Thomas & his vocabulary

Why shore up my Thomistic metaphysics? Let me compare inadequate metaphysics to a bout of IBS. Just as there follows a slew of symptoms when you’ve got a leaky gut, so too, when you’ve got a lousy metaphysics, it shows. A strong grasp is needed of what makes up the relation between cause and effect, or potency and actuality, or being and existence, or necessity and contingency, or what is meant by nature, or virtue, or habit, or motion, or faculties, or intelligence, or operations, or volition, etc. If there’s a good primer out there I’ve got to find it. I’ve tried the Summa Theologica. But, while elemental, so much of the metaphysics that it explains is also already presupposed. It’s baked-in to the language he uses in such a way that it requires a great effort to abstract and piece together how he’s using the most elementary of terms which he, no doubt, takes for granted. I know, in his introduction to the Summa he declare his purpose is to treat his subject in a manner that is accessible to beginners. That approach, that mode of teaching appeals to me as a parish priest. It’s exactly how I like to preach my homilies and to teach the catechism to my youngsters. But, to me, I wish I had a more solid grasp of the foundations of his vocabulary as I set out with him to tackle the greater and more important questions of theology.