Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas III by John F. Wippel

Abstract

Reviewed by: Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas III by John F. Wippel Cecilia Trifogli Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas III. By John F. Wippel. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2021. Pp. 317. $65.00 (hard). ISBN: 978-0-8132-3555-0. This volume is the third collection of essays on Aquinas’s metaphysical thought by John Wippel, an eminent scholar of Aquinas. It consists of nine substantial essays, which Wippel completed after the publication of his monumental work, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas (2000), and which were originally published as journal articles or book chapters. In a forty-page Introduction, Wippel offers a detailed outline of each of the essays, which provides a helpful guide to their reading. The essays cover topics central to Aquinas’s metaphysical thought: the subject of metaphysics (chap. 1), the preambles of faith (chaps. 2 and 5), the distinction of essence and esse (chap. 3), the Fourth Way (chap. 4), the unity of substantial form (chap. 6), the cognitive status of the separated soul (chap. 7), the metaphysics of evil (chap. 8), and the composition of angels (chap. 9). In the essay on the subject of metaphysics Wippel first draws an important distinction between a prephilosophical notion of being and the metaphysical notion of being as being, that is, being as the subject of the metaphysics. He points out that, according to Aquinas, there is a corresponding distinction between the intellectual processes by which we discover these two notions. Wippel then devotes special attention to the most difficult side of this distinction: the discovery of the metaphysical notion of being. He argues that the negative judgement Aquinas refers to as separatio and contrasts with abstractio is the relevant cognitive process. Wippel is well aware that his interpretation is not universally accepted, and he takes into account alternative views on this controversial topic. He offers a convincing defense of his interpretation by providing an accurate assessment of the textual evidence in support of it. The general issue addressed in the two essays about the preambles of faith is that of the harmony between faith and philosophy or reason. Wippel’s crucial concern in the first essay is to reach an accurate understanding of what Aquinas means by a preamble of faith. According to Wippel’s careful reconstruction of Aquinas’s scattered remarks on this topic, a preamble of faith is a truth about [End Page 343] God that can be discovered by natural reason and is logically presupposed by articles of faith. In other words, preambles of faith provide the rational foundation that Aquinas thinks is required for faith. Wippel also points out that, while Aquinas’s standard examples of preambles of faith are the claims that God exists and that he is one, there is textual evidence for the inclusion of eleven other theological truths in this category. In the second essay on this topic Wippel investigates Aquinas’s view about the preambles of faith as applied to the specific case of creation. The question addressed here is, which parts of Aquinas’s account of creation are preambles of faith and which are articles of faith? This is indeed a question of crucial importance. Wippel points out that in order to answer this question we need to be clear about what Aquinas means by creation. Aquinas’s discussion of creation ex nihilo indicates that he distinguishes two meanings of creation. According to both meanings, creation is a production of something from no preexisting subject and involves the priority of nonexistence to existence. The difference between the two meanings is in the notion of priority involved: according to the first meaning, the priority is in order of nature, not necessarily in the order of time, whereas according to the second meaning, the priority is in the order of time. The distinction is approximately that between the possibility of eternal creation and temporal creation. Aquinas maintains that creation in the first sense can be proved philosophically, and it is indeed a preamble of faith. And the article of faith of which it constitutes the immediate rational foundation is temporal creation, which cannot be proved philosophically. Wippel then turns to the...