fact that our human concepts are attempts to grasp the beingness of reality. Contrary to the anti-modernists (like the author of this book) this view assumed that as our understanding of reality improves over time, so there will always be scope to draw deeper meanings from already existing claims about reality (like dogmas). But contrary to the view of the Modernists, this view rejected the idea that the meaning of dogma was ‘changing’ such that it could contradict previous understandings. What this means is that theology refines meaning, not changes it.

It is a shame that books like this were unable to better grasp these issues and engage with them prior to Vatican II. If they had have done so, then the course of the debates and the proceedings at Vatican II could have looked very different.

One of the problems in reprinting books like this without detailed notes to help the reader understand its context, is that it offers an understanding of issues which are frozen to a specific point in time and space. Ideally when books like this are reprinted they need accompanying notes to help readers understand the contextual issues which impact upon the interpretation of the text and the understanding of its place in the development of theological ideas. (A good example of how this can be done well is provided by Matthew Minerd's 2021 edited reprinting of this author's 1936 Thomistic Common Sense)

Overall, this is a useful example of what (Catholic) theology looked like in the mid twentieth century. However its lack of detail and contextual information means that it is of limited value to modern readers who want to engage with the thought of Thomas Aquinas, or engage with the interpretation of mid twentieth century scholastic theology.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whoah! This was such a slow and difficult read, and even more, a difficult one to review. I have no idea of how to make justice to it fairly. First off, I read it since I needed a more complete picture of the thinking of St. Thomas Aquinas, and that this book delivers. The delivery, however, is sometimes very dry and formulaic, and other times really interesting and dense with so much detail packed into every sentence. Sometimes Garrigou-Lagrange goes into a detailed dialogue with other Thomists and their variants of the teachings in order to find what Aquinas intended. Those may be hard to follow when not knowing about who all the theologians who are mentioned are at all and when not so well wandered in Catholic thought after Aquinas. A lot of the terminology is also hard to follow sometimes, as it is mostly taken for granted. So it is a broad book with so much depth that it is overwhelming. It is a reassurance that somebody does all the thinking required to formulate all the details into a system that is in accordance with reality, but for one that is not deep into all the theological and philosophical thinking, it becomes too much. A synthesis of thought is, although complex, a really good middle point after familiarising with Aquinas thought beforehand. I, admittedly, was a bit too early to read this, but It gave so much value nonetheless. The ideas that I was familiar with were really interesting, the other things gave me an idea what the teaching and debate are about even though much went above my head. In the end, this book is a great resource for further usage when dipping into Aquinas on other occasions. It is an undertaking.

[Lance · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must say, this book was a joy to read, study, and learn from.

A few thoughts are in order for it. Firstly, Fr Legrange beautifully defends, and explains intelligible being, first principles, act potency, and the existence of God. Secondly, he utilizes the thomistic commentators such as John of St Thomas, Fr Billiart, Fr Jean Baptiste Gonet, and many others, and explains their importance. Fr Legrange’s synthesis is truly a great work for anyone looking to get an intermediate understanding of thomistic philosophy.

Now, my critique… Fr Legrange horribly misrepresents that of Suarez and Scotus… In a quite sad manner no less, but this is no surprise, as there is much animosity between the scotists and the thomists, as well as the suarezians and the thomists. However, if you are reading this work in an attempt to understand the other Catholic schools of thought, this is not the work to do so.

Overall, I absolutely love this book, it’s a book i will always recommend and reference, it is a book anyone should read if well disposed to understand it!

[J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was deeply insightful and struck an excellent balance between intellectual depth and accessibility for the lay reader. It succeeds in allowing philosophy to serve its proper role as the handmaid of theology, illuminating key concepts without becoming abstract or disconnected from spiritual life. The final chapter—on sufficient and efficacious grace—was especially powerful and left a lasting impression. In hindsight, I wish I had encountered this work earlier. It’s the kind of book that deserves to be read at the beginning of one’s theological and spiritual journey, with its reflections held close as a guiding framework to preserve balance and clarity as one matures in the interior life.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must read, and then reread x 10.

[Boat · Rating 5 out of 5]

10/10 - The sections on intelligible being and first principles are beautifully written.

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this masterpiece of a work, Reginald Garrigou Lagrange introduces the reader to traditional Thomist thought. This may be a little difficult and dense for those who pick this up with no background in philosophy. That said, if you have a cursory knowledge of Aristotle, concepts of essence and existence, and the like, you should be fine. The crowning achievement of this work, and in my opinion, the most important section, is the demonstration of how Thomism is necessary, not optional, to do Catholic philosophy. The Popes of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century very clearly taught that the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas was to be adhered to strictly, not merely drawn from.
The issue with this eclecticism (as Garrigou calls it) is that it is so open-minded its brain falls out. He says "with a decapitated Thomism, we could no longer defend common sense itself." This adherence was not meant to close the tradition, but rather to display the depth of knowledge in the man called the "Angelic Doctor." In the words of Garrigou, "Loyalty to St. Thomas, far from curtailing intellectual freedom, gives an unfailing springboard, firm and elastic, to soar ever higher out of error and into truth. 'You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.'"
St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us

[Nathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a fantastic overview of Saint Thomas' thought. It was an excellent introduction to his theology as well as giving you a small taste of this metaphysics. The authors' emphasis on the distinction between efficacious and inefficacious grace was extremely illuminating, helping me to understand the mystery that is predestination. I would recommend this book to anyone who wishes to learn St. Thomas' thought in a more deep way.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Follows the structure of the Summa for the most part. Not exhaustive by any means, but a handy reference that treats various topics in a couple of pages.