Today, threatened by the new barbarism and the new paganism, we would be wise to postpone speculative reasoning and look to Thomas Aquinas for his example of true reverence before the Holy Eucharist, concentration and recollection in prayer, perfect obedience, love of poverty, and passion for sacred music.
The Story
A few months before his death, in the autumn of 1273, Saint Thomas Aquinas gave up writing his opus magnum: the Summa Theologica. And not only did he give it up, but it seems that the very idea of touching writing instruments became, for him, unacceptable. The story comes from his closest collaborator, Brother Reginald of Piperno (c.1230–c.1290), who told it to other friars, and they passed it on to us as we know it. In his most recent monograph dedicated to the Angelic Doctor, Anatomy of Transcendence: Mental Excess and Rapture in the Thought and Life of Thomas Aquinas (2025),[i] Dr. Peter Kwasniewski devoted a brilliant chapter (“Iconographic Incompleteness and Golden Straw”) to this crucial event in the biography of one of the most important theologians of the Christian tradition.
The unexpected renunciation was due to a mystical experience that occurred on December 6, 1273, during Holy Mass in the chapel of Saint Nicholas at the Dominican convent in Naples.[ii] From that moment on, Saint Thomas underwent a profound change that made it impossible for him to continue his previous work. When asked twice what had happened, Brother Reginald received the same answer, recorded in the monumental monograph of Father Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P.:
“To Reginald, who was stupefied and did not understand why Thomas was abandoning his work, the Master responded simply: ‘I cannot do any more.’ Returning to his charge a little later, Reginald received the same response: ‘I cannot do any more. Everything I have written seems to me as straw in comparison with what I have seen’.”[iii]
Even though the above testimonies were enough to awaken my interest, what impressed me most deeply is found in the same accounts, preserved by Bartholomew of Capua. Here is how he reported Saint Thomas’s experience (whose primary source remains Brother Reginald):
“After that Mass, he never wrote further or even dictated anything, and he even got rid of his writing material [organa scriptionis]; he was working on the third part of the Summa, on the treatise concerning penance.”[iv]
The detail mentioned at the beginning immediately set me thinking: “he even got rid of his writing material.” The Latin expression organa scriptionis clearly shows that it refers precisely to the instruments of writing. Thus, not only did he give up writing, but Saint Thomas became “allergic” to anything that would remind him of the practice of writing. In my opinion, such an attitude carries exceptional significance, which demands careful clarification.
The Key Question
I have encountered, dozens of times, in various studies and essays or in the context of Catholic forums, the question concerning the nature of Saint Thomas’s “resignation.” Almost without exception, the question was phrased as follows:
“Does this renunciation mean that the author himself acknowledged that there are errors in the Summa Theologica?”
The short answer is negative. The long answer, in my opinion, is much more complex. It involves not so much the existence of particular errors in the Summa Theologica (although, yes, even Saint Thomas made mistakes), but rather the underlying attitude behind the elaboration of this monumental speculative-theological work. I hasten to emphasize the difficulty of understanding this optical error, especially for those who have pressed me to show them the precise mistakes targeted by my critiques of neo-Thomism/neo-Scholasticism.
I must clarify that this is not an error like being wrong about a dogma of the Church (out of ignorance) or like making a mistake in an algebraic calculation. It is rather a flawed or deficient attitude that stems from the fallen character of our nature. Just as our present body is gravely affected by the corruption that will one day bring it death, so too our souls are affected by concupiscence as well as by the faulty functioning of our cognitive faculties. For example, reason (διάνοια) does not function normally—it tends toward a form of aggressiveness against others under the influence of the pride it fuels. (Often without realizing it, we think ourselves “clever” and criticize others out of a desire to assert our superiority.) Another function important in the process of acquiring knowledge, the imagination (φαντασία), fabricates sinful and absurd imaginary things out of nothing.
This state, partially remedied through the presence of sanctifying grace in the souls of faithful Christians, will only fully cease after the final judgment. But throughout our earthly lives, it generates an inevitable though not culpable error—just like the inclination toward evil in our fallen nature which, though it can lead to sin, is not in itself sinful. To better understand this, I will use a handy metaphor.
The Forgotten End of the Way
Let us suppose that you have heard of the Doge of Venice. And, given both his elegance and his dreamlike location (oh, Venice!), you would like to see him in person. A brilliant storyteller, who has already had the chance to visit him, enthusiastically recounts the journey, what Venice is like, and finally, how finely dressed and well-mannered the Doge is. The narrator is talented: as he speaks, the images seem to come alive in your imagination. Moreover, he has maps that he shows you—along with many art albums and remarkable photographs. Absorbed by the tale, the listeners, already daunted by the difficulty of the journey and the size of the necessary expenses, prefer to dream, wrapped in the charm of the story. After all, there aren’t many more pleasant ways to spend one’s time, are there?
The Greeks of Saint Paul’s time crowded into the Areopagus to hear the apostle’s news. Naturally, he spoke to them about the Kingdom of God and its King, God Himself. And yet, seeing how few were converted, some might be tempted to say he failed. Why? Because, despite his enthusiasm in speaking to the Greeks about the Great King and His Kingdom, he could not do one thing (which no man can do): he could not show them—that is, directly and immediately—that world.
Likewise, with those who hear stories about the Doge of Venice: no matter how much and how well they are told the details, no matter how vividly they see in photos and paintings the Doge’s garments and face, they have never actually seen him directly. For they are wrapped in an illusion,[v] even if it is a true one. It is as true as our face reflected in a mirror: though we recognize ourselves or may be recognized, we know all too well that what we see is not us but only our copy. The Apostle Paul is the one who taught us that our present knowledge is like a reflection in a mirror (1 Corinthians 13: 12), not a direct “face to face” vision. Let us now return to Saint Thomas.
When we read the Summa Theologica (or any other similar theological work), we are faced with a treatise of rational-speculative theology in which (almost) every conceivable question about God is addressed. Probably no issue of dogmatic or moral theology escaped Saint Thomas’s attention. His work is a comprehensive encyclopedia. Even though everything in the Summa relates, directly or indirectly, to God, this monumental work is nevertheless marked—like any such work—by a fundamental flaw that accompanies it like a shadow: it cannot show God directly to any reader. No work can produce a mystical experience in its readers.
Etymologically, the adjective “speculative” with which we describe this work comes from the Latin speculum—“mirror.” So, just as when looking at the map of Venice or a painting of the Doge, in reading the Summa Theologica we see nothing more than a mirror image of the Creator and Divine King of creation and creatures. If, however, we forget our initial desire—to visit Venice in order to see the Doge directly—and lose ourselves in the labyrinth of endless discussions about the road there or about how the Doge appears in paintings and descriptions, then we are caught in a powerful and subtle form of self-deception. Why subtle? Because what we see—if the photos are faithful and the paintings accurate, as in the case of the Summa Theologica—is extremely convincing: it does show us the Doge, though by reflection. And yet, although we may believe we know what he looks like, we have in fact never truly seen him. The images before our eyes are but poor, imprecise, and vague resemblances.
The Failure of Neo-Scholastic Theologians
In the case of theological writings, there is no chance that they can truly show—by imitation—God as He is. Those who have seen Him emphasize insistently that it is impossible to describe the Most High with the words of our present languages. And not only God, but even His saints in heaven: not even the most beautiful icons of the Blessed Virgin Mary can truly convey the beauty of She who bore the Divine Savior. In other words, with heavenly beings, the copies, though similar, are always far inferior to their celestial “prototypes,” their “originals.” That is why mystics are silent (or, at most, create art—poems and hymns).
The illusion discussed above implies another, far more subtle and insidious. It is, in my view, one of the factors that contributed to the present crisis in the Church and to tragic events such as the marginalization/exclusion of the Gregorian Liturgy from ecclesiastical life. These had their origin in the conviction of “reformers” that they could make decisions based on a rational understanding of the modern man, who supposedly no longer knows the basic notions of Christian religion. This conviction is linked to the greatest danger of rational speculation: the birth and growth of intellectual pride. This, in turn, generates the violence of reason (violentia rationis).[vi] Its negative consequences are so devastating that, because of its widespread exercise in speculative theology, Saint Bonaventure made his famous prophecy about the coming disregard for rational theology:
“Believe me, a time will come when the ‘gold and silver vessels’ (Exodus 3: 22; 12: 36), i.e. rational arguments, will no longer be of value. There will no longer be any justification of faith by reason, but only by auctoritas. As an indication of this, in His temptation the Redeemer defended Himself not with rational arguments but with arguments from authority, even though He certainly must have known the arguments of reason well. In this way He predicted what would take place in His Mystical Body in the coming trial.”[vii]
Today we are living in precisely this situation, when the rational philosophical thought of great saints like Augustine, Gregory of Nazianzus, Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus, Albert the Great, and Thomas Aquinas is completely ignored by the scientists and the new sophists (Descartes, Kant, Hegel, etc.). How did we get here? Through an excess of speculative theology and metaphysics. The great orders (like the Jesuits and Dominicans, who accused each other of various heresies) were so caught up in speculative-rational clashes that Saint Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621) asked the Pope to forbid certain debates (such as that on the relation between free will and sufficient grace). Yet the rationalist excess did not cease.
The neo-Scholastics of the 19th and 20th centuries believed they could defeat the heirs of Descartes, Kant, and Hegel through argumentation. And, of course, strictly rationally speaking, they were right. Unfortunately, however, the assent of their opponents could not be obtained through the compulsion of rational arguments. Love is neither won nor nourished by syllogisms. This is the key to Saint Bonaventure’s criticism of speculative theology. Through excessive rationalism and polemics, we have arrived today at a universal contempt for reason. And if the last sophists—Heidegger, Husserl, Foucault, Derrida and Co.—are followed, it is not because they are rational, but because they are emotionally preferred for various reasons.
The historical details of this process of overloading and then rejecting reason must be presented with accuracy in a book. Here I will only describe the fundamental error of those who, through speculative-rational exercise, failed in trying to force the assent of heretics, apostates, skeptics, and new pagans by means of a purely rational apologetics, perfectly described by James Iovino:
“The Neo-Scholastic apologists, propelled by encyclicals such as Aeterni Patris, Pascendi, Dominici Gregis, and Humani Generis, fashioned a remarkably unified approach rooted in the metaphysics of Saint Thomas Aquinas and based on the classical model that first proved the existence of God, and then, building on those arguments, demonstrated the truth of Christian revelation and the authority of the Catholic Church. As a rational apologetics, its arguments relied on external evidences that can be judged by reason alone, rather than motives intrinsic to the human will or the internal message of the Catholic faith.”[viii]
The above quotation shows that the neo-Scholastics were perfectly convinced of the possibility of such an exclusively rationalistic apologetics. But it is equally clear that they set aside what is essential: the decision of the will, animated by love, to embrace the Supreme Good. Most likely, they did so convinced that if reason were “enlightened” by the correct arguments, then the will would follow. Please, note, that I do not doubt their good intentions.
But the disastrous triumph of modernism within the Church and the total drift of today’s world show that such a project cannot bear fruit in a world where the great adversaries of our souls make use of the arts (especially music and film). What the neo-Scholastics overlooked is that rational argumentation has value only for those who already, responding in love to God’s love, have accepted His revealed truths. The true answer involves holiness of life and the beauty of traditional sacred art, not logic and argumentative methods. It is no accident that the patron of confessors and perhaps the greatest saint of the 19th century was not a rational speculative genius but a priest who struggled with scholasticism: Saint Jean-Marie Vianney (1786–1859). And let us not forget that the great Catholic “apologists” of the 20th century include Gilbert Keith Chesterton, George Bernanos, and John Ronald Reuel Tolkien.
The “Violence of Reason” and the End of Illusion
When someone believes that, for example, by perfectly demonstrating the existence of God he can compel his interlocutor—on the basis of rational understanding—to believe as though he had received the supernatural grace of faith, he is prone to committing an act of violence. Supernatural grace is never received as the result of a rational act. That is because there is no human act that can “automatically” or “methodically” obtain a supernatural grace. God is a always a “Subject,” not an “object.” He can be asked and implored, but not coerced in an impersonal manner. That is why no syllogism can lead to supernatural faith. When someone accepts, on the basis of one of Saint Thomas’s Five Ways, that God exists, that belief is merely a natural conviction, limited to the level of his intellectual capacity. That is why Saint Jerome—mentioned by Saint Bonaventure—insisted that the apostles did not spread the Gospel using syllogisms but by raising the dead.[ix]
Only love can receive the grace of faith. And, as Saint Thomas also teaches, love is an act of the will—not of the intellect—that turns toward the Supreme Good. As we see in the Song of Songs, the heavenly Bridegroom responds with love to the loving call of His bride (who is the soul of every sinner who converts). Rational arguments are always far inferior to acts of love. In theology, in fact, they must come after love—love that is preserved, cultivated, and increased through prayer and other spiritual exercises far more than through study and dialectic.
Faith is an act of the intellect adhering to the supernatural truths of faith at the command of the will moved by grace, says Saint Thomas.[x] Therefore speculative-theological understanding founded on faith comes after, not before, love. Hence Saint Anselm of Canterbury’s famous phrase, Credo ut intelligam. First I love—therefore I believe—only then will I begin to understand with a mind enlightened by grace. To the one who does not yet love God and, consequently, does not yet believe, the true understanding of the world “seen and unseen” is inaccessible. And if the intellect attempts to replace or “force” love, it may even endanger the reception of the supernatural grace of faith. At the root of this aggressive rational attitude lies the illusion of understanding.
For believers like Saints Augustine, John of Damascus, Anselm of Canterbury, and Thomas Aquinas, the joy of speculative-theological knowledge was real. Most likely it is the same for many of their followers—including today’s neo-Scholastics. The problem arises, however, when we come to believe—usually unconsciously and involuntarily, through reading masterful works like the Summa Theologica—that this “understanding” is of the same order as intuitive, direct, passive contemplation.[xi] In other words, we forget that it is only “knowledge in a mirror.” In fact, the capacity of discursive reason to know is (almost) zero compared with “infused science” and any authentic mystical experience.
To remind us of this, through the Angelic Doctor, God granted him at the end of his life the grace of an experience of the same nature as Saint Paul’s ecstasy (2 Corinthians 12: 1–5), an exit from the labyrinth of speculative knowledge into mystical knowledge. This does not imply, as I already said, that what he had written before was erroneous. Rather, as is evident from the Angelic Doctor’s “allergy” to writing thereafter, it demonstrates the immeasurable inferiority of our speculations and words in comparison with the direct, contemplative-mystical knowledge of the One his heart longed for: God.
Let us recall that after recounting his ascent to the third heaven of Paradise, the Apostle Paul said he could not utter anything about what he had experienced. In a somewhat similar way, after leaving behind an ocean of words (by the way, do you know anyone who has actually read everything he wrote?), Saint Thomas admitted that his words were only “straws” compared with what he contemplated in ecstasy. The very thought of touching the instruments of writing became repugnant to him. But not because what he had written throughout his life was wrong, but because the presence of God is simultaneously overwhelming and incommunicable through our “straw” words—even those of a rational-speculative masterpiece like the Summa Theologica.
After ecstatically contemplating God, Saint Thomas fell silent. In so doing, he both emphasized the ephemeral character of our speculations and showed us once and for all that direct, contemplative knowledge of the Heavenly Bridegroom is superior to any form of rational-discursive activity. No theological treatise, no Summa, will ever reach the height of “face-to-face” knowledge of the Most Holy Trinity.
Ordained by Divine Providence, Saint Thomas’s ecstasy is also meant to draw our attention to the hidden life of the one who received such a royal gift. His reverence at Holy Liturgy, his extraordinary concentration and recollection in prayer, his love of prayer and composition of such “poems” (perhaps on par with the Psalms of King David), his childlike trust in the excellence of his brethren in the order, his aristocratic manners, his perfect obedience, his love of poverty, his passion for sacred music—all these are aspects of religious life in which, out of love for his true King, God, Saint Thomas excelled at least as much as in his speculative abilities.
Personally, I believe that today, immersed and threatened by the new barbarism and the new paganism, we are in greater need of these things than of scholastic manuals of logic and metaphysics. I say this as a former university professor of metaphysics. But I am not saying that the treatises should be thrown away! The Summa Theologica, as well as Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross’s Finite and Eternal Being–An Ascent to the Meaning of Being, can be of real help to those who seek great speculative answers. But until we attain true reverence before the Holy Eucharist and develop truly noble and charitable manners toward one another, it would be wiser to postpone speculative reasoning, using the time thus gained for prayer, meditation, and sound (self)education. And if to these we add well-chosen literary and poetic readings, I believe we will acquire a joy of heart from which may spring the delicate and subtle impulses of love for God and neighbor.
This essay originally appeared at the author’s Substack, Kmita’s Library.
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Notes:
[i] Dr. Kwasniewski’s book can be found here [Accessed: 23 August 2025].
[ii] The conventual chapel where Saint Thomas Aquinas had his ecstasy in 1273 is located in the church of San Domenico in Naples (Italy): Piazza San Domenico Maggiore, 8A, 80134.
[iii] Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., Saint Thomas Aquinas, Volume 1: The Person and His Work, Translated by Dr. Robert Royal, Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996, p. 289. All the details regarding the “resignation” of Saint Thomas Aquinas can be found in Father Torrell’s monograph.
[iv] Ibidem.
[v] The notion of “illusion,” as I am using it here, does not by any means signify “untrue” or “unreal.” Speculative theological discussions can be correct or incorrect, true or false. And the dogmas proclaimed by the Church are, categorically, always and forever true. Yet in relation to the absolute Being—God—who is the supreme and sole aim of theology, they are nothing more than pale reflections of the divine, supernatural Truth. It is one thing to “know” through Faith that the Most Holy Trinity exists, and quite another—something far greater—to ecstatically contemplate the indescribable splendor of the Most Holy Trinity.
[vi] An excellent comment related to violentia rationis can be found in an address delivered by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011 [Accessed: 25 August 2025].
[vii] Works of St. Bonaventure, Volume XVIII: Conferences on the Six Days of Creation: The Illuminations of the Church, Introduction, Translation and Notes by Jay M. Hammond, Franciscan Institute Publications, Saint Bonaventure University, 2018, Conference Seventeen – Third Vision, art. 28.
[viii] James Iovino, “Can Neo-Scholasticism Make a Comeback? Adapting ‘The Apologetics of Yesterday’ to Today,” available online on the website of The New Oxford Review [Accessed: 23 August 2025].
[ix] Here is a remarkable quotation from Saint Jerome’s Letter 57: “He who declares that he imitates the style of apostles should first imitate the virtue of their lives; the great holiness of which made up for much plainness of speech. They confuted the syllogisms of Aristotle and the perverse ingenuities of Chrysippus by raising the dead.” The full text can be read online here [Accessed: 26 August 2025].
[x] “What is Faith? The Definition of Saint Thomas Aquinas” [Accessed: 23 August 2025].
[xi] For those readers who perhaps are not aware of the distinction between “active” and “passive” contemplation, I mention that while the former is when the human person actively engages in various spiritual or religious actions (such as prayer and meditation) by using his own faculties (mind, will, and heart) to focus attention on God, the latter is when God acts primarily and (almost) exclusively on the soul as He pleases (according to His Divine Infinite Wisdom).
The featured image is “Santo Tomás de Aquino” (between 1600 and 1649), by Antonio del Castillo y Saavedra, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.