Metaphysics and Theology: A Summa “For” the Gentiles

Abstract

Thomas Aquinas did not simply write a Summa “against” the Gentiles (contra Gentiles), but rather first and foremost a Summa “for” the Gentiles (pro Gentilibus). As the sole recourse for Muslims and pagans for whom there was no Scripture in common, natural reason is not only a vertical site for access to God; it designates the horizontal topos for a human community capable of gathering us together. Yesterday's “reason” (Thomas Aquinas) plays the role of “finitude” today (Heidegger) – to know what forms us “in common.” Such is the unique perspective of an apologetics that no longer holds itself up with a kind of “looming transcendence” (Merleau‐Ponty), as if the absolute were immediately given. We will cease opposing metaphysics and theology with a discourse that is supposedly pure yet wrongly sought. The lesson of the Council of Nicaea (325 CE) guides us to transform tradition rather than overcome it. The Council's “that is” regarding the same substance (homooúsion) of the Father translates the biblical into the Hellenic, rather than endeavoring to depart from the Hellenic as such. In this respect, the famous “that which everyone calls God” (et omnes dicunt Deum) at the end of each of Aquinas’ Five Ways indicates less the idol of a conceptual God to be overcome, and instead signals the icon of a rational God, who in its kenosis takes up our proper nature in order to transform it. From a theo‐logy where “only God speaks well of God” (subjective genitive), we shall pass over to a theo‐logy where “humans can also speak of God, at least in part” (objective genitive). A new connection between metaphysics and theology is established here, one capable of initiating a different relation between the believer and the world.