In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

480 BOOK REVIEWS Accordingly, it is useful in understanding this commentary to distinguish a properly metaphysical creationist discourse from both a theological one and a doctrinal one. When the formulation that God is Qui est and the maker of all that exists is expounded scientifically in theology as meaning that God is in everything that exists according to his essence, presence, and power, the religious doctrine undergoes an important translation into philosophical terms that are analogically inflected by theology for its own purposes. On the other hand, when Aquinas in his commentary on Propositio IV of the De causis argues that the 'being' affirmed by the author to be the first and simplest of created things is not a Dionysian esse participatum communiter in omnibus existentibus, nor a Platonic esse separatum, but rather an immanent esse participatum in primo gradu entis creati, he is dealing with philosophical formulations that stand or fall on their philosophical merits. In a word, when a theologian does philosophy, it is still philosophy. In his commentary on the De causis Aquinas is performing the offices, ncit of a preacher of the faith, nor of a master oftheology, but of a philosophical commentator, albeit always with the overarching concern to show the convergences and consonance among these different modes of knowing and speaking the same truth. At any rate, the Commentary on the Book ofCauses, read with the grain of salt c~lled for by the traducements in any translation of another's words or thought, offers the English reader the benefit of a synoptic view of Aquinas's most mature metaphysics and hermeneutics. JOHN TOMARCHIO Boston University Boston, Massachusetts Aquinas and Empowerment: Classical Ethicsfor Ordinary Lives. Edited by G. SIMON HARAK, S.J. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1996. Pp. 240. $60.00 (cloth), $23.95 (paper). ISBN 0-87840-60'\-2 (cloth), 0-87840-614-X (paper). This collection of essays by five relatively young moral theologians is constructed around a capital idea: let us see how Aquinas might speak to moral matters much discussed in our time, matters such as child abuse, friendship, or the liberation of oppressed peoples. All the contributors argue that Thomas does indeed have something to say that surpasses in precision, truthfulness, and theological insight what one hears otherwise in modern parlance. By and large their arguments are well crafted and compelling. The book accomplishes BOOK REVIEWS 481 what is undoubtedly its most important task, namely, it demonstrates that Aquinas's work represents a key resource, perhaps still the very best one, for considering modem ethical questions. Yet this last statement should not be taken to imply that Aquinas's insights can be appropriated into modem morality without disturbance; Thomas cannot be mingled in as one more voice in the cacophony of the contemporary discussion. To its great credit, the book resists the temptation to "apply" Aquinas to the top ten moral dilemmas of our time. As one of the contributors, Paul Wadell, points out, Aquinas's vision of the moral life is generally foreign to modernity. Hence, whatever modem moral concern we bring Thomas's thought to bear upon, we must expect a significant change in the way that concern is described, ordered, and understood. There is some variation from essay to essay in how deeply this point is taken to heart. The book's first three essays are similar in structure: each has two parts, one in which Aquinas's ideas and texts are systematically discussed and another in which they are brought to bear on a contemporary concern . In the first essay, "Getting Egypt out of the People: Aquinas's Contributions to Liberation," Judith Kay begins by discussing Aquinas on habits, virtues, and vices. It is of benefit to the collection that Kay's relatively thin but broad discussion of Aquinas's ethics appears first. Readers cannot be entirely new to Aquinas's ethics and find their way in this book, but those for whom it lies shadowed in dim memory will find Kay's discussion a help in recalling its basic structure and an apt preparation for the treatments of more specific components of Aquinas's ethics in subsequent chapters. Kay remarks on the...

pdf

Share