By DONALD DeMARCO
Thomas Aquinas was born in the year 1224 in Rocca Sicca, the hereditary castle of the counts of Aquino in the Neapolitan province. While he was residing in the womb, a holy man brought a prophecy to the unborn child’s mother, Theodora, countess of Aquino: “Rejoice, O lady, for thou art about to have a son whom thou shalt call Thomas….Such will be his learning and holiness that his equal will not be found throughout the world.”
The prophecy was fulfilled. At the hearing for the canonization of St. Thomas Aquinas in 1319, a statement from the archbishop of Naples was introduced. According to the testimony of the good bishop, Friar Giacomo di Viterbo, “Our savior had sent, as doctor of truth to illuminate the world and the universal Church, first the apostle Paul, then Augustine, and finally in these latest days Friar Thomas, whom…no one would succeed till the end of the world.”
This testimony properly recognizes St. Thomas Aquinas’ rightful place as a pre-eminent doctor of the Church. This most distinguished honor was ratified by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical, Aeterni Patris:
“Let carefully selected teachers endeavor to implant the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas in the minds of students, and set forth clearly his solidity and excellence over others. Let the universities already founded or to be founded by you [venerable brethren] illustrate and defend this doctrine, and use it for the refutation of prevailing errors.”
Other Popes have lavished similar praise upon the Angelic Doctor. In his encyclical, Humani Generis, Pope Pius XII declared that “since, as we well know from the experience of centuries, the method of Aquinas is singularly preeminent both for teaching students and for bringing truth to light; his doctrine is in harmony with divine revelation, and is most effective both for safeguarding the foundation of faith, and for reaping, safely and useful, the fruits of sound progress.”
It is important to note that Aquinas is not great because the Church states that he is great; rather, the Church recognizes the greatness that is demonstrated in Aquinas’ writings. Jacques Maritain, the 20th-century’s foremost Thomistic philosopher, avers that Aquinas’ philosophy is founded on evidence alone and continues to live by reason alone.
What is it that sets Aquinas apart from all the others? Peter Kreeft, in his summary of the Summa Theologiae, states that Thomas Aquinas is the greatest of all philosophers because he is a beacon of “truth, common sense, practicality, clarity, profundity, orthodoxy, and modernity.” A single sentence from his voluminous writings integrates all of these seven points: “The greatest kindness one can render to any man consists in leading him to truth.”
For Aquinas, truth can be known, communicated, and serve as a benefit for people. In clear and straightforward language, Aquinas states: “The truth of the human intellect receives its direction and measurement from the essences of things. For the truth or falsity of an opinion depends on whether a thing is or is not.”
In other words, the intellect makes contact with the external world and comes to know the truth of things as they are and not as one might have a subjective opinion of them. This is indeed practical because it is not at all practical for a person to reside in a dream world of private thoughts.
Here, common sense, orthodoxy, and modernity come together. We emphasize “modernity” because such a sensible position holds true for all ages. Aquinas is modern, therefore, because his thought, not being restricted by fashionable, never goes out of style.
The distinguished Thomistic scholar, Etienne Gilson, has made the observation that Aquinas had two virtues to a very high degree that are seldom found as such in the same person. The virtues he specified are intellectual modesty and intellectual audacity. Aquinas was open to all thinkers and was astonishingly well read. Cardinal Cajetan said of him that because “he most venerated the ancient doctors of the Church, in a certain way seems to have inherited the intellect of all.”
Because of this intellectual modesty, Aquinas could understand what he read clearly and objectively without the intrusion of any personal bias. Because of his intellectual audacity, he had the strength of mind to hold on to what he understood without making any concessions to popular trends or to critics who had political power.
Therefore, Pope Leo XIII could say that “Thomas collected together and cemented, distributed [the doctrines of his Predecessors] in wonderful order, and so increased with important additions that he is rightly and deservedly esteemed the special bulwark and glory of the Catholic faith.”
Aquinas saw clearly, held firmly, and ordered properly, both the truths of philosophy and those of Revelation.
There are many philosophers who possessed intellectual modesty but lacked the audacity to hold on to what they knew and capitulated to political correctness. Among these thinkers can be found pragmatists who call themselves “liberal” and temper their convictions to suit the times. There are perhaps as many philosophers who saw things skewed by their own personal preferences, but presented them to the world with unswerving force and dedication. These are the ideologues such as Marx, Nietzsche, Comte, and Mao Tse-tung.
Aquinas was true to his vocation as a great thinker as well as a holy person. Aquinas is well remembered for his five proofs for the existence of God. Perhaps he should be better remembered for providing us with such an excellent example of a human being in which God and man so perfectly interact.
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(Dr. Donald DeMarco is a senior fellow of Human Life International. He is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario, an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College in Cromwell, Conn., and a regular columnist for St. Austin Review. His latest works, How to Remain Sane in a World That Is Going Mad; Poetry That Enters the Mind and Warms the Heart; and How to Flourish in a Fallen World are available through Amazon.com.
(Some of his recent writings may be found at Human Life International’s Truth and Charity Forum. He is the 2015 Catholic Civil Rights League recipient of the prestigious Exner Award.)
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