Customer Reviews

Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Many students of Aquinas know quite well his intimate aquinatance with Aristotle, and often (mistakenly) see Aquinas only as a follower of Aristotle and his Philosophy. But Aquinas was also open to the Platonic heritage in Philosophy, as mediated through the East by Dionysius the Aeropagite, and through the West by St Augustine.

Aquinas wrote a number of works commenting on Neo-Platonic philosophy and Neo-Platonic Christian philosophy, including the Aeropagite's theological work on the names given to God in the Bible, called 'The Divine Names.'

O'Rourke's book draws out the connections between the thought of Aquinas and Dionysius, and the influence Dionysius had on the thought of Aquinas. Aquinas cites Dionysius very frequently in many of his works, accepting him as a substantial authority, but at times Aquinas also differs from Dionysius (and also John Damascene, the other great Eastern influence on his thought). Aquinas however develops a lot of Dionysius's apophatic theology in exploring God as transcendant or absolute Being, while jettisoning some of the more extravagant Neo-Platonic ideas, such as Being simply being another of the creations of the unnameable One beyond all names, categories, definitions and forms. While Aquinas seems prepared to accept God as an absolute mystery whose essence cannot be known as it is, he seems somewhat apprehensive about veiling God's being so far behind apophaticism we can't say anything at all accurately in our language which gives us any understanding of God.

Aquinas instead sees God as the infinite perfection and actuality of Being, the infinitely perfect Being in which all things exist in their fullness and beauty and actuality, with no need for any further 'potentiality' or assimilation into the divine. At many points Aquinas gets rather technical, but his understanding of God has a beautiful and convincing feeling of concreteness about it in giving us a sense of what experiencing God may actually be like, whereas Dionysius seems to make God so remote and mysterious and inaccessible in his transcendance (even in the incarnation) one feels at times as though this God is somewhat like the 'grey tea' C.S. Lewis mockingly observed when he was told God was infinite, incomprehensible and formless, shrouded forever in totally obscure mystery.

Yet Aquinas does not ditch the mystery of God and in fact tries to enhance and maintain it, as he felt Dionysius properly observed, while ensuring we can talk about God in a meaningful way using human language.

This monograph is a useful work for any student of Christian Neo-Platonic thought and mysticism, as well as theologians or philosophers interested in either of these thinkers.