Praeambula Fidei: Thomism and the God of the Philosophers

326 Pages·2006·1.59 MB·English

by  Ralph McInerny

Praeambula Fidei

ralph mcinerny

Praeambula Fidei
thomism and the god of
the philosophers
the catholic university of america press
Washington, D.C.
Copyright © 2006
The Catholic University of America Press
All rights reserved
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National
Standards for Information Science—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z39.48-1984.
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McInerny, Ralph M.
Praeambula fidei : Thomism and the God of the philosophers / Ralph McInerny.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8132-1458-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8132-1458-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, 1225?–1274. 2. Philosophical theology.
3. Aristotle. 4. Metaphysics. I. Title.
B765.T54M242 2006
210—dc22
2005027382
or Thomas DeKoninck
F


Contents
Preface ix
Part I. The Preambles of Faith
1. Introduction 3
Part Ii. The Erosion of the Doctrine
Prologue 35
2. Gilson’s Attack on Cajetan 39
3. De Lubac and Cajetan 69
4. Christian Philosophy 91
5. The Chenu Case 108
6. The Alleged Forgetfulness of Esse 126
Part Iii. Thomism and Philosophical Theology
Prologue 159
7. The Presuppositions of Metaphysics 169
8. The Science We Are Seeking 188
9. The Metaphysics as a Literary Whole 219
10. Methodological Interlude 238
11. The Book of Wisdom 245
12. Sed Contra 283
13. Aristotelian Existentialism and
Thomistic Essentialism 293
Selected Bibliography 307
Index 311

Preface
In Characters in Search of Their Author,1 I considered the difficulties
posed for natural theology by various developments in recent philosophy. By
and large, philosophers have become professionally hostile to the possibility
of proving the existence of God and consequently of saying other true things
about him. This hostility seems a predictable consequence of the subjective
turn taken with Descartes and the various other turns taken since.2 In the
present volume, by contrast with its predecessor, I propose to treat the nega-
tive attitude toward natural theology that is found among those one would
have expected to be defenders of it.
This book is a defense of a robust understanding of the teaching of St.
Thomas Aquinas and of the Magisterium on praeambula fidei. It is a cri-
tique of several influential thinkers whose writings have, however unwitting-
ly, eroded the notion of praeambula fidei. Finally, it is an oblique defense of
Thomism as philosophy. The locus of the praeambula fidei is in metaphysics
as Thomas learned that culminating science from Aristotle. It is only when
that metaphysics is correctly understood that the praeambula fidei can be cor-
rectly understood. Thomas added much to our understanding of these mat-
ters, but what he added to is what is found in Book Lambda of the Metaphys-
ics and the presuppositions on which it depends. Thomists who imagine an
enmity between Thomas and Aristotle fail to see this, and accordingly would
lead us along paths that end in something akin to fideism.
1. Characters in Search of Their Author, the Gifford Lectures Glasgow 1999-2000 (South
Bend, Ind., 2001).
2. Cornelio Fabro’s magisterial Introduzione al ateismo moderno (Rome, 1964) finds in the
Cartesian turn the seeds of modern atheism.
ix