Święty Tomasz z Akwinu – mistrzem teologicznych syntez

Abstract

The author points to the important ability that St. Thomas Aquinas teaches the Contemporary man – cognitive synthesis. Genius and saint, patron of theological studies, he is most known for his innovatory synthesis of the Christian teaching and ancient Greek philosophy. According to the author, St. Thomas’ mastery of theological synthesis lies in coming to know the temporal order of things in the light of faith in Logos Incarnate and Risen from the Cross. A “vertical” synthesis as a system of metaphysics is an indispensable source of a temporal, “horizontal” synthesis. Breaking the unity of the two, i.e., creating a “horizontal” synthesis without the roots of metaphysics, leads to relativism and individualism, to theology with an anthropocentric bias and even to negating the object of faith, which is the Self-revealing Living God present in the Eucharist. The Christian unity of the doctrine, the grace and morality becomes then impaired. We are left with a gnosis. The author mentions three categories of St. Thomas’ syntheses: biblical, systematic and paradoxical. He emphasizes the fact that although St. Thomas is primarily known for his writings on speculative theology, he was an author of biblical commentaries first of all. His holistic approach to a biblical text (to see the whole in a fragment) is stressed. Among the systematic syntheses the author enumerates St. Thomas’ Commentary to Lombard’s Sentences, Summa theologica, Summa contra gentiles and Compendium theologiae. On the basis of Aristotelian concept of knowledge the saint develops the theory of subaltemation and creates his systematic synthesis. This Starts with the prima principia, which St. Thomas draws for upon the Revelation, the saints’ knowledge and God’s knowledge, and it arrives at practical issues of Christian life, moral and spiritual. This is, at the same time, a synthesis of faith and reason. Thus, Summa theologica is a synthesis of the Bible, philosophy, theology and mystic cognition after the example of early Christian tradition. The author emphasizes the role of the Holy Spirit in Christian cognition. The Spirit, acting through the grace, leads man to “the complete truth” (St. John 16.13). In the famous phrases of St. Thomas we find the traces of the “paradoxical” syntheses (e.g.: “significando efficiunt”, “Christus et Ecclesia, una mystica persona”), which combine categories of the Divine with those of the human. Due to this kind of thinking – according to the author – St. Thomas is not a mere philosopher, but a theologian, an apostle of Christ.