Winter 2025

800 Years of Thomas Aquinas

Introduction: 800 Years of Thomas Aquinas

The year 2025 marks the eighth centenary of the birth of St. Thomas Aquinas, whose thought continues to stand at the center of the Christian philosophical and theological tradition. Few thinkers have articulated with greater clarity the intelligibility of being and the mind’s natural orientation toward the knowledge of God. Yet the enduring significance of Aquinas lies not only in the historical authority of his thought, but in the way his work continues to illuminate the fundamental questions of theology and philosophy. For Thomas, the intelligibility of the world reflects its origin in divine wisdom, and the human mind is ordered by nature toward the knowledge of truth and ultimately toward the vision of God. Together, the essays of this issue of Communio explore themes central to the Thomistic vision: the relation between contemplation and action, the intelligibility and giftedness of being, the meaning of analogy in theological speech, and the human desire to know God.

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Beauty as the Wellspring of Human Action in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas

D.C. Schindler

“Beauty is first of all a revelation of what is good in itself. Under the sign of beauty, the world presents itself most fundamentally as something to marvel at, something that provokes wonder and even awe, and if and when we pursue our interests in this world, we do so with an encompassing spirit of gratitude and reverence.”

Theological Discourse, Analogical Language, and the Impact of the Incarnation

Matthew Kuhner

“The very transcendence of God does not falsify, but rather affirms, the legitimacy and operation of created reason . . . even as it calls them to previously unimagined heights.”

Hans Urs von Balthasar and Thomas Aquinas on the Discovery of Being

Nicholas J. Healy Jr.

“Together with Josef Pieper, Balthasar holds that the major creative achievement of Thomas Aquinas is a vision of reality informed by the metaphysics of creation, understood as God’s generous donation of being.”

God the Son’s Humility according to von Balthasar: Analogy or Contradiction? A Response to John Betz

John Baptist Ku

“In contrast to Betz’s claim, some of Balthasar’s teachings cannot be reconciled with Aquinas by taking his words analogically.”

Wonder and Longing for the Face of God

John M. McCarthy

“Wonder can only be satisfied by the apprehension of the most desirable truth, the first cause which is God, and since all men desire to know, all men implicitly desire to see God.”