Proper understanding of Aquinas

Arvin Vos is now a profession of Philosophy, optional retiree, at Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green. I am reading his interesting book, Aquinas, Calvin & Contemporary Protestant Thought (Christian University Press, 1985). In his book, Vos argues that the common conception of Aquinas as a scholastic is a misconception. He goes on to say the various reasons for this.


1) It is from the humanists and Reformers that twentieth-century Protestants seem to have gotten their conception of Aquinas, and neither the flowering of historical studies of the Middle Ages nor the reevaluation of Protestant-Catholic relations as manifested in the ecumenical movement.


2) For many Protestants, the Catholic church today is first and foremost the same church the Reformers opposed, the church that has made Aquinas its common doctor. In other words, the ecclesiastical barrier to mutual understanding has been built up on both sides.


3) There is also a philosophical barrier that inhibits adequate understanding. Aquinas believes that Aristotle was the master of those who know. But the dominant tendencies in contemporary thought remain unsympathetic to Aristotelian modes of analysis and conclusions.


4) Many Protestants seem to think that Aquinas, though brilliant, was fundamentally wrong. The Reformers have their theological method, different from that of Aquinas who is considered to start not with Scripture but with the discussion of God's existence.
The main goal of Vos' book is to challenge this common Protestant understanding of the nature and significance of Aquinas' work. The fundamental problem that Vos points out is that most Protestants know little or nothing of Aquinas' thought, and so they have no way to grasp its relevance for today. Aquinas, Calvin & Contemporary Protestant Thought is well worth some time.