A Response

A RESPONSE It is relevant to recall that Donald J. Keefe (=DK) is the author of Thomism and the Ontological Theology of Paul Tillich (Leiden, NL, 1971), which contains a chapter entitled "Thomism-A 'Questioning Theology'" (pp. 43-184). In this he puts forward an interpretation of Thomism that appears to be influenced by the transcendental method of the Marechal school and by a Barthian-type theology of the Word but is primarily the fruit of his personal speculation. The starting -point of an ontology of the subject is taken by DK to be striotly theological: the believer's act of faith in Christ. The "substantial actuality of humanity" is quite literally to be achieved in this act of faith. The act is to be understood as a participation in the truth who is Christ (the act's formal object ) and as the self-knowledge of the believer as he participates in, and is actualized by, the revelation (the act's material object). In this very specific sense "men are created in and by the Incarnate Word". "Thomism," states DK, "cannot separate the affirmation of contingent participation in substantial truth [by the act of faith] from the [ontological] affirmation of contingent participation in substantial existence, for the two identify" (pp. 60, 62) . Reality (so I interpret) is not simply thought; it is, directly or indirectly, participation in Christ by faith. Thus: The Incarnation, the creation of the man Christ, is the creation of humanity, whose contingent, existential act of intellectus is the actuality of the cosmos [...]. The formal cause of this intellectus is the created actuation of Christ's human nature, His intrinsic essence-Esse correlation. In no other way can the existential contingency of man and the created universe be understood by Thomism (p. 88) . DK is aware that other Thomists have not discovered this doctrine in the text of Aquinas. The fact seems to be that St. Thomas himself gave a false lead with his "decision to place the agent intellect in the individual, for then the individual is 284 A RESPONSE ~85 complete in the order of intellectus, and thus in the order of substantial actuality " (p. 85) . When, going further, Thomists abstract from the hypothesis of faith in Christ they abstract from esse. They attempt to set up an autonomous philosophy; but it is condemned to be one that views the contingent existent as positively intelligible and thus as " a. necessary conclusion of logic". An essentialist deduction of a "natural" Creator, who creates by necessity, ensues (p. 57) . When this understanding is imported into theology the supernatural becomes simply " an accidental perfection of the natural substance " and so is reduced to the natural. Philosophy now decides what revelation must be. The natural virtues are seen as already doing most of the work of the theological virtues, faith and charity; the latter are to be used only occasionally " so that they ma.y be relied upon at the crucial hour of death " (pp. 58-59) . This is too rapid an allusion to what I think is the main thrust of DK's highly personal and subtle views on what constitutes Thomism, authentic and inauthentic. His review makes it clear that my Sacramental Realism does not fall within the former category. I agree with his judgment; his account of Thomism had no .influence on my essay. Nor could any amount of work on my part bring me to try to repair this omission. On the other hand, I should be unhappy if this meant that I was to be classed with DK's false Thomists. I can only plead that my understanding of the metaphysics of St. Thomas derives from the interpretation of what he meant by esae given, over the past fifty years or so, by realist philosophers (E. Gilson, C. Fabro, J. Owens and many others; a review of the authors in: A. McNicholl, THE THOMIST 88 [1974], 768-8~5; 48 [1979] 507-580). Oddly enough, I sympathize with DK's desire to restore the theological context of St. Thomas's thinking. Still, this was a. theologian who was held in high esteem by his contemporaries in the faculty of arts at Paris because of...