Balthasar's interpretation of Aquinas

A few years ago I translated Angelo Campodonico's essay “Il pensiero filosofico di Tommaso d’Aquino nell’interpretazione di H.U. Von Balthasar” for the English edition of Nova et Vetera . It was published as "Hans Urs von Balthasar's Interpretation of the Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas" in vol. 8 of Nova et Vetera on pp. 33-53. I recently uploaded it to my Academia.edu page. You can find it here.

Since Thomists and Balthasarians often find themselves at odds, this makes Campodonico's essay all the more interesting, or so it seems to me. In fact, Campodonico argues that Aquinas had a profound influence on Balthasar's thought. He even makes the (in my view) provocative claim that...

[t]he influence of Thomas Aquinas on the formulation of Balthasar’s theology and philosophy is clear and shows that Balthasar regarded him with perhaps more esteem than any other theologian in history (33-34).

Balthasar the Thomist? Well, certainly not a Thomist of the strict observance. If he is a Thomist at all, he is probably what Fr. Weisheipl would call an "eclectic Thomist." (Perhaps some of my fellow Thomists would say that even that is going too far!)

A word about Campodonico. He teaches in the philosophy department at the University of Genova. To date Campodonico has written three books on Aquinas:  Alla scoperta dell'essere. Saggio sul pensiero di Tommaso d'Aquino (Milan: Jaca Book, 1986), Integritas: Metafisica ed etica in San Tommaso (Florence: Nardini, 1996), and La pretesa del bene. Etica e teoria dell'azione in Tommaso d'Aquino (Naples: Orthotes 2012). The last book was written with Maria Silvia Vaccarezza. You can find Campodonico's faculty page at the University of Genova here.