Chesterton on Aquinas

I had very high hopes of G. K. Chesterton’s little book (180pp) on Saint Thomas Aquinas, sometimes known as The Dumb Ox (Orig. Sheed and Ward, New York, 1923) – perhaps foolishly so. I was somewhat disappointed.

The prose is sometimes dazzelling, often amusing and usually engaging. Sometimes I find Chesterton’s non-fiction a bit hard to grasp on a quick-ish reading, though. I suspect he’s saying something clever, but I’m not exactly sure what it is! In places the references are a bit dated but in my edition (Ignatius Press, 2002) there were some useful editor’s footnotes.

There were some revelations about Aquinas’ life and character, although the book is intentionally very sketchy and somewhat impressionistic. I suspect little is actually known and I occasionally felt Chesterton was speculating in a kind of religio-literary riff. Aquinas comes across as a big, thoughtful, committed, gracious aristocrat with a quiet dogged and brilliant intelligence that was easily underestimated. Being dead he yet speaks, and once or twice the Dumb Ox roared.

Chesterton focuses on Aquinas’ philosophy (especially his baptism of Aristotle) where as I would have liked more on his theology. Chesterton is pretty persuasive that Aquinas didn’t sell out to rationalism and I suspect something of Chesterton’s defence of reason and general revelation could be usefully applied to types of Protestant Scholasticism.

Theologically, Chesterton seems to think of the Incarnation as the centre of Aquinas’ thought, and of the Christian faith. I reckon it needs to be thought of rather more in connection with the plan of salvation and the death, resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ than the book stresses. Whilst Chesterton sees the Incarnation as the vindication of nature and creation, perhaps the resurrection better fulfils that role since it also points more fully to the transformation of nature / creation by grace and is more prototypical of the whole cosmos than the unique hypostatic union of God and Man in the Incarnation. Maybe I quibble.

Chesterton also slags off “Calvinists” (which is a bit of a misnomer) and even if I think some of his criticisms might perhaps be on target for some dangers of some people sometimes, I don’t really want someone else criticising my mother even if I feel free to do so with caution and respect in private myself!

So, in short, if you find this book lying around, it’s worth a browse, but I wouldn’t rush out and get it nor feel bound to read every word, nor assume it’s a hugely reliable guide.

I did read every word but the only bits that got a pencil mark in the margin:

In the common phrase, fond as he [St Francis of Assisi] was of the green fields, he did not let the grass grow under his feet. He was what American millionaires and gangsters call a live wire. It is typical of the mechanistic moderns that, even when they try to imagine a live thing, they can only think of a mechanical metaphor from a dead thing. There is such a thing as a live worm; but there is no such thing as a live wire. St. Francis would have heartily agreed that he was a worm; but he was a very live worm. Greatest of all foes to the go-getting ideal, he had certainly abandoned getting, but he was still going (p21)

About this medieval movement there are two facts that must be emphasised. They are not, of course, contrary facts, but they perhaps answer to contrary fallacies. First, in spite of all that was once said about superstition, the Dark Ages and the sterility of Scholasticism, it was in every sense a movement of enlargement, always moving towards greater light and even greater liberty. Second, in spite of all that was said later on about progress and the Renaissance and forerunners of modern thought, it was almost entirely a movement of orthodox theological enthusiasm, unfolded from within. It was not a compromise with the world, or a surrender to heathens or heretics, or even a mere borrowing of external aids, even when it did borrow them. In so far as it did reach out to the light of common day, it was like the action of a plant which be its own force thrusts out its leaves into the sun; not like the action of one who merely lets daylight into a prison. (p26)

We might call it a plundering of the Egyptians or a claiming back of borrowed capital.

Good paragraph on page 26 about proper Doctrinal Development as more like evolution than adaptation and not like evasion; growth to maturity, a puppy turning into a dog; the drawing out of implications and distinctions; the development of internal resources; theology understanding itself.

I think I'll give the companion essay on Francis of Assisi a go, but I don't promise not to flick!