Jaarboek Thomas Instituut 1997 - Thomas Instituut te Utrecht

ARE GOD AND HUMAN CREATURES FREE? 119
sixteenth century. In general, modem logic and semantics, philosophy
of language and syntactical theory, both formal and informal, are quite
helpful in exploring the meaning and the importance of medieval
contributions. Constructing an antithesis is simply misguided and
misleading on the one hand, but on the other hand we have to be
careful not to read modem or much later insights into medieval texts.
Knuuttila often reads into a text what can be derived from it.
4. Critical questions and objections
4.1 In the first and second chapter of Part I semantic and
grammatical distinctions rightly play an important role, but in the light
of the prominence of these types of distinctions it is difficult to
understand why logical distinctions become more and more
conspicuous by their absence. On the contrary, the method of working
of the main medieval tradition seems to be ignored on behalf of its
complexity, but perhaps life itself is not simple at all. In the light of
the distinctions prominent in the first part this absence is difficult to
llnrJPTc;!t~nti hpr~l1C;!p O'r~mTn~t;""!ll ~nti CPTTl!lint;1'" t1;ct;nrt;nnc '!IIrp llC!l1'!llh,
_ __ _ _ ---- - 0 -- _ _-... '""""-&.&- __ .& _ .&.& u J
accompanied by different structures. Moreover, there is an intense
interaction between theory of language and logic in medieval thought.
So a logical analysis of the contributions of any thinker, and of
Thomas Aquinas too, is still to be desired.
4.2 Facing the challenges of Thomas' doctrines of God's infallible
knowledge and irresistible will logical distinctions are all the more
important, because modal distinctions cannot be ignored when we have
to characterize the nature of God's knowing and willing and acting and
when we are willing to defend Thomas against inconsistency
criticisms. Apart from the precise intent and meaning of what Thomas
says, at any rate the interpretations and the comparisons with other
medieval thinkers to be offered have to be understandable in terms of
the alternative language and conceptual structures. What might
otherwise be the meaning of Thomas' dissent?
4.3 It is not difficult to comprehend Thomas Aquinas' universe of
thought in a rough and intuitive way and Dr. Goris adds much even to
facilitate this initial endeavour. However, it is quite a different thing to