La concepción tomasiana del ser

The Way toward Wisdom: an Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Introduction to Metaphysics. By Benedict M. Ashley, O.P.

EXISTENTIALISM AND THE DEGREES Of KNOWLEDGE IN an issue of THE THOMIST of some time ago, Professor Max Charlesworth has shown, in an article on The Meaning of Existentialism, how " certain principles and distinctions drawn from the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas . . . provide a perspective for the proper appreciation of the importance of Existentialism." 1 Professor Charlesworth's main conclusions, if I understand him correctly, are to the effect that "the findings of the Existentialists are of value and can ... be integrated into an authentic philosophy of man," and that "so long as the Existentialists keep to their own proper sphere . . . their conclusions are valid and valuable." 2 But what are we to understand, in that context, by " integration "? In what sense is it true, as Prof. Charlesworth affirms, that some existentialist conclusions are " valid and valuable"? Evidently, he does not mean that existentialism can be integrated with an authentic philosophy of the nature of man by way of fusion or merger; otherwise he would not warn us of the " fundamental confusion of Existentialism " between the metaphysical and the existential, and that " the error of the Existentialists consists in merging the metaphysical order into the existential order." 3 The implication, it seems, is that there is some distinction between these two orders: if so, what is this distinction and how can the two orders of knowledge be integrated? And again, evidently Prof. Charlesworth does not believe that some conclusions of existentialism are valid as they stand and as they are meant by the existentialists; 1 M. Charlesworth, " The Meaning of Existentialism," THE THOMIST, XVI (1958)' 472-496; p. 472. • Ibid., p. 494. 8 Ibid., pp. 486 and 490. 193 194 LESLIE DEWART otherwise he would not warn us of the " absurdities " and " errors " of existentialism. The implication is, it seems, that the doctrines of existentialism must be understood only in a certain way and in a certain context before they can be considered valid and valuable: they must be understood, as he puts it, in " their own proper sphere." But precisely what is the proper sphere of existentialism? Thus, Prof. Charlesworth's "a priori" approach not only puts in relief for us the importance of existentialism and suggests that Thomists should not dismiss existentialism too airily lest they get rid of the wheat along with the chaff, but also raises further problems. It raises the problem, particularly, of how Thomism can profit, if at all, by re-adapting existentialism to itself in accordance with its own needs; that is, by incorporating or digesting, if such an " integration " is possible, whatever there may be of truth in existentialism. Therefore, the enquiry which logically follows after Prof. Charlesworth's article is to examine more closely the nature of existentialism and its relations to the various philosophical sciences in order to conclude whether, and if so, under what conditions, it may be considered valid philosophical knowledge. That is precisely the purpose of this study, namely, to present and explore the question whether existentialism has a valid place within the hierarchy of the philosophical sciences as described and explained by Thomistic philosophy. I INTRODUCTION We must note from the outset that although existentialism offers itself as a full-fledged system of philosophy, or indeed, sometimes as the only valid system of philosophy, we need not take existentialism's own conception and appraisal of itself in order to recognize its peculiar contribution, if any, to the perennial stream of philosophical knowledge itself. We are not required to take the existentialist's word at face value when he offers a substitute for metaphysics or for ethics or for EXISTENTIALISM AND THE DEGREES OF KNOWLEDGE 195 philosophy as a whole. It may well be that the real novelty and true philosophical value of existentialism, if any, do not consist in its being a new way to solve old problems, but rather in its being a new way to approach new problems and to attempt their solution from its own particular viewpoint. Very especially , the fact that existentialism deals with being-or, perhaps, even with being as being-need not mean that existentialism must be taken as a metaphysics or not at all. It is true that existentialists...

Thomas Aquinas on the Jews: Insights into His Commentary on Romans 9-11, by Steven C. Boguslawski, O.P. New York: Paulist Press, 2008. 145 pp. $18.95. Despite the size of the work, Boguslawski suffuses it with historical, philosophical, and theological erudition. Hence, given my background only in philosophy, I enter this review with some trepidation. Basically, the work is a comparison of Augustine's and Aquinas' commentaries on Paul's Letter to the Romans, chs. 9-11. author's thesis is that respective theological differences about predestination and election determine respective differences about the role of the Jewish people in salvation history since Christ. Appreciating the differences between Augustine and Aquinas on the Jews has unsuspected implications for the contemporary debate about Romans. Aquinas is not a participant in the growing 13th-century intolerance of the Jews. That intolerance waxed because of the exhaustion of Jewish testamentary function solely assigned by Augustine (p. xv). In Chapter 2, the author also downplays the 13rh-century Talmud controversies as in flamers of intolerance, for Pope Innocent IV allowed the Talmud's return to the Jews (p. 26). Augustine's negative view of the Jews did not derive from a threat of missionary competition. Rather, its source was Augustine's theological analysis of the relation between grace and free will. In Augustine's thinking no provision for the rehabilitation of the reprobate exists. God dispenses salvation or damnation as a response (p. 71) to the creatures' divinely foreseen fundamental option for or against faith. Divine justice forbids extending mercy to the obdurate (p. 72). Hence, Augustine interprets Paul's end-time remark that all Israel will be saved as speaking about the descendents of the Jewish remnant who believe in the Lord. Such thinking is supersessionist and effectively places unbelieving Jews on the sidelines of history. Aquinas is much more literal and historical in his understanding of Paul's end-time remark. Boguslawski ascribes Aquinas' difference from Augustine to Aquinas' own understanding of divine election. In Chapter 5 the author, in my opinion, decisively shows that this theological category, already elaborated in the Summa Theologiae, is used both of individuals and corporate entities in Romans 9 and 11 (p. 101). According to Aquinas, divine election does not proceed from divinely foreseen faith but from God's loving choice. Also, in the current order, subsequent as it is to original sin, God's love for the elect is God's mercy. Since God does not react to the foreseen perfidy of the creature, the creature's infidelity need not be the final word. Many times in the past, God has restored to grace those who have fallen. This will happen again to corporate historical Israel as befits their status as God's chosen people. As the author remarks: The disbelief of some Jews occasioned God's mercy toward the Gentiles, so that, at some future time, the Jews might obtain mercy as well (p. 100). In contrast, nowhere does Augustine state that the Jews' fall is temporary or reparable (p. 106). Citing from Aquinas' Romans commentary in which Aquinas is speaking of converted Jews, Boguslawski shows that the role and stature of the Jews are not obliterated from history nor so radically interpreted by Aquinas as to be unrecognizable in the future eschatological drama (p. 8). Contra the claim of John Y. B. Hood, Aquinas definitely is not a continuator of the Ecclesiastical status quo. That would make Aquinas more Augustinian than he is. Some practical conclusions of Aquinas' interpretation of Romans are: because of God's election of Israel, certain privileges and functions should be safeguarded for them (p. …

TRINITY AND CREATION IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS DAVID A. WALKER* St. Francis' Church Nottingham, England Preface IT IS BY NO MEANS fortuitous that, in the Summa Theologiae , St. Thomas's treatise concerning 'the procession of divine persons ' is succeeded immediately by the treatise concerning ' the coming forth of creatures from God '. If both the freedom of the creative act and the full consubstantiality of the divine persons are to be safeguarded, then, for St. Thomas, these two types of ' procession ' must be distinguished at all costs. But although distinct, they are also related in St. Thomas's thought. It is with this fundamental relation that we shall be primarily concerned here. Therefore, the question we shall seek to explore in this study concerns the way in which St. Thomas's doctrine of the Trinity determines, informs and impinges upon his theological understanding of the created order. Creation: The ' One God, and the ' Triune God, St. Thomas's celebrated identification of essence and existence in God has important significance for St. Thomas's doctrine of creation. God, according to St. Thomas, is Creator in virtue of his nature or essence-although, of course, this fact in no way undermines the sovereign freedom and contingency of the creative act. Because it is God's nature simply to be, all being or existence outside God is ultimately traceable back to God as its source *The Rev. Dr. David A. Walker was Team Vicar of St. Francis', Clifton, Nottingham at the time of his death in 1989. This paper was given to The Thomist on his behalf by Dr. Brian Marshall of Westminster College, Oxford. 443 444 DAVID A. WALKER and first cause. Therefore, to speak of God as Creator is to speak of God's essence in operation: " Hence creation is God's action by reason of his existence, which is his very nature ... " 1 The trinitarian significance of this association of creative activity primarily with the divine essence is far reaching. In so far as the divine essence is common to, and identical in, the persons of the Trinity, St. Thomas can maintain that "creative action is not peculiar to any one Person, but is common to the whole Trinity." 2 Creation, therefore, is an act in which the triune God acts as the one God; in which a trinitarian unity of operation corresponds to a trinitarian unity of being. Consequently , the creative act primarily "has to do with the unity of nature, but not with the distinction of persons." 3 However, as we shall subsequently show, this is not St. Thomas's final word on the matter. In the light of this, it is possible to discern in the theology of St. Thomas a fairly clear distinction between truths pertaining to the unity of the divine essence and truths pertaining to the trinity of divine persons. This, indeed, is the basis for the distinction between the ' one God ' (de Deo uno) and the ' triune God' (de Deo trin:o) which operates in his thought. Indeed, this distinction is evident even in the structural arrangement of the Summa Theologiae itself. This distinction is paralleled and determined by the distinction between divine truths accessible to reason and truths accessible to man exclusively through revelation and faith, i.e., between 'natural' and 'revealed' theology. These two distinctions, furthermore, are paralleled by, and culminate in, a third distinction, namely that between nature and grace. But although there is a definite parallel between these three distinctions, it is only an approximate one and must not be construed as if it were an exact correspondence, i.e., as if the truths 1 la, Q.45, a.6. All quotations from the Summa are from Summa Theologiae, Latin text and English translation, Blackfriars edition, gen. ed. Thomas Gilby, 61 vols. (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1964-81). 2 Ibid. s la, Q.32, a.1. THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS 445 pertaining to the one God were exhaustively co-extensive with the spheres of reason and nature, or those relating to the triune God with faith and grace. The fact that reason and nature do not exhaust the realm of truth concerning the one God the...

The Thomist 68 (2004): 287-314 BEYOND ARISTOTLE ... AND BEYOND NEWTON: THOMAS AQUINAS ON AN INFINITE CREATION1 THOMAS P. BUKOWSKI Falls Church, Virginia WHAT WAS St. Thomas Aquinas's final word on the possibility of an infinite creation? According to him creation as we have it is not infinite. But could it be? Or could any part of it be? That is, if the Creator so willed, could he create an entity or multitude that would be infinite and have its infinity not successively but simultaneously? Thomas's answer may surprise those who are not particularly well versed in the history of medieval philosophy-and some who are. Still, all are likely to be intrigued by his going beyond what would later be Isaac Newton's view ofa three-dimensional world, yet adhering increasingly to the Aristotelian Weltanschauung of a "formful" cosmos. By the end we shall see that, late in his career, 1 Tom Bukowski (1928-2002) was my close friend, going back to student days ca 1954-57 atthe Pontifical Institute ofMediaeval StudiesandUniversity ofToronto Graduate Philosophy program. It was there that he started his studies ofThomas on the eternity of the world, when Ignatius Eschmann, O.P., held a seminar on Thomas's opuscula, and Tom drew the De aetemitate mundi as his assignment. Already at that time, his study ofvocabulary and such led him to judge that that work of Thomas's was not, as had been said, a late work, but rather seemed to have much in common with the Commentary on the Sentences treatment of the topic. He wentoff to teachbefore finishing his doctorate, buteventually completed his studies in Strasbourg, France, where in 1972 he presented a dissertation entitled: "Le probleme de l'eternire du monde auXlllieme siecle parisien." Subsequentlyheworked outside ofacademia, but he kept up his interest in mediaeval studies and published a series of articles close to his original interest, all of which I would recommend to readers of The Thomist (a list is appended at the end of the article). The present article he left unpublished at the time of his death, and thus it does not have his personal imprimatur. I decided, in consultation with his family, to send itto The Thomist.-Lawrence Dewan, O.P., Dominican College ofPhilosophy and Theologi, Ottawa, Canada. 287 288 THOMAS P. BUKOWSKI Thomas does go beyond Aristotle, declaring that an actually infinite creature-that is, a created infinity that would be actual rather than merely potential-is possible in itself; but he concludes that it is impossible in view of the wisdom with which God creates. It would be best for our purposes to regard God's wisdom, however, as not confined to the scope of the divinity itself; that is, we must include consideration of God vis-a-vis creation and of his wisdom as respecting the intellect and wisdom of creatures. According to Thomas a created actual infinity would be thoroughly known and understood by God. Now, it is true that questions of God's knowledge are separate from questions of his wisdom; nevertheless, it seems hard to see how an actual infinity would counter his wisdom: from a modern standpoint, what could be the reason? But his wisdom takes into account-it respects-the intellect and wisdom of angel and man. It is at least under this aspect of consideration for finite wisdom that an actual infinity will, in the last stages of the development of Thomas's thinking on the subject, raise insuperable problems.2 Yet, along the way Thomas works into his teaching, and holds to the end, some conclusions that may be truly remarkable coming from a medieval author. As we pursue our subject, the phrase "actual infinity" will mean some "actually infinite, created entity," if "entity" may extend to a multitude of individuals. On the negative side, we shall exclude from our study (except for rare, incidental references) questions of: divine, that is, uncreated, infinity; potential, rather than actual, infinities of any kind (the spatial extent of our known universe, for example, which is potentially infinite in that it could 2 On the finally insuperable problems see below (e.g., section II.D). Much that we say here...

Silence before God in the Life and Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas Gabriel Mary Fiore C.S.J. Robert Cardinal Sarah's recent The Power of Silence (2017) identifies the interior silence of the human person before God as a dimension of Christian spirituality urgently in need of renewal. Far from the simple absence of sound or refusal to communicate, a special type of silence is discovered as "the language of God," both fruit of his presence in the soul and a stillness in which the believer hears his Word.1 This essay finds solid footing for a spirituality of silence in the life and teachings of a trusted master. Although Saint Thomas never composed a treatise on the subject, I argue that a rich theology of silence can be gathered from his writings and that this spiritual doctrine in turn enlightens the silence that enveloped Aquinas's last days on earth. Interpreting the Final Silence of Saint Thomas It is well established that Thomas Aquinas abruptly broke off his theological work and barely spoke during the four months before his death in March 1274.2 However, the significance of this final chapter in the life of the saint [End Page 1] is still debated today. While some scholars see in Thomas's final silence little more than the collapse of his physical and mental health, others view it as an eloquent testament to his mysticism. Consequently, admirers of the saint are left to wonder whether anything of real value can be learned from this final moment of Aquinas's life. What exactly brought about this silence, according to the available historical witnesses? Already, during the last year of Thomas's life, graces of ecstasy and tears during Compline3 and Holy Mass seem to have become frequent.4 Brother Reginald, the saint's closest friend and faithful secretary, explained to Thomas's sister Theodora that he had "frequently experienced raptures of spirit when immersed in contemplation, but never for so long a time."5 Those close to Thomas described these sorts of "abstractions" as frequent, and they seem to have increased during his last months.6 Still, the final silence of Thomas was no such passing grace or abstraction. On December 6, 1273,7 during the celebration of Holy Mass, something happened to Friar Thomas which impressed him so deeply that, from that day to his death, he spoke very little and ceased all formal teaching and writing.8 Bartholomew of Capua's famous testimony states that, [End Page 2] while Thomas celebrated the Eucharist in the chapel of Saint Nicholas, he "underwent an astonishing transformation," and "after this Mass he never wrote nor dictated anything, and hung up his writing materials while in the middle of the third part of his Summa on the treatise of Penitence."9 Perplexed, Reginald urged his master to continue his theological writing: "Father, how can you abandon a work so important for the glory of God and for the enlightenment of the world?" Thomas answered tersely, "Reginald, I can't do it." Aquinas's final word on the matter, while discreet, casts a mystical light on his decision: "I can't do it. Everything I have written seems but straw to me compared to what I have seen and has been revealed to me."10 This testimony, generally accepted as credible, connects the loss of Aquinas's ability or motivation to pursue theological work with some supernatural experience. Thus, the historical record already provides three arguments in favor of a voluntary and supernatural sense to Thomas's silence. One, the witness of Aquinas's spiritual life: graces of ecstasy were frequent during the last year of his life. Two, Aquinas's health: though clearly fatigued, Thomas was by no means incapable of speech or thought. He communicated with his care givers, composed a short theological treatise upon request, and is said to have uttered a fervent prayer as he received the Viaticum.11 Three, Aquinas's own reported words explain his choice to stop preaching and teaching as motivated by some private revelation. Understandably, this mysterious event has fascinated scholars. I group their various opinions into three main positions. Mystical Admirers of...

Paleae:A Clarifying Look at the Meaning of Saint Thomas's Final Words Samuel Klumpenhouwer In an iconic moment of the medieval Church, the aging Thomas Aquinas looked back upon his life of scholarship after undergoing a mystical experience.1 It was still the morning of a wintry day in 1273, and Thomas had just attended a Mass for the feast of Saint Nicholas. According to Bartholomew of Capua, Thomas was in the midst of composing the third part of his Summa theologiae, on the section dealing with penance. After the Mass, Thomas's secretary, brother Reginald, asked him to continue writing as was their custom. Thomas replied: "Reginald, I cannot—for all that I have written seems to me as straw [paleae]."2 Readers of Thomas have long puzzled over the statement. Brother Reginald was similarly puzzled, and later urged Thomas to continue writing, demanding an explanation. Thomas replied again to his secretary: "All that I have written seems to me as straw [paleae] in comparison to what I saw and what has been revealed to me."3 Generally, paleae is translated as "straw" or "chaff," as distinguished from the kernels of grain. Some scholars argue that paleae should only be translated as "chaff," which refers to the outer husks of grain that were removed during the wind-winnowing process, and which had no practical use.4 Straw, on the other hand, refers to the stalk or stem of the plant, which has many uses. As straw, paleae can also refer by extension to several material products in which straw is used, such as fodder, thatching, and bricks.5 In Latin sources, one will find paleae used in both ways. The [End Page 103] Vulgate, for example, uses paleae to refer to straw and chaff in multiple instances.6 Given the significance of the Thomistic corpus, both now and in the medieval period, it seems odd for Thomas to have described his writings as paleae, whether translated as straw or chaff. Yet that is precisely what the Angelic Doctor did. In order to better understand why that word was chosen, this essay will first provide an overview of how Thomas's paleae have been understood by modern readers. It will then examine other instances of paleae in the Thomistic corpus. Finally, it will detail a largely unknown—although well known to Thomas—use of the word among medieval canonists. Modern readers of Thomas generally fall into two groups in regards to the word paleae: those who think it indicates that Thomas repudiated his writings, and those who do not. Those who consider it a repudiation sometimes present Thomas as having come to the realization that his life's work had been pointless. Perhaps he realized the ultimate invalidity of human knowledge or systematic thinking.7 As such, he would have seen the intellectual edifice that he previously constructed as truly "chaff"—useless, perhaps even the antithesis of a simple Christ.8 The second group are those who do not think that Thomas repudiated his work, but rather came to see it with a higher perspective. They see the paleae as "straw" that is of little value in comparison to God, but which still has many good uses. For Étienne Gilson, the straw of Thomas is what made the bricks to build European civilization.9 Simon Tugwell points to how straw sometimes represented the literal (which is the lowest) sense of Scripture.10 In a different regard, others have pointed out that it was [End Page 104] straw that filled the manger of Jesus.11 In one way or another, these interpretations build on the clarification that Brother Reginald extracted from his fellow Dominican. Thomas had said in his second reply that his work seemed (videtur) as paleae in comparison to what had been revealed to him. As such, to people who have not had such revelations, the paleae of Thomas remains of much value.12 In order to clarify how paleae was understood during the medieval period, it will be helpful to examine the rest of the Thomistic corpus, where I have counted sixty-eight usages of the word.13 These usages come both from Thomas's own...

Reviewed by: Thomas Aquinas: A Historical and Philosophical Profile by Pasquale Porro Brian Davies Thomas Aquinas: A Historical and Philosophical Profile. By Pasquale Porro. Translated by Joseph G. Trabbic and Roger W. Nutt. (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press. 2016. Pp. xiii, 458. $65.00. ISBN 978-0-2805-1.) This book is a translation of Porro's Tommaso d'Aquino: Un Profile storicofilosofico, published in 2012. Porro is well known as an expert on Aquinas, and in the present volume he offers a magisterial contribution to Aquinas scholarship. Anyone with serious interests in Aquinas who lacks fluency in Italian will be grateful to the translators and to the Catholic University of America Press for making the book available in English. It has rightly become common to stress that Aquinas was not a philosopher in the modern sense. He did not formally lecture on philosophy. He was a Dominican friar whose interests were chiefly theological. Yet his writings contain much that contemporary philosophers can recognize as philosophical. And Porro picks up on this fact to great effect. He offers a wonderful account of Aquinas's philosophy. He also has much to say about the biography of Aquinas. Books on the philosophy of Aquinas typically adopt a thematic approach. They expound and comment with an eye on topics or questions addressed by Aquinas. By contrast, Porro turns to his philosophy as it evolved over time. He moves chronologically through Aquinas's writings while also trying to place them in their precise historical contexts. Porro is aware of reasons that might be given for not taking Aquinas to be someone who wrote philosophy. But he explains very well why we can think of Aquinas as sometimes doing just this. In his preface he briefly [End Page 575] notes four reasons for thinking that, theologian though he was, Aquinas was also concerned to engage philosophically with many philosophical problems. In the chapters that follow he goes on to make it abundantly clear why those reasons are good ones. The result is an admirably judicious approach to the question "Was Aquinas a theologian or a philosopher?" When it comes to biographical and related textual matters, Porro is familiar with the most recent findings of the Leonine Commission, to which he frequently draws attention when trying to say how various works of Aquinas can be dated in relation to each other. He does not give us a biography of Aquinas comparable to books such as Jean-Pierre Torrell's Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Person and His Work. (1996). Yet his book exhibits the same high standard of historical scholarship as that displayed by Torrell and scholars similar to him. And Porro's expositions of Aquinas are always solid and defensible. A single volume cannot provide detailed analyses of all philosophically interesting writings that Aquinas produced. So Porro selects some to be noted in detail while passing over others in a cursory way or in silence. But his selection gives readers a good sense of what Aquinas's philosophy amounted to as it evolved. I was especially impressed by his discussion of Aquinas's commentaries on Aristotle. I was also impressed by the way in which he brings out the seriously negative approach to God that Aquinas develops in the wake of his claim that we do not know what God is. Some readers of Aquinas do not seem to realize that he meant what he said when stating that we do not know what God is. Porro explains to such people why Aquinas meant exactly what he said. Porro seems to favor Aquinas's philosophical thinking, but not rigidly so. He occasionally laments some of Aquinas's conclusions. He does not develop his reasons for approving or disapproving of Aquinas's philosophy to the extent that certain contemporary philosophers might wish him to have done. But then, of course, there is only so much that one can do in a book reporting on a huge number of Aquinas's writings while also trying to contribute to the history of philosophy and the history of Aquinas himself. Brian Davies Fordham University Copyright © 2017 The Catholic University of America Press

240 BOOK REVIEWS world of learning should welcome this new and needed edition of Berkeley's writings. It is hoped that the forthcoming volumes will maintain the high standards set in the present work. The Catholic University of America, Washington, D. 0. JoaN K. RYAN. Thomas Heute. Zehn Vortriige zum Aufbau einer neuen existentieUen Ordnungs-Metaphysik nach Thomas von Aquin. (Thomas To-day. Ten Contributions for the Composition of a new existential Metaphysical Order according to Thomas Aquinas.) By AMADEO SILvATARoucA . Vienna: Herder, 1947. Pp. !l1!l. S !lS; sfr. 14. The author presents in ten chapters, which preserve the form of lectures, the essence of Thomistic philosophy. His intention is to show that the views of the Doctor Communis are not only timely and allow for an immediate application to actual problems, but that they constitute the only philosophy which promises to the modern man understanding of himself and of his present situation. The keyword is" order." It is order for which the modern man longs, order which he needs in the midst of the confusion surrounding him, order to rebuild a decent and meaningful life after the destruction which overwhelmed him. In Aquinas the author sees the philosopher of order. The history of the western world and its civilization is the history of the striving for order. The lasting endeavor of the Occident was to unite within one encompassing order nature (that is, society, state, art, civilization ) , and supernature. The Thomistic synthesis appears as the relatively best and the hitherto only philosophy of order. · This order is not merely a formal one; it is what the author calls an existential order. As such it tries to follow the very structure of reality, whereas a formal order, we may add, can be established on the basis of any arbitrarily chosen principle or propeJ;"ty. To obtain the vision of the existential order one has therefore to follow the indications reality supplies. This discovery proceeds by five steps: the experience of being; the principle of efficient causality; the existence of God; the principle of finality or the final cause; the principle of order. St. Thomas was the first to recognize that the demonstration of God's existence is the foundation of all systematic interpretation of reality and so also of every philosophical systematization. As soon as the general validity of the principle of finality is recognized and it has become evident that every being acts for the sake of some metaphysically ultimate end, it follows that all created beings are ordered in regard to one another. Order implies a multitude of ordered members, a uniform, thoroughgoing principle of relations, and a corresponding articulation , arrangement, or pattern, which is the order itself. Order is discovered BOOK REVIEWS 241 as soon as we approach any experience whatever. We are rendered aware of four modes of relations in being; that of the external things to sensory perception; that of sensory data to the process of knowledge; that of the latter process to the formation of universal concepts; that of the single concepts, judgments, and conclusions into the scientifically known object. The existence of a universal and recognizable order can be made intelligible only within a theocentric conception. These general ideas, which can be here only indicated and should be studied in the original work, are then applied in the last five lectures, dealing with the order of the universe, the optimism of order, the natural philosophy of order, the position of man in the center of order, and the order of the love of God. The interpretation of Thomistic philosophy from the angle of a metaphysics of order throws an interesting light on several questions. Thus, the author considers the hylemorphic conception as less basic than is usually the case. " The theocentric doctrine ·of order can . . . be constructed in its whole width and depth and its comprehension of the universe . . . without reference to the notions of matter and form in the sense of·hylemorphism." On the other hand, the notions of potentiality and act are fundamental insofar as they refer to degrees of perfection and are related to one another as being capable of perfection to being perfected. Man is placed between animal...

In the seventeenth century Europe suffered through the Thirty Years War, its bloodiest conflict between the Second Punic War and World War I; yet the first decade of that century was one of the most peaceful in Europe in the early modern era. To be sure, sporadic fighting continued in Hungary between Austria and the Ottoman Empire, and the years 1601–04 saw the bloody siege of Ostend in the ongoing Dutch Revolt, but there was no major new war until 1618. After the brutal wars of the sixteenth century it seemed clear enough that chivalry and the traditional religious theory of the just war had failed to mitigate the belligerence and violence of the European states. Even the Catholic kings, for whom the Council of Trent had enshrined Thomas Aquinas's theological views as the final word, no longer pretended to adhere to the scholastic understanding of just war. Perceptive thinkers began to develop approaches to war that were far less dependent on medieval categories, while paying closer attention to actual practice of the monarchs.KeywordsSeventeenth CenturyUnited ProvinceFormal DeclarationDutch RepublicDiplomatic ImmunityThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

In a discussion-note inMind(July 1958), Father P. M. Farrell, O.P., gave an account, in what he admitted to be an embarrassingly brief compass, of the Thomist doctrine concerning evil. There is one sentence in this discussion which at first glance appears paradoxical. Father Farrell has been arguing that a universe containing ‘corruptible good’ as well as incorruptible is better than one containing ‘incorruptible good’ only. He continues: ‘If, however, they are to manifest this corruptible good, they mustbecorruptible andthey must sometimes corrupt.’ The final words, despite Father Farrell's italics, strike one as expressing, not a self-evident truth, but anon sequitur. The fact that I am capable of committing murder does not entail that I will at some time commit it. It is not immediately obvious that a similar entailment holds in the case of corruption and corruptibility.