Le Retour à saint Thomas, a-t-il encore un sens aujourd’hui? by Fernand van Steenberghen, and: Philosophy in the 20th Century: Catholic and Christian ed. by George F. McLean, O. M. I.

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS 397 At worst, Psychotherapy and Religion is a psychotheological potpourri, and at best it points out new horizons in psychotheological investigation. Director of Psychological Services Dixmont State Hospital Glenfield, Pa. WILLIAM F. KRAFT Le Retour asaint Thomas, a-t-il encore un sens aujourd'hui? By FERNAND VAN S'l'EENBERGHEN. Conference Albert-le-Grand 1967. Montreal: Institut d':Etudes :Medievales, 1967. 61 pp. Philosophy in the 20th Century: Catholic and Christian. Ed. by GEORGE F. McLEAN, 0. M. I. Q vols. New York: Frederick Unga.r Publishing Co., 1968. Vol. I. An Annotated Bibliog.raphy of Philosophy in Catholic Thought 1900-1964, xiv + 371 pp. $9.00. Vol-. II. A Bibliography of Christian Philosophy and Contemporary Issues. viii + 31Q pp. $7.50. Set $15.00. The seventeenth in its series of public lectu.res, this brief though magisterial work of Fe.rnand van Steenberghen raises a question that touches the very life of the Institut d'Etudes Medievales, viz., whether continued studies of medieval thinkers like St. Thomas Aquinas make any sense today? The answer provided by the celebrated canon of Louvain to his crucial question, happily, is affirmative. It cannot help but encourage medievalists to continue their patient researches on Aquinas and his intellectual milieu, assured that their work is bearing fruit both in the Church and in the intellectual world of the late 1960's. To make his point, van Steenberghen uses the simple device of retreating back into history to sketch the crisis that was facing the Church at the beginning of the nineteenth centu.ry. Immediately following the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, with strong and influential currents in philosophy-stirred up by the Encyclopedists in France, by Kantians in Germany, and by Humeans in England-sweeping away the foundations of metaphysics and theology, the intellectual futu.re of Catholicism looked bleak indeed. Those who, at the time, might have wished to write a blueprint for Catholic intellectual life in the nineteenth century could offer a simple plan. What they really needed was a true philosophy, not a disguised theology; they needed a flexible instrument for dialogue with their contemporaries, a living synthesis in harmony with mode.rn science; and they needed a teacher who would be commonly accepted in the Church, 398 BOOK REVIEWS one around whom all segments of a scattering flock could rally. Actually, such a plan never materialized. After several abortive starts, Catholic intellectuals finally centered on this man with his system of thought that lacked all of the desired characteristics. Paradoxically, very little of his philosophy was originally his own, and what could be identified as such derived largely from his Catholic faith; far from being up-to-date and alive, his thought was medieval and scholastic, couched in the dead, sterotyped language of the Schools; and rather than being a common champion, he had always been at the height of controversy, rejected by many both during his lifetime and after his death. Unlikely though Thomism must have appeared as the Catholic answer in the nineteenth century, van Steenberghen argues, the fact is that it provided the intellectual basis for meeting successfully the challenges of rationalism, idealism and empiricism and for opening up dialogue with the new philosophies of the twentieth century. If studied and developed intelligently, he concludes, Thomism is far from dead, and it may well prove to be the Church's most valuable asset in the years ahead. There have been mistakes in the past, of course-and here van Steenberghen elaborates on some of the celebrated controversies between Louvain and Rome, generally holding (in vindication of Louvain) that a liberally progressive Thomism should have been encouraged long ago, in place of the stultifying conservatism that was officially imposed by the Roman Curia. Despite these mistakes, however, he acknowledges latent strengths in Aquinas's teaching that are still to be exploited. Among these he lists its historical value, as solidly anchored in the Church's tradition; its philosophical value, as being able to transcend the details of history and philology and arrive at a type of knowledge that is stable and enduring; and its theological value, as being well adapted for synthesizing new discoveries...