The Gifts of the Spirit: Aquinas and the Modern Context

THE THOMIST A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY EDITORs: THE DoMINICAN FATHERS oF THE PROVINCE OF ST. JosEPH Publishers: The Thomist Press, Washington, D. C. 20017·VoL. XXXVIII APRIL, 1974 No.~ THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT: AQUINAS AND THE MODERN CONTEXT IN TIDS ESSAY we treat of St. Thomas's theology of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. However, we are not offering an historical investigation, nor, for that matter, a comprehensive outline of the thought of the Doctor Communis in this area.1 Rather, in a more or less schematic manner, we wish to indicate how Thomas's theology of the Gifts comes to us today, with our different context of theological reflection. In the process of present developments it might well be transformed , but it has much to contribute. Essentially, St. Thomas has given us an interpretation of St. Paul's "spiritual man" (I Cor~: 14 f), thereby indicating his hope for the human condition to be lifted up by the Spirit to new levels of love, liberty, and holiness. 1 For a complete historical im.vestigation see 0. Lottin, O.S.B., Psychologie et Morale aux X lie et Xllle siecles, t. 3 (Gembloux, 1949), 3~9-456; and t. 4 (1954)' 667-736. 193 194 ANTHONY J. KELLY The theology of the Gifts is interesting as a personal expression of St. Thomas's thought. His method and categories are Aristotelian. His theological priorities are rigorously intellectualist , since sacra doctrina is a science.2 Yet a certain paradox appears. Though theology is indeed an intellectualist procedure , Christian living breaks out of any intellectual scheme. When the Spirit possesses man, no systematic reasoning says the last word. The ultimate meaning of authentic human existence is to be open to the freedom of the Spirit of God. This enables man to act in a "divine manner," in a "supra-human mode," beyond the scope of human deliberation.3 This is the paradox that Aquinas expressed in his own life when he was finally brought to disclaim his vast theological labor as so much straw. This mention of paradox serves to indicate the important contribution St. Thomas makes in the present context. In his interpretation of concrete human existence he proposes a special model for the cooperation of God and man in human activity. He determines a special quality of the immanence of God to human action: man is depicted to be living from within himself , yet only because he is disposed to live from beyond himself ; as deliberating and deciding, yet as finding his rational pattern of activity surpassed by an immeasurably higher principle , which does not check human liberty but enlarges it. In his brilliant study John T. Marcus has shown the current need for an understanding of man that will mediate between the many images of man if contemporary culture is going to communicate in a common human meaning.4 We require • Summa Theol., q. 1, aa. !'l-8. • III Sent., d. 84, q. 1, a. 1: " Unde Philosophus in VII Ethic. contra virtutem simpliciter dividit virtutem heroicam quam divinam dicit eo quod per excellentiam virtutis homo fit quasi deus. Et secundum hoc dico quod dona a virtutibus distinguuntur in hoc quod vitutes perficiunt ad actus modo humano sed dona ultra humanum modum." And Summa Theol., I-II, q. 70, a. 4: "Spiritus Sanctus movet humanam mentem ad id quod est supra rationem." • John T. Marcus, "East and West: Phenomenologies of Self and the Existential Bases of Knowledge," International Philos()[thical Quarterly (March 1971), pp. 5-48. THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT 195 a concept of self capable of preserving and developing the older phenomenologies of self that were the organizational principles of the great classical cultures. For all these classical images of self, in East and West, have been eroded to the point of collapse . The Western image of self was explicitly formulated as the perduring reality of a self grounded and acting in history, capable of progressive expansion in the direction of a more abundant life. Doubtless, the cultural matrix of this was the successful practical and theoretical activities of Western man. Yet this is challenged today. It is challenged from within by...