Jaarboek Thomas Instituut 1997 - Thomas Instituut te Utrecht

124 ANTONIE VOS
ancient Greek philosophy, but it does not do so in an isolated
theological way. The whole of systematic thought is involved in this
gradual emancipation and every new generation offers new
contributions.
On the institutional level the great present of the medieval
Church to mankind is the university, on the theoretical level the great
present of the medieval Church to mankind is a new way of ideas and
new type of theory of reality and I feel very grateful for this new way
of thought, because it saved me from atheology. Since the days of
Ovink and De Vogel there has again been in Utrecht a keen interest in
vital Christian thought and this resulted since the fifties in a new
approach in the history of medieval philosophy, since the seventies
also applied on the whole of the history of scholastic theology. 17
4.5.7 It is perfectly true that Thomas Aquinas did not
equate the concepts always and necessarily (against Knuuttila) and it is
generally true that it is not wise to select one theoretical item out of
many in order to derive a specific frame of mind. A wealth of
emancipatory elements is present in the development of thought during
these centuries and it is just a matter of historical research to identify
the different kinds of details of the individual thinkers. Every
theologian shows many elements of this type, but what matters is the
relative position on the ladder of this ongoing emancipation. Regarding
Thomas Aquinas only one fact is to be discovered in order to refute
"the rival metaphysical scheme": showing where the theory of
synchronic contingency is present in Thomas' thought, linked up with
the parts where his theology entails this notion. Now we have in
section 7.1 an excursus mainly wrong and of no profit in interpreting
Saint Thomas. The effect is also a lack of historical balance. The push
17 For about twenty years a marked concentration on the philosophy
and the theology of Duns Scotus has been here within this tradition. See A.
Vos, "Middeleeuwse Wijsbegeerte. Traditie en vernieuwing", Nederlands
Theologisch Tijdschrift 34 (1980) 66-72, KN passim and A. Vos Jaczn., H.
Veldhuis, A.H. Looman-Graaskamp, E. Dekker and N.W. den Bok,
Contingency and Freedom - John Duns Scotus Lectura I 39, Dordrecht 1994,
V and 1-2. So "Knuuttila's view is also adopted in Vos e.a. (1994)" (258) is
not quite accurate and the note on the confusing terminology of
'diachronic/synchronic possibility' (ibidem) is funny.