Reading John with St. Thomas Aquinas: Theological Exegesis and Speculative Theology ed. by Michael Dauphinais and Matthew Levering (review)

330 BOOK REVIEWS Reading John with St. Thomas Aquinas: Theological Exegesis and Speculative Theology. Edited by MICHAEL DAUPHINAIS and MATIHEW LEVERING. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005. Pp. 416. $79.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-8132-1405-X. This volume, ably edited by Michael Dauphinais and Matthew Levering, aims at "speculative theological reflection upon St. Thomas's" Commentary on John (xiii). It draws its content from the first in a series of conferences sponsored by Ave Maria University's Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal. Subsequent conferences have addressed the themes of "John Paul II and the Renewal of Thomistic Theology" (2003), "Aquinas the Augustinian" (2005), and "Sacraments in Aquinas" (2007). Like the rest of the conferences, ReadingJohn with St. Thomas Aquinas represents an international, interdisciplinary, and ecumenical engagement with the work of the Angelic Doctor. The essays in this volume offer close readings of the Commentary on John on its own and often in dialogue with the Summa Theologiae. Indeed, it is structured along the lines of the great Summa. It begins with the theme of revelation, continues with sections devoted to the triune God, the moral life, and the person and work of Jesus Christ, and concludes with contributions on the Church and the sacraments. The handsome volume includes an extensive bibliography and a helpful index. One of the delights of any conference, but particularly one focused on a theme that attracts wide expertise, is the conversation before, between, and after papers. The contents ofReadingJohn reflect the riches of such conversation since it examines the Commentary intra-Thomistically (i.e., within the context of other works by St. Thomas), and extra-Thomistically (i.e., in dialogue with a wide range of thinkers, ancient and contemporary). Given the constraints of space, I can only highlight a small portion of the book before turning to proposals for further study. Reading John opens with John Boyle's "Authorial Intention and the Divisio textus." Boyle engages Beryl Smalley, the important twentieth-century scholar of medieval exegesis, in conversation to disagree with her. He locates Thomas's importance in the fact that "he is not one of us" and so has something to say to "the modern interpreter of Scripture" (3). Concisely and with humor, he points out Thomas's indifference to a text's single meaning-there could be many-and instead turns his attention to authorial intention, "to what ultimate end did St. John write [a] particular passage" (8). He then spells out the significance of divisio textus, the careful and, for many today, graceless means of textual organization that Thomas used to convey evangelical and so divine intentions for human salvation. Other conversations in the volume include those with Thomas's predecessors. Janet Smith, in "'Come and See"' (cf. John 1:39, 46), notes the "influence of some keyAristotelian principles" on the Commentary "to explain why some who encounter Christ recognize him as divine and why others do not" (211). Stephen Brown, in "The Theological Role of the Fathers in the Aquinas's Super BOOK REVIEWS 331 Evangelium S. Ioannis Lectura," presents PeterAureoli's definition of declarative theology in the fourteenth century: it clarifies and defends the articles of faith. Brown identifies, with the assistance of the Fathers, Thomas's own practice of declarative theology. Reading John also includes conversations with our contemporaries. David Burrell, in "Creation in St. Thomas Aquinas's Super Evangelium S. Joannis Lectura," engages the academy. He does so by "deconstructing" "the unilateral focus onAquinas the philosopher" that separated theology and philosophyin the study of the Angelic Doctor and also separated these university faculties (115). He takes the theme of creation in the Commentary and argues that Thomas bridges the two disciplines with a philosophical theology that treats subjects "theological in character, while the mode of treatment [is] philosophical" (116). Bruce Marshall returns to a question that has vexed him elsewhere. Western accounts of the Trinity seem to suffer "from a pneumatological deficit" that, apparently, do not give "the Holy Spirit anything to do" (62). For Marshall, the Commentary represents something of a cure because of the significant role the Spirit plays within it. It also supplies theological tools for maintaining unity of divine...