Me and Tommy Aquinas, or, A Post I'd Only Put Up On a Sunday
Making my way through old emails on this gorgeous Sunday afternoon—I don’t want to torture our readers digging out in the Midwest or huddling down in their parkas back East, but here in California this January afternoon the sun is streaming from an azure sky and the temperature has risen to 68 degrees—I find that some time ago Pseudodionysius asked what Catholic philosophers influenced me during my upbringing.
The answer? None. I grew up in a Protestant family--a very Protestant family. (After my uncle married a Catholic, he attended mass with his wife every Sunday during all six decades of their marriage, becoming so well-loved in their church that he served several times as president of the men’s club. When did my uncle finally convert? Never. He died a Protestant.)
Only after I went away to college did I begin reading Catholic authors—and even then, Pseudodi, I found myself drawn much more powerfully to Catholic journalists and novelists (Chesterton, Flannery O’Connor) than to Catholic philosophers or theologians (honestly, I can’t count the number of times I’ve tried to read Fr. Copelston’s History of Philosophy—and failed to make it past the introduction).
With one exception: St. Thomas Aquinas. Not all of Aquinas, most of which, slogging through assigned readings in college, I found as dry and difficult as any other philosophy, but one passage—almost one moment. Somewhere—I’m embarrassed to say I can no longer recall the citation—Aquinas asserts a basic aspect of creation. God didn’t simply create it once then walk away. Instead God holds creation in being from one moment to the next, pronouncing a constant and endless affirmation: “It is good.”
I can still recall reading that passage when I was burrowed away one evening in the library stacks at Dartmouth. It stopped me—it stopped me completely. The idea of the thing—the truth of it—struck me as so powerful, and so beautiful, that I had to get up and wander around, walking it off, before I could settle down and get back to work. Years later I learned that the same passage had had the same effect on Mortimer Adler. Adler, needless to say, was equipped to appreciate it at a deeper level than I. But still. It was thrilling to think that, if only for a moment, my mind had moved in the same groove as his.
Well, Pseudodi, thanks for the question, please accept my apologies for taking so long to get to it, and--I feel mighty sheepish admitting this--there you have it: my life with philosophy requires no more than five paragraphs to recount.
But now let me turn it around, Pseudodi, asking you—and all the Ricochetoise. Which philosophers have meant the most to you?
- Comment (60)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (5)
Comments :
Oct '10
Re: Me and Tommy Aquinas, or, A Post I'd Only Put Up On a Sunday
One philosopher that has influenced me greatly is Heraclitus, who is perhaps best known for observing, "A man's character is his fate." It is a subtle, put pointed reminder that how we treat others can have much influence upon the directions our own lives ultimately take.
Sep '10
Re: Me and Tommy Aquinas, or, A Post I'd Only Put Up On a Sunday
As George Wiegel has mentioned Fr Fred Copleston is an awful (he used a more diplomatic term) prose stylist. And its a work for reference rather than casual perusal. IN trying to understand Aquinas in more depth, I've read lots of Josef Pieper, Garrigou Lagrange, Aidan Nichols, Ralph McInerny, Peter Kreeft, Romanus Cessario, et al but special pride of place for essayists goes to Fr James Schall.
The rest? I've gotten various lists from Great Books colleges and continue to work through them knowing that I'll never finish. But I stand with Newman that you really have to wrestle with Aristotle, the master of all who know before you can understand conservatism.
May '10
Re: Me and Tommy Aquinas, or, A Post I'd Only Put Up On a Sunday
Soren Kierkegaard
May '10
Re: Me and Tommy Aquinas, or, A Post I'd Only Put Up On a Sunday
Do Eric Hoffer and Thomas Sowell count?
Re: Me and Tommy Aquinas, or, A Post I'd Only Put Up On a Sunday
Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Montesquieu but it is to Aristotle that I most frequently return.
Sep '10
Re: Me and Tommy Aquinas, or, A Post I'd Only Put Up On a Sunday
And favorite Catholic novelist? A toughie. Shusaku Endo eeks into first place.
Oct '10
Re: Me and Tommy Aquinas, or, A Post I'd Only Put Up On a Sunday
My favorite Catholic novelist: Walker Percy.
May '10
Re: Me and Tommy Aquinas, or, A Post I'd Only Put Up On a Sunday
I think of it like a song, Peter. God sustains Creation like a singer sustains a song. It's indeed a beautiful notion.
Allow me to offer a less common consideration regarding Creation. What are miracles? People tend to think of miracles as spontaneous, but they're not (not exactly).
When we think of the world like a wind-up toy that God set in motion long ago and now mainly observes, then it's understandable that we perceive miracles as intervention... a pausing of natural processes to make a spontaneous adjustment.
But God is not constrained by time as we are. He knows our future; the choices we will be faced with and the decisions we will make. He's omniscient. So God knows our prayers before we make them. Thus, miracles are not changes to His plan. Miracles are part of the plan.
Our "laws of nature" are based on a false assumption that because something always happens, it must happen. The truth is miracles are not a suspension of nature. They are natural.
It's like giving your wife a kiss when you normally give her a hug. Rarity gives the act (miracle) special meaning and power.
Jun '10
Re: Me and Tommy Aquinas, or, A Post I'd Only Put Up On a Sunday
Epictetus, as an unintended consequence of reading A Man In Full by Tom Wolfe.
May '10
Re: Me and Tommy Aquinas, or, A Post I'd Only Put Up On a Sunday
I was completely unaware of Percy until a year or so ago. I have yet to read his work.
Catholic Education Resource Center is a great resource for reading philosophy / theology in small bits and discovering great thinkers. A couple Ricochet writers happen to be included on the front page right now. Also, Jewish World Review has hosted many insightful articles by rabbis who are Hebrew scholars.
Peter Kreeft, John Richard Neuhaus and our past two popes are some modern philosophers I admire. Kreeft reminds me of C.S. Lewis in his ability to make philosophy easy to digest and connect it to everday life. I'd like to read more Lewis and Chesterton.
Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI are remarkable in their breadth of knowledge. They are even more remarkable in their willingness to understand how the philosophies they disagree with arise and why those ideas linger.
But, like you, Peter, I prefer to get my philosophy from fiction.
Oct '10
Re: Me and Tommy Aquinas, or, A Post I'd Only Put Up On a Sunday
Peter Robinson: ...I found myself drawn much more powerfully to Catholic journalists and novelists (Chesterton, Flannery O’Connor) than to Catholic philosophers or theologians...
With one exception: St. Thomas Aquinas. Not all of Aquinas, most of which, slogging through assigned readings in college, I found as dry and difficult as any other philosophy...
My experience is the same as Peter's. Luckily, Chesterton himself wrote one of the definitive works on Thomas Aquinas - more a sketch than a full biography. It's classic Chesterton, and well worth the read.
Here's an absolute gem from it (one of hundreds - as any reader of Chesterton knows):
"[St. Thomas's] argument for Revelation is not in the least an argument against Reason. On the contrary, he seems inclined to admit that truth could be reached by a rational process, if only it were rational enough; and also long enough.... That is, he does emphatically believe that men can be convinced by argument; when they reach the end of the argument. Only his common sense also told him that the argument never ends."
Edited on Jan 23, 2011 at 4:44pmMay '10
Re: Me and Tommy Aquinas, or, A Post I'd Only Put Up On a Sunday
My big three: Dietrich von Hildebrand, Karol Wojtyla, John Henry Newman.
When it comes to the main lines, I'm more of a Plato/Augustine/Pascal/Scotus/Bonaventure girl than Aristotle/Aquinas/Maritain/LaGrange.
I can hardly read a line of Kierkegaard, Guardini, or Pieper, without putting the book down to marvel and sigh with love and gratitude--and reproach myself for my failure to read them much more often and deeply.
Among Catholic novelists I especially enjoy Rumer Godden. It's not the greatest from a strictly literary point of view, but the stories are always touching and delightfully told. Try China Court. Or Kingfishers Catch Fire.
I'd never heard of the novelist you mentioned, Pseud. Have you got a favorite book of hers/his? I'll put it right in my Amazon shopping cart.
Edited on Jan 23, 2011 at 4:45pmMay '10
Re: Me and Tommy Aquinas, or, A Post I'd Only Put Up On a Sunday
Speaking of C.S. Lewis. His best philosophical work: The Abolition of Man. But maybe still more beautiful and profound is his too-little-known novel Til We Have Faces.
It's the kind of book that suddenly makes sense of everything.
Dec '10
Re: Me and Tommy Aquinas, or, A Post I'd Only Put Up On a Sunday
Shockingly, G.K. Chesterton is the most important "philosopher" in my life. Perhaps it is because I too am a large, jolly soul (GK was over 6'3'' and over 300lb, and I am over 6'3'' and 265lb) who loves God, loves the truth, and, like GKC, still feels like a 10 year old boy trapped in a 27 year old man's body. No one I've ever come across had the wit, humor, and seriousness that Chesterton communicated in nearly everything he wrote.
I love his philosophy of friendship, not even with your ideological enemies, but especially with your ideological enemies. He converted to Catholicism, I plan on staying a Protestant, and we're separated by a century or so, but when I read GKC its as if I'm listening to a voice in my own head telling me to be happier, laugh more, and fight with every breath I have within me to defend and protect the world God made.
I only wish I could have lived in his time so I might have been the one to explain free market capitalism to him. But other that his distributist leanings, GKC is my philosophical master.
Dec '10
Re: Me and Tommy Aquinas, or, A Post I'd Only Put Up On a Sunday
P.s. Peter, thanks for sharing this with us. I've been wanting to hear more of your thoughts on such matters since I read How Reagan Changed My Life. I've perceived through your writings, podcasts, and UK broadcasts that we share similar sensibilities and your post today confirms that. You're doing God's work and you're in my prayers.
Sep '10
Re: Me and Tommy Aquinas, or, A Post I'd Only Put Up On a Sunday
Peter Kreeft's book about Pascal is wonderful. I was fascinated by Plato and even more by Neo Platonism in the Phaedrus while in College but I also read Mortimer Adler's _Aristotle for Everybody_ after seeing him on Firing Line some years later and regret not studying him more. Among the more recent F.A. Hayek would have to be my favorite. I also find Michael Oakshott fascinating but don't have the time I'd like to take to understand him as well as I'd like.
May '10
Re: Me and Tommy Aquinas, or, A Post I'd Only Put Up On a Sunday
My life in Philosophy started with Thomas Kuhn, as I was a science major. Once I settled in to study Philosophy, too, it was always back to Plato and Aristotle, as they seem to have covered every area of philosophy. Then on to Boethius, who was a joy to read, and Abelard, likewise. Of course Aquinas, though I often argued with him, particularly on his idea of replacement theology, but that's an ongoing argument. (BTW, Abelard covers several of the same ideas as Aquinas, but over 100 years before.) Maimonides for depth and breadth. He, like Aquinas after him, sought to marry Aristotle to Jewish and Christian, respectively, theology. Moving out of the middle ages... Johanna mentioned Kierkegaard; his Fear and Trembling is truly breathtaking. I really liked reading Camus, too, particularly The Plague, but also The Stranger. I had the great fun in college of doing "Existentialism" as an independent study class (which is really only appropriate) and read both of those authors then, as well as others. And of course, Kant. I used to describe myself as a Kantian-neo-Platonist. Not sure that is entirely true now, but it's close. I do believe in absolutes.
May '10
Re: Me and Tommy Aquinas, or, A Post I'd Only Put Up On a Sunday
CS Lewis, Peter Kreeft, and William Lane Craig, but the latter is more evangelical apologist than seminal philosopher. But then, I slip at all times toward the practical over the ethereal.
Jan '11
Re: Me and Tommy Aquinas, or, A Post I'd Only Put Up On a Sunday
My, this is embarrassing. I'm in way over my head here. Out of my league.
I don't even know if Dilbert is Catholic.
May '10
Re: Me and Tommy Aquinas, or, A Post I'd Only Put Up On a Sunday
That's what I love about Newman.