Thomas Aquinas by Sertillanges A. G

Author:Sertillanges, A. G. [Sertillanges, A. G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sophia Institute Press
Published: 2013-12-09T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

St. Thomas’s Teaching

In order to discover the genius of St. Thomas at work in his teaching, it would be necessary to analyze the numerous works in which that teaching is contained; it would be necessary to give a more or less detailed and critical summary of it. That we have attempted elsewhere, for those interested in philosophy.27 We must, however, give a brief review of it, if only to show that, although he borrowed largely from others, and was supremely impersonal, St. Thomas’s doctrine was the achievement of his own original genius.

Pierre Duhem once remarked that he found in St. Thomas not so much a synthesis as a mosaic, and a “desire of synthesis.” To the real student of St. Thomas, this statement appears most unjust. The one thing that continually strikes him is his unity of plan, which is felt even when least looked for, like the unity of line and mass in a cathedral.

It is true that St. Thomas borrowed a great deal, but the whole value, the very meaning of what he borrowed is due to its being inserted in the unifying plan that he constructed. If he had borrowed everything in this way, it would not have lessened the philosophical value of his work. “Every master finds his materials ready at hand,” says Barrès. “Thought,” says Emerson, “is the property of him who can entertain it; and of him who can adequately place it.”28 The philosopher receives a thought from another, and his task consists in finding out exactly how it fits into his philosophy. He adopts it precisely because it holds this place.

Every really great man is a creator, but it does not follow that he must create an alphabet; he uses the existing one for coining new words. Just as it is not the letters that create new words, so it is not thoughts that create new philosophies, but the ordering and subordinating of them, the interplay of elements in a carefully planned framework, which connects them all with their first causes.

Hence, it is not the details and particular theories that are of importance in a great philosophy, but the breath of intellect that vivifies them, the web that binds them together, the vague, primary intuition, and the final, complete synthesis which give life to the whole.

According to St. Thomas, intellects, angelic and human, are gradated by the fewness of the principles by which a whole series of truths are known. His own intellectual greatness depended upon the fact that he was able to range an infinity of conclusions under comparatively few principles. This, far from being a “mosaic,” is a real work of art, a living, organic construction.

Every thinker makes use of pre-existing theories; his special work is to use his own thought to put them in their due place. Henceforth, he works alone; he uses his own judgment. What he rejects is scarcely less important than what he chooses, and both are absorbed into his final achievement. It may happen that what was negligible before is now of sovereign value.

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