Christ and Spirituality in St. Thomas Aquinas

5. Christ in the “Spirituality”of St. Thomas

74 5 Christ in the “Spirituality” of St.Thomas The simple title of this chapter assumes one can speak of a spirituality in St. Thomas. I do not mean by this, of course, that Thomas wrote various spiritual works, but I would assert that one can find an incontrovertible spiritual aspect to his theology. I have in fact already treated in detail the principal points of such a claim in my article in the Dictionnaire de Spiritualité,1 and am in the process now of completing a book that treats of this topic, albeit in significantly expanded form.2 So rather than reexamine what I have already discussed extensively, I shall take it as accepted fact and simply attempt to focus on the place of Christ in Thomas’s vision of faith and the Christian life. In my mind, four principal themes stand out as attesting to the absolutely primary role that Christ plays in the spiritual theology of Thomas Aquinas. The first two enter into the makeup of his theology and belong to the very structure of his thought; a failure to rec1 . Torrell, “Thomas d’Aquin (Saint),” Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, vol. 15 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1991), col. 718–73; cf. especially 749–73. 2. Editor’s note: this book has since been published as Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 2, Spiritual Master. This book complements the author’s biographical Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, The Person and His Work. Christ in the “Spirituality” of St.Thomas 75 ognize them would thus only end up disfiguring his doctrine. The other two arise from his moral theology as such—that is, from the way in which he views and explains human actions striving to attain Christian beatitude. While these last two themes usher us into the practical finality of theology, they remain in perfect continuity with the structural options established by the first two themes. The Way That Leads to God We gain an immediate sense of Christ’s place in Thomas’s theology simply by recalling the structural design of the Summa Theologiae. Although I do not wish here to enter into a consideration of the numerous theories formulated by various scholars on this subject,3 we need to recall that Thomas, in proposing a clear and densely packed teaching, offers unmistakable clues as to the importance he ascribes to Christ in the strategic places of this work: “According to His humanity , Christ is the way that leads us to God.”4 Succinct yet potent, this affirmation of the general Prologue is considerably developed at the beginning of the Third Part: Since our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ, “in saving His people from their sins” (Mt 1:21)...showed us in His own Person the way of truth, whereby we may attain the beatitude of eternal life by rising again, it is necessary that, in order to complete the work of theology, after considering both the final end of human life and the virtues as well as the vices, there should follow our consideration of the Savior of all and of the benefits bestowed by Him on the human race. In this one sentence Thomas alludes not only to the principal characteristics of the journey already traveled, but also and especially to the remainder of the journey yet to be accomplished, and 3. See the brief overview of this topic in my Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, The Person and His Work, 148–56. 4. ST Ia, q. 2, Prologue; emphasis mine (all italicized citations of St. Thomas and scripture appearing hereafter are mine). Biblical citations are from the Revised Standard Version (RSV). 76 Christ in the “Spirituality” of St.Thomas he does it with the very words of Jesus himself in the Fourth Gospel (Jn 14:6): “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Here as elsewhere, it is striking to notice how the Dominican master places himself at the humble service of scripture and how he inserts the biblical passage into his own phraseology by accomplishing in one sentence the not-so-easy feat of bringing together the “negative” aspect of Christ’s work, deliverance from sin, with the “positive” aspect of his work, the return to the Father, which is the way that Christ incarnates in his person: “no one comes to the Father, but by me.” This allows us better to understand why St. Thomas chooses to speak of the completion of...