Foreword
I was brought up in the rich environment of the Franciscan tradition, with its roots in Francis of Assisi and its deep relational theology developed by Bonaventure and Scotus among others. I learned to navigate the writings of Francis, Bonaventure, and Scotus, and I was trained early on to appreciate that Franciscan theology is primarily affective, a movement of the heart, whereas Thomistic theology is primarily intellectual, a movement of the mind. Bonaventure emphasized the will of God, while Thomas emphasized divine freedom. Bonaventure emphasized love as the nature of God, while Thomas emphasized God as Being—as if being and goodness might be separate and distinct aspects of the divine. Bonaventure devoted thirty-six pages of his first commentary on the Sentences to the Trinity, while Thomas only devoted one. Bonaventure was known as a Trinitarian, while Thomas was focused on divine unity. Even their Christologies differed. Bonaventure said that the incarnation took place because of the excess love and mercy of God, an insight developed by Duns Scotus in his doctrine of the primacy of Christ, while Thomas supported Anselm’s position—namely, that the reason for the incarnation is the sin of Adam summed up in the Easter Exsultet, “O felix culpa! For if Adam had not sinned Christ would not have come.”
I developed an image of Thomas Aquinas as an introvert, a thinker more prone to philosophical arguments and intellectual speculation than a one who took seriously the incarnation as the starting point for understanding the God-world relationship. Thomas’s God seemed like a Christian version of Auguste Rodin’s statue The Thinker, present but remote, relational but self-contained, involved but not dependent, interested but only at a distance; a God more transcendent than immanent. I felt sorry for Dominicans, as if they hung their habits on the gates of heaven and committed their lives to a distant God. Franciscans rejoiced in wearing brown habits that would not show the mud and dirt; the Dominican white habit seemed incapable of getting too involved in the cracks of the world where the pus of lepers and bloody tears of beggars filled the crevices.
You can imagine my surprise when Matthew Fox invited me to write a foreword to his new book, The Tao of Thomas Aquinas. I did not have the heart to tell him of my biases developed over the years towards the theology of Thomas Aquinas and my absolute commitment to the Franciscan intellectual tradition—not to mention my dismissal of Thomas as a source of stale, static theology. And then I read The Tao of Thomas Aquinas and realized that we can only transcend our biases and judgments by entering the very worlds we reject. I am indebted to Matt for the invitation to write this foreword, for in this rich gemof a book I have found deep resonances with the thought of Bonaventure. Even more, I have discovered a Christian thinker steeped in a dynamic, relational God of overflowing goodness.
Matthew Fox brings Thomas Aquinas to life in a way that transcends intellectual arguments. There is a deep love for Aquinas here, a profound appreciation for the way Thomas delighted in divine freedom and goodness spilling over into creation, instilling an exuberance within creation that awakens within us a desire for beauty, wholeness, and the deepening of love: a creation drunk with beauty and wisdom. God is the fountain and fullness of beauty, diffusing throughout the universe and radiating goodness in a way that escapes the narrowness of human power and control. Thomas’s God soars like the wind beneath our feet, propelling us on to more beauty and truth—a God who is a living God, active and alive in our midst, in our cells and bodies, a God breathing new life into everything that exists. What else could religion be but one long continuous act of gratitude? Gratitude for the gift of being itself, for the gift of light, stars, galaxies, planets, dirt, amoebas, earthworms, plants, trees, cats, horses, children, and all sorts of human persons. Awakening to the infinite gifts that come from the divine source of exuberant goodness can lead to no other than astonishment and sheer joy of being alive in this moment, as a pure gift of divine love.
Thomas’s God is a God of wisdom who delights in play, fun, levity of heart, laughter, the lightness of the Spirit drawing us to imagine, create and invent new ways for wisdom to take hold of us and liberate us from our selfish selves, turning our hearts and minds toward our godly selves, realizing that what we hope for already lies within us. Blessed are those who undergo the first resurrection to new life, for the second resurrection will be an abundance of life beyond our wildest imaginings.
This is a beautiful book, a book written by one who fell in love with Thomas Aquinas as a young scholar and whose love has never ceased. As a result, the author brings this great medieval theologian’s mystical vision into a living reality.
Marie-Dominique Chenu, OP, the great Dominican theologian and mentor of Matthew Fox, once described the relationship between the macrocosm (the universe) and the microcosm (the human person) as an “immense zither,” an instrumental music of stunning beauty, a harmony created by various strings plucked by the entangled Spirit of God. This is what The Tao of Thomas Aquinas gives us: not only the dance of energies that create a vital wholeness but more so a symphony of the strings of love brought to consciousness in the human person who is, in a sense, the conductor of the whole.
I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to read this rich treasure of Thomas’s insights and wisdom. And I ask pardon of all Dominicans that I might have offended in the past due to my narrow theological biases. From now on, I shall strive to see the world through the eyes of Thomas—although not to the exclusion of Bonaventure, for I believe these two great lights of the thirteenth century created a stained glass window that allow the sun to radiate in a rich variety of colors and forms. For they both knew that God can be no other than the brilliance of life itself, overflowing, ever-flowing, and forever drawing us into an incomprehensible future fullness of sheer joy.
Ilia Delio
December 8, 2019
Feast of the Immaculate Conception
Villanova University