La Synthèse Thomiste by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 385 La Synthese Thom.iste. By REGINALD GARRIGOU-LAGRANGE. Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1947. Pp. 739. This book is the synthesis of a synthesis. What stamped the genius of Aquinas more than any other intellectual seal was his power to pierce to the very ultimates in the soil of experience, finding there l'Oots that could account for the whole of reality from the trunk to the tiniest oi twigs. It is no over-statement to say that a thinker, philosopher and theologian alike, is not a Thomistic realist until he begins to cultivate a similar piercing, simplifying, and synthetic spirit. To be a Thomist means, in some measure or other, to be another Thomas. Father Garrigou-Lagrange is eminently qualified to write a sum.ma of St. Thomas' own thought. He is entitled to first rank among living theologians by his success as a teacher and writer, his simplicity of style, his frank facing of contemporary issues in the spirit of his master, and his fidelity to Thomas because he can rediscover him through his own thought. Even his opponents in the Thomistic school, for example Marin-Sola and Charlier, would have to acknowledge his excellence in general, with respect to the great challenge of making Thomism available to the twentieth century. If this book is opened in the spirit of docilitas which the author's past expressions would encourage, such a spirit is richly rewarded by the vast sweep of scholarship, explanation, proof, and sublimity which the long tract includes. The major portion of the work is taken from the article on Thomism which the author contributed to the Dictionnaire de Theologie catholique. This material is supplemented by a largely philosophical epilogue on the realistic and contemporary character of St. Thomas' thought. There are several pages of bibliography, according to the various divisions of the work. Unfortunately there is no index either of topics or of names. Considering the reference character which this work may well boast for itself, the lack of indexing is especially notable. To some extent, the loss is compensated by the copious subdivisions of the work, all of which are listed in the table of contents. If this book is translated into English, and it is hoped that this work can be quickly undertaken for both the classroom and more general purposes which the book can serve in this country, perhaps this highly desirable indexing of the work will be done. After a discussion of the work of St. Thomas and a cursory evaluation of his· classic commentators, Father Garrigou-Lagrange naturally begins his more formal discussion of theology by a concise statement of the metaphysics which is its handmaid. This chapter is important not only for its contents but for its emphasis on philosophy as the ancilla theologiae at a time. when it is perhaps over-stressed as the rectrix scientiarum. In actual practice, the better it performs the latter office the better it will 886 BOOK REVIEWS measure up to the former. It is well known that courses in philosophy and religion are so separated that the ancillary function of the one is sometimes forgotten and the other remains unintegrated with the rational disciplines. In the order in which man lives, a fully real and rich integration can come only through theology. It is one of the merits of the present book, assuming a purely philosophical foundation, to take a student through all the high points of Thomistic theology. After the opening metaphysical section, there follow the treatments of God as one and as triune; on the angels and man; on the Incarnation; on the sacraments; on moral theology and spirituality; and finally on the realistic basis of the Thomistic synthesis. An appendix is added on the so-called new theology, dealing chiefly with such thinkers as Bouillard, Fessard, Teilhard de Chardin, and to a certain extent Blonde} (who has been previously treated in the work.) These authors Father GarrigouLagrange accuses of undermining the realistic foundations of theology, compromising it through the attempt to reach a modus vivendi with contemporary thought and life. It is known, for example, that Fessard would " baptize " Hegel in the way in which it is...