DEAN MILMAN ON ST. THOMAS AQUINAS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 357, 20 February 1880, Page 9

DEAN MILMAN ON ST. THOMAS AQUINAS.

ChrisHW ?? ° f •? fc ' *?£*' London ' in his work entitled " La «n Ums<aamty, writes : " Thomas Aquinas is throughout, above all, the God and the soul of man are the only' objects truly worthy of philosophic investigation. This is the function of the Angelic Doctor, the mission of the Angel of the Schools. In his works, or rather in his one great work, is the final result of all that ha * kf* dec l ded by the Popes or Councils, taught by the Fathers, accepted by tradition, argued m the schools, inculcated in the confessional The sum of theology is the authentic, authoritative, acknowledged code of Latin Christianity. We cannot but contrast this vast work with the original Gospel ; to this bulk has grown the JNew lestament, or rather, the doctrinal and moral part of the New lestament. But Aquinas is an intellectual theologian ; he approaches more nearly than most philosophers, certainly more nearly than most divines, to pure embodied intellect. He is perfectly passionless : he has no polemic indignation, nothing of the churchman's jealousy or suspicion ; he has no fear of the result of any investigation : he hates nothing hardly heresy; loves nothing, unless, perhaps, naked abstract truth. In his serene confidence that all must end in good, he moves the most startling and even perilous questions as if they were the most indifferent, the veiy Being of God. God must be revealed by syllogistic process. Himself inwardly conscious of the absolute harmony of his own intellectual and moinl being, he places sin not so much m the will as in the understanding. The perfection of man is tne perfection of his intelligence. He examines with the same perfect sell-command, it might also be said apathy, the converse as well as tne proof of the most vital religious tmth. Secure, as it would seem, in impenetrable ai me ur, he has not only co apprehension, but seems not to suppose the potsibiliiy of danger ; he has nothing of tbe boastfulncss of fadf-coniideuce, but in calm assuiance of victoiy, gives every advantage to his artvcieary. On both sides of every question he casts the aigument into one of bis distinct syllogisms, and ciilmJy places himself as arbiter, and passes judgmcut in one or a senes of still more unanswerable f-yllogi&ms. He has assigned its unassailable province to Church authority, to tradition or the Fathers, faith and woiks ; but bej ond, within the proper sphere of philosophy, ne asscits full freedom. There is r,o Father, even St. Augustine, who may not be examined by the fcaricss intellect."