John Paul II and St. Thomas Aquinas ed. by Michael Dauphinais and Matthew Levering (review)

504 BOOK REVIEWS experience," it is not, I think, this modest (yet crucial) task letter-writers generally have in mind. I have singled out four neuralgic points. My selectiveness should not be misinterpreted as lack of enthusiasm for the project of this book as a whole, or want of admiration for the competence with which its project has been brought to completion. Many essays are of value simply by being sober and workmanlike (e.g., Francis Martin on revelation and its transmission in Dei verbum, or Matthew Levering on the closing chapters of Gaudium et spes). What I have been terming the "shock criterion" is inadequate to portray the riches of this collection. But is the best reason why this book is needed. Fortunately, owing to the distinction of the publishing house which produced it (wisely, the editors eschewed the more obvious choice of conservative Catholic publishers), it is likely to be widely read by those who would profit from hearing its message. AIDAN NICHOLS, 0.P. Blackfriars Cambridge, England John Paul II and St. Thomas Aquinas. Edited by MICHAEL DAUPHINAIS and MATTHEW LEVERING. Naples, Fla.: Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University, 2006. Pp. 259. $29.95 (paper). ISBN 978-1-932589-28-3. There have been many studies of John Paul's thought and certainly even more of Thomas Aquinas. But those that compare them one to another are few and far between. This collection fills an important lacunae in this regard. Many of the essays are well done and generate some significant insights. In their introduction, the editors point to what Aidan Nichols has described as "a new Thomistic renaissance" that has begun to emerge within (and in part to be shaped by) the pontificate of John Paul II. This renaissance was a correction of the neo-Scholastic theology that flourished prior to the Second Vatican Council, which neglected biblical and patristic sources in favor of an arid rationalism. John Paul II, particularly in Crossing the Threshold ofHope and in his encyclicals Veritatis splendor and Fides et ratio, appropriated Aquinas as a contemplative spiritual theologian whose thought was profoundly immersed in biblical and patristic sources, even while articulating with great clarity the metaphysical basis of the relationship between creatures and God as both Creator and Redeemer. The first of these essays is the one which is perhaps the most out of place. It is not really a scholarly essay like the book's other chapters. It is rather a homily given at the Dominican Priory of Ibadan, Nigeria on 6 April 2005 by Anthony Akinwale, O.P., in a Mass offered for the repose of the soul of the late pope.. It BOOK REVIEWS 505 does, nonetheless, offer a brief biographical overview of the life of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and some of the events and influences that formed him. The collection immediately takes on a more substantive tone with an essay by Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., which deals with the late pope and the renewal of Thomism, reprising a theme sounded by the editors in the volume's introduction. Unlike the editors, however, Cardinal Dulles declares himself to be interested in whether the late pope was a Thomist and more specifically a Thomist of what stripe in light of the classifications of species of students of Aquinas offered by Gerald McCool and others. Surveying Wojtyla's intellectual development through the prism of biography (student, professor, pastor), the cardinal concludes that John Paul II was a metaphysical realist (as are Thomists of any kind), existentialist as opposed to essentialist (like Gilson), and personalist (integrating modern attention to human experience with the metaphysical bedrock of the dignity of the person). Based on this assessment Dulles offers guidance to students ofAquinas who want to emulate Wojtyla/John Paul II: they must be metaphysically grounded, focused on the primacy of the act of existence and the dignity of persons, yet conversant with contemporary philosophies, ideologies, and science. Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt's essay then turns the focus ofthe collection from questions of method to those of Christology and soteriology, offering an interesting comparison between Aquinas, Scotus, andJohn Paul II. Bauerschmidt sees contemporary Catholic thought as tilting toward Scotus's view...