Uniting Traditions: A Byzantine Catholic and a Thomist
This article presents the preparatory work I did for a less formal presentation given at the St. Charbel Spiritual Life Center in Pittsburgh, PA, on October 4, 2025. The footnote documentation here is not exhaustive; it focuses primarily on the various Thomist sources that have been most influential on my thought. Because of its particular provenance, this essay does not offer a complete statement of my views, but it does provide an outline that I believe is useful to present to a public readership.1
To be an Eastern Catholic is always a bit “two-headed.” It’s sometimes observed—light-heartedly, yet also tragically—that the various Eastern Catholic Churches are like the children of divorce: treated with a kind of cold distance by Mother Rome for not looking enough like her, and treated harshly by Father Orthodoxy for looking too much like Rome. (I set aside here, however, the cases of the Maronites and, at least in part, the Italo-Greek Catholics.) For various reasons, and under various pressures, our Churches have often succumbed to a kind of dual personality, sometimes appearing as a mélange of Eastern and Western practice and thought. It’s rightly—though somewhat inexactly—said that the Church should breathe with two lungs. But very often, Eastern Catholic Churches look like a right lung trying to grow its own left lung. In liturgy, devotional practices, asceticism, architecture, theological formation, and even surface-level aesthetics, our Churches have repeatedly given in to the temptation to adopt Roman ways of thinking and acting without enough discernment. In short, uniatism remains a real risk for Eastern Catholic Churches in union with Rome.2
And yet, here I am, talking to you about being a Byzantine Thomist. It sounds like one more example of the “Latin captivity of the East.” And perhaps it is, to a degree. I don’t have any grandiose claims of escaping the pressures that have regularly beset our Churches—especially in places where there’s no longer an integrally Eastern culture. (It should be noted, though, that this is already the case; the entire world now lives within a sphere dominated by Western culture.) Yet, if nothing else, I can say that I am a Byzantine Catholic who is also a Thomist. Today, I simply want to explain why I think this is possible, offering a few brief vignettes on various topics within Thomism.
I should first say a word about how I became a Thomist. I didn’t start out as a pious Roman Catholic (I was ascribed as a Ruthenian Catholic in 2018) who tucked his Summa theologiae under his arm and skipped off into a scholastic sunset. In fact, my love of theology began with the work of Ratzinger, who is decidedly not a scholastic. And my spirituality has always been somewhat monastic. The 1200s already feel a little bit modern to me. For several years, I was a Roman Catholic Benedictine in simple vows and in seminary. During that time, I approached Scholasticism with a kind of suspicion. I thought: This is all such intellectualistic, rationalistic stuff—speaking neither to the heart nor to modern man. I basically assumed that Thomists were cut off from both monastic wisdom and an honest rapprochement with contemporary problems. In other words, I had drunk deeply of the Kool-Aid served by the reigning culture—alas, even within the Church herself in my youth.
But then I read one of the most difficult works by the French Thomist Jacques Maritain—The Degrees of Knowledge. It was assigned to me in an epistemology course by a professor who was, in fact, a Jaspers scholar. I’ve often joked that I probably understood about five percent of the text. But it’s better to have a little knowledge of great things than much knowledge of trifling ones. And that small glimpse was enough. In the voice, person, and thought of Maritain, I discovered that Thomism is not only once-living but still able to speak to the deepest aspirations of the monastic side of my heart.
I’m not notably eclectic by temperament; I like to keep a certain consistency. So I gradually began reading the works of those most closely associated with Maritain. As I devoured their writings—philosophical and theological alike—I began to realize that much of what I’d been told about Thomism was simply false. In fact, even some Thomists themselves seemed to tell stories about their own tradition that weren’t quite true. I felt this both in philosophical matters and in theology.
That is enough, however, concerning my entrance into Thomism. Allow me to turn to some particular topics and why I think that, as a “Byzantine Thomist,” I am not a “square circle” or a “goat stag.”
Philosophy. “But Thomas is an Aristotelian! We are Neoplatonists in the East.” Well, first of all, I share something of the perspective of someone like Lloyd Gerson (Aristotle and Other Platonists)—and, truth be told, of most ancient authors: Neoplatonism always saw itself as connected to Aristotelianism, even while going beyond it. In fact, the philosophical synthesis of Thomas Aquinas was clearly influenced by Neoplatonism and by a Neoplatonic reading of Aristotle. The “pure Aristotelian” interpretation of Thomas is contrary to the evidence and ends up losing what’s most distinctive in his thought. Thomas is certainly an Aristotelian—deeply so, especially in the structural clarity of his reasoning—yet he is also profoundly indebted to an Arab-Platonic reading of Aristotle. Even if his positions are never identical to those of a more Neoplatonic outlook—like that of Ss. Dionysius, Maximus, John of Damascus, or Gregory Palamas—they are also not as different as some would make them out to be. Much more could be said, but this will suffice for now, lest I never move on to any theological topic.3
Faith and Reason. Thomas Aquinas was, first and foremost, a theologian. Most Catholics think of him as a philosopher because of the massive philosophical apparatus he deploys in his works. And the very genre of those works is “dialectical” and “scientific” (in the Aristotelian sense of those terms). Yet the entire philosophy of Thomas can only be understood within his theological project, as the instrument of his quest to discover and articulate an intellectus fidei—an understanding of the faith. Human reason benefits immensely from revelation and theology, and this is something I’ve learned in his school and from his best expositors. It refutes the claim that Thomas inevitably leads to a rationalization of the faith or an obsession with philosophy. Admittedly, many scholastics have fallen into a kind of philosophical fixation, treating Thomas as a mine from which to extract philosophical ore. But that’s a mistake—it distorts the true impulse of his thought.4
Faith, Mysticism, and Theology. But then one might object: his works are so dry! To become a Thomist, it’s said, is to reduce theology to a discursive, scientific exercise. And yes, it’s true that Thomas’s writings, taken on their own, tend to form one as a scientific theologian. I suppose that if someone were to focus on this exclusively—and perhaps this is indeed a risk for academic theologians—one could spend so much of life in discursive theology that little time remains for actually practicing the faith. This is a real danger.
The assent of faith is formally different from that of discursive theology. Faith is the living assent to the supernatural realities (and the connected natural ones) spoken by God and proposed by the Church. (For simplicity, I speak here only of the normative case of ecclesial “orientation.”) Faith lovingly assents; discursive theology lovingly inquires. The latter serves the former. It remains at the level of the mystery of the Triune God who saves us in Christ, yet it is still a human labor. Thus, its formal object is lower than that of faith. So our first point is this: Thomism itself recognizes that discursive theology is a lower task than the life of faith.
But moreover, faith is purified through the ascetico-mystical life. In other words, there is the experience of mysticism, through which the theological virtues are refined and made capable of a kind of quasi-experiential foretaste of the blessed union to come. And this, according to Thomas himself and the best Thomist theologians, is the highest form of supernatural knowledge available to us. (One recalls Thomas’s famous remark: “All that I have written appears to me as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me”—not as a repudiation of discursive reason, but as an acknowledgment that it is secondary and subservient: first things first, second things second.)
Indeed, we should remember that it was a host of Thomists and Thomist-aligned theologians who founded the periodical Vie spirituelle. Even if Thomas himself left us only a few explicit models of mystical theology, his synthetic vision clearly recognizes its primacy of place within any Christian noetic or epistemology. Thus, our second point: one is not abusing Thomism to say that it acknowledges mysticism as the highest form of human “theology.”5
The Highest Theology. In its highest sense, “theology” is, as some of the Greek Fathers would say, the Trinity itself. Admittedly, this way of speaking may sound foreign to Thomists, for whom theology tout court generally refers to discursive or scientific theology. And yet we should remember that the entire structure of theology in Thomas’s Summa theologiae is both from the Trinity and directed back to the Trinity. The whole objective light of theology is the Trinity, the keystone of all the other mysteries. According to Thomas himself, discursive theology is, after all, a kind of impression of God’s own knowledge upon us—received according to a human, discursive mode. In other words, human supernatural theology is ultimately grounded in the Theology—the divine “God-speaking” that belongs to God alone. Even if such language is uncommon among Thomists, it can nonetheless be harmonized with Thomas’s deepest principles.6
Apophaticism. But what about the broader question of “apophaticism”? Doesn’t Thomism give in to the desire for a purely kataphatic, “positive” theology? Well, first of all, we should recognize that the Fathers of the Church and the Councils were never afraid of kataphatic theology. Declarations of faith, creeds, anathemas—all of these are necessary to propose the revealed reality of the Triune God and the salvation given in Christ. The Church has not, does not, and will not shy away from such cataphatic theology. But does Thomism claim that cataphatic theology is the most important?
Based on what was said in the previous section, the answer should be obvious: no. In fact, there are multiple layers of apophaticism in Thomas’s thought. Even at the level of rational knowledge, the logic of analogy requires us to recognize that the highest analogates we know are marked by a trajectory of negation and eminence—a movement that aims, truly but always mysteriously, at a knowledge that surpasses our capacity to articulate reality fully. And this isn’t only true of our knowledge of God; it operates across many domains—even in something as basic as sensation, which is itself a kind of immaterial reception of what is known. Even here, negative and relative knowledge reigns. In fact, our knowledge of sensible realities is quite limited, making it difficult even to define the least of physical things. The very need for discursive reasoning, then, isn’t a sign of rationalism but rather an acknowledgment of the clear limitations of human knowing and the hard work it requires.7
Secondly, at the level of faith, the truths of faith are formally and objectively supernatural. It might surprise some readers, but not all Western theologians of the Scholastic period held this view. The Thomists, however, most certainly did. Indeed, some even went so far as to say that the truths of faith are objectively uncreated. They showed a keen sensitivity to the supernaturality of faith—and to the fact that it must be endlessly purified precisely because of this supernatural, uncreated objectivity. Some Thomists even wrote that the truths of faith involve a kind of supernatural analogy, one that stretches our human concepts through the act of the judgment of faith. All of this runs counter to the claim that Thomism “naturalizes” the truths of faith.8
Thirdly, at the level of mysticism: in fact, a Thomist can—and must—affirm that the language and knowledge possessed by the mystics are higher than those of the discursive theologian, even while recognizing the difference between the two, since the mystic seeks to express an experience that is, de iure, incommunicable.9
“Theological Science.” Of course, at this point, I can sense an objection: “In the East, we hold that the true theologian is the one who prays, not the rationalistic, discursive reasoner of the West.” Technically, I’ve already made the point that Thomism is open to the idea that the highest form of human “theology” is that of the mystic. But it’s by no means foreign to the thought of the Eastern Fathers or the later Byzantine theologians to recognize a subordinate, discursive form of theology—one that can even be systematic in its deployment. (And, indeed, modern Orthodox academics do nothing other than this.)
Certainly, theology descends “from on high” and stands as the supreme form of discursive wisdom, entrusted with unique tasks that exalt the data of faith which serve as its principles. Yet all of this can be developed in a way harmonious with those Thomists who recognized that discursive theology has its own proper offices, precisely because it is a form of discursive wisdom—serving faith and leading back to the praise of God through that same faith.10
Theological Sources. There is, however, a legitimate criticism to be made about much of scholastic culture, and this is especially true among the followers of Thomas. There’s a tendency to treat Thomas as the starting point and principal source of theological reflection. I have to admit that this attitude can be hard to shake—even in my own methodology. The vast synthesis he offers, combined with the papacy’s frequent praise of him, can tempt one to reduce theology to a kind of commentary or exegesis on Thomas himself.
Yet, according to his own method, this is misguided. As a locus theologicus, theologians—even the most highly praised—are not the most fundamental sources. More important than faithful theologians (sometimes narrowly referred to as “scholastic theologians and canonists” in the treatises De locis theologicis) are Scripture, Tradition, the Church herself in her living and active faith, the various expressions of the Magisterium—through councils and papal acts—and the Fathers of the Church. Thomas himself bears witness to a mind eager to draw from all these sources, to the extent they were available to him in his own time.
In other words, within the Thomistic tradition itself, there’s an internal critique that reminds theologians not to reduce the practice of theology to merely cataloguing the thought of Thomas or his school. Whenever a tradition can critique itself, it shows a mark of real strength. In this case, it highlights why “thinking with the Fathers” is not opposed to being a Thomist—at least at the level of the most important principles.11
Salvation History. It’s often said—by both East and West—that scholasticism is concerned only with abstract essences and shows little sensitivity to salvation history. I’ll return to this point later when discussing the Church in history. For now, I’ll simply note that there are important strands within Thomistic theological epistemology that argue quite strongly for the essential role of particularity and history in theology—an approach that cannot be reduced to any mere “deduction from essences.”12
Nature and Grace. Another objection: “But in the East, we don’t distinguish between nature and grace.” It’s true that, for most (if not all) of the Fathers, what is most “natural” to man is to be in a state of grace—fully fashioned in the likeness of God through participation in the divine life. Nonetheless, to mention just two figures, in Ss. Maximus and Gregory Palamas we find clear articulations of the distinction between nature and grace. In particular, the official documents from the Palamite controversy bear witness to the fact that it was, quite evidently, a debate centered on nature and grace.
Although we shouldn’t presume to draw the lines in exactly the same way as they’re drawn in the West, the nature–grace distinction remains vitally important from an Eastern perspective as well—precisely because it emphasizes the truly uncreated character of the life of grace. In fact, I’d argue that in these thinkers we can already see a kind of incipient awareness of the need to articulate a theology of obediential potency.
Moreover, solid Thomists have made very clear arguments showing how our very nature is wounded by our aversion—our turning away—from the supernatural. All of this provides fertile ground for encounter, not opposition.13
Grace. “Well, the theology of grace is totally incompatible, for the West makes grace into a mere created reality—created grace.” First, a bit of context is needed regarding that term. Technically, Thomists hold that created grace is a kind of created supernatural reality. If that sounds paradoxical, it’s no more so than saying participated uncreated, that is, participated unparticipable. In fact, it’s an attempt to articulate the same revealed mystery: the very formality of the Triune life is truly—under that precise aspect, as Triune—participated in by man.
For Plato, the Form is in some real way present in the receptacle that reflects it; so too, the Trinity is really and ontologically present in the soul possessing grace. In other words, we are changed by grace. It doesn’t—using a metaphor Thomas explicitly rejects—pass through us merely like light through glass. We are the ones who live the divine life. A great mystery indeed…
Moreover, the West faced particular pressures in the wake of the Reformation. The position it had to answer was this: we are holy only through Christ’s holiness, without possessing any holiness in ourselves. This view reduced holiness to a merely juridical or legal relationship with Christ. In response, and quite un-legalistically, the West insisted that we are truly transformed by grace. To emphasize that something in us genuinely changes, the Council of Trent declared that created grace is the formal cause of our justification.
It’s also worth noting that even St. Gregory Palamas recognized a kind of created effect within us, resulting from the energetic presence of God through uncreated grace. (See Russell’s Gregory Palamas and the Making of Palamism in the Modern Age for relevant texts.)
In fact, the Thomists were the school of thought in the West that most strongly affirmed the supernatural character of grace. You can even find Thomists who speak of the uncreated nature of the object of grace, and of all the virtues and gifts associated with it. In other words, grace capacitates us to participate in the uncreated life through acts of knowledge and love—acts that formally constitute us as the dwelling place of the Holy Trinity.
Some Orthodox critics object: “This is merely intentional being, not truly ontological.” But the Thomistic response is clear: knowledge and love are not distant or diminished modes of being; they represent, in fact, the highest form of interpersonal presence possible for personal beings. God invites us into precisely this interpersonal, uncreated encounter. Through this mode of being—if we attend to the best Thomists—the knower and lover becomes one with the known and the beloved.
The theologies are indeed different, yet there remains much room for harmony and for the development of a genuine Byzantine–Thomist theology of grace. I believe that most of the “scorched-earth” polemics surrounding this topic are misguided—or even deceptive.14
Vision of God. Similarly, there are real differences concerning the vision of God, but I don’t think they’re as great as they’re often made out to be. At the simplest level, the distinction between the energetic, participated vision of God (experienced by the blessed) and the transcendent essence of God (His own perfect self-knowledge) can be mapped onto the Thomistic distinction between the participation of the blessed—each according to a unique degree of grace—and the transcendent comprehensio that God alone possesses concerning Himself.
Thus, when Western theology speaks of the “immediate” knowledge of the divine essence, we must remember that this “immediacy” is itself varied, depending on the particular grace (and the light of glory) granted to each of the blessed. And if one understands the energies of God as His presence to the blessed—both in terms of intentional union and of the causal degree involved in the light of glory—then one can indeed distinguish between God’s essence and His energies. Admittedly, though, a Thomist will be very—read: completely—hesitant to make that distinction in divinis.15
It is true that the Byzantine East takes very seriously remarks such as the following in St. Gregory of Nyssa:
This truly is the vision of God: never to be satisfied in the desire to see him. But one must always, by looking at what he can see, rekindle his desire to see more. Thus, no limit would interrupt growth in the ascent to God, since no limit to the Good can be found nor is the increasing of desire for the Good brought to an end because it is satisfied.— Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, no. 239 (trans. Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson, Paulist edition)
I know well that Thomists tend to disagree with this view of man in patria. Still, I look forward to the day when I—or someone else—can answer in detail the objections they raise and take seriously the relationship between the participated light of glory and the comprehensive transcendence of eternal bliss. In the vision of God, we are plunged into the Triune Deity, who nevertheless retains a transcendence that can’t help but draw our wonder and ever-deeper admiration—though this depth differs from that which grows through merit and the increase of grace. That argument, however, remains a desideratum—one I haven’t yet fully developed. I’m sure some Thomists reading this are already nervous…!
Divine Simplicity. Already implied in what I’ve said is the issue of divine simplicity and the Palamite distinction between God’s essence and energies. This question engages several areas of philosophy and theology: the distinction of the divine names; the difference between active and passive creation (and similar parallels regarding supernatural effects); the question of divine presence—through immensity, grace, glory, and the hypostatic union in Christ; as well as divine foreknowledge and willing. On many of these topics, I think there’s more room for rapprochement than is often supposed—though perhaps not on all.
Part of the difficulty is that different philosophical presuppositions are at work from the outset, often leading to a kind of “talking past each other.” One clear example is that the more Proclean metaphysics of Palamas operates much more at the level of formal and extrinsic formal causality, whereas more Aristotelian accounts tend to background that aspect in order to focus instead on efficient causality.
Still, I remain encouraged by how much room there is for dialogue, especially in the context of debates over the divine indwelling and the “divine missions.” One can take heart in the words of Lossky himself in The Vision of God:
Essence and energies are not, for Palamas, two parts of God, as some modern critics still imagine, but two different modes of the existence of God, within His nature and outside His nature; the same God remains totally inaccessible in His essence--and communicates Himself totally by grace. As with the dogma of the Trinity, this dogma of divine energies in no way detracts from the simplicity of God, as long as simplicity does not become a philosophical notion which claims to determine the indeterminable (p. 127 of translation by Moorehouse).16
Filioque. I’m aware that some Thomists express concern about the efforts of the Pontifical Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity to reach a rapprochement regarding the filioque. I also recognize that the Thomistic device of relational opposition—which touches on a profound question of how our theological reasoning seeks to grasp the revealed distinctions within the Trinity—is a distinctly Western development (even if some Eastern Fathers make passing reference to relation).
In any case, I think that, along the lines of the aforementioned article (with certain nuances so as not to overlook what’s unique in the Western development), Thomistic theology can be rendered harmonious with the “monarchy” of the Father—which Thomas himself affirms, both in the Father’s personal property of being the “unbegotten Principle without Principle,” and in his acknowledgment of the filioque in the sense of “from the Father, through the Son.”
If nothing else, I see no reason why this should remain a Church-dividing issue—especially for those who are docile to the Church’s teaching authority, which has increasingly encouraged the view that this synthesis can not only be lived (as it already is in our liturgies, with the East not praying the filioque) but also articulated in a way that clearly distinguishes what is universally binding from what is theologically particular.17
Redemption. The Thomist position on Christ’s vicarious satisfaction on the Cross is often portrayed as a legalistic soteriology, closely akin to the “penal substitution” models typically associated with certain Protestant theories of salvation. I can understand why one might draw that comparison, but I’m far too aware of the rich theology of incorporation into Christ—His headship, “capital grace,” and so forth—contained within the Thomistic account itself.
When I teach moral theology, I tell my students that our discussion of theosis is, in a very real way, the theory of soteriology most native to the East. Broadly speaking, I follow a model akin to the “doxological contrition” approach advanced by Fr. Khaled Anatolios. I believe this approach coheres beautifully with a sound grounding in the Trinity and with a sufficiently elevated notion of glorification, wherein the economy is ultimately rooted in the theology of the Trinity. Moreover, it harmonizes well with the position on Christological primacy articulated by the Salmanticenses and others.
Within such a framework, one can fully retain the notions of satisfaction (and co-satisfaction), merit (and co-merit), sacrifice (and co-sacrifice), and redemption (and co-redemption), while integrating them with the dogmatic, ascetico-mystical, and eschatological dimensions of a more Eastern outlook. All of this avoids mere juridicism and rests upon deeply mystical and even “ontological” foundations within the theology of the Church—where Christ and His members are together understood as forming the whole Christ.
Also relevant here is the question of Christological primacy. The primary Eastern position—developing a line of thought from St. Maximus—holds that Christ would have become Incarnate even if humanity had not sinned. In the West, a different formulation of this conclusion was articulated by Scotus. It’s often claimed that Thomists lack any concept of Christological primacy. However, as Fr. Dylan Schrader has shown quite well in English, this isn’t the case—especially among the Salamanca Carmelites.
Moreover, if one turns to the authors of the “French School” (e.g., Bérulle, Charles-Louis Gay), to figures such as Bl. Columba Marmion, and especially to the second volume of Journet’s The Church of the Word Incarnate, it becomes clear that a form of Christological primacy is both possible and profoundly fruitful within Thomistic bounds—ready to offer itself to Byzantine theology for further reflection and development.18
Sacraments and Liturgy. Liturgical theology is, admittedly, somewhat underdeveloped within Thomism. Yet given the Thomistic insistence on the semiotic nature of the sacraments, there’s a rich field for developing a theology of Christ’s presence in the mysteries. This wouldn’t take exactly the same shape as it did in Odo Casel, but there’s ample room for development along the lines of thinkers like Vonier, Doronzo, and even John of St. Thomas—each of whom sees the sacramental order as a kind of “new order of being,” analogous to how the orders of knowledge and moral action “open up” and elevate nature, just as grace and glory do.
The active presence of Christ in the liturgical action of the Church should never be underestimated. While Western theology—especially in its scholastic forms—has often focused almost exclusively on sacramental activity, there are abundant resources in Christology and sacramental semiotics for reflecting on how the mysteries of Christ are communicated to believers throughout the liturgical year and in the Church’s various liturgical actions.
In this light, the liturgy can be understood as a kind of “gem-setting”—a theological framework built around the gems that are the sacraments, above all the Eucharist. There are also profound points of connection between the “mysteries of the life of Christ” and the unique graces they communicate to us across the liturgical year—especially through iconographic prayer and related expressions of worship.19
Particular Issues in the Sacraments. That said, I personally hold that certain positions taken by Thomas regarding the sacraments need to be revisited if the data of the East are to be taken seriously—and not merely treated as accessory matters that the West grudgingly permits for the time being. A genuinely Byzantine Thomism must frankly acknowledge that it will articulate certain sacramental doctrines in its own way.
The most significant differences will concern: the grace communicated to children in the Eucharist; the administration and especially the meaning of confirmation (which, I think, Doronzo already handles fairly well); the ministers of marriage; the implications of a married priesthood that nevertheless maintains the primacy of celibacy; and, of course, the significance of the epiclesis in the Eastern liturgies.20
Ecclesiology. “But scholastic ecclesiology is legalistic and external, not rooted in the mysteries.” This is a fairly typical claim one hears from various quarters. It does have some basis in the way a number of De ecclesia treatises were written. However, the more than 5,000 pages of ecclesiology by Journet decisively refute any universal claim of this kind—especially once one reaches the second volume of his work. (Admittedly, the first volume, written in the 1930s and 1940s, still bears the marks of a rather Roman-centric approach to ecclesiology; yet even there, Journet treats many essential aspects of the hierarchical Church with remarkable depth.)
In the later volumes, he develops profound connections between ecclesiology and Christology, Mariology, Pneumatology, the divine indwelling, salvation history, and holiness. I do think much of this needs to be updated to integrate the unique and pivotal ecclesiological insights advanced by the Eastern Churches at Vatican II. Still, I remain convinced that this can be done organically and that Journet provides the most coherent framework for such a development.
Of course, one can—and should—also draw from other ecclesiological works: Ratzinger, de Lubac, Congar, Bouyer, and, with certain qualifications, Tillard, Zizioulas, and Afanasiev. Yet among these, I believe Journet offers the richest and most comprehensive framework.
I’ve sometimes heard it said that the West supposedly does not hold that the Church existed prior to the day of Pentecost. I’ve always found this to be a puzzling claim. Once one reads Labourdette on the “New Law” and salvation history, alongside the fourth volume of Journet’s The Church of the Word Incarnate, the assertion becomes deeply perplexing—unless one concedes that the interlocutor is more interested in finding contrasts than in pursuing a shared engagement with the theological data. (That said, I’ve known very well-meaning people who have repeated this claim, and I don’t fault them for trusting the sources from which they first heard it.)
As for Eucharistic ecclesiology, the essential elements of a Eucharistic theology—especially in its Catholic forms, though less so in the more decentralized expressions it sometimes took in Orthodox authors and some Catholic authors—are already present in Aquinas’s own treatment of the grace-res of the Eucharist, which builds up the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church. In other words, Thomas clearly affirmed the dictum often associated with De Lubac and others: the Eucharist makes the Church. (In fact, although I haven’t seen it myself, my former research assistant discovered a 1927 dissertation in Rome—written before De Lubac’s Corpus mysticum—directed by Reginald Schultes, on precisely this topic: Albertus M. Vinci’s De Influxu Sacramenti SS. Eucharistiae in Constitutione Corporis Christi Mystici.)21
Moral Theology. Why do I come to moral theology at the end? Because, in my opinion, it’s the easiest. It’s in the moral domain that Thomists stand most clearly apart from the supposed “legalism” often attributed to the West. The Orthodox aren’t wrong to observe that Western moral theology at times became quite legalistic—though, as I tell my seminarians, the real source of that tendency lies in the casuist–probabilist controversies, not in Thomism itself.
The true spirit of Thomistic ethics is one of deification—divinization. To say that the Christian life is a life of beatitude is to say nothing less than that it is the in-breaking of eternity into time. All the discussions of virtues and vices, states of life, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the Law, and so on are simply attempts to describe the transfiguration of the human person through grace—through a kind of participated theonomy. Thomists have a profound sense of the supernatural character of the Christian vocation and of the unity of morals, asceticism, and mysticism.
Theirs is a morality of theosis, if ever there was one in the West. And although I believe that themes of incorporation into Christ need to be further strengthened within the Thomistic framework, I’m convinced that such a development is eminently possible within solid Thomist principles.22
If I discuss morals so briefly, it is because I believe that in this domain res ipsa loquitur—the reality speaks for itself.23
Concluding Remarks. This catalogue is far from complete, and it doesn’t begin to capture all the ways I’ve been changed as a Thomist by my Eastern habitat. Still, I think it offers a fair account of my mind at this point in my labors—an attempt to formulate some understanding of the mysteries of faith. I’ve drawn immense riches from the great Thomists, who, I believe, provide exquisite instruments for both philosophizing and theologizing.
I don’t hold that everyone must be a Thomist. It might surprise the reader, but I’m quite open to the legitimate pluralism that theology and philosophy require. Yet I do believe in truth—and the great Thomists have taught me much along that path.
It’s worth remembering: early 20th-century Russian Orthodox thought was deeply shaped by currents of continental idealism (as seen in the line of Soloviev and Bulgakov); the neo-patristic renewal unfolded alongside similar movements in Western Catholicism—and even shared personal connections with them; and the thought of figures like Schmemann is unthinkable apart from the wider discussions surrounding the liturgical renewal. Open Zizioulas, Yannaras, Stăniloae, Evdokimov, and others, and you’ll find echoes of the modern academy there too. There is no East untouched by influences from beyond itself—and that should cause no alarm.
Humanity is made for the full breadth of being—universal, truly Catholic. Though we are rightly shaped by our locality—as members of the Church, of particular families, places, and nations—we’re also called to openness toward the whole of reality, and to embrace it truthfully. For my part, I can do this in no other way than by being a Byzantine Thomist.
For an earlier set of reflections related to this talk, see my “Thoughts from a Byzantine Thomist.”↩︎
In using this term, admittedly pejorative, I am thinking of the essay on “Uniatism” by Korolevsky. The more-recent Balamand statement remarks—from a more Orthodox perspective perhaps—the ills caused by the method of uniatism.↩︎
In this regard, I must recognize my debt to my professor Msgr. John Wippel, as well as his student Dr. Gregory Doolan. I have my differences, especially with Wippel (eternal memory and blessed repose!), yet he rendered me sensitive to the various thinkers in the 20th century studying the neo-Platonic sources of Thomas. Further reading and engagement has only strengthened this position on my part.↩︎
The cognizant reader will recognize here the themes of the “Christian philosophy” debates. I take the position that is found in Maritain and Garrigou-Lagrange (who substantially agrees with Maritain, a point that might surprise some readers). It is somewhat similar to Gilson, although he is somewhat more radical than they. On the whole, too, I agree with a great deal of what Fr. Thierry-Dominique Humbrecht has to say about these issues, with some reservations due to my differences with certain Gilsonian matters.↩︎
For this section, I draw on many of the same masters that I cite earlier. I’m aware that I’m pushing the term “theology” a bit. Perhaps this is an example of the Byzantinization of my Thomism…↩︎
Any worthwhile Thomist emphasizes the Trinity-centric nature of Thomas’s thought. I personally have in mind passages from Doronzo and Garrigou-Lagrange, though others could be cited. Similarly, I have in mind the Isagoge of the Summa theologiae by John of St. Thomas. Finally, too, it is worthwhile to read the translation with which I opened the website To Be a Thomist: “The Trinity, The Keystone of the Christian Mysteries (by Marie-Michel Philipon, O.P.).” And of course, Jean-Hervé Nicolas, whom I spent many years translating, referred to his dogmatic synthesis as being “From the Trinity to the Trinity.” (I am aware of the emphasis on the exitus-reditus structure of the Summa, according to Chenu et al. While it has merit, it also obscures the scientific nature of the work and its dependence on Aristotle’s Topics and, most importantly, Posterior analytics.)↩︎
The point about sensation is explicitly drawn from Garrigou-Lagrange. For some observations about analogy, see “Thomistic Note: The Use of Triplex Via Throughout the Various Forms of Analogy.” The point regarding sensible realities is found in various authors and has textual support in Thomas.↩︎
In addition to my article on “superanalogy” in Nova et Vetera, see “Notes on the Super-Analogy of Faith in Garrigou-Lagrange, Hugon, Journet, and Maritain.”↩︎
Here, I have in mind above all the works of Maritain, Garrigou-Lagrange (from whom the last point was explicitly drawn), Gardeil, Labourdette, and the lovely little volume The Dark Knowledge of God by Journet. To them one could add other mystical theologians like Arintero, Vallgornera, et al.↩︎
On this topic, see my essay “Wisdom Be Attentive: The Noetic Structure of Sapiential Knowledge” in Nova et Vetera. Also, two further essays to be published in collected volumes: “Presence and Truth in Images” and “How to Defend Oneself Against the Accusation of “Theologism”: Nuancing Gardeil’s Response to George Tyrrell.”
One’s head spins at the claim that discursive theologizing is foreign to the “mind of the Fathers. Rhetoric and dialectic are powerfully present through so many of the Fathers. And in Maximus and John of Damacus, we see a growth in systematic form. The various Greek scholastics (catalogued by people like Plested, as well as Kappes, John Demetracopoulos, and others involved in the Thomas de Aquino Byzantinus project) could also be recounted. And St. Gregory Palamas himself distinguishes faith from discursive theology in a rather clear way and clearly recognizing the legitimacy of the latter.↩︎
I have been gradually working on a number of texts related to the De locis theologicis on To Be a Thomist.↩︎
In particular, see the lengthy text from Labourdette cited in note 18 and 168 in in a posting on To Be a Thomist.↩︎
I lay out some of this in “The Ontology of the Divine Indwelling: A Hard-Headed Thomist Meets with Palamas” in the American Maritain Association volume, Thomism & Tradition: From Rivulets to the Fountain's Source. On the final point, I have in mind particularly Maritain’s treatment of nature and grace, as well as his shared position with Garrigou-Lagrange regarding the way that the Fall affects even our nature. In fact, Maritain makes some quite strong claims in this regard, late in life.↩︎
For this section, I am deeply indebted to studies and works by J-H Nicolas, (with qualifications) Karl Rahner, Norman Russell, Charles Journet, Ambroise Gardeil, and many others mentioned in the text “The Ontology of the Divine Indwelling: A Hard-Headed Thomist Meets with Palamas” cited above.↩︎
On this, see Normal Russell in particular, as well as J-H Nicolas. Russell cites remarks made by Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini at Florence:
But the Greeks, were holding that they do not see God himself, but certain lights, and in this there was great difficulty, indeed, such as nearly upset the whole business. At length, they yielded to argument and recognized that the souls of the blessed will see God, Three and One, as he is, but they wanted to have put into the cedula that some would see less and others more, and it was thought good that this should be included, since “in our Father’s house, there are many mansions.
And the Florentine decrees would even include:
The souls of those who, after having received baptism have incurred no stain of sin whatever and those souls who, after having contracted the stain of sin, have been cleansed, either while in their bodies or after having been divested of them as stated above, are received immediately into heaven and see clearly God himself, one and three, as He is, though some more perfectly than others, according to the diversity of merits (Denzinger, no. 1305).
I will not here discuss the theology of merit, but I believe it can be completely rendered coherent in relation to the East. Obviously, some of the western discussion of this topic is marked by the Reformation and, thus, takes on further aspects that are rather foreign sounding to the East. Just recently, a student of mine pointed out passages in the Greek of Scholarios where he takes up the topic of merit. I anticipate looking into those passages in the relative near future.↩︎
One should see works by Russell (who is perhaps a bit too conciliatory), Totleben, Krivoshein, Pino, and Kappes.↩︎
On this topic, in addition to some standard Thomist sources, I am also influenced by Fr. Christiaan Kappes. Of interest regarding lengthy engagement with this topic, see Scholarios’s lengthy text on the procession of the Spirit. For a gathering of texts, although with a Latin bias, see Fr. Thomas Crean’s Vindicating the Filioque.↩︎
I refer, of course, to Anatolios’s Deification through the Cross. Of inestimable value to me is vol. 2, ch. 2 of Journet’s Church of the Word Incarnate, dedicated to Christ as head of the Mystical Body; also what he says about the Mother of God in the same volume draws out further implications of great importance. Likewise, of great value is Marie-Joseph’ Nicolas’, “Notes For an Integral Theology of the Redemption.” Also very important, but less of an influence on me than Gardeil is the important work of Fr. Dylan Schraeder, A Thomistic Christocentrism: Recovering the Carmelites of Salamanca on the Logic of the Incarnation. This theme is also present in other Thomists, including Garrigou-Lagrange, who himself (as does Journet) gains much from the French School of spirituality related to Christ’s primacy. Likewise, Bl. Columba Marmion and those under his influence. (In fact, Bp. Charles Louis Gay—very influential on Marmion but also on Garrigou—took the Scotist position concerning the primacy of Christ. I do not share the Scotist position, but I do believe that it represented an important spur for theological development.) This line of thought—especially in Marmion and perhaps Gay, but really in all of these authors—would be fruitfully put into dialogue not only with someone like Saint Nicholas Cabasilas, but also with those of one-time Jesuit author George Maloney (who admittedly did leave union with the Church for Orthodoxy late in life), e.g., The Mystery of Christ in You, and also with a work like Panagiotis Nellas’s Deification in Christ.
I think that there is much room here for development in the line of the “Cosmic liturgy” and “Cosmic redemption” themes that one finds in Von Balthasar, Jordan Wood, Thunberg, and others.↩︎
On some of the questions concerning the presence of Christ in his mysteries, see Vonier and Doronzo, as well as the third volume of J.-H. Nicolas’ dogmatic synthesis. Moreover, one should consult his 1958 article “Réactualisation des mystères rédempteurs dans et par les sacrements” as well as the 1957 review article “La théologie des mystères” by the Benedictine Jean Gaillard. Both of these articles can be found in Revue Thomiste. Concerning the mysteries of the life of Christ, see in particular the works Bp. Charles Louis Gay, Bl. Columba Marmion, Torrell, and Egon Sendler.↩︎
These were the sorts of topics in Jean-Hervé Nicolas and Garrigou-Lagrange where I as translator even felt the need to speak up on behalf of the East.↩︎
Obviously, therefore, Journet is most important for me here. One can also consider the works of the authors listed above, as well as the opening chapters of the 3rd volume of Jean-Hervé Nicolas’ dogmatic synthesis.↩︎
I have laid out my notes on this in “Thomistic Thoughts on Christology, Moral Theology, and a “Principled Return” to the Topics of the Secunda Pars.”↩︎
The sources that have most influenced me on Thomist morals have been Garrigou-Lagrange, Gardeil, Labourdette (though his methods are a bit dry, due the nature of his texts, drawn as they are from teaching notes in a very scholastic context), Maritain, Simon, Merkelbach, and Pinckaers. For a stirring example of the riches of this tradition, consider the preaching by Marie Albert Janvier, carried out in Paris from 1903 to 1924 and published in many volumes as Exposition de la morale catholique, profoundly and stirringly going through each of the “treatises” of Thomas’s synthesis. Many contemporary works have discussed this “divinization” aspect of Thomas’s thought. However, it was the position held by many Thomists even prior to Vatican II.↩︎
