Thomism

[20] Aristotle categorized causality into four subsets in the Metaphysics, which is an integral part of Thomism: "In one sense the term cause means (a) that from which, as something intrinsic, a thing comes to be, as the bronze of a statue and the silver of a goblet, and the genera of these.

Further, he argues that sacred scripture employs figurative language: "Now it is natural to man to attain to intellectual truths through sensible objects, because all our knowledge originates from sense.

"[60] In order to demonstrate God's creative power, Aquinas says: "If a being participates, to a certain degree, in an 'accident,' this accidental property must have been communicated to it by a cause which possesses it essentially.

First, the authority of the sovereign by whose command the war is to be waged... Secondly, a just cause is required, namely that those who are attacked, should be attacked because they deserve it on account of some fault... Thirdly, it is necessary that the belligerents should have a rightful intention, so that they intend the advancement of good, or the avoidance of evil...Thomism recognizes four different species of law, which he defines as "an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community, and promulgated":[86] The development of natural law is one of the most influential parts of Thomist philosophy.

Through the influence of traditional Augustinian theologians, some theses of Aquinas were condemned in 1277 by the ecclesiastical authorities of Paris and Oxford (the most important theological schools in the Middle Ages).

Early opponents of Aquinas include William de la Mare, Henry of Ghent, Giles of Rome, and Jon Duns Scotus.

[106][107] Early and noteworthy defenders of Aquinas were his former teacher Albertus Magnus, the ill-fated Richard Knapwell, William Macclesfeld, Giles of Lessines, John of Quidort, Bernard of Auvergne and Thomas of Sutton.

Neothomism held sway as the dominant philosophy of the Roman Catholic Church until the Second Vatican Council, which seemed, in the eyes of Homiletic and Pastoral Review writer Fr.

"The argument", said he, "which Aristotle presents to support this thesis is not properly called a demonstration, but is only a reply to the theories of those ancients who supposed that this world had a beginning and who gave only impossible proofs.

Thomism began to decline in popularity in the modern period,[115] which was inaugurated by René Descartes' works Discourse on the Method in 1637 and Meditations on First Philosophy in 1641.

The Cartesian doctrines of mind–body dualism and the fallibility of the senses[vague] implicitly contradicted Aristotle and Aquinas: But, meanwhile, I feel greatly astonished when I observe [the weakness of my mind, and] its proneness to error.

For although, without at all giving expression to what I think, I consider all this in my own mind, words yet occasionally impede my progress, and I am almost led into error by the terms of ordinary language.

In this case I do not fail to say that I see the men themselves, just as I say that I see the wax; and yet what do I see from the window beyond hats and cloaks that might cover artificial machines, whose motions might be determined by springs?

The modern philosopher claims, like a sort of confidence man, that if we will grant him this, the rest will be easy; he will straighten out the world, if he is allowed to give this one twist to the mind...

The Thomist stands in the broad daylight of the brotherhood of men, in their common consciousness that eggs are not hens or dreams or mere practical assumptions; but things attested by the Authority of the Senses, which is from God.J.

[121]An idea of the longstanding historic continuity of Dominican Thomism may be derived from the list of people associated with the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Romanus Cessario thinks it better not to identify intervals of time or periods within the larger history of Thomism because Thomists have addressed such a broad variety of issues and in too many geographical areas to permit such divisions.

[123] The first period of Thomism stretches from Aquinas' teaching activity beginning in 1256 at Paris to Cologne, Orvieto, Viterbo, Rome, and Naples until his canonization in 1325.

In this period his doctrines "were both attacked and defended" as for example after his death (1274) the condemnations of 1277, 1284 and 1286 were counteracted by the General Chapters of the Dominican Order and other disciples who came to Aquinas' defense.

Henry of Gorkum (1386-1431) wrote what may well be the earliest commentary on the Summa Theologiae, followed in due course by his student Denis the Carthusian.

Weisheipl in the late 18th and early 19th centuries "everyone who had anything to do with the revival of Thomism in Italy, Spain and France was directly influenced by Roselli’s monumental work.

Its focus, however, is less exegetical and more concerned with carrying out the program of deploying a rigorously worked out system of Thomistic metaphysics in a wholesale critique of modern philosophy.

[130] In the first half of the twentieth century Angelicum professors Edouard Hugon, Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange among others, carried on Leo's call for a Thomist revival.

While the Second Vatican Council took place from 1962 to 1965 Cornelio Fabro was already able to write in 1949 that the century of revival with its urgency to provide a synthetic systematization and defense of Aquinas' thought was coming to an end.

In the nineteenth century authors such as Tommaso Maria Zigliara focused not only on exegesis of the historical Aquinas but also on the articulation of a rigorous system of orthodox Thomism to be used as an instrument of critique of contemporary thought.

"[133] A discussion of recent and current Neo-Scholastic Thomism can be found in La Metafisica di san Tommaso d'Aquino e i suoi interpreti (2002) by Battista Mondin, which includes such figures as Martin Grabmann, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Sofia Vanni Rovighi (1908–1990),[134] Cornelio Fabro (1911–1995), Carlo Giacon (1900–1984),[135] Tomáš Týn (1950–1990), Abelardo Lobato (1925–2012), Leo Elders (1926–2019) and Giovanni Ventimiglia (b.

[140] Jacques Maritain (1882–1973) introduced into Thomistic metaphysics the notion that philosophical reflection begins with an "intuition of being", and in ethics and social philosophy sought to harmonize Thomism with personalism and pluralistic democracy.

The alternative label "River Forest Thomism" derives from a suburb of Chicago, the location of the Albertus Magnus Lyceum for Natural Science,[147] whose members have been associated with this approach.

[150][151] With the decree Postquam sanctissimus of 27 July 1914, Pope Pius X stated that 24 theses formulated by "teachers from various institutions [...] clearly contain the principles and more important thoughts" of Aquinas.

Christ's Body in the Eucharist is not physical flesh.In his Against Henry, King of the English, Luther criticized a perceived use of the proof by assertion and a reliance on style over substance in the Thomist form of disputation, which he alleged as being, "It seems so to me.