In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

C h a p t e r 1 8 What St. Thomas Means Today Louis de Raeymaeker Msgr. Louis de Raeymaeker (1895–1970) was born in Saint-Peters Rode, Belgium. After attending the Seminary of Pope Leo XIII and serving in World War I, he received a doctorate from the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Louvain. He then spent three years at the Grand Seminaire de Maline, were he was ordained a priest. De Raeymaeker taught philosophy, psychology, and metaphysics in the scholastic tradition at the Seminary of Maline for eight years, until he was asked to return to the Institute of Philosophy. In the spirit of the Louvain School’s founders, Leo XIII and Cardinal Désiré Joseph Mercier, he sought to apply the wisdom of Aquinas to contemporary philosophy by approaching it in a personal way and applying it to Christian intellectual life in its modern social context. In the process, de Raeymaeker made an important contribution to neo-Thomistic thinking by emphasizing the Platonic aspects of Aquinas’s metaphysics. Following the Institute’s phenomenological focus in the post-war years, he argued in his book, Philosophy of Being, that Thomistic doctrine could be used to find coherent solutions to metaphysical problems but that philosophers still needed to seek the foundations of this doctrine in individual experience. I There are schools of philosophy whose task it is to guard and transmit a definite doctrine, which generally gets its designation from the name of the thinker who was the first to elaborate it. It is in this sense that one speaks, say, of the Thomist, Scotist, Averroist schools. Certain schools receive their inspiration from the conceptionsof amasterbutendeavortorenovatetheseconceptions;sowecanspeak of neo-Kantian schools, neo-Hegelian currents, and neo-Thomist ideas. 339 It seems, then, that there is more than one way of adhering to St. Thomas, for neo-Thomists have to be distinguished from other Thomists. How do the latter differ from the former? In general, what is the role of the school in the matter of philosophy? What is the meaning of the renewal of traditional doctrine? These are important questions to which the answers are not simple. In comparing the Thomist school to others, we must recognize its unusual homogeneity.Althoughsevencenturiesoldandof worldwideinfluence,Thomist doctrine constitutes a complete and coherent system whose primary theses scarcely permit any divergencies within the school itself. Nevertheless, there is Thomism and Thomism, since there are Thomists who call themselves neo-Thomists. What is the difference? It is a fact that the followers of the school do not all take the same attitude toward the writings of St. Thomas. Thus, we need only mention those who confine themselves to the reading of the printed text, unconcerned about the critical value of the edition employed, unsuspecting of any evolution in the vocabulary or ideas of the Angelic Doctor himself. Nor need we delay over those who imagine that an attentive and repeated reading of the text, critically exact, suffices to rediscover its authentic and adequate sense and who are inclined to regard as futile, if not even dangerous from the doctrinal viewpoint, the historical study of questions. Such thinkers ought to realize that it is no easy matter to comprehend perfectly the writings of a great philosopher. The multiple interpretations of the works of Plato, Aristole, Kant, and Hegel readily support this statement. Surely it can hardly be pretended that geniuses of this rare kind could have been inept in their thinking and/or incapable of handling their mother-tongue. But it appears that the more brilliant the philosopher, the more difficult it is to discern his thought. Brilliant conceptions are, in one way or another, inexhaustible and can give rise to innumerable studies. This does not apply to third-rate philosophers . But St. Thomas is a genius. All scientific, critical, and historical resources at one’s disposal must be put into operation, so as to do justice to him and to establish his doctrine with greater and greater precision and reality. Still, is it sufficient for the Thomist to reproduce, if possible with perfect and integralexactitude,thedoctrinalconceptionsof St.Thomas?Somehavethought that for the Thomist school to be worthy of its name it must perform the task of the neo-Thomist. But if one is convinced of the truth of a doctrine, why renovate it, why rejuvenate it? Does truth grow old? Is it not immutable? Would anyone dream of rejuvenating arithmetic? It is a question...

Share