The Second Vatican Council:

[Cam42]

Didacus,

Neo-Thomism is a twentieth-century movement (encouraged by Leo XIII's Aeterni Patris in 1879) that attempts to defend the philosophical and theological doctrines of Thomas Aquinas in a contemporary context. Prominent neo-Thomists include Gilson, Maritain, and Lonergan.

The main proponent of the neo-Thomistic movement was a teacher of mine in grad school. His name is Dr. Germain Grisez. The neo-Thomistic movement is attributed to him.

He brought the thoughts of Pieper, von Hildebrand (both), Maritain, John Paul II, et. al, together. Grisez argues that there are several intrinsic goods that it is reasonable for humans to pursue. These include life, authenticity and knowledge. Grisez argues for the gravity of human choice, insofar as persons, by their free choices constitute their moral identities, the one aspect of life which people truly own.

This is at the heart of neo-Thomism.

Neo-Thomism is a twentieth century revival of the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Thomism had been the dominant philosophy undergirding Roman Catholic theology from the fifteenth century. Under the pace setting interpretations of such thinkers as Cajetan in the early sixteenth century a complex system which spoke to the needs of both theology and contemporary philosophical questions developed.

[quote name='Jacques Maritain']The neo-Scholastic programme includes, in the next place, the adaptation of medieval principles and doctrines to our present intellectual needs. Complete immobility is no less incompatible with progress than out-and-out relativism. Vita in motu. To make Scholasticism rigid and stationary would be fatal to it. The doctrines revived by the new movement are like an inherited fortune; to refuse it would be folly, but to manage it without regard to actual conditions would be worse. With Dr. Ehrhard one may say: "Aquinas should be our beacon, not our boundary" ("Der Katholicismus und das zwanzigste Jahrh. im Lichte der Kirchlichen Entwicklung der Neuzeit", Stuttgart, 1902, 252). We have now to pass in review the various factors in the situation and to see in what respect the new Scholasticism differs from the old and how far it adapts itself to our age.[/quote]

Recommended Reading: Gerald A. McCool, The Neo-Thomists (Marquette, 1996); The Future of Thomism: The Maritain Sequence, ed. by Deal W. Hudson, Dennis William Moran, and Donald Arthur Gallagher (Notre Dame, 1992); Conflict and Community: New Studies in Thomistic Thought, ed. by Michael B. Lukens (Peter Lang, 1993); W. Norris Clarke, The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics (Notre Dame, 2001); and John F. X. Knasas, The Preface to Thomistic Metaphysics: A Contribution to the Neo-Thomist Debate on the State of Metaphysics (Peter Lang, 1991).

[Cam42]

[quote]If this is accurate I fail to see the necessity of such a distinction, or am I being to simple minded here? Isn't it a natural thing to read anything from past writtings and attempting to consolidate or adapt it to one's 'modern' understanding of things?[/quote]

The distinction is simple. Thomistic thought had become "ossified," or caloused according to Dr. von Hildebrand. She rightly asserts that the classical view of Thomism had been diluted and distorted over time. It is the view of the neo-Thomists that there should be a return to the authentic Catholicity of the teachings of Thomas Aquinas.

I hope this helps....if you need more explaination, please ask....I am trying not to get too techincal and I may be less than clear on my posting.

[Didacus]

Needless to say you're giving me more than I cna handle for now Cam, but your psots do clear things up quite a bit. I take comfort in reminding myself that 'nhot-knowing' is in no way wrong, but 'not-trying-to-learn' is just unnaceptable ignorance. Give me a few days to catch all this up, and we'll see what other questions I can come up with.




I keep getting the feeling you might pm me with a pop quiz at any time.