Jaarboek Thomas Instituut 1995 - Thomas Instituut te Utrecht

28 H.W.M. RIKHOF
Aquinas presents, nor any sensitivity towards his intentionality:
Aquinas' theology is not a categorical reflection, but a transcendental
one. De Grijs' point here is not so much that Thomas is blamed for
not giving categorical reflections. Such a critique would be somewhat
anachronistic, but in a certain way correct, for Thomas does not give
that kind of reflection and it is truly a disadvantage that the language
Thomas speaks is not an "immediately inspiring language, no
preaching language or religious language" (38, p. 29). His point is
rather that Thomas' type of theology is rejected without further
questioning. Because of this, the interpretations given do not qualify as
contributions to the Thomas-reception (cf. 37, p. 365), let alone that
they can be considered as Thomas-interpretations (37, p. 372; 38, pp.
32-3). Because Thomas' intentionality is missed, the contribution,
correction or addition that his type of theology can give to our
contemporary debates is not seen at all (37, p. 372).
So, these are reactions to a rather positive, neo-scholastic and
philosophical approach and to a more negative theological critique.
Both elements return in the first phase of the research program on
Aquinas' theology, which De Grijs initiated. The reason to start this
programme was the observation that Aquinas had almost completely
disappeared from the theological scene in the Netherlands, the intuition
that this was more due to a rejection of neo-scholasticism and
neo-thomism than to a genuine knowledge of Thomas' theology and
the hypothesis that Thomas as a truly exemplary theologian should
function in the contemporary debate. In the first phase of the research
programme the main attention was directed to the reception of
Aquinas' theology." But the question of the reception of Thomas'
theology implied the question of the interpretation of his theology -
when can one speak about reception and correct reception. And so, the
attention turned more to specifying the typical features of Thomas'
theology. Publications by Burrell and Corbin have been helpful and
influential: Burrell for the discovery of Thomas' uses of language
theories and of the special kind of inquiry, which he performs in qq.
J.G.J van den Eijnden, Thomas van Aquino in de theologie. Een
draaiboek voor receptie onderzoek, Publikatie nr. I van de Werkgroep
Thomas van Aquino, Utrecht, 1985.