St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle by John P. Rowan

Abstract

452 BOOK REVIEWS meant the formal extrinsic cause, the causa exemplaris, but the intrinsic formal cause. To the present reviewer such a teaching seems very like theological pantheism. But Fr. Rahner is not worried by that; nor is he worried by the very formal and explicit teaching of the Council of Trent that the unique formal cause of justification is created grace (Denz. 799). He explains {or perhaps better, explains away) this explicit teaching of the magisterium by saying that " we must remember that the Council only wishes to meet the imputation theory of the Reformers, Seripando and others, but did not wish to determine how created and uncreated (inner!} grace (of which latter it also says precisely 'signans et ungens Spiritu promissionis Sancto . .') are related to each other and together constitute the single grace of justification" (p. 841-842}. In attributing his theory to St. Thomas (p. 888} Fr. Rahner again displays an amazing facility for reading into the words of the Angelic Doctor a meaning which is not to be found there. Examples of this kind could be multiplied almost without end. Let these three, however, suffice to give some idea of Fr. Rahner's theological method and teaching. They will also suffice to explain why we feel ourselves driven to the conclusion that Fr. Rahner, in the process of making theology " vividly alive," has only succeeded in making it less orthodox. Albertinum, Fribourg Switzerland. C. WILLIAMS, 0. P. St. Thorruu Aquinas, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, Translated by JoHN P. RowAN, II Volumes; Henry Regnery Co. {1961} {$25.00) One who is requested to write a review of a translation, is given not one but two tasks. Obviously he is expected to record his comments on the merits of the translation. But there is another feature of the work about which he should express an opinion. It is this. Does the original merit a translation? It was with concern for the two tasks that .this reviewer approached the translation of St. Thomas, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle by John P. Rowan. Did Professor Rowan expend what must have added up to a very large investment of time, patience and scholarly research on a worthwhile project ? Or was his effort analogous to the groaning mountain that brought forth the mouse? M. Etienne Gilson, whose historical studies in Thomism have earned for him the right to be heard with respect, writes of the phil- BOOK .REVIEWS 458 osophical treatises: " Les Commentaries de S. Thomas sur AriStote sont pour nous des documents precieux, dont Ia perte eut ete deplorable." (Le Thomisme, 1948) . Whether one is in complete agreement with Gilson's description of their (happily contrary to fact) loss as "deplorable," or believes such an occurrence should merit a much stronger term, depends ultimately on his acceptance or rejection of Gilson's central thesis on the character of Thomism. · In a sense though Gilson's " deplorable " situation is· not entirely contrary to fact. In a manner of speaking. the Commentaries of St. Thomas on Aristotle are lost, and this in spite of the fact that copies of the same are to be found in full view: on the library shelves of Universities, Colleges and Seminaries. While physically available to anyone who wishes to take and read, they are not in the same measure intellectually available. Their thought remains remote, inaccessible because it lies beneath a language that is today ' deader ' than it was twenty years ago. But some adventurous souls were not content and translations of some of the Commentaries began to appear. For those, however, whose interest in philosophy brought them to Metaphysics, these translations have served to heighten the sense of loss at the remoteness of St. Thomas' Commentary on· the Metaphysics. Nor was the attempt to assuage the feeling of loss by pointing out the availability of Aristotle's text in the vernacular too successful . The fact is that these translations of Aristotle's text offer the student the thought of Aristotle in a language that is familiar but that thougkt remains difficult to grasp. The metaphysical thought of Aristotle, and to a degree the thought of the entire Corp'UIJ A:ristotelicum, demands a...