The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas

Due out in January is The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, edited by Brian Davies of Fordham University and Eleonore Stump of St. Louis University. The Handbook has been several years in the making. A short while ago it was said to be coming out in October. According to the OUP website, the release date is now the beginning of next year. We’ll see whether this date changes yet again.

The list of topics covered is impressive and includes, among others, metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, theory of language, and the theological virtues. Some of the topics have several subtopics. Under metaphysics, for example, there are being, matter, form, individuation, causation, the Five Ways, and language and analogy.

Here is a preview of the table of contents:

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Life and Works
2. Historical Background
(a) Aquinas and Aristotle
(b) Augustine to Aquinas (Latin-Christian authors)
(c) Aquinas, Plato, and Neo-Platonism
(d) Aquinas and Jewish and Islamic authors
3. Metaphysics and the Existence of God
(a) Being
(b) Matter, Form, and Individuation
(c) Causation
(d) The Five Ways
(e) The Limits of Language and the Notion of Analogy
4. The Divine Nature
(a) God’s Simplicity
(b) God’s Goodness
(c) God’s Knowledge and Will
(d) God’s Impassibility, Immutability, and Eternality
(e) God’s Omnipotence
5. Ethics and Action Theory
(a) Human Freedom and Agency
(b) Emotions
(c) Happiness
(d) Law and Natural Law
(e) Conscience and Synderesis
(f) Virtues and Vices
(g) Practical Reasoning
6. Epistemology
(a) Human Knowledge
(b) Intellectual Virtues
(c) The Relation of Reason to Faith
7. Philosophy of Mind and Human Nature
8. Theory of Language
9. The Theological Virtues
10. Providence and the Problem of Evil
11. Philosophical Theology
(a) Trinity
(b) Incarnation
(c) The Saving Work of Christ
(d) Sacraments
(e) Resurrection and the Separated Soul
(f) Prayer
(g) The Gifts and Fruits of the Holy Spirit
12. The Development of Aquinas’s Thought
13. The Influence of Aquinas
Chronological List of Aquinas’s Writings
Editions and Translations

Unfortunately, a list of authors of these essays has not yet, as far as I know, been made public.

From the table of contents it would appear to be a more philosophical than theological volume but, not having seen it for myself, I can’t say for certain.

It seems peculiar that the topics in sec. 11 of the book, which are listed as the Trinity, Incarnation, the Saving Work of Christ, Sacraments, Resurrection and the Separated Soul, Prayer, the Gifts and Fruits of the Holy Spirit, should have the heading “Philosophical Theology.” That I am aware of, when Aquinas uses something like this term he means a branch of Aristotelian metaphysics:

Theologia ergo philosophica determinat de separatis secundo modo sicut de subiectis, de separatis autem primo modo sicut de principiis subiecti.

He contrasts this theology with the theology of Sacred Scripture:

Theologia vero sacrae Scripturae tractat de separatis primo modo sicut de subiectis, quamvis in ea tractentur aliqua quae sunt in materia et motu, secundum quod requirit rerum divinarum manifestatio.

These two passages are taken from the corpus of q. 5, a. 4 of his commentary on Boethius’s De Trinitate. Even in its contemporary usage “philosophical theology” usually denotes something like natural theology.

Then again, Aquinas was often quite flexible with his terminology, so there is no reason why we can’t be too. Perhaps the editors offer a reasonable justification for the use of the title or the essays make its choice clear. At any rate, it’s probably foolish for me to speculate so much about these things from a mere table of contents!

The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas looks like it will be a very useful reference volume. I look forward to its publication.

On the future of Thomistica.net

In late June I had come to the decision that I could no longer devote the time and resources to authoring and supporting this web site, and had decided—in actu signato sed nondum in actu exercito—to inform the site’s visitors of this, and then close the site down. When I sent around my draft valedictory to some close colleagues, I was urged by friends at The Aquinas Center at Ave Maria University to consider another option. “What if we take over the main support of the site,” they wondered, “add some contributors, and take the burden off your shoulders?”

Phew. That was welcome news, indeed. And in the interim, mostly behind the curtain but occasionally on the proscenium (e.g., posts by new contributors), the fine people at Ave Maria and I have been transitioning the logistics for the site and bringing on the new contributors and chief editor—a post from the new management will follow shortly.

Closing the site would have been hard to live with. When the idea for it came to me in the year 2000, there were no readily-available, on-line blogging sites. So I created my own, and struggled to learn .NET, SQL, XML, HTML and CSS, and endured all the hassles of coding for different web browsers—Microsoft’s IE 6 was truly of the devil—and was tearful with gratitude to happen upon the fledgling squarespace.com in 2004, whose stellar hosting and authoring system let me pursue the dream of having a news site for the academic study of St. Thomas, with opinions, newsletters, picture galleries, and the like. Thanks to the collaborative efforts of Jörgen Vijgen, Robert Barry, Steve Perisho, David Whidden, and Michael Dougherty, we’ve been able to have a cheerful and informative site.

The great news is that the site will remain sure-footed under the direction and support of the people at The Aquinas Center at Ave Maria University, will in fact have a larger base of fine and diverse contributors, and will assuredly expand its viewership to an ever-widening audience of those interested in the academic study of St. Thomas Aquinas. Roger Nutt will be overseeing the site, with help of Michael Dauphinais and Joseph Trabbic. The new contributors will include Fr. Matthew Lamb and Steven Long of Ave Maria and Christopher Malloy of the University of Dallas and Fr. Timothy Bellamah of the Dominican House of Studies.

For myself I need and plan to live small, which will not be inherently antithetical to an occasional contribution—something the new editorship has generously encouraged.

That’s it for now. The esse of the site perdures, stemming from its continued final cause and appropriate, now-increased and diversified efficient and material causes. Thanks to all who have submitted information for us to share over the years. Thanks for your visiting and gathering useful information. And above all, thanks for any pleasure you may have derived from your visits and participation. Such enjoyment has been the purpose of the site, after all, from day one.

Let’s keep this thing going.

Comments on Freddoso's Translation of the Summa's Treatise on Human Nature

Alfred Freddoso’s recent translation for St. Augustine’s Press of qq. 75-102 of the prima pars of the Summa Theologiae might be of interest to people who are looking for Aquinas texts in English for undergraduate (or possibly graduate) philosophical anthropology classes.

Looking at a few articles, Freddoso does seem to have made a faithful translation and the English is readable. A nice touch is that for certain key phrases, or points in the text where some might want to consult the Latin, or where the translation is not strictly literal, Freddoso inserts the Latin in parentheses.

There have been other single volume English editions of Aquinas’s treatment of human nature. In 1962 James Anderson published a translation for Prentice-Hall of Aquinas’s treatise on human nature from the Summa entitled Treatise on Man. In 1999 Thomas Hibbs put together an anthology for Hackett of Aquinas’s texts called On Human Nature. There are important differences between these three volumes.

Anderson’s volume only covers qq. 75-89 of the Summa’s Prima Pars while Freddoso’s translation also includes qq. 90-102. It could be argued that Aquinas understood this discussion of man in the Summa to include all of the questions between 75 and 102. It all depends on how you interpret the remarks he makes prior to q. 75, a. 1. There Aquinas tells the reader:

Post considerationem creaturae spiritualis et corporalis, considerandum est de homine, qui ex spirituali et corporali substantia componitur. Et primo, de natura ipsius hominis; secundo, de eius productione.

I translate this as:

After the consideration of spiritual and corporeal creatures, there is the consideration of man who is composed of a spiritual and corporeal substance. And first we consider the nature itself of man; second his production.

When Aquinas says that he will first consider the nature of man and then his production, he clearly has qq. 75-89 in mind for man’s nature and qq. 90-102 for his production. And Freddoso acknowledges this by putting the respective question numbers in parentheses after the phrase about man’s nature and the phrase about his production in his translation. Obviously, Freddoso thinks that when Aquinas talks about the “consideration of man” and then divides this up into the consideration of his nature and the consideration of his production, this gives us the complete content of the Summa’s “Treatise on Human Nature.”

Just as obviously, Anderson thinks differently. In his introduction to his translation of qq. 75-89 Anderson says that qq. 44-119 are divided into six treatises: The Angels, The Work of the Six Days, on Man, on The First Man, and on The Divine Government. The fifth treatise, “The First Man,” corresponds to qq. 90-102. So, Anderson does not regard the “consideration of man” as constituting a single unified treatise but two distinct treatises. After all, Aquinas does plainly distinguish between man’s nature and his production. But on the back cover of Freddoso’s translation we read: “This translation, moreover, is the only complete edition of all the material St. Thomas envisaged as being part of the Treatise.” Has Anderson misunderstood Aquinas or has Freddoso? Is there another possibility? You can decide for yourself.

It is less controversial to note in what way Freddoso’s volume differs from Hibbs’s. Freddoso presents one block of texts from the Summa while Hibbs puts together texts from various parts of the Summa with texts from Aquinas’s commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima. Both volumes form coherent wholes: Freddoso’s forms a whole that Aquinas himself intended (and, even granting possible Andersonian objections, qq. 90-102 were at least meant to follow systematically in the overall design of the Summa) and Hibbs’s forms a reconstructed speculative whole that Aquinas may or may not have intended. (Of course, this is not to say anything against the Hibbs volume. I’ve made profitable use of it in my undergrad classes. The point was only to specify further in what way it differs from Freddoso’s offering. Incidentally, Freddoso is among those whom Hibbs thanks for commenting on his introduction to On Human Nature.)

For readers who are not immediately familiar with content of the questions that Freddoso presents in his translation, let me give a brief outline: qq. 75-76 deal with the relationship between the body and soul in man; qq. 77-89 deal with the various powers of man’s soul and their operations but the intellect and the will are the main interest, and of these two the intellect gets the lengthier treatment; qq. 90-102 handle God’s production of the first human beings and their general condition prior to the Fall. Many of the articles in qq. 90-102 touch on issues that are of direct relevance to human nature generally and not just in its prelapsarian state. For example, q. 90, a. 2 asks whether the human soul is produced directly by God; q. 91, a. 3, asks whether the human body is appropriately constituted (e.g., given man’s nature, whether horns or hooves would be fitting for him); q. 93, q. 1 asks whether the image of God exists in man. Given these inquiries, one can see why it was not unreasonable for Freddoso to include qq. 90-102 in this volume.

As translated by Freddoso, qq. 75-102  come out to 339 pages, so if you used it in a class together with other texts and you like your students to read carefully, you will have to count on them spending a large portion of the semester getting through it, unless you only use certain sections.

I would have liked a substantive introduction and explanatory notes in this volume. Four brief paragraphs on the back cover are all that we get for an introduction (and it is not specified who their author is) and explanatory notes are completely absent. Neither is absolutely necessary but they are a nice bonus for works of this kind, at least in my opinion. A thorough topical index is included. This is certainly a benefit.

A tribute to Fr Busa, from Stephen Ramsay (repost)

Via Fr. Matthew Lamb of Ave Maria University, who knew Fr Busa in Italy in the 1970’s (and who suggested to Busa the idea of putting the Index Thomisticus on CD-ROM), comes a tribute from Dr. Stephen Ramsay, Associate Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and a member of the digital humanities community, who greatly admired Fr. Busa’s work (and had corresponded with him):

(Note: reposted with permission of Dr. Ramsay):

Fr. Roberto Busa, S.J. (1913-2011)

Last night, I learned of the passing of Roberto Busa – a man that many consider the founder of Digital Humanities.

In recent years, people have called that lofty title into question, and not without justice. It seems that Busa was one among the many who were striving to bring computer technology – then in its early infancy – to bear on humanistic problems back in the forties. Like most DH scholars today, he was part of a much wider intellectual network.

But when I was starting out in the field, it was taken more-or-less for granted that Busa had started it all, and it’s not difficult to understand why. He was a Jesuit – a member of that most troublesome of religious orders, universally renowned both for its learning and for its many provocations both theological and disciplinary. His project recalled the ancient roots of the European university itself: a massive concordance to the works of Thomas Aquinas, who was himself a scholar and an intellectual revolutionary. It’s undoubtedly the case that many at the time were thinking of ways to use computers to conduct research in the humanities, but the scale and sweep of Busa’s project stands alone. It’s a story about old becoming new, and yet about continuity with the past.

His 1980 essay “The Annals of Humanities Computing: The Index Thomisticus” used to be required reading of sorts for people starting out, and it’s still my favorite. It’s a personal essay on how the Index came to be. The beginning is unforgettable:

I entered the Jesuit order in 1933. I was then 20. Later my superior asked me: “Would you like to become a professor?”

“In no way!” My wish was to become a missionary to take care of the poor.

“Good. You’ll do it, all the same.”

The subject of Busa’s research – and the occasion for creating the Index – was detailed study of the notion of “presence” in Thomas. Perhaps the New Criticism was taking hold in some other part of the world, but for Busa, philology was the proper hermeneutical framework.

[A]ll functional or grammatical words (which in my mind are not “empty” at all but philosophically rich) manifest the deepest logic of being which generates the basic structures of human discourse. It is this basic logic that allows the transfer from what the words mean today to what they meant to the writer.

The methodology for exploring that logic was clear enough:

According to the scholarly practices, I first searched through tables and subject indexes for the word praesens and praesentia. […] My next step was to write out by hand 10,000 3” X 5” cards, each containing a sentence with the word in or a word connected with in. Grand games of solitaire followed.

Busa himself eschewed the title of founder, and goes out of his way in this essay to list the others whom he thought were far ahead of him. But how can we deny the title to someone who writes:

It was clear to me, however, that to process texts containing more than ten million words, I had to look for some kind of machinery.

(If you’re not ready to do the first ten million by hand, you’re simply not in the good Father’s philological league).

He eventually made his way to IBM. In fact, he made his way to the office of Thomas Watson himself:

I knew, the day I was to meet Thomas J. Watson, Sr., that he had on his desk a report which said that IBM machines could never do what I wanted. I had seen in the waiting room a small poster imprinted with the words, “the difficult we do right away; the impossible takes a little longer,” (IBM always loved slogans). I took it with me into Mr. Watson’s office. Sitting in front of him and sensing the tremendous power of his mind, I was inspired to say: “It is not right to say ‘no’ before you have tried.” I took out the poster and showed him his own slogan. He agreed that IBM would cooperate with my project until it was completed “provided that you do not change IBM into International Busa Machines.” I had already informed him that, because my superiors had given me time, encouragement, their blessings and much holy water, but unfortunately no money, I could recompense IBM in any way except financially. That was providential!

Is it any wonder that Busa became the patron saint of DH? John Unsworth, in a talk a few years ago, noted, “Most disciplines can’t point to a founding moment, much less a divine one.”

(I assume the non-DH-er in that photograph is Pope Paul VI)

And then there’s this:

I feel like a tight-rope walker who has reached the other end. It seems to me like Providence. Since man is a child of God and the technology is a child of man, I think that God regards technology the way a grandfather regards his grandchild. And for me personally, it is satisfying to realize that I have taken seriously my service to linguistic research.

Those words, written thirty years ago, are of a man who intends to live long and well.

And he did.

Roberto Busa SJ (1913-2011)

Father Roberto Busa SJ died on Tuesday, 9 August 2011, at the Aloisianum, the Institute of Gallarate (Varese, Italy). L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, aptly introduced its obituary with the headline: “Stop the reader, Fr. Busa has died”, highlighting his enormous achievements in the area of computer technology : “If you surf the Internet, it is thanks to him. If you jump from one site to another, clicking on links highlighted in blue, it is thanks to him. If you use a pc to write emails and documents, it is thanks to him. If you can read this article, it is thanks to him.” Other obituaries appeared here, here and here. We, who so easily use the online edition of the Corpus Thomisticum and the Index Thomisticus, would do well to recall how this gigantic work started in 1949! Father Busa tells his story in the foreword of A Companion to Digital Humanities, ed. Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, John Unsworth. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.

Bonnetty, Aquinas, and Rationalism

Aquinas has been accused at sundry times by sundry people of sundry forms of rationalism, something that continues to this day. I can understand this to a certain extent even if I think that it is misguided. 

Among those who have leveled this accusation at Aquinas appears to be Augustin Bonnetty, a nineteenth century French philosopher and theologian and founder and editor of the journal Annales de philosophie chrétienne. Bonnetty, a layman, was an exponent of “traditionalism” (not to be confused, of course, with the traditionalism we talk of today with respect to critics of certain aspects of the post-Vatican II Church), a kind of fideistic approach to the truths of the faith. Traditionalism was one of the theological movements that Vatican I attempted to deal with in its decrees. 

After the archbishop of Paris had expressed concerns about Bonnetty’s ideas to the Congregation of the Index in Rome, he was asked by that congregation in 1855 to endorse four theological propositions with his signature. The fourth proposition was the following, which I came across while doing research for a paper on natural theology not long ago: 

Methodus, qua usi sunt divus Thomas, divus Bonaventura et alii post ipsos scholastici, non ad rationalismum ducit, neque causa fuit, cur apud scholas hodiernas philosophia in naturalismum et pantheismum impingeret. Proinde non licet in crimen doctoribus et magistris illis vertere, quod methodum hanc, praesertim approbante vel saltem tacente Ecclesia, usurpaverint. 

[The method used by St. Thomas, by St. Bonaventure, and, after them, by other scholastics, does not lead to rationalism, nor does it explain why, in modern schools, philosophy should fall into naturalism and pantheism. Hence these doctors and masters cannot be reproached for using that method, especially with the approval, at least tacit, of the Church.] 

It is surprising to see Bonaventure also suspected of rationalism since it is often the case that those who regard Aquinas as a rationalist of some variety, or as having strong rationalist tendencies, praise Bonaventure’s supposedly more affective and mystical theology as an alternative.

[A version of this post appeared in May on my now defunct blog “the end of the modern world, etc.”]

American Catholic Philosophical Association Annual Meeting on “Science, Reason and Religion” (October 28-30, 2011)

This year the ACPA meeting will be in St. Louis, on the theme “Science, Reason and Religion,” hosted by St. Louis University. The conference program and satellite session schedule are now online. The Aquinas Medal will be awarded to Jorge J. E. Gracia, who will present “Does Philosophy Have a Role to Play in Contemporary Society? The Challenges of Science and Culture.” The four plenary speakers are: 

• John Cottingham, “Confronting the Cosmos: Scientific Rationality and Human Understanding.”
• Michael Ruse, “Making Room for Faith: Does Science Have Limits?”
• John F. Haught, “Darwin, Faith and Critical Intelligence.”
• Dominic J. Balestra, “Galileo’s Legacy: Getting the Relationship In-Between Scientism and Literalism Right.” 

As usual, there will be several talks on the philosophical thought of Aquinas in the program and satellite sessions. Registration information for the conference can be found here.

A calling card from Tommaso Zigliara, OP

Got a neat e-mail and attachment from Martin Walter, who a few years back provided us with some stunning pictures, and who helped the entire Thomistic community by editing John of St. Thomas’s Cursus philosophicus. It turns out that he recently bought vol. 1 of the Leonine Edition (dating from 1882), which contained Thomas’s commentaries on Aristotle’s De intepretatione and on the Posterior Analytics—both of these editions were re-edited in 1989 as Leonine 1*/1 and 1*/2. The first tomus was published under the general editorship of Tommaso Zigliara, OP.

But Walter turned out to have purchased not just any old copy of the original volume 1 of the Leonine edition, for on the inside, on page 2, there is a well-wrought inscription that tells a story:

Here’s a transcription, followed by a translation:

Hic primus tomus operum Sancti Thomae Aquinatis
ad cujus editionem operam contulerunt
Reverendus Pater Albertus Hoogland et Reverendus Pater Constantius
Suermondt e provincia nostra Romam
accersili, Bibliotecae nostrae in Conven-
tu Huisensi dono datus est ab
Eminente Fratre Thoma Zigliara
Ordinis Praedicatorum
Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinali.

This first tome of the works of St. Thomas Aquinas,
toward whose publication Rev. Father Albertus Hoogland and Rev. Father Constantius Suermondt contributed (summoned to Rome from our province), was given as a gift to our library in the convent in Huissen by <his> eminence, Brother Tommaso Zigliara of the Order of the Preachers, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church.

Both Frs Hoogland and Suermondt came from the Dominican Convent in Huissen, which seems to be the provenance of the book that Martin Walter bought. Which of course raises the question, “why did a Dominican convent part with a prized copy of a work by Thomas Aquinas?” That’s another investigation—Walter tells me that the book had multiple owners, at one point being owned by an Oratory.

Thanks to Martin Walter for sharing this interesting discovery. Zigliara should not be forgotten.

PS: Zigliara was not merely the general editor of the first edition of Thomas’s Commentary on the Posterior Analytics. He was also the author of careful annotations on Thomas’s text (i.e., made a commentary on Thomas’s commentary). Fr. James Weisheipl, in his own handbook on this key Aristotelian text (and Thomas’s commentary), singles out Zigliara’s fine treatment of how we are able to apprehend the essential forms of things through the senses (see Thomas, In II. Post., lect 13, no. 7 [Marietti edition]), and Zigliara’s notes (Leonine volume 1, p. 375 cols. a-b).

Benedict XVI on Albert the Great: “He still has a lot to teach us”

Below is an excerpt from Benedict XVI’s appreciative and enthusiastic commendation of St. Albert’s manifold accomplishments in philosophy, theology, and science.  These comments were delivered at the General Audience held on March 24^th, 2010.

….

He still has a lot to teach us. Above all, St Albert shows that there is no opposition between faith and science, despite certain episodes of misunderstanding that have been recorded in history. A man of faith and prayer, as was St Albert the Great, can serenely foster the study of the natural sciences and progress in knowledge of the micro- and macrocosm, discovering the laws proper to the subject, since all this contributes to fostering thirst for and love of God. The Bible speaks to us of creation as of the first language through which God who is supreme intelligence, who is the Logos reveals to us something of himself. The Book of Wisdom, for example, says that the phenomena of nature, endowed with greatness and beauty, is like the works of an artist through which, by analogy, we may know the Author of creation (cf. Wis 13: 5). With a classical similitude in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance one can compare the natural world to a book written by God that we read according to the different approaches of the sciences (cf. Address to the participants in the Plenary Meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 31 October 2008; L’Osservatore Romano English edition, 5 November 2008, p. 6). How many scientists, in fact, in the wake of St Albert the Great, have carried on their research inspired by wonder at and gratitude for a world which, to their eyes as scholars and believers, appeared and appears as the good work of a wise and loving Creator! Scientific study is then transformed into a hymn of praise. Enrico Medi, a great astrophysicist of our time, whose cause of beatification has been introduced, wrote: “O you mysterious galaxies… I see you, I calculate you, I understand you, I study you and I discover you, I penetrate you and I gather you. From you I take light and make it knowledge, I take movement and make it wisdom, I take sparkling colours and make them poetry; I take you stars in my hands and, trembling in the oneness of my being, I raise you above yourselves and offer you in prayer to the Creator, that through me alone you stars can worship” (Le Opere. Inno alla creazione).

St Albert the Great reminds us that there is friendship between science and faith and that through their vocation to the study of nature, scientists can take an authentic and fascinating path of holiness.

His extraordinary openmindedness is also revealed in a cultural feat which he carried out successfully, that is, the acceptance and appreciation of Aristotle’s thought. In St Albert’s time, in fact, knowledge was spreading of numerous works by this great Greek philosopher, who lived a quarter of a century before Christ, especially in the sphere of ethics and metaphysics. They showed the power of reason, explained lucidly and clearly the meaning and structure of reality, its intelligibility and the value and purpose of human actions. St Albert the Great opened the door to the complete acceptance in medieval philosophy and theology of Aristotle’s philosophy, which was subsequently given a definitive form by St Thomas. This reception of a pagan pre-Christian philosophy, let us say, was an authentic cultural revolution in that epoch. Yet many Christian thinkers feared Aristotle’s philosophy, a non-Christian philosophy, especially because, presented by his Arab commentators, it had been interpreted in such a way, at least in certain points, as to appear completely irreconcilable with the Christian faith. Hence a dilemma arose: are faith and reason in conflict with each other or not?

This is one of the great merits of St Albert: with scientific rigour he studied Aristotle’s works, convinced that all that is truly rational is compatible with the faith revealed in the Sacred Scriptures. In other words, St Albert the Great thus contributed to the formation of an autonomous philosophy, distinct from theology and united with it only by the unity of the truth. So it was that in the 13th century a clear distinction came into being between these two branches of knowledge, philosophy and theology, which, in conversing with each other, cooperate harmoniously in the discovery of the authentic vocation of man, thirsting for truth and happiness: and it is above all theology, that St Albert defined as “emotional knowledge”, which points out to human beings their vocation to eternal joy, a joy that flows from full adherence to the truth.

St Albert the Great was capable of communicating these concepts in a simple and understandable way. An authentic son of St Dominic, he willingly preached to the People of God, who were won over by his words and by the example of his life.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us pray the Lord that learned theologians will never be lacking in holy Church, wise and devout like St Albert the Great, and that he may help each one of us to make our own the “formula of holiness” that he followed in his life: “to desire all that I desire for the glory of God, as God desires for his glory all that he desires”, in other words always to be conformed to God’s will, in order to desire and to do everything only and always for his glory.

Interesting News from Northern Colorado

I assume that few of our readers have ever tried out for a job as a sports announcer. I could be wrong.

But suppose you were in this situation and were asked just to make up a narrative on the spot of an imaginary athletic event. What might be some names of players that you might make up as you’re calling this imaginary game? Joe DiMaggio, Hank Aaron, Ty Cobb are names that might come to mind if you’re a baseball fan like me. Football fans might think of names like Roger Staubach or Lynn Swann I suppose.

A couple weeks ago the University of Northern Colorado held tryouts for a new public address announcer. Apparently one of the hopefuls for the position, Arnie Guin, was asked to do exactly what I just mentioned, call an imaginary game. What was the first name that came to Mr. Guin’s mind as he was trying to show off his stuff?

Thomas Aquinas.

Who would have thought? Perhaps no one was more surprised by the name of Mr. Guin’s imaginary athlete than Mr. Guin himself. Below is an excerpt from an article on the tryouts at UNC published in the Greeley Tribune, the local paper.

Even Arnie Guin couldn’t believe he said it as the words came tumbling off his tongue.

“And that was a 45-yard touchdown run from Thomas Aquinas,” echoed the voice of Guin through an empty Nottingham Field on Thursday.

Yes, the same St. Thomas Aquinas that was a renowned theologian and philosopher in the 13th century. It just happened to be the first name that popped into Guin’s mind as he participated in an open tryout to be the next voice of the University of Northern Colorado Bears.

UNC held the open tryouts Thursday for a public address announcer at UNC sporting events this season. Although only three participants showed up for the tryouts, they exuded tons of energy and enthusiasm as they tried out for the job by reading a prepared script by the UNC marketing department and then getting a chance to do their own little ad-lib at the end to show off their own unique style.

Guin, 45, rolled through the script like a veteran, but when it came to the ad-lib on the touchdown call, the only name he could think of was that of Aquinas.

“Right after I said it was one of those ‘Oh, no, where did that come from,” Guin said.

Actually, it made perfect sense when you consider that Guin is the campus pastor for Dayspring Christian Academy. His son, Seth, a basketball player at Dayspring Christian Academy saw the announcement for the tryouts while searching for UNC basketball season tickets online and encouraged his dad to try out.

Call for Papers: International Congress on Medieval Studies (May 10-13, 2012)

The call for papers is out for the 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, MI. This year’s conference will be held May 10-13, 2012. Planned sessions on Aquinas are: 

• Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas
• Thomas Aquinas
• Faith and Certainty: Augustine and Aquinas on the Adequacy of Faith in Understanding God in This Life 

Other notable sessions include: 

• New Trends in Medieval Franciscan Thought: Bonaventure’s Epistemology and Aesthetics
• Natural Law and Political Thought
• Natural Law and Moral Philosophy
• Boethius and the Liberal Arts
• The Philosophy and Theology of Nicholas of Cusa
• Contingency and Necessity in Medieval Philosophy
• Veniat Pax: Gerson and His Contemporaries on War and Peace 

The submission deadline for paper proposals is September 15^th. And, as always, a large assortment of booksellers and publishers will be at the conference.

Aquinas, One of the Greatest Philosophers Ever?

In a “non-scientific” poll asking about the greatest philosopher in history, conducted six years ago by the BBC Radio 4 program “In Our Time,” which features academic discussions of famous people and ideas, Aquinas placed #7 overall.

It looks like Aquinas has come a long way since the time when modern historians of philosophy (e.g., Émile Bréhier) claimed that no philosophy was done in the Middle Ages (or, if it was, that it wasn’t worth remembering) and that there was a yawning chasm between the Greeks and Descartes.

Here are the top ten great philosophers according to the BBC poll results:

1. Karl Marx
2. David Hume
3. Ludwig Wittgenstein
4. Friedrich Nietzsche
5. Plato
6. Immanuel Kant
7. St. Thomas Aquinas
8. Socrates
9. Aristotle
10. Karl Popper 

Marx won by a landslide, receiving 27.93% of the vote. Aquinas only received 4.83% of the vote. Still, considering that this was probably a largely secular audience (not to mention non-Catholic), it is surprising that Aquinas even made the top ten. Moreover, there were a number of other philosophers nominated, who ranked lower than Aquinas. When the voting was finished, Aquinas had beat Socrates, Aristotle, Popper, Descartes, Epicurus, Heidegger, Hobbes, Kierkegaard, Mill, Russell, Sartre, Schopenhauer, and Spinoza. That’s pretty impressive for a pious primitive from the Dark Ages.

I don’t recall this poll getting much press at the time. Well, I suppose that’s not surprising. Philosophers don’t make the news much. It’s probably not unusual, then, that some non-scientific poll by the BBC about philosophers didn’t really cause a stir. So, I’ve taken it upon myself to generate a bit more press for this five-year-old poll. I imagine that the results would not be too different if the poll were taken again today.

There was also an episode on Aquinas originally broadcast by “In Our Time” on Sept. 17, 2009, with John Haldane, Martin Palmer, and Annabel Brett. You can listen to it here. It must be said, however, that Palmer and Brett are not the best guides to Aquinas. Haldane isn’t bad even if in this context his approach to Aquinas has to be introductory.

“In Our Time” generally deals with interesting topics and often has well-informed guests. It’s worth having a look at the old broadcasts in the program archive.

[A version of this post appeared last October on my now defunct blog “the end of the modern world, etc.”]