Thomism the theology and philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. The term is applied broadly to various thinkers from different periods who were heavily influenced by Aquinas’s thought in their own philosophizing and theologizing. Here three different eras and three different groups of thinkers will be distinguished: those who supported Aquinas’s thought in the fifty years or so following his death in 1274; certain highly skilled interpreters and commentators who flourished during the period of ‘Second Thomism’ (sixteenth–seventeenth centuries); and various late nineteenth- and twentieth-century thinkers who have been deeply influenced in their own work by Aquinas.
Thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Thomism. Although Aquinas’s genius was recognized by many during his own lifetime, a number of his views were immediately contested by other Scholastic thinkers. Controversies ranged, e.g., over his defense of only one substantial form in human beings; his claim that prime matter is purely potential and cannot, therefore, be kept in existence without some substantial form, even by divine power; his emphasis on the role of the human intellect in the act of choice; his espousal of a real distinction betweeen the soul and its powers; and his defense of some kind of objective or ‘real’ rather than a merely mind-dependent composition of essence and act of existing (esse) in creatures.
Some of Aquinas’s positions were included directly or indirectly in the 219 propositions condemned by Bishop Stephen Tempier of Paris in 1277, and his defense of one single substantial form in man was condemned by Archbishop Robert Kilwardby at Oxford in 1277, with renewed prohibitions by his successor as archbishop of Canterbury, John Peckham, in 1284 and 1286. Only after Aquinas’s canonization in 1323 were the Paris prohibitions revoked insofar as they touched on his teaching (in 1325). Even within his own Dominican order, disagreement about some of his views developed within the first decades after his death, notwithstanding the order’s highly sympathetic espousal of his cause. Early English Dominican defenders of his general views included William Hothum (d.1298), Richard Knapwell (d.c.1288), Robert Orford (b. after 1250, fl.1290–95), Thomas Sutton (d. c.1315?), and William Macclesfield (d.1303). French Dominican Thomists included Bernard of Trilia (d.1292), Giles of Lessines in present-day Belgium (d.c.1304?), John Quidort of Paris (d. 1306), Bernard of Auvergne (d. after 1307), Hervé Nédélec (d.1323), Armand of Bellevue (fl. 1316–34), and William Peter Godin (d.1336). The secular master at Paris, Peter of Auvergne (d. 1304), while remaining very independent in his own views, knew Aquinas’s thought well and completed some of his commentaries on Aristotle. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Thomism. Sometimes known as the period of Second Thomism, this revival gained impetus from the early fifteenth-century writer John Capreolus (1380–1444) in his Defenses of Thomas’s Theology (Defensiones theologiae Divi Thomae), a commentary on the Sentences. A number of fifteenth-century Dominican and secular teachers in German universities also contributed: Kaspar Grunwald (Freiburg); Cornelius Sneek and John Stoppe (in Rostock); Leonard of Brixental (Vienna); Gerard of Heerenberg, Lambert of Heerenberg, and John Versor (all at Cologne); Gerhard of Elten; and in Belgium Denis the Carthusian. Outstanding among various sixteenth-century commentators on Thomas were Tommaso de Vio (Cardinal) Cajetan, Francis Sylvester of Ferrara, Francisco de Vitoria (Salamanca), and Francisco’s disciples Domingo de Soto and Melchior Cano. Most important among early seventeenth-century Thomists was John of St. Thomas, who lectured at Piacenza, Madrid, and Alcalá, and is best known for his Cursus philosophicus and his Cursus theologicus.
The nineteenth- and twentieth-century revival. By the early to mid-nineteenth century the study of Aquinas had been largely abandoned outside Dominican circles, and in most Roman Catholic colleges and seminaries a kind of Cartesian and Suarezian Scholasticism was taught. Long before he became Pope Leo XIII, Joachim Pecci and his brother Joseph had taken steps to introduce the teaching of Thomistic philosophy at the diocesan seminary at Perugia in 1846. Earlier efforts in this direction had been made by Vincenzo Buzzetti (1778–1824), by Buzzetti’s students Serafino and Domenico Sordi, and by Taparelli d’Aglezio, who became director of the Collegio Romano (Gregorian University) in 1824.
Leo’s encyclical Aeterni Patris (1879) marked an official effort on the part of the Roman Catholic church to foster the study of the philosophy and theology of Thomas Aquinas. The intent was to draw upon Aquinas’s original writings in order to prepare students of philosophy and theology to deal with problems raised by contemporary thought. The Leonine Commission was established to publish a critical edition of all of Aquinas’s writings; this effort continues today. Important centers of Thomistic studies developed, such as the Higher Institute of Philosophy at Louvain (founded by Cardinal Mercier), the Dominican School of Saulchoir in France, and the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto. Different groups of Roman, Belgian, and French Jesuits acknowledged a deep indebtedness to Aquinas for their personal philosophical reflections. There was also a concentration of effort in the United States at universities such as The Catholic University of America, St. Louis University, Notre Dame, Fordham, Marquette, and Boston College, to mention but a few, and by the Dominicans at River Forest.
A great weakness of many of the nineteenthand twentieth-century Latin manuals produced during this effort was a lack of historical sensitivity and expertise, which resulted in an unreal and highly abstract presentation of an ‘Aristotelian-Thomistic’ philosophy. This weakness was largely offset by the development of solid historical research both in the thought of Aquinas and in medieval philosophy and theology in general, championed by scholars such as H. Denifle, M. De Wulf, M. Grabmann, P. Mandonnet, F. Van Steenberghen, E. Gilson and many of his students at Toronto, and by a host of more recent and contemporary scholars. Much of this historical work continues today both within and without Catholic scholarly circles. At the same time, remarkable diversity in interpreting Aquinas’s thought has emerged on the part of many twentieth-century scholars. Witness, e.g., the heavy influence of Cajetan and John of St. Thomas on the Thomism of Maritain; the much more historically grounded approaches developed in quite different ways by Gilson and F. Van Steenberghen; the emphasis on the metaphysics of participation in Aquinas in the very different presentations by L. Geiger and C. Fabro; the emphasis on existence (esse) promoted by Gilson and many others but resisted by still other interpreters; the movement known as Transcendental Thomism, originally inspired by P. Rousselot and by J. Marechal (in dialogue with Kant); and the long controversy about the appropriateness of describing Thomas’s philosophy (and that of other medievals) as a Christian philosophy. An increasing number of non-Catholic thinkers are currently directing considerable attention to Aquinas, and the varying backgrounds they bring to his texts will undoubtedly result in still other interesting interpretations and applications of his thought to contemporary concerns. See also AQUINAS , GILSON, JOHN OF SAINT THOMAS , MARITAIN , NEO -THOMIS. J.F.W.