Philosophy in the Teaching of Theology by Thomas Aquinas

1 This paper was presented at Marquette University at the 2008 conference on Aquinas and the Arabic Philosophical Tradition, at the invitation of Prof. R. Taylor, whom I thank very much. I also wish to thank the late Fr. L. J. Bataillon as well as Fr. D. Ols, both of whom read this study and whose advice was profitable. In addition I thank Prof. M. Johnson who, in collaboration with Prof. Taylor, translated this text into English, and Fr. B. Davies, who kindly revised this translation. A first French version has been published in Université, Eglise, Culture: L’Université Catholique au Moyen Age, Actes du 4ème Symposium de la “Fédération Internationale des Universités Catholique,” Katholieke Universiteit Leuven 11-14 mai 2005 (Paris, 2007), 233-68. I thank the director of the Fédération for permission to reproduce here part of that text. 397 The Thomist 76 (2012): 397-430 PHILOSOPHY IN THE TEACHING OF THEOLOGY BY THOMAS AQUINAS1 ADRIANO OLIVA, O.P. Leonine Commission Paris, France T HE MORE FULLY we understand the historical context of the life, work, and thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, the more completely we are able to grasp the meaning and value of his philosophical and theological insights as well as the importance of his sources to the formation of his thought. Here I wish first to provide a brief biographical account of Thomas with emphasis on his work as teaching assistant and professor. As we shall see, the young Thomas wrote works of different literary genres early in his career which contain revealing aspects of his thinking on the relation of philosophy and theology. For present purposes I will focus on just two of these: first, his use of philosophical citation (auctoritas) in an instance of theological reasoning; second, the massive use of philosophical authority within his commentary on the Sentences. With respect to the first we shall see Thomas draw upon Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics ADRIANO OLIVA, O.P. 398 2 Cf. F. Scandone, “La vita, la famiglia e la patria di S. Tommaso,” in S. Tommaso d’Aquino O.P. Miscellanea storico-artistica, ed. I. Taurisano (Rome: Società tipografica A. Manuzio, 1924), 46-51. Regarding the year of the birth of Aquinas and the chronology of his life, see A. Oliva, Les débuts de l’enseignement de Thomas d’Aquin et sa conception de la “sacra doctrina.” Avec édition du prologue de son commentaire des Sentences (Paris: Vrin, 2006), 188-202 and 252 n. 173. Since this work does not indicate particular bibliographical references, see J.-P. Torrell, Initiation à saint Thomas d’Aquin. Sa personne et son œuvre (2d ed.; Paris: Editions du Cerf 2002); English trans., Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Person and His Work, trans. Robert Royal (rev. ed.; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005). For the chronology of Aquinas’s works, see R. A. Gauthier, S. Thomae de Aquino, Opera omnia, t. 22/2, Quaestiones de quolibet (Rome: Commissio Leonina; Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1996), 479-500; for the Sentences commentary, see above; the Leonine Commission does not regard “Adoro [te] devote” to be an authentic work of St. Thomas. in explicating Isaiah and Jeremiah; in the second, we shall see how deeply Thomas, with explicit citation, drew upon Aristotle as well as works of the Arabic and Jewish philosophical tradition (including those by Avicenna, Averroës, the author of the Liber de causis, Maimonides, et al.), in addition to Cicero, Boethius, and many other related philosophical sources of the Latin tradition. I will conclude with a consideration of some key texts in which Thomas treats explicitly of the relationship between philosophy and theology. I. THE FIRST INTELLECTUAL FORMATION AND THE UNIVERSITY CAREER OF THOMAS AQUINAS Thomas Aquinas was born around 1225 during the reign of Emperor Frederick II, in a region of the Kingdom of Sicily at the boundary of the Papal States. He grew up in a noble family in the service of the emperor, and his father was the governor of the region, near the military theater where the armies of the emperor and those of the pope battled.2 Raised until the age of five in...