“THOMISM” AS AN ATTITUDE
In considering the teaching of St. Thomas, we should not understand it merely as the material substance of an explicitly formulated set of doctrines. Much too rarely does one remember that the substance of content has its origin in a very special attitude of St. Thomas, human as well as intellectual, not only in the sense that this attitude colors the work with its particular emphasis, but also in the sense that without this special human attitude, what has been written might never have been written at all.
Should we therefore not consider this attitude, this temper of mind—though Thomas himself never expressly formulated it—as part and parcel of the spirit of the of the Universal Doctor of Christendom—the bold intrepidity which impelled and enabled the young mendicant friar at the University of Paris to “re-cognize” the truth of the Aristotelian world view, to re-integrate it as an essential part into the intellectual heritage of the Christian West, undaunted by the opposition of the defenders of traditional doctrine. And should we not see in the personal “style” of this bold recognition of truth and reality likewise an element of “timeliness,” in the sense of an exemplary attitude?
A Thomism which limits itself to the consideration of the material substance of the explicitly said necessarily proves itself inadequate in a time which confronts man with wholly new problems and brings him into contact with realities previously barely glimpsed. In times such as these it is imperative to call to mind the qualities which made Thomas what he was: the all-inclusive, fearless strength of his affirmation, his generous acceptance of the whole of reality, the trustful magnanimity of his thought. And we find occasion, also, to remember: The formal and theoretical justification for this attitude is found precisely in Thomas’s doctrine of the infinitely many-sided truth of things. Truth cannot be exhausted by any (human) knowledge; it remains therefore always open to new formulation.
On the other hand, what we call here the “Thomist attitude” would have to include, in order to remain true to its master, the resolution not to relinquish a single particle of the heritage of truth; for it is the hallmark of the “modernity” of Albert and Thomas that both refused to disrupt and abandon, for the sake of new ideas, the realm of tradition; they relinquished neither the Bible nor Augustine (nor, consequently, Plato) for the sake of Aristotle.
The new territory which awaits conquest today—or, more exactly, which is conquered already but not yet appropriated and put to use by philosophical speculation—is of virtually immeasurable scope. Some of its provinces may be singled out, however. Firstly, there are the new realms opened up by physics and biology. Secondly, the new dimension of the psyche brought into view by the findings of depth psychology. Thirdly, the wisdom of the East, ready for and apparently in want of absorption into the intellectual structure of Christian philosophical interpretation and the Christian way of life—or it may also be that it is we who need enrichment through this wisdom, in a quite particular manner.
In this whole context, Thomas Aquinas might attain to a new timeliness, both affirmative and corrective.