Volume 41 (2023): Issue 1 (October 2023)

This paper reopens the debate on the possibility that Aquinas borrowed his tertia via from a Latin translation of Maimonides ‘Guide for the Perplexed’. After introducing the text of the tertia via, I shall analyze the first part and conclude that while a ‘metaphysical’, tenseless reading is correct, we should not be nervous to call Aquinas’s reasoning for what it is: flawed. Framing the problematic passage in its historical context, I shall then argue that the flaw lies not so much with Aquinas, but with the source he was borrowing from. This is Maimonides’ Dalālat al-ḥāʾirīn (“The Guide for the Perplexed”), and in fact more specifically the blame is to be given to an early translator into Latin.

This paper traces the basic contours of Aquinas’s account of connatural knowledge in order to see what role (if any) connaturality might play in our knowledge of the precepts of the natural law. It engages a dispute between Maritain and Doolan on this topic. After considering what Aquinas means by “connaturality” in general the paper examines the main elements of his view of knowledge by connaturality in particular. I argue that the true doctrine of Aquinas probably lies between Maritain and Doolan’s opposed interpretations. Although it is not the only way of doing so, connaturality or inclination would still seem to be one possible way of knowing the natural law, while the use of reason is another.

In light of recent biblical scholarship claiming that the God of the Hebrew Bible has a body, this article investigates how Aquinas reads Isaiah’s description of God in embodied, anthropomorphic terms in 6, 1 (I saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up, etc.) in tandem with the prophet’s denial that God is like any creature in 40, 18 (To whom have you likened God? Or what image will you make for Him?). We seek to show that, according to Aquinas, Is. 6, 1 teaches not that God has or is a body, but rather that He is not.

This paper presents a reading of Aquinas’ treatment of the value of music in religious teaching and preaching about God that reinterprets his claim in ST II-II, q. 91, a.2 that language is of ‘a more noble kind’ than music. Through an understanding of Aquinas’ writings on ‘contemplation’ a more complex and thorough treatment of music can be outlined. Far from simply presenting an argument for the superiority of language over music for the purpose of gaining religious understanding, this paper argues that Aquinas’ wider literary corpus on the subject of contemplation provides both implicit and explicit support for the parallel value music and language.