St. Thomas Aquinas
1958
First Published
3.85
Average Rating
250
Number of Pages
In his preface to ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, Jacques Maritain writes: This work is not an exposition of Thomist doctrine. Rather, it is an attempt to bring to light certain essential aspects of the personality and work of the Angelic Doctor. For it is not of a medieval Thomism, but of a lasting and present Thomism that I speak. With this view in mind St. Thomas Aquinas emerges, not as a figure of peculiar relevance to the medieval tradition as such, but as an intellectual and spiritual figure of emormous contemporaneity. Peter O'Reilly retranslated ST. THOMAS AQUINAS and brought its appendices up to date.
Avg Rating
3.85
Number of Ratings
13
5 STARS
15%
4 STARS
54%
3 STARS
31%
2 STARS
0%
1 STARS
0%
goodreads
Author
Jacques Maritain
Author · 26 books
T. S. Eliot once called Jacques Maritain "the most conspicuous figure and probably the most powerful force in contemporary philosophy." His wife and devoted intellectual companion, Raissa Maritain, was of Jewish descent but joined the Catholic church with him in 1906. Maritain studied under Henri Bergson but was dissatisfied with his teacher's philosophy, eventually finding certainty in the system of St. Thomas Aquinas. He lectured widely in Europe and in North and South America, and lived and taught in New York during World War II. Appointed French ambassador to the Vatican in 1945, he resigned in 1948 to teach philosophy at Princeton University, where he remained until his retirement in 1953. He was prominent in the Catholic intellectual resurgence, with a keen perception of modern French literature. Although Maritain regarded metaphysics as central to civilization and metaphysically his position was Thomism, he took full measure of the intellectual currents of his time and articulated a resilient and vital Thomism, applying the principles of scholasticism to contemporary issues. In 1963, Maritain was honored by the French literary world with the national Grand Prize for letters. He learned of the award at his retreat in a small monastery near Toulouse where he had been living in ascetic retirement for some years. In 1967, the publication of "The Peasant of the Garonne" disturbed the French Roman Catholic world. In it, Maritain attacked the "neo-modernism" that he had seen developing in the church in recent decades, especially since the Second Vatican Council. According to Jaroslav Pelikan, writing in the Saturday Review of Literature, "He laments that in avant-garde Roman Catholic theology today he can 'read nothing about the redeeming sacrifice or the merits of the Passion.' In his interpretation, the whole of the Christian tradition has identified redemption with the sacrifice of the cross. But now, all of that is being discarded, along with the idea of hell, the doctrine of creation out of nothing, the infancy narratives of the Gospels, and belief in the immortality of the human soul." Maritain's wife, Raissa, also distinguished herself as a philosophical author and poet. The project of publishing Oeuvres Completes of Jacques and Raissa Maritain has been in progress since 1982, with seven volumes now in print.
