The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being by John F. Wippel (review)

BOOK REVIEWS The Metaphysical Thought ofThomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being. By JOHNF. WIPPEL. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2000. Pp. xxvii + 630. $59.95 (cloth), $39.95 (paper). ISBN 0-8132-0982-X (cloth), 0-8132-0983-8 (paper). John Wippel, Professor of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America, has presented us here with the richest fruits of his long and distinguished career as a scholarly interpreter of the philosophical thought of St. Thomas. In some 600 pages oftext (plus 17 pages of bibliography) he has reconstructed for us the basic themes of the metaphysical thought of Aquinas in their strictly philosophical content and order of exposition, tracing the development of each theme through all the relevant texts in their historical order. Although much has certainly been written about the individual themes of Thomas's metaphysics, nowhere that I know of have all the basic topics been collected together in one place, with their interconnections, and each one laid out in its historical development through all the relevant texts of Thomas. This is a unique resource book for Thomistic scholars interested in exactly what Thomas's own thought on these topics was, not what was reconstructed by later disciples and interpreters. Contrary to Gilson, who in his later period believed it was impossible either to understand properly or to teach Thomas's philosophy outside of the theological context in which he developed it, Wippel is convinced that the philosophical arguments, even when used within theological expositions, are philosophically self-contained, and that, in the light also of the commentaries on Aristotle, Thomas has given clear enough indications as to the appropriate philosophical method for developing these topics. I think Wippel is quite right. It is worth adding that any literal following of Gilson on this point would result in rendering inaccessible the richness of Thomistic philosophy to any but theological students and Catholic ones at that-an entirelyunacceptable practical consequence, as the practice of the majority of contemporary teachers of Thomism has made clear. The contents of the book (condensed) and their ordering are as follows: Introduction: 1. The Nature of Metaphysics 2. The Subject of Metaphysics Part I: The Problem ofthe One and the Many in the Order ofBeing: 149 150 BOOK REVIEWS 1. Parmenides and the Analogy of Being 2. Participation 3. The Essence-Esse Composition Part II: The Essential Structure ofFinite Being: 1. Substance- Accident Composition 2. Prime Matter and Substantial Form (change is included in these two) Part III: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being: 1. Introduction (Anselm, etc.) 2. Arguments in Earlier Writings 3. The Five Ways 4. Quidditative Knowledge of God and Analogical Knowledge 5. Concluding Remarks One of the special merits of the book is that Wippel gives us not only his own exposition-and interpretation, where controverted-ofThomas's texts, but also his own judgment on the significant controversies over them now going on among contemporary Thomists, always in his own characteristic courteous, objective, and carefully balanced style. Thus in the Introduction he shows that the subject matter of metaphysics for Thomas is ens commune, or the whole community of finite beings as available to our natural knowledge. God is not included directly in this subject matter, since he is knowable to us not directly but only through his finite effects; he enters in, however, as the ultimate cause of the whole order of finite beings, and therefore is the capstone of our human metaphysics itself. Wippel takes his stand in the often hotly debated controversy as to whether the existence of God as immaterial must first be proved in the philosophy of nature (as the Aristotelian Prime Mover) before we can begin metaphysics, as has been held by one tradition of very Aristotelian-inspired Dominicans. He shows that despite the fact that Thomas often speaks this way in Aristotelian contexts, his own exposition of the nature and structure of metaphysics goes beyond the somewhat ambivalent position ofAristotle to show how metaphysics has its own autonomous structure, and concludes by demonstrating the existence of God from his finite effects within the structure of metaphysics iself. This is an important conclusion for the authentic understanding...