St. Thomas Aquinas Reconsidered, Part I
There is a notion of the contemplative life that one could draw from modern undergraduate and graduate schools that is cartoonish and false. The implication is that contemplation looks down upon the active life and consists in scholarship that draws solely from a lifetime of quiet reception to wisdom. To be contemplative is defined in an extreme and negative way: it is seen as a life that is not active, whereas the so-called active life is seen to consist in politics, business, or the usual life of human beings in which they have to do lots of things other than study or navel gaze.
Part of the reason for this is that young people go to college and graduate school—young people who haven’t yet figured out exactly what they want to do with their lives—and thus they read what they perceive to be the various distinctions and differences of vocations and careers (that they are also ignorant of) into what the words “active” and “contemplative” mean. This is similar to the opinion of some of those who were against the early Dominican order.
According to Russell Hittinger, on page 270 of The First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural Law in the Post-Christian World (read a review here):
William of Saint-Amour, a doctor of the Sorbonne, charged that the “double spirit” of action and contemplation embodied by the mendicants was a novel way of life that perverted the principles of both civil and ecclesiastical society. The mendicants, he asserted: violate the principle of a society of contemplatives by seeking to act on others rather than being purely receptive of divine grace . . .
It is hardly ever appreciated that St. Thomas Aquinas lived and breathed in an order unlike most others. The more “contemplative orders” would not have allowed him to travel, teach, preach and write as he did. Hittinger continues on page 271 with a paragraph I wish every student of St. Thomas was required to understand:
Thomas contends that the “active life” consists of more than political rule and mercantile pursuits. Granted that religious are neither magistrates or businessmen, they are “active” in other ways, including the communication of knowledge and wisdom by teaching and preaching. The active life, generically understood, is the communication of gifts. In this, all agents imitate God. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a society that is in every aspect receptive. Although societas is an analogous term, every society, he argues, is constituted by “communications” whereby goods are given and received. In Thomas’s works, every analogous use of the word societas is mirrored by uses of the word communicatio: communicatio oeconomica, communicatio spiritualis, communicatio civilis, and so forth. The word communicatio simply means making something common, one rational agent participating in the life of another. Society, for Aquinas, is not a thing, but an activity.
Think about what St. Thomas actually did: he defended his order from those inside and outside the Church who hated it, wrote advice to political leaders, wrote a lengthy work of apologetics to convert Muslims, wrote commentaries about a philosopher almost completely new to the western world, wrote a “textbook” for beginning theology students, and generally sought and fought to answer the most pressing, cutting-edge theological and philosophical issues of his time. He did all this mostly by drawing on his vast knowledge of the Church Fathers and Sacred Scripture and employing the power of prayerful reasoning.
Again, when he wrote about Aristotle, and incorporated Aristotle’s thought into his own thinking, he was writing about something that was largely new to the western world. He made Aristotle part of the tradition again, because he dove headlong into the rancorous issues of his time and argued that Aristotle was largely right. To think we should imitate him in all ways is presumptous of both our abilities and our knowlege of our own time, but as he is one of the Saints and the Doctor of the Church his life and works ought to be taken as a sort of exemplar—particularly for those of us who wish to focus our lives on studying and teaching truth.
The point about negation is well taken: so much of the silly things we say and think resolve to not bothering to define them- to see contemplation as a sort of negation simply speaking is an example of this.
Some things, of course, have to be defined by negation, but if there were nothing more to the contemplative life then the absense of action, then sleeping men would be the greatest contemplatives of all!
There is also an equivocation about “action”. The “active” in “active life” cannot mean “doing stuff”. This would be evident to anyone who bothered to ask what his terms meant, but very few people do.
shulamite8810
February 28, 2006 at 1:55 pm
The equivocation on action is a great point and a big part of the problem. After the equivocation is made, contemplation is defined as being simply the negative of the false notion of active that people have.
There is much to be gained for all those who seek truth by considering what Aquinas and Aristotle say about the active and contemplative life–in the context about what they think the end of ALL men is and ought to be considered as.
kodiak
February 28, 2006 at 2:40 pm
Thanks for the post. This is a nice reminder for me. I have been really critical of Scholasticism, Thomas particularly, for being “too concerned with the abstract” and not enough with practical theology. Frankly, I had forgotten about this. Thomas really was engaging the culture of his time (in the world, yet not of it, etc.) particularly in using Aristotle. While I think there is still some problems with Thomas view of God and the biblical view (post forthcoming), I should not forget his “prayerful reasoning.” He was certainly the man for his time.
overlyconscious
February 28, 2006 at 4:31 pm
Just remember, it is easy for all of us to be critical or supportive of “isms.” We all need to stop creating monstrous and angelic “isms” in our thought that have little to do with what men have thought and said about what is.
kodiak
February 28, 2006 at 4:36 pm
Too true kodiak, still it’s hard not to. In some sense, this speaks to the racism and morality post above, no?
overlyconscious
February 28, 2006 at 7:17 pm
Besides, one need not agree with everything another says to be co-belligerents for a common cause.
This is why the church, for example, may fight with secular organizations and governments against social injustice.
All truth, after all, is God’s truth.
overlyconscious
February 28, 2006 at 7:21 pm
Yes, this is very much related to the reductio of race–er–ism. Heh.
We need to use -ism words to some extent in order to express universal thoughts or modes of thought, but we need to clearly define the limits or the precise meaning of the term lest we fall into error. I think its something we all struggle with every day, since the confused universal is an everpresent constant on multiple fronts in every thinking human mind.
Your point about joining up where one can is true with qualifications we would likely both agree with.
kodiak
February 28, 2006 at 8:07 pm
Whens the last time any of you were substitute teaching in a public school on the South Side of Chi-town, when a large black kid calls you a [sic] “f______ white-__ed piece of ____” [real quote] after calling security, the vice-principle escorts the student back to your class and says you have to take him in. Any guesses what color the administrator was?
Race is a real issue and a real problem in this country. (remember, Mr. Tocqueville?) I’m not advocating the creation of Liberia, for example, but rather recognizing that different ethnic groups develop different characteristics over time – as a general trend.
I have edited this post for language
-kodiak
beitiathustra
February 28, 2006 at 8:41 pm
Whoa, sorry, I meant to comment that to the post up above. Thomas rulez!
beitiathustra
February 28, 2006 at 8:43 pm
I recognize that race is problem in this country and that “different ethnic groups develop different characteristics over time – as a general trend.” But the problem that those people who dealt with you unjustly have is only accidentally related to genetics or the color of their skin. The problem is how culture and politics uses skin color and genetics. Neither of those two racists was born with genes that hate white people.
kodiak
February 28, 2006 at 9:34 pm
OH most certainly agree (apologies for the language, I thought the “sic” as it ran thusly would suffice) it is neither genetic nor skin color based. It has to do rather with the “virtue” of the people in question. (By virtue one means that which they hold dear – in the Nietzschean sense) What is the difference between a gang-banging black inner city young male and a good ‘ol boy KKK down south guy? Not a whole lot. The virtue is similar, if with dissimilar end. As we would agree, virtue, and vice, is a habit and certain cultural, economic, and societal factors make certain habits more prevalent. Are these etched in stone? No. Can one overcome one’s heritage? Certainly. Genetics is the hand-made excuse for anyone who refuses to accept blame for anything. Any bad quality – genetics. How come I am very bad at basketball – genetics. (okay, I’m short, but that’s not the point) I think it would be interesting if these same “genetics means lots” people would apply this same principle to their virtues – or strong points. “Wow Mr. Fumare guy, that was insightful” “Don’t thank me, thank generations of careful breeding – I did nothing but let me genes express themselves” what a crock…
beitiathustra
February 28, 2006 at 10:55 pm