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Handout for Prima Pars Lecture for the Not-At-Buckfast Summer School 2020 Richard Conrad, OP the “ANSWER to LIFE, the UNIVERSE, & EVERYTHING” IS 43

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Handout for Prima Pars Lecture for the Not-At-Buckfast Summer School 2020 Richard Conrad, OP the “ANSWER to LIFE, the UNIVERSE, & EVERYTHING” IS 43 Handout for Prima Pars lecture for the not-at-Buckfast summer school 2020 Richard Conrad, OP THE “ANSWER TO LIFE, THE UNIVERSE, & EVERYTHING” IS 43 Contents (1) A Note on the Summa – translations available, structure, Trinitarian structure. (2) Select Bibliography. (3) Notes on Prima Pars 2-26: overall structure; a note on the Five Ways; speaking analogically about God. (4) Notes on Prima Pars 27-42; summary of main points; summary of the largely Thomistic doctrine of the Holy Trinity as held by 19th- and 20th-Century Neo-Scholasticism; a popular-pictorial presentation of the psychological analogy of the Holy Trinity, leading on to the next question: (5) Notes on Prima Pars 43; Matthias Joseph Scheeben’s “take” on St Thomas’ teaching. (6) Brief notes on Creation; a note on Thomistic causality. (7) The Thomistic view of the human psyche – see diagram sent as a separate pdf file. (8) The Human Image of the Holy Trinity Made for Communion with the Holy Trinity: Prima Pars 93. Another supplementary file: CONRAD, Richard. “Humanity Created for Communion with the Trinity in Aquinas.” Preliminary version of chapter published in: George Westhaver (ed.) A Transforming Vision: Knowing and Loving the Triune God. London: SCM, 2018. 121-134. (1) A Note on the Summa We will focus on St Thomas’ Summa Theologiae (or Summa Theologica) his “complete course of Theology”. Three translations are available. One was done by Lawrence Shapcote early in the 20th Century & published in 20-something volumes by “The Fathers of the English Dominican Province”. It was reprinted in 5 vols by Westminster Press in the 1980s, & is now on the Internet (e.g. on the newadvent site). This is a “wooden” translation, which means it reads like a translation, & does not often deceive you. The second translation was done under Thomas Gilby’s editorship in the 1960s & 70s, & published in 60 vols by Blackfriars & Eyre & Spottiswoode – now re-issued by CUP. Each volume contains the Latin opposite the English (the Latin is easier to read than any English translation, once you get used to it!), footnotes, introduction, appendices. It is in more modern English. But Gilby did not unify the translation, so the same Latin technical terms are translated differently in different volumes, and that can be seriously misleading. [Timothy McDermott did a “concise translation”, in which he condensed this version of the Summa into one volume and unified the language. This is good for a “quick” read to get the shape of St. Thomas’ thought. But it shouldn’t be used for serious academic study since some bits are Timothy’s summaries & not St. Thomas’ words, and it loses the “dialogical” style of the original.] A third translation is being done by Alfred Freddoso at Notre Dame, and some is on his web-site, https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/summa-translation/TOC.htm . Structure of the Summa The Summa is in 4 parts (but they aren’t numbered 1-4) and a supplement: Prima Pars (1a or I; first part) covers God the Holy Trinity and the work of creation. The second part covers our journey to fulfilment in God. It is subdivided: Prima Secundae (1a2ae or I-II; the first part of the second part) covers what it means to have a goal; how we pursue goals; virtues and vices in general; law and grace. Secunda Secundae (2a2ae or II-II; the second part of the second part) covers individual virtues and all the related Gifts and vices; also particular ways of life. Tertia Pars (3a or III; third part) covers Jesus Christ and the Sacraments. It was not finished when St Thomas died, so after his death his disciples compiled the: Supplementum (supplement) by doing a scissors-and-paste job on his other writings. Each of these five divisions is made up of over a hundred Questions (which really means “topics”), each of which is made up of a number of Articles (which really means “questions”!) Each article discusses one specific issue within the topic of the Question. Each article of the Summa is set up as a disputation, so that: • First come OBJECTIONS (usually 3) which usually argue against Thomas’ own view; • Second comes a SED CONTRA (occasionally more than one) which is a quotation or argument in favour of his own view (now & then he takes a middle way between the objections & sed contra(s) and very occasionally argues for (or for in a qualified way) what he leads you to expect he is arguing against); • In the REPLY or BODY OF THE ARTICLE Thomas sets out his own view; • Lastly come REPLIES TO THE OBJECTIONS (often abbreviated, in references, as ad 1, ad 2…), in which Thomas answers the arguments against his own view with which the article began (and, if he is taking a middle way, he may answer the sed contra also). So each article typically begins with something St. Thomas does not agree with. Do not mistake objections for Thomas’ own views! On occasion, Thomas takes up a nuanced opinion, e.g. steering between the objec- tions & sed contra(s); often he tries to agree with the objections in some ways, while disagreeing in others. Often, as a first attempt to understand what Thomas teaches, it is best to read just the bodies of the rele- vant articles; then to go back and (unless you have a good memory) for each article read the sed contra, the body of the article, the first objection and the reply to it, the second objection and the reply… Occasionally, as in some questions on the Torah, the meat of an article is actually in the replies to the objections. A reference like 1a2ae 68, 3, ad 2 means go to Prima Secundae, Qu. 68, art. 3, reply to 2nd objection. Some editors use Roman numerals: I-II 68, 3c means the same article but go to the body (corpus) of the article. A Trinitarian Structure of the Summa? Rahner thought that the structure of Summa Theologiae had led to the treatise on the Holy Trinity “locking itself up into ever more splendid isolation”: after the self-contained treatise in Prima Pars 27-43, the Trinity is hardly mentioned, and is treated as effectively irrelevant to the story of salvation. Rahner’s complaint may be true of some 19th- and 20th-Century manuals of theology (the kind on which students of theology used to be brought up), but in fact his valid concern to connect the Holy Trinity with salvation history and the life of grace is shared with Augustine and Aquinas. I propose a Trinitarian structure to the Summa: • Prima Pars 2-42 (the whole of this section) are on God the Holy Trinity. • Prima Pars 43 is the hinge which explains why the Holy Trinity “unfolds to us” in the work of creation and salvation: the Trinity does this because of the desire of each divine Person to give himself to us to be known, loved, possessed and enjoyed, now and forever. • Prima Pars 44-end is on Creation, which bears the traces of the Holy Trinity, and on the human being made in the image of the Holy Trinity for communion with the Holy Trinity (1a, 93). • Secunda Pars is on the Mission of the Holy Spirit who is given to craft us in grace, to shape us in love, to bring wisdom to birth in us, and to guide us on our way as our New Law. • Tertia Pars is on the Mission of the Son, through whose saving work, and the Sacraments that bring it home to us, the Spirit’s grace actually comes to us. (2) A Select Bibliography THE MEDIAEVAL CONTEXT LUSCOMBE, David. Medieval Thought. A History of Western Philosophy, II. Oxford: OUP, 1997. MARENBON, John. Later Medieval Philosophy (1150-1350): An Introduction. London: Routledge, 1987. BIOGRAPHIES… TUGWELL, Simon. Albert and Thomas: Selected Writings. New York: Paulist Press, 1988. Pages 201-267. TORRELL, Jean-Pierre. Saint Thomas Aquinas. Vol. I: The Person and His Work. Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1996. BAUERSCHMIDT, Frederick Christian. Thomas Aquinas: Faith, Reason, and Following Christ. Christian Theology in Context Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. ST THOMAS’ THOUGHT, INCLUDING INTRODUCTIONS TO THE SUMMA BAUERSCHMIDT, Frederick Christian. Holy Teaching: Introducing the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas. Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2005. [Some is on Google-Books.] BROCK, Stephen L. The Philosophy of St Thomas Aquinas: A Sketch. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2015. DAUPHINAIS, Michael, & Matthew LEVERING, Knowing the Love of Christ: An Introduction to the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002. DAVIES, Brian, and Eleonore STUMP (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Aquinas. DAVIES, Brian, O.P. Aquinas. Outstanding Christian Thinkers. London: Continuum, 2002. DAVIES, Brian. “Aquinas on What God Is Not.” Revue Internationale de Philosophie 52 (1998); reprinted in: Brian DAVIES (ed.) Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae: Critical Essays. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. DAVIES, Brian. The Thought of Thomas Aquinas. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. FATULA, Mary Ann. Thomas Aquinas, Preacher and Friend. GRATSCH, Edward J. Aquinas’ Summa: An Introduction and Interpretation. Bangalore: Theological Publica- tions in India, 1990. HAUSE, Jeffrey. Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae: A Critical Guide. Cambridge: CUP, 2018. JORDAN, Mark. Teaching Bodies: Moral Formation in the Summa of Thomas Aquinas. McCABE, Herbert. On Aquinas. An especially clear account of aspects of his philosophy/psychology. McCABE, Herbert. The McCabe Reader, papers 1-3, 15; God Matters, papers 1-4; God Still Matters, papers 1-3; Faith Within Reason, papers 4-8. [Some of these overlap.] McCOSKER, Philip, and Denys TURNER (eds.) Cambridge Companion to the Summa Theologiae.
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