Metaphysics after Aquinas

Abstract

t is interesting to note that after the death of St. Thomas his mentor, St. Albert the Great, remarked that his student put up an end to everybody’s labor, not only in their own time, but even right up to the end of time. This was reported to us by a certain Bartholomew of Capua, protonotary from the Kingdom of Sicily, who was a witness of St. Thomas’ canonization process. After the sudden demise of Thomas, Albert, already advanced in age, has assumed the task of defending the integrity of his student as a theologian and philosopher. On his return to Cologne, he wanted that all the works of Thomas read to him in set order, and he concluded his encomia saying that “Brother Thomas had in his writings put an end to everybody’s labors right up to the end of the world, and that from now on all further work would be without purpose.”1 Certainly modern readers would question such an assertion. Now that every ideology and systems of thought are under the suspicious eyes of postmodern thinkers, care must be exercised in proclaiming something as final and definite. No wonder such a statement was rarely uttered even within the ranks of the Dominican Friars. We may very well remember Martin Heidegger’s insinuation that Truth is always an unconcealment and concealment at the same time – Aletheia – which is of course again bound by poiesis – a bringing-forth.2 Imposing boundaries on Truth is certainly an act that violates the very nature and essence of Truth. In the same sense, once we have put an end to metaphysical reasoning by proclaiming a thinker as the repository of learning we are stifling discourse – thus the end of knowledge. Similar to the Platonic domain of the perfect being, Thomistic doctrine would stand determined and immutable for all time, ever aloof and invincible from the changing tides of human intellection. Metaphysics then, together with other Thomistic principles and doctrines, would have its history already completed. It will be a being in the past, and consequently, will have no future. Fr. Owens puts this most emphatically: “The sum total of human intellectual achievement would have been already attained and would remain complete for admiration and respect