Jaarboek Thomas Instituut 1997 - Thomas Instituut te Utrecht

136 THOMAS F. O'MEARA
but this presentation is itself a theological lesson: Aquinas' theology
lacks here much originality or development. Perhaps this is because he
is not a modem dialectician of existence before an uncertain Absolute
but is a Christian Aristotelian amid ontological and vital natures.
One might find a few limitations in a work organizing so
much material. A few times the book's style yields to the temptation
to become a general theological text as it refers briefly to Scripture or
tradition, theodicy in the seventeenth century or Thérèse of Lisieux. In
the treatment of original justice, grace is mentioned, but there is not
enough explanation of how the fall involves a loss not just of
praetematural gifts but of supernatural life itself, grace. Along the
same line, when the virtues enter, while the author know of the roles
of grace in the Second Part, virtues, gifts, beatitudes, and even
counsels are not much rooted in grace. Is it correct to say that charity
brings a form. to the human soul? Or doesn't it, rather, add a
motivating formality to potencies of the soul which are virtues? The
basic quasi-divine form touches, as a further life-principle, the source
of human life called the soul. Perhaps a closer reading would dispel
this observation, but in Leget's analysis of life the activities are the
focus, and the consideration of the principles of life -- in the order of
creation and grace, the anima; and in the order of shared life with
God, gratia -- are left in the background. Life is activities, but life is
always activities flowing from a single, unifying life-principle.
Again the chapter on eschatological life offers a wealth of
ideas, for instance, on the resurrection for men and women or on a
future life for plants an animals. A final chapter is more like a
conclusion or epilogue: it analyzes what Aquinas would think of the
great twentieth century issue of the meaning of life. This gathering of
previous perspectives in terms of a modem theme is interesting, but in
some ways it supports the view gained from earlier sections: Aquinas'
theology of death is quite limited in its existential and personal
dimensions, while his thinking on life has a remarkable variety, a
gifted analogical span, and an appreciation of both the stability of
being and the flash of action.