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Charlemagne_III
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Why?
Your thoughts?
Your thoughts?
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ChineseCatholic
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Aren’t they useful depending on the context of the situation?
All the Thomists i know tend to do a lot of “defend the faith” activities - debates online, in public, etc. They are kind of the “bridge” the Church has into the realms of modern intellectual thought.
Talking about Grace and Original sin (topics of importance to Augustine) for instance, seems like an empty exercise to those who don’t share in the faith. But Thomists are better armed to speak on matters about say, the philosophy of mind, with their secular colleagues.
In many resepcts, I tend to see Thomism role as “External Relations.”
Augustine shines in the respect that his theology is Scriptural and Pastoral - as noted by our own Pope Benedict who has described himself as a Neo-Augustinian. Although i’m sure it has happened, I haven’t heard too many stories of people being inspired to the faith by reading the Summa Theologica - attracted to it yes, but not like anything akin to a conversation experience.
Augustine (and by extension the Early Church Fathers) write “from the blood” in a manner that speaks directly to the individual life of a person. He holds the example of his life up for others to relate to and compare against.
The Augustinian position also has dealt with more the mystical theologies of the Church, perhaps not systematizing everything that say St. Ignatius Loyola, St. John of the Cross, St. Louis De Montfort, and St. Francis of Assisi wrote about - but it does provide a language and a framework for many of them to work of off.
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Catholic1954
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Greatest in the first 1000 years of Church history, St. Augustine. Greatest in second 1000 years of Church history, St. Thomas Aquinas. Greatest in third 1000 years of Church history? Only God knows.
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phil19034
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So far… the best of the 3rd Millennium is St. John Paul II in my opinion
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Charlemagne_III
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The Catholic Encyclopedia seems to favor Augustine of Aquinas, yet here is a passage from the article there:
“Thomas Aquinas was a necessary corrective to Augustine. He is less great, less original, and, above all, less animated; but the calm didactics of his intellectualism enable him to castigate Augustine’s exaggerations with rigorous criticism, to impart exactitude and precision to his terms — in one word, to prepare a dictionary with which the African Doctor may be read without danger.”
“Thomas Aquinas was a necessary corrective to Augustine. He is less great, less original, and, above all, less animated; but the calm didactics of his intellectualism enable him to castigate Augustine’s exaggerations with rigorous criticism, to impart exactitude and precision to his terms — in one word, to prepare a dictionary with which the African Doctor may be read without danger.”
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Edmundus1581
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I’ve just finished a book about all this!
The Evolution of Medieval Thought, by David Knowles.
It is a dense but readable summary of 1700 years of thought, from Plato to William of Ockham, via (primarily) Augustine, Arabia and the medieval University of Paris.
The tension between the Augustinians (primarily the Franciscans) and the Catholic Aristotelian’s (primarily the Dominicans) in the high middle middle ages (1250 onwards) is a central theme of the book. You won’t get a definitive answer to your question, but you’ll learn who said what.
Having read it, I’ll attempt to give my answer to your question. Firstly, there is no “one was greater than the other”. It’s like comparing apples and oranges. However I think that, in the end, Thomas contributed more to Catholic theology. Augustine was not a “theologian” in the same sense as Thomas. He was an enthusiastic and learned pastor (a bishop), who’s primary goal was pastoral, and while he had a great intellect he didn’t discuss theology for its own sake, whereas Thomas spent a lifetime focused on theology and philosophy, without particular interest in the pastoral applications.
Highly recommended!
The Evolution of Medieval Thought, by David Knowles.
It is a dense but readable summary of 1700 years of thought, from Plato to William of Ockham, via (primarily) Augustine, Arabia and the medieval University of Paris.
The tension between the Augustinians (primarily the Franciscans) and the Catholic Aristotelian’s (primarily the Dominicans) in the high middle middle ages (1250 onwards) is a central theme of the book. You won’t get a definitive answer to your question, but you’ll learn who said what.
Having read it, I’ll attempt to give my answer to your question. Firstly, there is no “one was greater than the other”. It’s like comparing apples and oranges. However I think that, in the end, Thomas contributed more to Catholic theology. Augustine was not a “theologian” in the same sense as Thomas. He was an enthusiastic and learned pastor (a bishop), who’s primary goal was pastoral, and while he had a great intellect he didn’t discuss theology for its own sake, whereas Thomas spent a lifetime focused on theology and philosophy, without particular interest in the pastoral applications.
Highly recommended!
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ChineseCatholic
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It is that focus on Patristics and Pastoral concerns above Systematic Philosophy that endeared Augustine in the hearts of many of the Nouvelle Théologie/Ressourcement theologians who formed Vatican II.
Men like Henri de Lubac, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Yves Congar, Karl Rahner, Hans Küng, Edward Schillebeeckx, Marie-Dominique Chenu, Louis Bouyer, Jean Daniélou, Jean Mouroux and Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict all drank from the Augustinian well and through him returned to the Fathers such as St. Maximus the Confessor, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and even Origen of Alexandria.
They did so as a reaction against the perceived dryness/non-relevance to daily concerns that seem to occur more often with the previous centuries focus on Neo-Scholasticism.
To echo Pope Benedict, there was a drive to “take theology out of the box” and make it relevant to peoples lives.
Augustine style is much more suited in this endeavor than Thomas’.
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Charlemagne_III
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The “box” to which you refer is, I suppose, the scholastic method of theology epitomized in the Summa, whereby Aquinas debates every question with himself, pulling everybody else in when he can. I agree this is irrelevant and overly difficult for most people. But I’m not convinced that a whole lot people find passionate Augustine more readable than didactic Aquinas.
The real question comes down to who was the more influential of the two. I’d say Augustine was obviously more influential until Aquinas, but after the thirteenth century Aquinas tended to rule the roost among most theologians. The list of Thomists in the 20th century alone is as impressive as the list of Augustinians you posted, though most of them are more philosophers than theologians…
20th century Thomists:
Alasdair MacIntyre
Benedict Ashley
Brian Davies
Edward Feser
Étienne Gilson
Peter Kreeft
Brian Leftow
Jacques Maritain
John F. X. Knasas
Charles De Koninck
I.M. Bochenski
I guess we could throw in G.K. Chesterton for good measure.
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ChineseCatholic
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I was actually paraphrasing a quote from an interview with then Cardinal Ratzinger about the topic of which we speak.
And herein lies the heart of all the men above, who went on to “do” Vatican II had in common. They were mostly Incarnation theologians, not folks who dipped into the transcendental pool like Thomas.
As someone on this forum (JREducation) put it beautifully,
This probably doesn’t come as a surprise to those who have engaged with our Orthodox brethren or our Eastern Catholic brothers and sisters in their forum on CAF.
For our Eastern Catholics, Aquinas is of not of central importance. He exerts little to any influence on their understanding of the faith, because not only have they had their own long standing Traditions (which in some cases predate both Augustine and Aquinas), but also because of a jaundiced view of NeoScholasticism which is shared by the Augustinians.
Noticed I said, “NeoScholasticism,” not Thomism per say, and definitely not Thomas Aquinas himself. If anything they are taking aim at Cardinal Catejan and Co.
Our Orthodox brethren…hehehe… Sometimes its ok, and sometimes its like World War 3.
Thomism to them is an intensely propositional school of theology, often rooted in philosophical abstraction that is only capable of producing highly logical formulations of the principles of faith and morals. To them Augustine is in major error (esp. due to his conception of Original Sin) but still within the confines of acceptable theology, whereas Aquinas may as well have come from Mars (and that’s the positive evaluation - the negative runs right smack dab into the whole polemical universe between the Orthodox and Us)…
I think if i had to try to find the common ground between the Augustinains (and associated Catholic orders like the Carmelites, the Franciscans, etc.), the Eastern Catholics, and our Orthodox cousins it would be something akin to saying that Thomism is lacking in a critical aspect of the faith.
Namely that human and incarnational sense one can pick up from reading Scripture directly or from the Fathers - an orientation toward the lived experience of the person and his psychology.
But to echo JREducation, and my own statements - i think this is merely due to where Thomism and Augustinian thought place their focus on.
Ah but you see, that’s the -key- right? Influential among whom?
Philosophy is something one does with the non-believer.
I mean, i suppose I could quote Meister Eckhart or Hildegard of Bingen to a Modernist…and which him or her blink at me in confusion.
Contrast this with Thomas. Think about who Thomas was writing against during his lifetime - Cathars pop into mind automatically.
Theology, if not studied in an academic sense, finds it purchase amongst those who are already faithful.
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Charlemagne_III
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It is fair to ask the question, influential among whom?Ah but you see, that’s the -key- right? Influential among whom?
Philosophy is something one does with the non-believer.
I mean, i suppose I could quote Meister Eckhart or Hildegard of Bingen to a Modernist…and which him or her blink at me in confusion.
Contrast this with Thomas. Think about who Thomas was writing against during his lifetime - Cathars pop into mind automatically.
Theology, if not studied in an academic sense, finds it purchase amongst those who are already faithful.
Certainly within the Church, among many theologians, including those at the time of the Reformation. During the Council of Trent, called to deal with the Reformation, there were two volumes on the altar every day at Mass. The Bible and the Summa Theologica. So that answers your remark about among whom. Then again, Pope Leo XIII prescribed Aquinas as the official theologian/philosopher to be taught at Catholic colleges throughout the world. So Augustine seems to be slighted as #1 in both cases. How many colleges are named after Augustine, compared to how many are named after Aquinas? How many parish churches throughout the world? How many Benediction services dominated by the great Latin hymns of Thomas Aquinas?
I’ll wager that at CA a great many more threads have been started about Thomas’s five proofs than about any theme of Augustine.
So I don’t think Augustine dominates either in himself or by his influence, and it’s fair to say both have dominated each IN HIS OWN SEPARATE WAY.
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ChineseCatholic
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I think your kind of missing the point of the whole message I was making above.
Emundus hit the nail on the head when he stated:
When i asked “to whom” I was asking about the types of people who took up Aquinas in the modern world. You cited many examples in fact:
All of these gentlemen are independent thinkers - but they shared a common project. Its the same project Thomas Aquinas undertook himself during his lifetime when he found himself having to find remedies to the arguments made by the various heresies popping up as well as Islam. (Technically also Judaism, but as a Non-European, it feels like you folks were making them out to be more of a scourge that what they had the actual capacity to be).
As I said, Philosophy is for dialoguing with the Non-Believer. That’s what Thomism is essentially for at the end of the day, its our method of say speaking to a Utilitarian Secularist or a New Atheist (and yes they are different! although the New Atheists have really turned their attention away from us - toward Islam and Social Justice Ideology - the new “secular religion” which they hate alot more than us these days), or even those of other Faiths.
Scholasticism acknowledges God at the outset and attempts to prove his existence to the Non-Believer through rational argumentation and categories.
Its why I said Thomism is great for “External Relations”.
Augustine is more Theologian than Philosopher- for theology is for the Faithful. Or to quote Evagricus Ponticus:
In this context - we accept faith by hearing it not so we can understand it rationally, but so that we can cleanse our hearts, attain true faith via the experience of the Revelation of God…like the Apostles did.
Or to put this into an analogy - We have a Band-saw and a Power drill.
We don’t use the Power Drill to Cut Wood anymore than we use a Band-saw to bore holes.
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Charlemagne_III
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Whatever.
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ChineseCatholic
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LOL - never thought I’d get that response from a follower of Thomas.Whatever.
God bless and go in peace.
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Charlemagne_III
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I am a follower of Jesus Christ. So were Thomas and Augustine.
“First, I say that he draws near to those who make peace with him. For God is the One who brings about peace; and where else should peace dwell than in peace?” THOMAS AQUINAS, “Osanna filio David”, The Academic Sermons
“Peace is the Tranquillity of Order.” St. Augustine
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” Jesus Christ
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Edmundus1581
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Thank you ChineseCatholic and Charlemagne for the interesting discussion and the information about the continuing significance of Augustine and Aquinas in 20th century thought, especially with respect to Vatican II. It’s all new to me and particularly interesting after my reading of the historical background in antiquity and the middle ages!
Great thread!
Great thread!
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Charlemagne_III
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You are welcome.
I am currently working up an article on Augustine and Aquinas regarding grace and free will. If it ever gets posted at a Catholic website, I will send you the link.
God bless!
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