A GREAT THINKER

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 658, 15 February 1952, Page 12

A GREAT THINKER

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS: PHILOSOPHICAL TEXTS, selected and translated by Thomas Gilby; Geoffrey Cumberlege; Oxford University Press. English price, 12/6. ‘THE Summa Theologica-of St. Thomas Aquinas is invariably included in lists of. the world’s best books, but its author wrote much else, and these works should be looked at if the full range of his thought is to be os Thomas Gilby, who edits this sefection, explains that his purpose has been to reveal the rational foundation of the theology. It is therefore the natural wisdom of Aquinas-as against the supernatural, "the infused knowledge of things in the revelation of the divine mysteries"which provides the texts. Father Gilby admits that St. Thomas is an "intractable" author for an anthologist: "His mind works laconically at a level and sustained speed . .. the unit of thought is the treatise, not the phrase; the style is sober, expository, and repetitive, the ideas more exciting than the images and richer than the vocabulary." Nevertheless, the editor has assembled quotations which are. pointed and packed with ideas, It is difficult to open the book at random without finding a text which sets one furiously to ‘think. And although the wisdom is embedded firmly in scholasticism it is often surprising to remember that the words were written 700 years ago. Is not, for instance, a theme used in modern novels incipient in this sentence?-"Evil.can-not be known simply as evil, for its core is hollow, and can be neither recognised nor defined save by the surrounding

good." And have not recent theories in psychopathology been built around the following statement?--"All fear springs from love. Ordered love is included in every virtue, disordered love in every vice." Although the texts are arranged in the order of subjects used in the Summa Theologica, many are taken from other works (nearly 100 could be drawn upon) and are here translated into English for the first time. The book is an’ "independent prologomen to belief" for people inside and outside the churches. And Father Gilby, whose understanding appears to be as wide as his. scholarship, has a special word for potential readers among unbelievers. "A philosophical attitude," he writes, "may not be enough for health and happiness or for complete adaptation to reality, but it is a sound beginning." It can scarcely be a full beginning, however, unless it includes some knowledge of a man whose influence on Christian theology has been equalled only by St. Augustine. This anthology, beautifully produced, is

an invitation to discovery.

H.