- The Person as Cosmic Mediator:The Philosophical Vision of W. Norris Clarke, SJ
In 2003, I invited W. Norris Clarke, SJ, to speak at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. I had met him a few years earlier at a conference, and we began philosophical conversations that prompted me to visit him at Fordham University. Clarke agreed to come to Wisconsin to give a lecture on the origin of the human soul. Our largely secular campus had rarely hosted a Jesuit, and people were unused to seeing a priest speak about philosophy. More than two hundred people arrived at the lecture eager to see what would happen. They were amazed when a small, but energetic, eighty-seven-year-old man stood up and rigorously argued for the divine origin of the soul. Clarke confidently took questions from skeptics in the audience. After the lecture, he continued the discussion with philosophy students in a session lasting more than two hours. The day was a remarkable display of philosophical sophistication and intellectual energy.
In such performances, Clarke embodied openness to dialogue. Strongly rejecting some contemporary philosophical currents, he nevertheless sought what was true in them. He respected the dignity of his interlocutors, convinced that they were on unique spiritual journeys. The essays we feature in this volume testify to Clarke’s remarkable presence. In this introduction, I first outline general elements of his thought for readers unfamiliar with it. Second, I discuss Clarke’s conception of the person as a frontier being and microcosm uniting the physical and spiritual worlds. Explicating the spiritual powers of the person, he depicts the person as an instantiation of metaphysical principles. Third, I focus on an important later development in Clarke’s work on the person. Inspired by experience with story-telling, he developed a powerful account of the creative imagination. It holds importance for both the philosophy of mind and ethical discussions of human dignity. Fourth, I briefly describe Clarke’s approach to analogical language. Moving away from formal approaches to analogy, he considers instead how we apply activity terms to God. Finally, I introduce the essays in this issue. [End Page 3]
Clarke and Thomistic Metaphysics: A Brief Overview
Twentieth century Thomists confronted philosophical challenges from many quarters. Philosophers often ignored medieval philosophy, considering it a product of an age of unreason and darkness. When they considered Thomism, logical positivists, pragmatists, existentialists, and others rejected its central elements. They moved away from metaphysics, focusing instead on language, experience, and logic. In response, some Thomists turned their back on modern philosophy, rejecting it wholesale as one grand error. They advocated a return to foundational claims of medieval philosophy. Others developed hybrids of Thomistic and modern thought that made a mishmash out of both. A third group of thinkers embraced a more judicious approach. They held that Thomists should selectively embrace modern philosophy. Those adopting this strategy include Edith Stein, John Paul II, Lublin Thomists, and Cornelio Fabro. Today, some Thomists criticize these thinkers for compromising Thomistic thought. In particular, they target phenomenology, condemning it for its alleged idealism. Phenomenologists have returned the favor, arguing that they have no need for Thomistic metaphysics. In these debates, Thomists employing modern philosophy often find themselves in a philosophical minefield.
Clarke masterfully navigated such philosophical complexities. His skill owed much to his early encounters with European thinkers. Attending seminary on the island of Jersey in the late 1930s, he studied European personalism and Thomism. For example, he read works of Joseph Maréchal and Maurice Blondel. When later doing doctoral work on perfection, Clarke studied with Fernand van Steenberghen and Louis de Raeymaker. He also read the work of thinkers like Cornelio Fabro, Joseph de Finance and André Hayen. They informed much of Clarke’s teaching and writing, enabling him to move beyond limited approaches to Aquinas.
One such impoverished view saw Aquinas exclusively as an Aristotelian thinker. It is hard to believe today, but some twentieth century Thomists never discussed Platonic themes in Aquinas. They also rarely explored his Biblical commentaries. Drawing on thinkers like Fabro and de Finance, Clarke developed metaphysical participation as a central element of Thomistic metaphysics. Linking it to an existential...