Kretzmann’s Theism vs. Aquinas’s Theism: Interpreting the Summa Contra Gentiles

The Thomist 62 (1998): 603-22 KRETZMANN'S THEISM VS. AQUINAS'S THEISM: INTERPRETING THE SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES THOMAS S. HIBBS Boston College Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts ~ CENT WORK on Aquinas's Summa contra Gentiles1 ends simultaneously to put into question the traditional ssessment of it as a missionary work and to elevate its philosophical and theological significance in Aquinas's corpus.2 In his recent book, Metaphysics of Theism: Aquinas's Natural Theology in Summa contra Gentiles I,3 Norman Kretzmann rejects not only the missionary thesis but a broadly apologetic one as well. The problem with the latter is that Aquinas is "not answering objections to the faith"; his approach is not "reactive" (46-47). In this first volume of a projected three-volume study of Summa contra Gentiles I-III, Kretzmann sets out to confront the first book on its own terms and in detail. His project is philosophically ambitious, an attempt to reconstruct and clarify 1 Work on this essay was supported by a grant from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation through the Institute of Medieval Philosophy and Theology at Boston College, directed by Stephen Brown. I am grateful to John O'Callaghan and the anonymous reviewers of this essay for The Thomist for their criticisms of a previous draft of this essay. 2 See R.A. Gauthier, Introduction historique au tome I de /'edition bilingue de la Summa contra Gentiles (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1961), 7-123; idem, "Introduction" to Somme Cantre les Gentiles (Paris: Editions Universitaires, 1993); Mark Jordan, "The Protreptic Structure of the Summa Contra Gentiles," The Thomist 50 (1986): 173-209; Thomas Hibbs, Dialectic and Narrative in Aquinas: An Interpretation ofthe Summa Contra Gentiles (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995). For a summary of the interpretations of the Summa Contra Gentiles, see L'Initiation a Saint Thomas dAquin: Sa personne et son oeuvre, by Jean-Pierre Torrell (Paris: Editions Cerf, 1993). 3 Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. Unless otherwise noted, page references in the text are to this book. 603 604 THOMAS S. HIBBS some of the key arguments in the first book. Indeed, his approach has the advantage of treating the Summa contra Gentiles as having a distinctive aim, not one that is merely a stage in the development of Thomas's theological writings. It thus circumvents one of the chief obstacles to uncovering the intention of the Summa contra Gentiles: the tendency to read it as an imperfect realization of what is later achieved in the Summa Theologiae, as perhaps the penultimate stage in what Michelle Corbin calls the chemin of Thomas's thought.4 The Metaphysics ofTheism offers more than a commentary on ScG I; it also provides an intriguing, if finally unpersuasive, claim about Aquinas's intention and strategy in composing the entire Summa contra Gentiles. To state Kretzmann's thesis with introductory brevity, he holds that the work was intended for atheists, to instruct them in generic "perfect-being theism." As we shall see, the problem with this approach is not just the anachronistic supposition about the audience, which Kretzmann readily concedes did not exist in Thomas's own time. The deeper problem has to do with the imposition of a contemporary conception of perfect-being theism upon Thomas's own distinctive theism in ScG I. Coming to terms with these difficulties will aid us in sharpening our reading of Thomas's work. In order to bring out the strengths and weaknesses of this interpretation, we will take up four issues. First, we will consider Kretzmann's thesis concerning the intention of the work, whose ideal audience, educated atheists, did not exist in Thomas's own time. Second, we will suggest that Kretzmann would have been on surer ground had he followed through on his own comments about the primacy of wisdom in the prologue to the Summa contra Gentiles. Third, we will analyze his conception of the meaning of natural theology in the Summa contra Gentiles and its relationship to revealed theology. Finally, we will examine Kretzmann 's interpretation of the doctrine of the names of God and the significance of his neglect of Aquinas's most important application of that doctrine: God's knowledge of...