Thomas Aquinas, the evangelical?
By Leonardo de Chirico, Evangelical Focus.
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) is the Roman Catholic theologian par excellence.
For centuries he has embodied the letter and the spirit of the theology of the church of Rome. Combining rationality and contemplation, rigor and passion, study and devotion, his thought has touched on the different traits of Catholic life inspiring the intellectual sophistications and the popular beliefs, the academic pursuits, and the devotional imaginations.
The reception of his legacy has not been without conflicts of interpretation and different seasons of greater or lesser influence.
Yet, the Wirkungsgeschichte (history of effects) indicates that there would not have been the anti-Protestant Roman Catholicism of the Council of Trent (1545-1563), the anti-modernist Roman Catholicism of Vatican I (1870), and then the ecumenical Roman Catholicism of Vatican II (1962-1965) without Thomas Aquinas inspiring them all in different ways.
Difficult to dispute is church historian David Schaff’s claim that “the theology of the Angelic Doctor (Thomas’s nickname in Catholic circles) and the theology of the Roman Catholic Church are identical in all particulars except the immaculate conception. Anyone who understands Thomas understands medieval theology at its peak and has access to the doctrinal system of the Roman Church.”[1]
At least symbolically if not theologically, Thomas is to Roman Catholicism in all its internal versions what Luther and Calvin are to the Reformation in all its variants: father-like figures.
By contrast, until a few years ago, precisely because of his close identification with Roman Catholicism, few would have dreamed of seeing Thomas associated with a “Protestant” sensibility.
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
