Apophaticism in Thomas Aquinas: A re-reformulation and recommendation

Scottish Journal of Theology

Volumn 60, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 377-393

  Hector, Kevin ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 61449262064     PISSN: 00369306     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0036930607003705     Document Type: Review

References (27)

1. For examples of this approach, see Gordon Kaufman, An Essay on Theological Method, 3rd edn (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1995)
2. and In Face of Mystery: A Constructive Theology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993)
3. Rebecca Chopp, The Power to Speak: Feminism, Language, God (New York: Crossroad, 1991)
4. and Sallie McFague, Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982)
5. and Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987)
6. A. J. Ayer's Language, Truth, and Logic, 2nd edn (New York: Dover Books, 1946)
7. and Preller's Divine Science and the Science of God: A Reformulation of Thomas Aquinas (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967) - of which more anon
8. Not that there's anything wrong with Whig history, of course. Robert Brandom makes a good case that the ability to tell such histories is a critical element of rationality; see his Tales of the Mighty Dead: Historical Essays in the Metaphysics of Intentionality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), pp. 13-17, 107-18
9. In addition to Preller see, for instance, David Burrell, Aquinas: God and Action (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979)
10. Knowing the Unknowable God: Ibn-Sina, Maimonides, Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986)
11. Victor White, God the Unknown (New York: Harper, 1956)
12. Etienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St Thomas Aquinas, trans. L. K. Shook (New York: Random House, 1956)
13. Kaufman, In the Beginning ... Creativity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004), pp. 22-3
14. McFague, Metaphorical Theology, pp. 124ff.
15. Brian Davies, 'Aquinas on What God is Not', in Brian Davies (ed.), Thomas Aquinas: Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 227-42
16. John Hick, An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent, 2nd edn (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989, 2004)
17. Not everyone reads Thomas's apophaticism as a rule, however; see, for example, Gregory P. Rocca's superb study, Speaking the Incomprehensible God: Thomas Aquinas on the Interplay of Positive and Negative Theology (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2004)
18. in addition, Jacques Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, trans. G. B. Phelan (New York: Scribner, 1959)
19. Jean-Pierre Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 2, Spiritual Master, trans. Robert Royal (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2003). Each of these studies sees apophaticism as an element in Thomas's theology, rather than a rule - but none advances an argument similar to the one offered here
20. Not surprisingly, Preller's book is presently in vogue too. See, for instance, the critical discussion in Jeffrey Stout and Robert MacSwain (eds), Grammar and Grace: Reformulations of Aquinas and Wittgenstein (London: SCM Press, 2004)
21. Preller, Divine Science and the Science of God, p. 5
22. Eugene Rogers similarly denies that Thomas was engaged in natural theology; see his Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth: Sacred Doctrine and the Natural Knowledge of God (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995 - a book dedicated, by the way, to Victor Preller). There is a sense in which I agree with this denial, insofar as 'natural theology' refers to the adoption of a second starting-point for theology, alongside revelation. As I see it, Thomas is engaged in faith seeking understanding, not apologetics, and in this sense I agree that he is not engaged in (what Karl Barth understood as) 'natural theology'. For present purposes, we need simply note that we can reject one trend - the 'Apophatic Thomas' trend - without rejecting the other - the 'Thomas isn't a Natural Theologian' trend. While Preller uses the former to establish the latter, the latter can be established on other grounds
23. It is not difficult to see why Preller reads Thomas as a sort of 'proto-Kantian' - or, what is nearly the same thing, a proto-Sellarsian. I agree, in fact, with Preller's reading of Thomas's epistemology - my disagreement lies in the conclusions that Preller draws from this reading. It is worth noting that I am also agreeing with Preller's implicit rejection of experience as 'Given' (in Sellars's sense) - and agreeing that Thomas can legitimately be brought to bear on this rejection. For Sellars on 'The Myth of the Given', see Wilfrid Sellars, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1956, 1997). I am, again, disagreeing only with Preller's insistence that this entails an 'Apophatic Rule'
24. The literature is vast. For useful surveys, see Fergus Kerr's 'Ways of Reading the Five Ways' in After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism (London: Blackwell Publishing, 2002)
25. and John F. Wippel, 'The Five Ways', Thomas Aquinas: Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 159-225. Three popular interpretations emerge in the literature: those who think that Thomas is trying to 'prove' God's existence and that he succeeds in doing so, those who think that Thomas is trying to 'prove' God's existence and fails to do so, and those who think that Thomas is not trying to 'prove' God's existence. I suppose my interpretation fits into the third category, though I differ from my category-mates in claiming that Thomas uses the Five Ways to get a concept of 'God' up and running. Again, the point of such 'proofs' is that we can use them to define a concept without knowing the essence of that which we are defining
26. It is worth noting that Karl Barth's approach to these matters is almost identical to Thomas's; see, for instance, Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. II, The Doctrine of God, part 1
27. Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology (Boston: Beacon Press, 1983), p. 19