Introduction
Neo-Thomism, a reading of Thomas Aquinas through the tradition of commentators that gained influence in Catholic theology in the late nineteenth century in large part as a result of the influence of Pope Leo XIII's Aeterni Patris, was the dominant movement in Catholic theology, particularly as espoused by the church hierarchy, during the first half of the twentieth century, leading up to the Second Vatican Council.Footnote 1 It was widely believed to have been “defeated” irrevocably at the council itself, with the most influential periti, such as Karl Rahner and Yves Congar, representing and thus ensuring the triumph of the new theological movements that had arisen since the early 1940s. Without the hierarchical support upon which it once relied, the movement seemingly died out in the face of the triumph of its opponents on many key issues, particularly theological method and the relationship between nature and grace. On this narrative, the remaining strains of a more conservative Catholic theology emerged after the conclusion of the council and the Communio/Concilium split, influenced by the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar, the later Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope John Paul II's teaching on human sexuality and the body.Footnote 2
Yet in the last decade, beginning roughly in 2005, the neo-Thomist movement has seen a resurgence both in literary output and, arguably, in influence among the church hierarchy, particularly in the United States. This article contends that this movement must be taken seriously by theologians who do not share its point of view, because it makes claims and can exercise influence in ways that represent a serious challenge to the way Catholic academic theology has been done since Vatican II. This is particularly the case on the issues of the relationship between nature and grace and of the legitimate spectrum of methodological pluralism within theology. I wish to argue that the new neo-Thomism has exhibited an openness to methodological pluralism in the form of postliberal theological approaches but has tended to deny the legitimacy of other methods in strong terms and in connection with the aforementioned views on nature and grace. A new case must be made for why this dimension of neo-Thomism—its tendency to become a totalizing discourse that denies legitimate methodological pluralism in theology—is problematic, precisely in order to preserve the legacy of Rahner, Congar, Henri de Lubac, Marie-Dominique Chenu, and others who challenged it in the first place.
I will begin by establishing, in dialogue with sympathetic and unsympathetic sources, what exactly neo-Thomism is—that is, what its methods are, and what its most distinctive claims are. Then, I will survey the literature of the contemporary revival movement, centering on Lawrence Feingold's The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas and His Interpreters, which is arguably the single most influential book produced by the resurgent neo-Thomism. Finally, I will analyze some methodological issues within the new neo-Thomism that, along with its alliance with postliberal trajectories in theology, have been reflected in broader debates about theological method and in discussions between theologians and bishops.
I. What, Exactly, Is Neo-Thomism?
Almost two generations of theologians have come of age since the Second Vatican Council. This generation has known “neo-Thomism” largely as a term referring to what came before the renewal of theology in and around the council.Footnote 3 “Neo-Thomism” thus has functioned as a stand-in for a kind of manualist or system theology, closely aligned with the hierarchical structure of the church, that fostered a narrow interpretation of the work of Thomas Aquinas and, indeed, of the purpose of theology in general. This generalization contains some truth (though not necessarily in its entirety, as manualism was a more diverse phenomenon, particularly within Jesuit contexts), but for the purposes of this study I think it is worth examining, in dialogue with several historical accounts, where this movement came from and what shaped its priorities. This, in turn, will be helpful in establishing what its present-day advocates are seeking, and what intellectual sources they value as an aid in this project, in support of a sympathetic critique of some aspects of that effort.
As Fergus Kerr has skillfully demonstrated, the term “Thomism” itself is a fraught one, with many claiming (both now and in the past) to represent the true and accurate interpretation of the great thirteenth-century theologian.Footnote 4 Even today there are numerous schools of Thomism, whose thinkers sympathetically cite one another on occasion while possessing very different hermeneutical lenses on Thomas.Footnote 5 The school of thought commonly referred to as “neo-Thomism,” which in certain iterations goes under the related name of “Aristotelico-Thomism,” has its roots in the sixteenth century and had its greatest flowering of influence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Scholastic Roots
Neo-Thomism—and indeed the rediscovery of Thomas Aquinas that led to his exaltation by the church hierarchy as the greatest of theologians—has its more immediate roots in what Gerald McCool has called the “second scholasticism,” that is, the revival, instigated particularly among the Dominicans, of Aquinas and his theological methodologies, over and against what were seen as the excesses of late medieval nominalism.Footnote 6 This renewed focus on Aquinas resulted in a tradition of commentaries, which would replace the Sentences of Peter Lombard with Aquinas’ second Summa, the Summa Theologiae, as the work upon which to comment during doctoral studies, and a systematization in the form of programs of study in theology inspired by Aquinas.Footnote 7
The reemphasis on Aquinas born out of the second Scholasticism was by no means unitary; indeed, it bore within itself the seeds of later theological divisions. In particular, the Jesuits took Francisco Suárez (1548–1617) as their main interpreter of Aquinas, while the Dominicans preferred John Capréolus (ca. 1380–1444), Thomas de Vio Cajetan (1469–1534), and John of St. Thomas (1589–1644) as the privileged commentators. These thinkers, little known outside the neo-Thomist tradition, except for Cajetan (who is known mostly for his polemics against Protestantism and his role in debates about nature and grace), take on for the neo-Thomists an authoritative position as interpreters of Aquinas, and thus it is worth giving a brief sketch of their historical contributions and the tradition of interpretation that they founded.
John Capréolus was a Dominican who, in the words of the contemporary neo-Thomist Romanus Cessario, “emerged as the champion of a small, anti-revisionist movement that, in effect, became a nucleus” of later Thomism.Footnote 8 His major contribution was a commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, entitled The Books of Arguments in Defense of the Theology of Saint Thomas.Footnote 9 As the title would indicate, Capréolus used the platform of the traditional commentary to launch what Cessario calls “the first comprehensive presentation of Thomist theology.”Footnote 10 He thus stands out as a seminal figure, the primary advocate, within Thomas’ own medieval milieu, for a view of Aquinas that would later gain many more followers.Footnote 11
The major shift that takes place with Capréolus, according to Bernard McGinn, is one away from the view of Saint Thomas of theology as sacra doctrina to one where “theology is a science of conclusions.”Footnote 12 Related to this idea was an emphasis on metaphysics, which has been interpreted variously as an elaboration of themes and ideas already found in Thomas himself or, alternatively, as a betrayal of Thomas.Footnote 13 Capréolus was also notably willing to rearrange ideas from the Summa to suit what he found to be a more adequate ordering of theological and moral questions, often hearkening back to that of the Sentences. Footnote 14
Cajetan (Thomas de Vio) was a Dominican and an important thinker of the Reformation period, known for his critiques of Luther in particular. His most important work for the purposes of this study, however, is his commentary on Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae. This work became most famous for what Cessario calls its “quasi-official” status by being included in the so-called Leonine Edition of the Summa commissioned by Pope Leo XIII.Footnote 15 For the neo-Thomist movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, then, Cajetan had an authoritative place in the interpretation of Aquinas on the basis of both his position in the tradition and the status given to his commentary by the Leonine Edition.
Cajetan notably was one of the key formulators of what would become one of neo-Thomism's most controversial positions—its view of nature and grace. This view theorized the existence of a “pure nature” by which there could have been a kind of internal beatitude to human life without the gift of God's grace.Footnote 16 While Cajetan did not originate this position, his influence would lead to its construal as part of Thomism, and indeed of Catholic orthodoxy itself. Parallel to the same view within neo-Thomism was the positioning of philosophy and theology as parallel disciplines, connected by the preambula fidei, that is, philosophical demonstrations of truths of faith such as the existence of God.Footnote 17
John of St. Thomas (also known by his family name, John Poinsot), in Cessario's words, “best exemplifies the Thomist propensity for combining affective theology with brilliant philosophical analysis.”Footnote 18 His most famous work, the Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, became a standard textbook of Thomistic philosophy.Footnote 19 Its companion work, in Thomistic theology, was to remain unfinished.Footnote 20 In comparison with much of the commentary tradition, John “writes in relative independence of the text that prompts the discussion,” according to Ralph McInerny, and thus gives “a kind of tour de monde survey of what others have said on the question before launching into his own solution.”Footnote 21
John constitutes the “last major figure” of the second Scholasticism,Footnote 22 and his Cursus would acquire “downright canonical importance” over time for the neo-Thomist movement.Footnote 23 Given his importance to the neo-Thomist movement, Poinsot is a rather neglected figure in the literature surrounding Scholasticism. However, he has acquired an audience outside the neo-Thomist mainstream as a result of his work on semiotics, concerning which a number of articles have appeared in recent decades.Footnote 24 For neo-Thomists, however, particularly in the Dominican tradition, he occupies a central place in the movement's history.Footnote 25
These three figures, then, constitute the historical core of the neo-Thomist movement, those figures upon whom contemporary neo-Thomists most rely when seeking authoritative interpretation of Thomas. Also noteworthy in this context are the Carmelites of Salamanca, who produced an important commentary on the Summa following the approach of John of St. Thomas.Footnote 26 This epoch following the Council of Trent culminated in two controversies, the de auxiliis controversy about nature and grace and the Jansenist controversy.Footnote 27 Given the refusal of the Holy See in the de auxiliis controversy to endorse any one school of thought, there followed a period of relative quiet in Catholic theological controversy.Footnote 28
Nineteenth-Century Revival
Within the relative theological pluralism that constituted Catholic theology between the conclusion of the de auxiliis controversy and Leo XIII's Aeterni Patris, the movement that would become known as neo-Thomism began as one school of thought among others, and not necessarily the most dominant one in Rome or elsewhere.Footnote 29 This began to change after the 1840s with Pius IX's critiques of modernity, in which, according to McCool, “the climate was favorable for an aggressive attack on modern philosophy and upon the theological systems structured by it.”Footnote 30 Such an attack was supplied by the neo-Thomists, who argued that “all the modern systems were intrinsically unsatisfactory,” and that thus “they could not be corrected from within; they would have to be replaced.”Footnote 31 The attack came on the ground of epistemology and method, so that “the theologian who knew the epistemology and metaphysics of St. Thomas could construct a necessary, certain, and critical scientific theology.”Footnote 32 All of this, of course, was fair game for intellectual debate, as would be the broader claim that “only one system of Catholic theology was possible. This system was neo-Thomism.”Footnote 33
Neo-Thomism moved from one strongly argued position among others to dominance with the publication of Leo XIII's encyclical Aeterni Patris in 1879. Leo, born Gioacchino Pecci, had been an advocate for the neo-Thomist movement since his youth, as had his brother Giuseppe.Footnote 34 The drafters of this encyclical included the prominent neo-Thomists Matteo Liberatore and Joseph Kleutgen.Footnote 35 After a prologue sketching the importance of philosophy to the defense of faith and the history of theology (praising many of the Church Fathers, particularly Augustine, as well as Bonaventure together with Aquinas), Leo builds up to the argument that “reason, borne on the wings of Thomas to its human height, can scarcely rise higher, while faith could scarcely expect more or stronger aids from reason than those which she has already obtained through Thomas.”Footnote 36 He thus proposes, in the light of the many errors of modern times and thought, that it would be better for society if “a more wholesome doctrine were taught in the universities and high schools—one more in conformity with the teaching of the Church, such as is contained in the works of Thomas Aquinas.”Footnote 37 He furthermore specifically urges those seeking to instill these teaching of Aquinas to “be ye watchful that the doctrine of Thomas be drawn from his own fountains, or at least from those rivulets which, derived from the very fount, have thus far flowed, according to the established agreement of learned men, pure and clear.”Footnote 38 Given the context of Leo's long association with the neo-Thomists and the encyclical's frequent allusions to the Dominican Order as stewards of the teachings of Aquinas, this statement should be read as a clear endorsement of the neo-Thomist approach, one further demonstrated by the inclusion of Cajetan's commentary in the Leonine Edition of the Summa.
The result of Aeterni Patris was a consolidation of neo-Thomism as the official philosophical and theological system of the church, with the Gregorian University in Rome, thanks to a housecleaning by Leo, as its new flagship. Yet, as McCool puts it, the new faculty were “seminary professors rather than creative philosophers and theologians, whose output mostly consisted of Scholastic manuals rather than original thought.”Footnote 39 The emphasis, even among the better representatives of this approach, tended to be on metaphysics and speculative theology rather than scripture, history, and the other areas of theology.Footnote 40 The problem thus created was of a closed philosophical and theological system, convinced of its own correctness grounded in a certain reading of a six-hundred-year-old figure, and further convinced that it offered a remedy for what ailed modernity.
The inadequacies of this system set up by Aeterni Patris and its implementations flared up notably in the so-called modernist controversy under Leo's successor, Pope Pius X. Neo-Thomists figured into this affair mainly as its prosecutors and beneficiaries, but it exposed a discontent among theologians (and even lay philosophers like Maurice Blondel) about the intellectual system being offered by the church hierarchy and official theologians and its ability to speak to the modern world.Footnote 41 The heavy-handed response also further underlined that the intellectual and juridical foundations of neo-Thomism as an officially approved system increasingly rested on arguments from authority, either of Saint Thomas and his commentators or the pope and bishops, rather than on the ultimate intellectual validity of their ideas.Footnote 42
The intellectual interest in Thomas Aquinas and medieval theology that was stirred up by Leo XIII and Aeterni Patris proved, somewhat ironically, to bear within itself the intellectual undoing of the system that initially benefited from it the most.Footnote 43 This transformation began with the works of Pierre Rousselot, who explored Thomistic epistemology as well as nature and grace in ways that challenged the neo-Thomist orthodoxy.Footnote 44 Rousselot's work The Eyes of Faith in particular inspired a minor theological controversy as a result of its arguments about nature and grace, which seemed to undercut the neo-Thomist insistence on a pure nature.Footnote 45 His untimely death in World War I cut this project short, but he had laid the groundwork for a new school of Thomism.
Rousselot's work continued in that of his disciple Joseph Maréchal, who pushed forward arguments that would become better known in the “Transcendental Thomism” of Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan.Footnote 46 Meanwhile, the French layman Étienne Gilson began research into medieval Scholasticism that might be called a “quest for the historical Thomas,” a move to rediscover Aquinas in his intellectual milieu through his own writings (as opposed to reliance on commentators) and situated among other contemporaries (mostly notably Bonaventure), rather than viewing him simply as the exalted doctor communis.Footnote 47 Concomitant with this was a focus on the Augustinian and Dionysian elements of his work rather than the Aristotelian. Within fifty years of its instantiation as the official philosophy and theology of the church, then, neo-Thomism was under significant critique from philosophers and theologians who claimed Thomas Aquinas and other medieval Scholastics as their inspiration but also sought to speak to the contemporary context in a different manner. These efforts tended to meet with fierce resistance, particularly insofar as they were pursued by priests and religious (as opposed to the layman Gilson, who as such was immune from the standard ecclesial modes of censuring theologians, and who also tended to position his ideas as philosophical). But they continued to build momentum.
In the early 1940s two volumes appeared that, in retrospect, constituted the beginning of the end of neo-Thomism as a dominant intellectual system. First, in 1937, the Dominican Marie-Dominique Chenu published Une école de théologie: Le Saulchoir, calling for a new theological method.Footnote 48 This method, rooted in historical inquiries much like that of Gilson, was very different from that of the neo-Thomists, particularly coming out of a Dominican context.Footnote 49 Second, in 1946 the Jesuit Henri de Lubac published Surnaturel, a discussion of nature and grace that parted ways with the neo-Thomists and accused them of misreading Aquinas through the accretions of the commentators.Footnote 50 De Lubac read Aquinas primarily as an Augustinian and thus drew very different conclusions than those of the neo-Thomists on a key theological issue. His book met with immediate condemnation, particularly from the leading neo-Thomist, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, and was widely believed to be the target of Pius XII's 1953 encyclical Humani Generis.Footnote 51 Yet within ten years of the publication of Humani Generis, de Lubac and Chenu would be completely vindicated and neo-Thomism in retreat if not collapse as an intellectual system.
Vatican II and Its Aftereffects
The downfall of neo-Thomism as the official philosophy and theology of the church began with the convocation of an ecumenical council, which neo-Thomism's proponents initially controlled. During the preparations for the Second Vatican Council, the preparatory doctrinal commission, led by Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, prefect of the Holy Office (the predecessor of today's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), had composed schemas in line with the neo-Thomist way of thinking that were expected to be rubber-stamped by the council fathers. These schemas were thrown out following debate about the document on revelation.Footnote 52 The rejection of these schemas set the course for the rest of the council, and for the ascendancy of the periti who opposed neo-Thomism, particularly de Lubac, Congar, Rahner, and Ratzinger.
Ratzinger referred to the (neo-Thomist) mentality behind the preparatory texts as evidence of “cramped thinking,” which “impregnated the text and informed it with a theology of negations and prohibitions.”Footnote 53 As Congar notes, some of these documents included restatements of the charges against de Lubac from the early 1950s.Footnote 54 Thus, in the debate about the schema on revelation, Congar quotes Cardinal Ottaviani, who also headed the Doctrinal Commission, as arguing that the main purpose of the council “is doctrinal: to protect doctrine, the deposit.”Footnote 55 The decision of the council, at the end of the first session, not to ratify the schemas prepared by the Doctrinal Commission meant, in Ratzinger's words, “nothing less than a basic overhauling of the view manifested in the preparatory work,” and thus the council “had asserted its own teaching authority.”Footnote 56 The resulting documents departed from previous conciliar practice (centered on anathemas) and indeed from recent Vatican rhetoric; they refused any condemnation of modernity and certainly did not reflect neo-Thomistic philosophy or theology. The results of this change were revolutionary for Catholic theology.
The aftermath of Vatican II precipitated a sea change in the way that Catholic theology was practiced, particularly in the United States. This included the opening of doctoral programs to lay men and (both lay and religious, as both had been largely excluded before) women and ecumenical dialogue with Protestant theologians.Footnote 57 The results of this, along with the church's more positive attitude to modernity overall, were disastrous for neo-Thomism.Footnote 58 Given the reliance on church authority for its central place as well as its exclusive claims, this system was ill equipped to deal with the new attitudes and largely retreated into philosophy departments, where many of its leading lights had been situated in any case.Footnote 59 It is within this context, of emerging from a forty-year period of consolidation and retreat, that the new neo-Thomists seek to re-present the arguments from this system as once again a kind of antidote to the so-called errors of modernity—in the present case, the errors of liberal theological modernity as represented by much Catholic academic theology in the English-speaking world.
II. Examining the Literature of the New Neo-Thomism
For a nascent revival, the new neo-Thomists have produced an impressive and rapidly growing body of literature whose authors range from longtime keepers of the Thomist flame such as the late Ralph McInerny to younger scholars such as Lawrence Feingold and Thomas Joseph White, OP, who self-consciously position neo-Thomism as an answer to contemporary problems. A complete survey would be somewhat repetitive (since, indeed, there is a large amount of agreement between these sources), and so my examination will explore primarily what I take (and what others, such as McInerny and Reinhard Hütter, have acknowledged) to be the work upon which much of the contemporary movement has pivoted: Lawrence Feingold's dissertation at the Pontifical University of Santa Croce in Rome, The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters. I will examine the broad outlines of this work, focusing on its overall methodology, as well as the areas where it takes issue with the theology of nature and grace represented by Henri de Lubac in particular. Following upon this analysis, I will highlight the work of other significant thinkers in this movement, particularly McInerny himself, Hütter, and Steven A. Long. On both the key issue of nature and grace and the related issue of theological method, these thinkers demonstrate a unity of vision while emphasizing somewhat different points.
Feingold's book is a large and closely argued study that sets out, as expressed in his introduction, “to examine exactly what St. Thomas means when he speaks of a natural desire to see God,” particularly in light of questions raised in twentieth-century theology by Henri de Lubac, among others.Footnote 60 Feingold situates this historical debate within what he sees as “the great pastoral problem that faces us today,” namely, that “contemporary man has lost the sense of the supernatural character of the Christian promise and vocation.”Footnote 61 By situating his argument in this way, Feingold acknowledges a sound “pastoral intention” on the part of de Lubac, while uncoupling that intention from one of the twentieth-century Jesuit's central theological claims.Footnote 62 This praise of Ressourcement theologians who have since come to ecclesial acclaim, while at the same time deeply contesting some of their important arguments, is a frequent rhetorical maneuver for the new neo-Thomists.Footnote 63 Feingold essentially sets out, then, to affirm de Lubac's vision of Christian humanism while contesting one of its key theological building blocks.
Feingold begins by claiming that “one of the pillars of Catholic theology is the distinction of the natural and the supernatural orders.”Footnote 64 After making this claim, he immediately adverts to Saint Thomas, with the second source quoted being the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In beginning his argument this way, Feingold rhetorically affirms three hallmarks of the neo-Thomistic movement: the identification of later Thomist priorities with those of Thomas himself; the identification of Thomas, read through a certain lens, with Catholic theology writ large; and the identification or very close association of theology with catechesis. The tendency, then, is to identify the new neo-Thomism with Catholic theology and belief as such, and thus Feingold is able to summarize the Christian tradition before Aquinas on the issue of the desire to see God in four pages, essentially as a footnote to and source for Aquinas.Footnote 65 Augustine, in particular, receives a brief treatment.
After spending two chapters working through texts of Aquinas on the desire to see God, Feingold argues that these texts are straightforward (itself a contestable claim), but that “the real problem…lies rather in harmonizing St. Thomas’ reasoning and conclusions with other fundamental aspects of his doctrine.”Footnote 66 Feingold lists five such areas, and then concludes that “the ability to resolve them will be the test of a valid interpretation.”Footnote 67 This is a puzzling statement on its face. One might argue, from the perspective of philosophy, theology, or intellectual history, that Aquinas simply contradicts himself on this issue and is thus not the master or final authority on this (or any) theological issue. On such an accounting, one would need to seek a resolution to the overall problem wherever it might lie, with theological sources of various eras and kinds all at one's disposal to do so. Such, one might argue, was de Lubac's approach, which is generally eclectic but with a certain focus on demonstrating that his arguments do not, when read from a certain perspective, contradict those of Thomas. For Feingold, however, given the identification of Thomas with the Catholic faith and neo-Thomism with the teaching of Thomas, the stakes are much higher to harmonize the teaching of Thomas on this issue into a coherent systematic theological position.
It is from this perspective that Feingold gives a tendentious reading of Scotus on the issue of natural appetite. He characterizes Scotus’ approach as a “rival understanding of the natural desire to see God” to that of Thomas, one in which “the natural desire to see God can only be an innate inclination.”Footnote 68 Feingold critiques this approach both in and of itself and also on the grounds that it “can never be used in an apologetic context to show the possibility of its object, and so to persuade philosophers and unbelievers to accept Christian teachings,” because such an inclination is inaccessible to experience.Footnote 69 With Cajetan, Feingold reads this Scotist approach as incompatible with that of Thomas: “Scotus has focused on the great perfection given by supernatural gifts, but has neglected to consider the attenuation of inclination stemming from excessive distance,” whereas Aquinas “provides the basis of a new supernatural inclination to our supernatural end, precisely by giving us a new proportionality with it.”Footnote 70
When it comes to his critique of de Lubac, Feingold argues that de Lubac reads Aquinas through a Scotist conception of innate desire.Footnote 71 He argues that “St. Thomas and de Lubac present two completely different models of how our nature is ordered and inclined to its supernatural end.”Footnote 72 Feingold strengthens this argument by claiming that “de Lubac is in perfect harmony with St. Thomas and with the Catholic tradition in denying that our nature itself, as it actually exists, has the slightest supernatural element,” but departs from both when he interprets the “natural desire to see God as the expression of a supernatural finality imprinted on our nature in creation itself, prior to the reception of grace.”Footnote 73 In the same paragraph, Feingold again identifies “the principles of St. Thomas” with “the Christian tradition.” He continues to critique de Lubac on this point by adverting to Thomas’ teaching on the souls in limbo and their desire for God, claiming that “either there is a fundamental contradiction in St. Thomas's own thought between his well-known teaching on limbo and the natural desire to see God, or else de Lubac's way of interpreting the natural desire to see God is not in harmony with the mind of St. Thomas.”Footnote 74
Feingold's work, then, rests on a foundational denial of any kind of methodological pluralism or eclecticism. Its hidden premise, I would argue, is that the new neo-Thomist reading of Aquinas is convertible to Catholic theology and church teaching as such, and that attempting to import notions from other sources such as Scotus inevitably creates problems. It is also presumed, from this perspective, that Thomas and his commentators are consistent and that any contradictions found by other readers actually stem from the readers’ own errors. This overall method of argument continues in other neo-Thomist thinkers.
Ralph McInerny constitutes the major bridge figure between the “old” neo-Thomism, represented by his mentor, Charles de Koninck, and the new neo-Thomists, all of whom pay tribute to him as an inspiration and bearer of the flame through lean years. His Aristotelian reading of Thomas was consistent, but in his late work Praeambula Fidei, part of his Gifford Lectures, he took up a more systematic defense of this reading over and against others. Like Feingold, McInerny is careful to associate his own interpretation with that of Catholic orthodoxy: “This book is a defense of a robust understanding of the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas and of the Magisterium on praembula fidei.”Footnote 75 Once again, there is a clear identification posited between the new neo-Thomism and church orthodoxy as such, which would not necessarily be self-evident to most readers of the theological or ecclesial scene in light of de Lubac's work on this issue. When confronted with the fact that some disagree with the need for preambles of faith, McInerny argues thus: “A first thing to say about this is that the Church thinks otherwise. A second thing is that Thomas Aquinas thought otherwise. Unfortunately, these obvious truths were obscured during the second half of the twentieth century.” McInerny continues by claiming that he will “rescue the authentic Thomas Aquinas from the allegedly ‘real Thomas Aquinas’ of those who mocked and attacked the great commentator [Cajetan].”Footnote 76
McInerny singles out for criticism three thinkers, all of whom we have cited previously: Gilson, de Lubac, and Chenu. Gilson, McInerny argues, unfairly attacks Cajetan on every front that he can, particularly with respect to Scotus (whom he defends) and Aristotle (whom he critiques).Footnote 77 McInerny's critique of de Lubac runs along the same lines as Feingold's (he cites and praises Feingold's book several times), arguing that “the rejection of an end proportionate to human nature separates de Lubac more decisively from St. Thomas than anything else, doubtless because this rejection is at the basis of his thought.”Footnote 78 As with Feingold, McInerny's main point is to demonstrate de Lubac's dissonance with Thomas, concluding that “it is de Lubac, not Cajetan, who is out of harmony with the teaching of Thomas Aquinas.”Footnote 79 Turning to Chenu, McInerny accuses the Dominican of “trashing the tradition in which he stands,”Footnote 80 that is, Dominican Thomism, and, noting that he “emerged as a champion of the theology based on the signs of the times, by which he meant that Church teaching must emerge from the experience of the faithful and the events of the world in which they live.”Footnote 81 McInerny's strongest charge, leveled against Gilson in particular, but applying generally to the reading of Thomas proffered by all three, is that of “proposing that philosophy be swallowed up by theology” and thus claiming that “Thomas's metaphysics is dependent on revelation and faith.”Footnote 82
McInerny's constructive project focuses on Aristotle, whose “doctrine pervades the theological writings of Aquinas” and whose thought McInerny argues is more central than the Neoplatonic teachings that he also employs, and which tend to be a focus for Gilsonian Thomists.Footnote 83 McInerny goes on to argue that “post-Tridentine Catholic philosophy gave Aristotle pride of place along with St. Thomas,” basing this claim particularly on the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum and on the frequent use of the term “Aristotelico-Thomist” in the neo-Thomistic revival of the nineteenth century.Footnote 84 McInerny's project, then, is to “reestablish Aristotelico-Thomism as the norm,” and proceed, “as Thomas does, on the assumption that Aristotle has adequately set forth the subject matter of metaphysics once and for all.”Footnote 85 While McInerny of course has the right to argue strongly for his philosophical claims, the question of “the norm” becomes rather fraught, given the history of neo-Thomism as official doctrine and the silencing tactics once used in its name. His tracing of this history back to the Council of Trent is also questionable in light of, for example, John O'Malley's work on the diversity of early modern Catholicism that problematizes attempts to impose later models on the council itself and its immediate aftermath.Footnote 86 This tendency to become a totalizing discourse, I will argue, is precisely one of the problems that the new neo-Thomists need to confront in a more forthright manner.
It is worth noting that McInerny was not uncritical of Cajetan, particularly when it came to the issue of analogy.Footnote 87 In his book Aquinas and Analogy, he strongly critiques Cajetan's interpretation of Aquinas on this issue when he observes a distinction between analogy of attribution and analogy of proportionality that does not exist in Aquinas.Footnote 88 The stakes here, McInerny argues, are that Cajetan, with Plato, confuses the orders of knowledge and being, thus “assuming that what is first in our knowing is first in being.”Footnote 89 This critique demonstrates that the neo-Thomist tradition is not without serious disagreements, including with the great commentators themselves, but it structures these disagreements within a broad framework of what it considers the correct interpretation of Aquinas and the tasks of theology. The same generosity of reading is not typically applied to thinkers outside this tradition.
Steven A. Long builds on Feingold's arguments in his book Natura Pura, but he offers a much fuller critique of de Lubac that highlights the larger issues at stake in the neo-Thomist revival. Long's basic argument is that de Lubac and Gilson in particular misread Thomas on obediential potency, and that they did so because of a “diverted attention”—namely, their preoccupation with modernity's increasing distance from religion.Footnote 90 Long's project, then, aims to demonstrate how a neo-Thomist theological anthropology can, in a better way than their own, achieve the sociopolitical ends that de Lubac and Gilson sought—a goal parallel to that of Feingold but with a different emphasis.
What basically concerns Long is, as he titles his chapter, “the loss of nature as theonomic principle”—essentially, the loss of the concept of natural law. Rather than laying any blame at the feet of Catholic theology itself (or at least what he regards as sound Thomistic theology) he argues that modernity has broken down this concept and its overall positing of a connection between what appears in created reality and the divine order of things. Long's goal, then, is to show how arguing the complete opposite of what de Lubac believed in fact better achieves the ends he sought. Long's particular focus on natural law, however, which is not an area of focus for de Lubac, can more likely be attributed to seeking to strengthen the arguments for official Catholic positions on late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century cultural concerns such as abortion and homosexuality.
Long's background as a moral theologian colors most of Natura Pura, especially its decisive chapter about de Lubac and Balthasar on nature and grace. Here, he argues that de Lubac's theology of nature and grace ultimately implies an antinomianism with respect to the church's magisterium on faith and morals.Footnote 91 As Long explains, this fundamentally means “rejection of all moral objectives and precepts defined by natural ends subordinate to the final end of supernatural beatific vision.”Footnote 92 For Long, basically, de Lubac's theology of nature and grace inhibits the possibility of a moral order that has its basis in natural law and that is ensured by church and civil authorities. While this focus on natural law and natural order may seem like an aside, it is in fact central—he believes that only what he consistently regards as “Classical Thomism” can undergird these ideas.
Arguments like Long's would have hardly seemed alien to de Lubac—they were exactly the kind of things that Garrigou-Lagrange argued in opposition to his theology. Long's basic position, though he attempts to deny this, is a revanchist one—it is something upon which one could build a version of Christendom.Footnote 93 This constitutes exactly the kind of position that de Lubac himself opposed on the French Catholic Right, and that animated their loyalty to Vichy.Footnote 94 If, as Long himself acknowledges, de Lubac's sociopolitical perspective was fundamental to his theology of nature and grace, it is impossible to accept that Long's account remotely does it justice.Footnote 95
Reinhard Hütter, a convert to Catholicism from Lutheranism, has emerged as a prominent member of the neo-Thomistic revival. In a series of essays collected in his book Dust Bound for Heaven, Hütter has expressed the priorities of the neo-Thomistic resurgence in a way that adds to those already dealt with here. Hütter works under the presupposition of Thomas as the Common Doctor of the church, a title he assumes but laments is not properly understood by Catholics today.Footnote 96 In analyzing this title, he startlingly quotes John Senior, without acknowledging any hyperbole, that popes have taught “as an infallible teaching of the Ordinary Magisterium, the Summa Theologiae is the norm and measure of all Catholic theology before and since. Catholics must believe Thomas Aquinas to be the Common Doctor of the Church with the same degree of certainty that he is a saint.”Footnote 97 Once again, Hütter positions this quote, with its overly capacious reading of the place of Thomas Aquinas in Catholic theology, not as an extreme expression but rather as a kind of proof that Thomas ought to be accorded this place.
Among the many topics Hütter deals with is that of nature and grace; here he relies heavily upon Feingold's work. Praising Feingold's method, he notes that “theology for many a contemporary Catholic theologian can only be conceived as defensible and intelligible in a thoroughly historical-contextualist and constructivist mode,” whereas Feingold relies on “propositional discourse as informed by metaphysical realism and discursive, conceptual argumentation.”Footnote 98 Notably, Hütter does not cite any of the theologians whom he criticizes, and further praises Feingold for the fact that “he advances his enquiry and argument as if none of the above”—that is, both newer theological methods as well as new modes of Thomism—“had ever happened.”Footnote 99 He continues this argument by claiming that “Feingold refuses to engage de Lubac in the discursive mode by way of which the latter chose to critique the commentators, that is, by way of a primarily historical exegesis of theological language.”Footnote 100 Hütter thus defends and champions a neo-Thomist refusal to engage with contemporary theological method as a sign of a theological and methodological orthodoxy. It is perhaps for this reason that he refuses to even cite by name many of the contemporary theologians included in this sweeping critique.
In another place, Hütter argues that Catholic theology must become “intrinsically ordered to and informed by the supernatural dynamic and content of theological faith,” and that neo-Thomism (to which he refers simply as “Thomism”) “is in an advantageous position to make a salient contribution to such a contemporary renewal of Catholic theology.”Footnote 101 This is necessary because, as Hütter argues elsewhere in the volume, “typically theologians in the modern research university want to be nothing but excellent philologists, linguists, historians, archeologists, and philosophers,” rather than practitioners of sacra doctrina.Footnote 102
From this analysis, some commonalities can be drawn between the various proponents of the new neo-Thomism discussed above.Footnote 103 First, their embrace of neo-Thomism is largely void of revisionism or engagement with the theological approaches that have arisen since Vatican II. Rather, as Hütter says in praise of Feingold, they write as if none of these ever happened, and such an approach is common among the various thinkers I have discussed. The superiority of neo-Thomism to other theological schools is thus presumed rather than argued; the only other schools dealt with are competing versions of Thomism. Indeed, entire swaths of Catholic theological inquiry are often ignored or dismissed without being seriously engaged.
The relationship between nature and grace and the impossibility of a plurality of theological methods are linked as the key ideas supporting neo-Thomism as it currently exists. De Lubac's theology of nature and grace, grounded as it was in a historical reading of the sources, simultaneously demanded a new method of doing theology. This methodology, while classical in form, was also concerned with contemporary problems, and as such it gave rise to other methods of political and contextual theology, some of which de Lubac himself did not esteem highly.Footnote 104 What arose in any case was a form of methodological pluralism, in which different approaches could be taken to expositing Catholic theology to deal with modern problems.
Since Aeterni Patris at least, neo-Thomism has had trouble functioning as a method among methods. Part of the reason for its sudden collapse after Vatican II certainly had to do with the lack of an available apologetic beyond that of authority. Such an apologetic is of course possible, and the new neo-Thomists have engaged in it more effectively, but there is still a tendency toward an association of this methodology with authority, and to associate church authority, whether in the forms of recent popes or the Catechism of the Catholic Church, with it whether this is warranted or not.Footnote 105 Connected to this lack of revisionism is a strong belief in neo-Thomism as a sign and safeguard of Catholic orthodoxy. It is clear especially for Hütter and Long that moving away from the neo-Thomistic method has resulted in unorthodoxy and incoherence in Catholic theology, and that a return to it will bring order. Thus, rather than a school among schools, neo-Thomism is considered to be the school of thought that guarantees Catholic orthodoxy in doctrine and morals.
III. Neo-Thomism, Methodological Pluralism, and Theology Today
Critiques of Contemporary Theological Method
In a 2007 article entitled “Theology after the Revolution,” R. R. Reno reflected, through a review of Fergus Kerr's Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians, on the collateral damage to theological coherence that was a side effect of the work of the “heroic generation”—the group of theologians responsible for the renewal of Catholic theology in and around Vatican II, such as Chenu, Congar, de Lubac, Rahner, Balthasar, and Ratzinger—fighting and ultimately discrediting the system theology represented by neo-Thomism.Footnote 106 Reno, whose own scholarly background reflects both an interest in Rahner and a postliberal unease with the way his work has been interpreted in American Catholic theology by and large, puts forth an argument representative of conservative American Catholics who affirm Vatican II and praise many of the above-mentioned theologians, who contributed to the council itself or whose work is unimaginable without it, but who are troubled by the lack of certainty and solicitude toward the doctrinal magisterium of the church in the present-day theological academy that this revolution engendered. Reno, though not himself a neo-Thomist methodologically, offers in this piece a kind of constitution for this new movement just as readily as Chenu once did for another movement in Le Saulchoir or de Lubac in Catholicism.
Reno's article articulates the intellectual outline of an alliance between postliberals and new neo-Thomists that I would argue has influenced the relationship between the Catholic church hierarchy and theologians. Essentially, the postliberal impatience with the kinds of discourse characterized by the more “liberal” Catholic academy opens up a space for a neo-Thomist approach to offer clear answers that do not challenge church teachings or deal directly with postmodern questions. The investigation of Elizabeth Johnson's Quest for the Living God by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Doctrine in 2011, as well as further comments made by some of the committee's key figures, namely, Donald Cardinal Wuerl and Reverend Thomas Weinandy, OFM, illustrate this point quite effectively. The outlines of this case will be well known to readers of Horizons, and so I will only summarize them briefly for the purpose of illustrating this overall point.
The USCCB Committee on Doctrine launched its critique of Johnson's Quest for the Living God on the grounds that it “contains misrepresentations, ambiguities, and errors, that bear upon the faith of the Catholic Church as found in Sacred Scripture, and as it is authentically taught by the Church's universal magisterium,” and contended further that in the area of method, “the book rests upon a false presupposition, an error that undermines the very nature of its study and so skews many of its arguments.”Footnote 107 This sweeping critique on the ground of method suggests a kind of unarticulated hierarchy of methods in Catholic theology. In contrast to the supposed errors of Johnson, the Committee on Doctrine argues that theologians who examine the mystery of God ought to “do so from within the very heart of the Church's faith.”Footnote 108 It is notable that for this document, the primary places cited as defining this faith and method are papal encyclicals, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the Summa of Thomas Aquinas. This method is articulated further when the document charges that “Quest for the Living God contaminates the traditional Catholic understanding of God, which arises from both revelation and reason and which has been articulated by the Fathers and the Scholastics, especially Thomas Aquinas,” by seeming to associate it with Enlightenment deism.Footnote 109 The charge as such is less important for the purposes of this study than the presupposition of a unitary and unsurpassable tradition and method. This charge is summed up at the end of the document with the conclusion that “the book does not take the faith as the Church as its starting point.”Footnote 110
The methodology behind this critique is revealed further in a document entitled “Bishops as Teachers” by Donald Cardinal Wuerl, then head of the Committee on Doctrine. In this document, in the course of setting the stage for a defense of the committee's approach to the Johnson case, Wuerl argues that theological inquiry must let “its creativity be channeled and maximized by boundaries defined by the received revelation.”Footnote 111 This is fair as far as it goes, as is Wuerl's subsequent emphasis on the role of bishops as referees, but it betrays a maximalist account of what constitutes “received revelation” and concomitantly a minimalist view of what is open for debate.Footnote 112 The issue of divine suffering or lack thereof, which figures centrally in this discussion, has not been without interest for new neo-Thomists, but the more important issue for this study is that of methodological pluralism.Footnote 113
The main theological figure involved in the Johnson case, Thomas Weinandy, is not a new neo-Thomist himself by theological background, being rooted more in patristic theology—precisely what was emphasized by those such as de Lubac who overthrew neo-Thomism as the dominant intellectual system within Catholicism. What the Johnson case evinces is the clearest recent instance of a challenge to the methodological pluralism that has flourished in Catholic academic theology since Vatican II, and a challenge to one of its more moderate exponents.Footnote 114 It is a challenge that comes, in a sense, out of that very pluralism, out of the aforementioned alliance between new neo-Thomist and postliberal (or Communio) Catholic theologians in opposition to other schools of thought. It is to this alliance and its own laudable methodological pluralism, and the limits thereof, that I now turn.
Nova et Vetera has been a central periodical for the neo-Thomist revival, with many of the authors mentioned above having appeared in its pages. Much of the work cited above by Hütter originally appeared there, for example. These same pages have also offered vigorous debate about a number of theological issues within the framework of schools of thought that position themselves as orthodox or faithful to the magisterium. I would like to focus particularly on the issue of method, analyzing several articles by diverse authors that nevertheless illustrate an overall approach.
Nova et Vetera notably published a sixty-page critique of Elizabeth Johnson's theological method in Quest for the Living God in the wake of the USCCB investigation of the work.Footnote 115 This article by John McDermott deserves a brief analysis as part of this discussion of method, particularly inasmuch as it links some new neo-Thomist concerns to the broader ecclesial issues at hand. McDermott argues that the main problem in Johnson's method has to do with “the natural-supernatural-relation and analogy.”Footnote 116 On the former, McDermott faults Johnson for assuming Rahner's position on nature and grace rather than rebuilding it metaphysically from the ground up.Footnote 117 McDermott's critique is more totalizing than that of the bishops, particularly on method, arguing that the “amorphous post-modern philosophy underlying Johnson's theology renders dialogue impossible, since it acknowledges no objective standards of judgment.”Footnote 118 For McDermott, then, as for the new neo-Thomism, there is a clear connection between nature and grace on the one hand, and theological method on the other. It is to these issues, and to some other thinkers who shed light on the neo-Thomist approach to them, that I now turn.
The summer 2011 issue of Nova et Vetera demonstrates a kind of indirect debate on theological method between Christopher Malloy, a defender of neo-Thomism, and the late Edward Oakes, a scholar of Balthasar and Ressourcement who was not a neo-Thomist but was sympathetically conversant with the movement. Oakes sets out to defend de Lubac, first by distinguishing in his work on nature and grace a historical component, that is, recovering what was taught by Aquinas, and a theological one, arguing against the thesis of pure nature.Footnote 119 In analyzing the critiques of de Lubac discussed above, Oakes notes that though the charges against him might seem sweeping, “if de Lubac is wrong, then his error must be as sweeping as were his attacks” against the neo-Thomist position.Footnote 120 Oakes critiques Feingold's interpretation of de Lubac by singling out particularly his emphasis on limbo, concluding that “any theology of nature and grace that entails the necessary conclusion that the limbus infantium actually exists, will have undermined its case irreparably.”Footnote 121 Oakes interestingly attempts to draw together de Lubac and his critiques by noting that scholarship on de Lubac “largely ignores his criticism of liberal Catholicism in the wake of Vatican II.”Footnote 122 From this point of view, Oakes argues, de Lubac and his critics can be read as pursuing similar goals, particularly in upholding the natural law per Long's concerns.Footnote 123
In the same issue, Christopher Malloy begins an analysis of de Lubac on natural desire by assuming the idea of pure nature.Footnote 124 Malloy describes de Lubac as a disciple of Pascal, as he “unwittingly conjures up this specter of a naturally miserable man,” without the gift of grace.Footnote 125 In this context, Malloy argues that de Lubac's attempts to escape this quandary are insufficient, and the only way to avoid it is ultimately through the idea of pure nature. Malloy thus contradicts Oakes on this issue while taking a path parallel to that of Feingold. One can argue that these articles perform a kind of methodological and substantive pluralism by debating a central issue within theology. It is unfortunate, however, that this pluralism and respect are mainly extended to a deceased and hierarchically approved theologian such as de Lubac, as opposed to the totalizing critique of Johnson discussed earlier.
Guy Mansini, OSB, demonstrates the alliance between neo-Thomists and postliberals quite effectively in his article “Experiential Expressivism and Two Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians,” analyzing Rahner and Lonergan.Footnote 126 This “experiential expressivist” category is derived from George Lindbeck's classic The Nature of Doctrine, arguably the key text of postliberal theology.Footnote 127 Mansini does so by way of arguing with Fergus Kerr in Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians and concluding that Rahner “leads us back, not just to an expressivist view of doctrine wherein religious experience is privileged as the locus of revelation, but also to a sort of non-cognitivism that was the most unbearable part of the Liberal Protestant Catholic Modernist views of dogma.”Footnote 128 Mansini also critiques what he calls “an imperialist streak in Rahner,” and further critiques the idea that contemporary experience matters to theology.Footnote 129 Mansini, then, continues the totalizing critique of contemporary theological methods (with many later contextual theologies deriving in part from Rahner) while framing it in postliberal terms.
What these discussions model, then, is a healthy debate about methodological pluralism between two reasonably sympathetic schools of thought. What I would like to argue for is an expansion of these debates beyond the scope of the divides or impasses in which they tend to be situated. Thomas Joseph White, OP, may be correct, though not for the reasons he gives, when he argues that “many of the influential theologies of the postconciliar period are not today in any position to attempt to replace Thomism as normative guide to modern Catholic intellectual life,” echoing the critiques by Reno discussed above and singling out the limits of Rahner's anthropology in the face of postmodernity.Footnote 130 Putting aside the contestable claims of whether most postconciliar theology tried to do these things in quite the way that neo-Thomism did and sometimes does, it is notable that White argues that Thomism is not “the solution to all life's intellectual problems,” but rather “one of the only plausible contenders left that offers an authentic vision of the sapiential unity of human knowledge amidst the diversity of university disciplines.”Footnote 131 While White's claim can and ought to be contested (as indeed I have been doing here and will do in the following section), he is more open, at least in theory, to the insights of other methods than past generations of neo-Thomists.
White makes some of these claims more explicit in his article “The Tridentine Genius of Vatican II,” in which he claims that “the Catholic progressivist left has taken up in its own way the hermeneutical presupposition of Nietzsche: this is the implicit understanding of an interpretation of Christian teaching that centers above all upon the power of authority.”Footnote 132 He supports this claim that liberal Catholicism is equivalent to nihilism in that this trajectory, “because of its hermeneutical stance toward the tradition of the Catholic Church, is unable in the end to sustain a coherent claim that there is meaning in the world.”Footnote 133 White proposes as an alternative to this Nietzschean approach that of Newman, whose ideas support a “hermeneutic of continuity” in that “there is a common dynamic development of the inner life of the Church in the world, a mysterious life spanning across ages, growing in a consistent fashion.”Footnote 134 The relative generosity with which White regards postliberalism thus does not extend to other theological methods, particularly those of a “liberal” stripe.
White's article repeats and expands the totalizing critique of methodological pluralism described above, but in doing so it oversimplifies the Communio/Concilium divide by focusing on Küng and Schillebeeckx, on the one hand, and Balthasar and Ratzinger, on the other, as the central figures of these past decades in theology. Focusing on these thinkers who pushed the boundaries of the new methodological pluralism (Hans Küng and to a lesser extent Edward Schillebeeckx) or sought to referee those boundaries (Ratzinger), White obscures the origins of this pluralism in thinkers such as Rahner, de Lubac, and Congar at the time of Vatican II itself. His reduction of liberal Catholic theology to a struggle for power also notably downplays the extent to which more “conservative” theologians have exercised power without theorizing it as such.Footnote 135 Within the confines of White's argument, my advocacy for methodological pluralism may seem to repeat the liberal reduction of theology to power, but I would argue that such pluralism assists in an honest search for precisely what Thomas Aquinas, Cajetan, de Lubac, and many others have sought—namely, truth.
It is clear that some new neo-Thomists have shown a willingness to entertain some theological arguments that arise from outside their own methodological boundaries, particularly if these come from a certain kind of postliberal or Communio approach. I would like to argue, in dialogue with White's article discussed above, for a greater plurality of dialogue partners. An easy rejoinder to the analysis I have made here would be that I am associating various methodologies found within more “conservative” intellectual trajectories of Catholic theology in order to dismiss them, but that is not my intent here. Rather, I am concerned to demonstrate what I think has been the coalescence of differing schools of thought around shared affirmations and goals, and to invite them into a broader conversation. I also question whether the totalizing rhetoric of much of the neo-Thomistic approach is intrinsic to the school of thought, or whether it has become an unfortunate defensive device. I would hope that it is the latter.
Assessing the New Neo-Thomism
Simultaneously with the neo-Thomist revival in theology, then, there has been a revival of argumentation and intellectual interests very similar to those put forward by this school of thought in the pronouncements and disciplinary actions of the US bishops. Such actions only fuel suspicion that the New Evangelization promoted by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, rather than a response to the sign of the times, could be carried out by some bishops more as a revival of a kind of propositionalist orthodoxy in contemporary terms. These simultaneous developments point to some of the problems with the kind of discourse that the neo-Thomists are seeking to reinstantiate, which I will attempt to enumerate here.
The first problem with the neo-Thomistic revival is that it relies on a particular reading of history in which neo-Thomism has always been the most reliably orthodox method of doing Catholic theology, which resultingly gives its arguments a privileged claim on truth. Rather than being the inheritors of a nineteenth-century movement, the neo-Thomists, particularly those who emphasize the Dominican aspects of this tradition, portray themselves as the heirs and true interpreters of the great thirteenth-century theologian. There is also a clear rhetorical attempt to position the neo-Thomistic movement as receiving a mandate from the Council of Trent, one that belies the diversity of the period surrounding the council and attempts to read Leo XIII's Aeterni Patris back into the praise of Thomas Aquinas several hundred years earlier. The broader historical narrative undercuts neo-Thomist claims to exceptionalism and reduces such claims to arguments from authority based on papal pronouncements.
This historical narrative becomes most problematic in the case of Thomas Aquinas himself. The neo-Thomist reading of Aquinas prioritizes Thomas’ reading of Aristotle while at the same time downplaying the controversial character of this appropriation, as exemplified by the posthumous condemnation by Bishop Stephen Tempier of thirty-one of his opinions.Footnote 136 Neo-Thomists thus praise and appropriate the works and legacy of Thomas as such, rather than his example of engagement with the best intellectual currents of his time, with all the risks this entailed.Footnote 137
The second problem with the neo-Thomistic revival and its methods is the further reliance on arguments from authority, and presupposition of a right to be at the center of Catholic theology and church authority. This leads to two other problems. The first is a hermeneutical one. It is presumed that when popes or other church documents pronounce on important theological topics, they are doing so in a way that is in keeping with neo-Thomist orthodoxy. This often leads to contorted readings of documents, especially of works by Benedict XVI (very much in the Augustinian-Bonaventurean tradition) and of John Paul II's encyclical Fides et Ratio (which operates in a mode very different from neo-Thomism).Footnote 138 The further problem, involving the use of authority, is that neo-Thomists, by virtue of Aeterni Patris, justify their theological methods by reference to papal pronouncements about Thomas Aquinas or theological method. This problem is summed up by Ulrich G. Leinsle when he argues that for the new neo-Thomists, “the philosophy that agrees with the Magisterium, being the ‘perennial philosophy’ (‘philosophia perennis’), becomes the ahistorical norm of philosophy and the only permissible auxiliary of theology.”Footnote 139 Gerald O'Collins has referred to this tendency as the “regressive method,” since it “began with whatever was the present teaching of the pope and bishops,” and thus theologians “read the sources only in the light of what was currently taught and believed.”Footnote 140
The third problem with this revival is its reliance upon the neo-Thomistic distinction between philosophy and theology in order to manifest a distaste for almost all contemporary theologies and sometimes, it would seem, for theology itself. On the one hand, some of this is historical and coincidental—after Vatican II, the new neo-Thomistic discourse was more at home in philosophy departments where the Anglo-American logical method of philosophizing resembles neo-Thomism in its respect for an ahistorical approach. This approach can be seen in the works of John Wippel, who has demonstrated sympathy for the neo-Thomist movement.Footnote 141 It would also seem that neo-Thomists were unable to make the case for their theological methods except by the insistence of church authorities, and once church authorities at Vatican II moved beyond this method, its reason for existence in theology ceased to have a purpose.
On the other hand, though, some of the new neo-Thomistic resistance to contemporary theology often appears rooted in a constructive proposal that the purpose of theology is to reaffirm and explain the orthodoxy of the church, and that this has already been accomplished in the most exemplary way possible by Thomas Aquinas and the neo-Thomist school. This vision, I would argue, truncates the Anselmian definition of theology as fides quaerens intellectum by delimiting the seeking to what has already been found. This tendency results in an overreliance on the Catechism and on teachings issued by popes and other church authorities, particularly recent ones, as the mark of orthodoxy. Such an approach misunderstands the purpose of a catechism and also presumes an agreement of recent popes (particularly John Paul II and Benedict XVI) with neo-Thomism because of their being popes (and thus arbiters of orthodoxy).
The neo-Thomist equation of their approach with orthodoxy, and the ensuing refusal of methodological pluralism, are the most serious problems that this resurgence poses to theology today. The biggest problem that Yves Congar, Joseph Ratzinger, and others at the time of Vatican II had with the neo-Thomist approach was not the arguments themselves, questionable though they may be. Rather, the problem for these theologians was the reliance upon imposition by church authority and the presumption that the neo-Thomistic system of thought was the standard-bearer of Catholic orthodoxy. Without such an acknowledgment of methodological pluralism, it is hard for the neo-Thomistic approach to be part of a healthy and sustained debate with other theological schools.
The ultimate question would appear to be whether the question of nature and grace, which has underlain so much of the debates about method described above, can be detached from these methodological considerations. For de Lubac and his neo-Thomist opponents, these issues were inseparable, and this position has been echoed in the neo-Thomists described above. At the same time, the position of de Lubac has increasingly been incorporated into magisterial teaching since Vatican II, making the pairing of the neo-Thomist position on grace with church orthodoxy appear increasingly dissonant. It would seem practical in this context for neo-Thomists to make peace with this situation and, as before Aeterni Patris, once again to function as a school among schools within theology.
Conclusion: Opportunities and Dangers
The neo-Thomistic revival, as outlined above, certainly presents some challenges to contemporary theologians, while also offering opportunities for dialogue as well as an affirmation of contemporary theological methods. Christopher Ruddy has argued that the understandable rejection of neo-Thomism has unfortunately created “a new breach within the church's history and theology: that between pre- and post-Vatican II Catholicism,” and thus has dismissed centuries’ worth of intellectual effort in the process.Footnote 142 Ruddy argues, as have I, that post-Tridentine Catholic theology was multifaceted and vibrant, critiquing overly sweeping characterizations of the period.Footnote 143 After focusing on the value of post-Tridentine ecclesiology and its influence on Vatican II, Ruddy argues for three aspects of post-Tridentine theology that ought to be recovered and appreciated: method, pastoral concern, and reasoned engagement.Footnote 144 In terms of method, Ruddy focuses, in critical dialogue with R. R. Reno's article mentioned earlier, on the need for a common language. In terms of a pastoral approach, he emphasizes the ideas of clarity and definition that can help “to form the theologically educated laity needed to meet the challenges of contemporary life.” Finally, regarding reasoned engagement, Ruddy emphasizes that post-Tridentine theology “can show that honest, forthright engagement of differences need not be divisive or unecumenical, but rather a condition for dialogue.”Footnote 145
While legitimate questions can be raised about some of Ruddy's assertions, what cannot be denied is that his article models a spirit of dialogue between theological methods. Ruddy does so as an expert on the ecclesiology of the Ressourcement, but in a way open to the insights of other schools of thought. It is precisely this openness, I think, that the neo-Thomists too often fail to embrace, whether by not reading their opponents or otherwise not taking them seriously (e.g., not citing or even naming them). The presumption of authority as a kind of birthright hinders neo-Thomism and prevents it from finding dialogue partners within the theological academy beyond the postliberal approach described above. Even if neo-Thomism makes further gains in influence among church authorities, it cannot regain credibility as an intellectual system without engaging opposing views and methods sympathetically. This does not mean accepting all the terms of such methods or taking a purely hermeneutical approach, but rather acknowledging legitimate diversity in a more capacious manner.
Given this situation, members of the theological academy ought to view the neo-Thomistic revival with interest and, at the same time, with a degree of vigilance inasmuch as its members engage in certain kinds of rhetoric. On an intellectual level, the neo-Thomistic emphasis on the greatness of Thomas Aquinas and the validity of reading him through the commentary tradition should not need the backing of church authority in order to be convincingly argued. While some theologians would not find these arguments persuasive, this methodology would certainly deserve a seat at the table as a school of thought with deep roots in the Catholic tradition and with an admirable philosophical rigor. Yet the neo-Thomists continue to use rhetoric that argues for their school over and against all other schools by virtue of its commendation by past church authorities in a way that cannot be deemed anything other than deeply problematic. It would do well for them, in seeking a way forward, to heed the words of John Paul II in Fides et Ratio, a document to which they frequently advert for its praise of Thomas: “The Church has no philosophy of her own nor does she canonize any one particular philosophy in preference to others” (FR §49) and “No historical form of philosophy can legitimately claim to embrace the totality of truth” (FR §51).
