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Burrell's Critical Thomism : Aquinas and Kant Revisited
Norman, Jack
Norman, Jack
Author
Abstract
David Burrell's version of Aquinas was written with Kantian parallels in mind. This is the accusation of John Milbank that was questioned by Nicholas Lash and Paul DeHart in a series of articles. ‘Burrell's Critical Thomism’ shows beyond doubt that Milbank's claim is correct: Burrell cites Kant throughout his oeuvre and finds parallels between Aquinas and Kant's philosophies. However, this article also shows that the form of Kantianism promulgated by Burrell is not as dogmatic as Milbank argues, especially in Burrell's later writings. If Milbank's critique holds, it follows that a properly negative theology must be denied. Finally, the relationship between Milbank's participatory theology and Burrell's emphasis on divine simpleness is examined in order to critically evaluate the status of participation in God, arguing that, for Aquinas, it does not make sense to say we participate in the divine essence, only in its likeness. Direct participation in God's essence is rendered incoherent by divine simpleness.
Keywords
Thomism, Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, negative theology, participatory theology, divinity, David Burell
Date
2024
Type
Journal article
Journal
Book
Volume
40
Issue
2
Page Range
347-372
Article Number
ACU Department
School of Philosophy
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
Collections
Relation URI
Event URL
Open Access Status
Published as ‘gold’ (paid) open access
License
CC BY 4.0
File Access
Open
Notes
© 2023 The Authors. Modern Theology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.