Table Of ContentCALGARY AQUINAS STUDIES
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CALGARY AQUINAS STUDIES
EDITED BY
ANTHONY PAREL
PONTIFICAL INSTITUTE OF MEDIAEVAL STUDIES
TORONTO, 1978
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This book has been published with the help of a grant
from the Humanities Research Council of Canada,
using funds provided by the Canada Council
CANADIAN CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Aquinas Septicentennial Conference, University of Calgary, 1974.
Calgary Aquinas studies
Papers originally presented at the Aquinas Septicentennial Conference, held at the
University of Calgary in October 1974.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-88844-407-9
1. Thomas Aquinas, Saint, 1225?-1274 — Congresses. I. Parel, Anthony, 1926-
II. Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. III. Title.
B765.T54A218 1974 189'.4 C78-001028-0
© 1978 by
PONTIFICAL INSTITUTE OF MEDIAEVAL STUDIES
59 Queens Park Crescent East
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 2C4
PRINTED BY UNIVERSA, WETTEREN, BELGIUM
Contents
Preface Anthony PAREL vii
1 Aquinas and his Age Edward A. SYNAN 1
2 Imago Dei: An Explication of Summa theologiae,
Part 1, Question 93
Jaroslav PELIKAN 27
3 Saint Thomas and the Meaning of Human Experience
Anton C. PEGIS 49
4 Thomistic Natural Law and Social Theory
Paul SIGMUND 65
5 The Thomistic Theory of Property,
Regime, and the Good Life
Anthony PAREL 77
6 Saint Thomas Aquinas
and the Idea of the Open Society
Dante GERMINo 105
7 The Spiritual Community of Man:
The Church According to Saint Thomas
Avery DULLES, S.J. 125
Bibliography 155
Index 163
Rev. A very DULLES, S.J. is a professor of theology in the School of
Religious Studies at The Catholic University of America.
Dr. Dante GERMINo is professor of government and foreign affairs, and
director of the Political and Social Thought Program at the University
of Virginia at Charlottesville.
Prof. Anthony PAREL is chairman of the Department of Political Science at
The University of Calgary.
Dr. Anton C. PEGIS is Professor Emeritus of philosophy at the University
of Toronto, and Fellow of the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.
Dr. Jaroslav PELIKAN is Sterling Professor of History and Religious Studies
and chairman of Medieval Studies at Yale University.
Prof. Paul E. SIGMUND teaches the history of political theory in the Depart-
ment of Politics at Princeton Univeristy.
Rev. Edward A. SYNAN is professor of philosophy, and Fellow and
President of the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.
Preface
The Studies contained in this volume were originally presented at the
Aquinas Septicentennial Conference held at the University of Calgary in
October, 1974. They deal with three main issues of contemporary interest
on which Aquinas' views are still considered illuminating — the nature and
destiny of man, the nature of his relationship to fellow men and the nature
of his relationship to God. The style of philosophizing on these matters,
like style in many other things, has of course changed since the time of
Aquinas. In the last quarter of the twentieth century we have our own, if
diverse, approaches to these issues. Yet surprisingly enough, the substance
of Aquinas' thought and the spirit of his approach remain an important
and, I think, an indispensable element in any serious appraisal of man's
secular and religious activities.
No conscious effort is being made in these pages to be obsessively critical
or dogmatically apologetic about the "common doctor." While some
authors represented in this volume are ranked among the leading Thomists
of our times, others are not even Thomists. Aquinas is not treated as an
oracle, as a sort of court philosopher of the Curia, a task from which, hap-
pily for Thomas and for the Church, Vatican ii seems to have freed even
the most dedicated Thomists. Rather our effort has been to look upon
Aquinas as a thinker of universal, not confessional, significance, one who
cannot reasonably be ignored in any consideration of human affairs which
assumes that existence has more than a purely empirical significance.
The papers follow diverse methodologies depending on the subject matter
and the specialty of the authors. This is to be expected in a common inter-
disciplinary venture, undertaken by social scientists and theologians. This
diversity of approach, it seems to me, is especially fitting when one is
dealing with a many-sided genius like Thomas Aquinas. It is also in
keeping with the chief purpose of this volume, which is to assess Aquinas'
contributions to our understanding of man's secular and religious existence,
or, if you prefer, man's natural and supernatural destinies.
The editor wishes to acknowledge with thanks the assistance for
publication received from the following donors: The Faculty of Social
Sciences and the University Research Policy and Grants Committee of The
University of Calgary; The Canada Council and the HRCC.
Calgary Anthony PAREL
1st May 1976
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1
Aquinas and his Age
Edward A. SYNAN
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
The most probable date for the birth of Thomas Aquinas at Roccasecca is
1225 and it is certain that 1274 is the year in which he died at Fossanova.
With all but mathematical precision, these dates limit his life to the second
and third quarters of the thirteenth century. To the extent that the calendar
calibrates a man's wayfaring through the world, to define the "age" of
Aquinas poses no problems. Still, one need not be a Thomist of the strict
observance to acknowledge that the mathematical is abstract and that the
abstract—useful, not to say indispensable, though it may be—buys
precision at the price of "putting into brackets" our untidy real world.
Needless to insist, the medieval experience as a whole, and the thirteenth
century in particular, has evoked opposed responses in dialectical alter-
nation. Romanticist glorification displaces and is displaced by contemptuous
dismissal. This tiresome and futile antiphony was already beginning as the
Middle Ages were ending. Humanist, reformer, Cartesian, encyclopedist,
classicist, rationalist—each in turn was to find new and different reasons to
denigrate the medieval fact, yet each category of critics harbored fifth
columnists to weaken the common front. For some humanists respected
some medievals (and this is true of no one more than of Saint Thomas),1
1 See, for instance, John W. O'Malley, "Some Renaissance Panegyrics of Aquinas,"
Renaissance Quarterly, 27 (1974), 174-192, in which the author adds thirteen panegyrics to
that of Valla, this last discussed in P. O. Kristeller, Le Thomisme et la pensee italienne de la
Renaissance (Montreal: Institut d'Etudes Medievales, Paris: J. Vrin, 1967), pp. 76-80.
