And elsewhere it is also said: “A theology that is not current is therefore false.”īut why, then, would the Church recommend the doctrine of Saint Thomas to the point of insisting that professors of philosophy and theology teach this discipline “ad Angelici Doctoris rationem, doctrinam et principia, eaque sancte teneant”? ( Codice Canonico, c. The theology of Saint Thomas, however, from this point of view, would no longer be current. Because theology continues to offer meaning to the spirit and can fertilize and progress with it, it is necessary that it renounces these notions.” And it is added: “Renouncing Aristotelian physics, modern thought has also deserted the notions and schemes that have value only for Aristotelian physics. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., describes it in the beginning of his Essence & Topicality of Thomism:Ĭertain souls today think that “a theology which is not current is a false theology” and that the theology of Saint Thomas in some of its important parts-e.g., when it conceives sanctifying or habitual Grace as a “form”-is only an application of the notions of Aristotelian physics, of the distinction between matter and form. Thomas's theology as being outdated because, as the Thomist Fr. There are Modernist heretics like Henri Bouillard, S.J., who have criticized St. Thomas's time.) Anti-Thomist Modernists and 'New Theologians'

Thomas and the Immaculate Conception.' ( N.B.: The Immaculate Conception was not defined dogma in St. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.'s Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought ch.

27 'Of the Sanctification of the Blessed Virgin' and the editorial note at the top) and because of this, they claim his entire theology is flawed or outdated. Many have claimed that he wrote against the Immaculate Conception (cf. Purity is increased by withdrawing from its opposite: hence there can be a creature than whom no more pure is possible in creation, if it be free from all contagion of sin: and such was the purity of the Blessed Virgin who was immune from original and actual sin. Thomas and the Immaculate Conception' of Mother of the Saviour and Our Interior Life by Fr. His views on the Immaculate Conception went through three phases cf. Are there any criticisms of the Summa Theologica within the Catholic Church? Accusations of Denying the Immaculate Conception

Aquinas summa