Everybody knows (for the relevant value of ‘everybody’) that, for Thomas Aquinas, perfect happiness consists in intellectual contemplation of the divine essence, with the will’s delight or enjoyment being a necessary concomitant of that beatific vision but not, strictly speaking, part of the essence of happiness. Beyond this boilerplate statement, however, most of us would be hard-pressed to say much more about contemplation in Aquinas. What sort of act is it, and how does it relate to other acts of intellect? What acts of contemplation are available in this present life, and how do those acts fit into a life of faith or a life devoted to philosophical or theological study? What contribution, if any, does contemplation make to this-worldly happiness? In Thomas Aquinas and Contemplation, Rik Van Nieuwenhove takes up these and related questions and develops Aquinas’s account of contemplation in a systematic way, elaborating even what “everybody knows” in unexpected directions and unearthing important but neglected material. There are even some surprises along the way.Van Nieuwenhove notes that although Aquinas identifies contemplation as the goal or end of human life, he nowhere offers a precise definition of contemplation. In fact, he speaks of contemplation in a variety of ways and contexts, ranging from the perfect vision of God in the next life, through theoretical contemplation in this life, whether theological or philosophical, all the way to the insight that ordinary Christians can have—and indeed are called to have—into divine truth. What unites all these varieties of contemplation, Van Nieuwenhove argues, is that they culminate in “a non-discursive moment of understanding (intuitus simplex), a simple intellective insight into truth, (what is sometimes called an Aha-Erlebnis in German)” (16). In theological and philosophical contemplation, such nondiscursive insight is the hard-won result of a discursive process; in the contemplation that characterizes the ordinary Christian life, by contrast, it arises directly out of a divinely granted kinship (“connaturality”) between the believer and “the deep things of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10). It is an advantage of this broad understanding of contemplation as intuitus simplex that it “can incorporate the acts of contemplation of the Greek sage, as well as those of the vetula who enjoys the benefit of her Christian faith” (47–48).This vetula (Van Nieuwenhove leaves the word untranslated; it means “little old woman”) has a minor recurring part in the book, as she has in Aquinas’s own writing. In his sermon on the Apostles’ Creed, Aquinas writes that “not one of the philosophers before the coming of Christ, however hard they tried, could know as much about God and about what is necessary for eternal life as one vetula after the coming of Christ can know through faith” (In symbolum apostolorum, pr.; all translations of Aquinas are my own). In his sermon Attendite a falsis, Aquinas writes:The vetula may not be the ideal example for Van Nieuwenhove, since the cognition she is said to have in these two passages is clearly propositional knowledge rather than simple intuition. Van Nieuwenhove identifies a better example from ST III, q. 27, a. 5, ad 3, “where Aquinas writes that the Virgin Mary enjoyed ‘the use of wisdom in contemplation’ … but not ‘wisdom as to teaching”’ (4n).Whatever the best example of “ordinary” Christian contemplation may be—and by that I mean the “openness or receptivity to the divine truth that should characterize the life of” (198) Christians who either do not have, or lack the opportunity to exercise, the intellectual capacities required for doing academic theology or philosophy—the possibility of such contemplation requires a rethinking of some of what “everybody knows” about Aquinas’s view of happiness. As Van Nieuwenhove says, there is a near consensus reading among recent interpreters that Aquinas’s “imperfect happiness” is just Aristotelian happiness—happiness achievable in this present life by the exercise of our natural powers, expressed either in philosophical contemplation or in virtuous civic activity—whereas “perfect happiness” is the happiness of the beatific vision, a happiness attainable only in the next life and only through a supernatural gift. Aristotle knew nothing of theological contemplation (at least not in the sense of theology as sacra doctrina); he certainly knew nothing of “a life shaped by charity and infused virtues” (13). Yet both of these can contribute to this-worldly or “imperfect” happiness on Aquinas’s view, and both—to the extent that they involve “the contemplation of divine truth”—are “an early stage (inchoatio) of the happiness that begins here and is brought to completion in the world to come” (ST II-II, q. 180, a, 4).1 Van Nieuwenhove is right to emphasize that “This kind of continuity is not without significance to Aquinas the theologian, for whom grace perfects nature but does not abolish it” (47).After an introductory chapter, Van Nieuwenhove lays out in part I the epistemological and metaphysical foundations for his reading of Aquinas on contemplation. Chapter 2 is devoted to epistemological issues, especially the various acts of the intellect and the place of contemplation among them. The discussion of Aquinas’s reliance on Neoplatonist sources in preference to Aristotle is particularly useful. Chapter 3 is a bit more tentative and speculative, applying the theory of transcendentals to understand contemplation—something Aquinas himself never explicitly does, as Van Nieuwenhove acknowledges (49). An important conclusion here, drawing on the epistemology ably laid out in chapter 2, is that there is no basis for reading a doctrine of divine illumination into Aquinas. As Van Nieuwenhove puts it, “the fact that truth has a metaphysical foundation in the divine ideas does not commit Aquinas to a theological or illuminist epistemological perspective” (59).This observation brings us to an important recurrent theme in Thomas Aquinas and Contemplation: Van Nieuwenhove’s opposition to some recent scholarship that interprets Aquinas “as a thinker whose theology should perhaps best be labelled as sapiential (e.g. J. P. Torrell, B. McGinn), Augustinian-illuminist (John Milbank), or even charismatic … [that is,] deeply shaped by the gifts of the Holy Spirit (e.g. Servais Pinckers, Andrew Pinsent)” (18). What these have in common is a certain tendency to try to turn Aquinas into Bonaventure, and Van Nieuwenhove’s critique is sharp, assured, and compelling, and yet always somehow charitable.Since I have looked briefly at his rejection of the “illuminist” reading, I turn next to the sapiential reading. I found the idea of “sapiential wisdom” quite puzzling at first mention—sapientia is just the Latin for wisdom after all, and what would a wisdom-y wisdom be?—but Van Nieuwenhove explains that it means “a tasting or savouring kind of wisdom” (174). Sapientia does come from the verb sapio, to taste or savor, and Aquinas is not averse to using etymologies to bolster a point when they serve his purposes. It is therefore all the more noteworthy that Aquinas dismisses as irrelevant the etymological connection between wisdom and savor: “it may be that way in Latin, but it’s not in other languages” (178, quoting III Sent. d. 35, q. 2, a. 1, qc. 3, ad 1; Aquinas makes the same point in ST II-II, q. 45, a. 2, ad 2). In general, as Van Nieuwenhove shows, Aquinas resists the idea that theological wisdom is essentially affective. Even the wisdom that is a gift of the Holy Spirit is not essentially affective: it is cognitive, a divine elevation of the intellect that enables its possessor to judge rightly about divine things. Granted, the gift is rooted in charity, which belongs to the will and grants the believer a kind of kinship or “connaturality” with divine things so that she may judge correctly, but the gift itself belongs to the intellect (178–79). That gift is not—and now we turn to the “charismatic” reading of Aquinas—necessary for theological insight: “Of course, the theologian will ideally enjoy the gifts of the Holy Spirit or at least be morally upright. Theologians who are the slave of their carnal desires will be hampered in the pursuit of truth. Still, Aquinas resisted attributing an essential role to the gifts in relation to the academic pursuit of theology” (180).These critiques, and much more so the positive accounts that ground them, are worked out in part III (“Theology, the Christian Life, and Contemplation”). It is not possible to do justice in a short review to the richness of this discussion. (Of particular note are Van Nieuwenhove’s explanation in chapter 5 of the importance of the claim that theology—more strictly speaking, sacra doctrina—is a scientia (science) subalternated to God’s own scientia and his account in chapter 7 of the gradual development in Aquinas’s understanding of the role of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.) Instead I want to look more closely at part II (“The Dominican Context”), a single chapter that considers Aquinas’s account of the relationship between the active and contemplative lives in light of his ongoing defense of the Dominican Order against antimendicant writings.Contrary to some recent scholarship, Van Nieuwenhove argues compellingly that “Aquinas’s views on the relation and the merits of the active and contemplative lives remain fairly consistent …: from the very beginning Aquinas defended an ideal which is neither purely contemplative nor purely active, although throughout his career he was willing to acknowledge the inherent superiority (melior) of the contemplative life” (74). In the Sentences commentary, Aquinas acknowledges that the active life is more useful (to the extent that it is concerned with the well-being of our neighbors and not just with one’s own excellence) but the contemplative life is dignior, worthier. Van Nieuwenhove suggests that we rephrase dignior as “more meaningful in its own right” (79), a gloss that made me bristle at first but came to seem more and more right as the discussion went on. As for which life is more meritorious, the Sentences commentary leaves the question somewhat open. In the Secunda secundae and Tertia pars of the Summa theologiae it is definitively resolved: whichever life manifests greater charity is more meritorious. Generally, the contemplative life is more meritorious: “Nonetheless, it can happen that one person gains greater merit in works of the active life than another person gains in works of the contemplative life” (ST II-II q. 182, a. 2). Great charity indeed is manifest in those who “allow themselves from time to time to be separated from the sweetness of divine contemplation for a period” (Ibid.) to transmit by teaching or preaching the fruits of their contemplation, as the Dominicans do. Such a life, Aquinas says, “is more perfect than a life that involves only contemplation” (ST III q. 40, a. 1, ad 2).Thomas Aquinas and Contemplation is much more than a book on one underappreciated aspect of Aquinas’s thought. It is a creative synthesis of aspects of Aquinas’s epistemology, philosophy of mind, and moral theology. It is circumspect without being timid, opinionated without being polemical, attentive to historical context without overwhelming the reader with needless detail. It is a splendid achievement.

中文翻译：

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托马斯·阿奎那与沉思

每个人都知道（对于“每个人”的相关价值），对于托马斯·阿奎那来说，完美的幸福在于对神圣本质的理智沉思，意志的喜悦或享受是那种幸福愿景的必要伴随物，但严格来说，这不是一部分幸福的本质。然而，除了这个样板陈述之外，我们大多数人都很难对阿奎那的沉思说更多。它是一种什么样的行为，它与其他智力行为有什么关系？今生有哪些沉思行为，这些行为如何适应信仰生活或致力于哲学或神学研究的生活？沉思对现世的幸福有什么贡献（如果有的话）？在托马斯·阿奎那与沉思中，Rik Van Nieuwenhove 研究了这些问题和相关问题，并以系统的方式发展了阿奎那对沉思的描述，甚至以意想不到的方向阐述了“每个人都知道”的东西，并发掘了重要但被忽视的材料。一路上什至有一些惊喜。范尼文霍夫指出，尽管阿奎那将沉思确定为人类生活的目标或终点，但他没有为沉思提供精确的定义。事实上，他以多种方式和语境谈到默观，从来世对上帝的完美异象，到今生的理论默观，无论是神学的还是哲学的，一直到普通基督徒可以拥有的洞察力- 并且确实被要求拥有 - 进入神圣的真理。Van Nieuwenhove 认为，是什么将所有这些不同的沉思结合在一起，是它们在“一个非话语的理解时刻（intuitus simplex），一个对真理的简单智力洞察（有时在德语中称为 Aha-Erlebnis）”（16）中达到高潮。在神学和哲学的沉思中，这种非话语的洞察力是话语过程来之不易的结果；相比之下，在作为普通基督徒生活特征的沉思中，它直接产生于信徒与“上帝深奥的事物”之间神圣授予的亲属关系（“自然性”）（哥林多前书 2:10）。将沉思作为 intuitus simplex 进行广泛理解的一个优势在于，它“可以将希腊圣人的沉思行为以及享受基督教信仰益处的 vetula 的行为结合起来”（47-48）。 vetula（Van Nieuwenhove 未翻译这个词；它的意思是“小老太婆”）在书中反复出现的次要部分，就像她在阿奎那自己的作品中一样。阿奎那在他关于使徒信经的布道中写道：“在基督到来之前，没有一位哲学家，无论他们多么努力地尝试，都无法像基督到来之后的一个 vetula 那样了解上帝和永生所必需的东西。基督可以通过信仰知道”（In symbolum apostolorum, pr.；阿奎那的所有翻译都是我自己的）。阿奎那在他的讲道 Attendite a falsis 中写道： vetula 可能不是 Van Nieuwenhove 的理想例子，因为据说她在这两段中所拥有的认知显然是命题知识，而不是简单的直觉。Van Nieuwenhove 从 ST III, q 中找到了一个更好的例子。27，一个。5，广告 3，“阿奎那写道，圣母玛利亚喜欢‘在沉思中运用智慧’……但不是‘教导的智慧’”（4n）。无论“普通”基督徒沉思的最好例子是什么——我的意思是“对神圣真理的开放或接受应该是生活的特征”（198）没有或没有机会锻炼学术神学或哲学所需智力的基督徒——这种沉思的可能性需要一个重新思考关于阿奎那幸福观的一些“人人都知道”的事情。正如 Van Nieuwenhove 所说，最近的解释者几乎达成共识，认为阿奎那的“不完美的幸福”只是亚里士多德式的幸福——通过运用我们的自然力量在今生获得的幸福，表达在哲学沉思或美德公民活动中——而“完美的幸福”是幸福愿景的幸福，一种只有在来世并且只有通过超自然的礼物才能获得的幸福。亚里士多德对神学沉思一无所知（至少在神学作为神圣教义的意义上）；他当然对“由慈善和注入美德塑造的生活”一无所知（13）。然而，在阿奎那看来，这两者都可以促成现世的或“不完美的”幸福，并且两者——就它们涉及“对神圣真理的沉思”而言——是“从这里开始的幸福的早期阶段（inchoatio）”并在未来的世界中完成”（ST II-II，q. 180，a，4）。1 Van Nieuwenhove 正确地强调“这种连续性对神学家阿奎那来说并非没有意义，对他们来说，恩典完善了自然，但没有废除它”（47）。在介绍性的一章之后，Van Nieuwenhove 在第一部分阐述了他阅读阿奎那沉思的认识论和形而上学基础。第 2 章致力于认识论问题，尤其是智力的各种行为以及其中的沉思所在。关于阿奎那对新柏拉图主义来源的依赖而不是亚里士多德的讨论特别有用。第 3 章更具尝试性和推测性，应用先验理论来理解沉思——正如 Van Nieuwenhove 承认的那样，阿奎那本人从未明确做过 (49)。这里的一个重要结论是，根据第 2 章巧妙阐述的认识论，将神启教义读入阿奎那是没有根据的。正如 Van Nieuwenhove 所说，“真理在神圣思想中具有形而上学基础这一事实并没有使阿奎那接受神学或光照主义认识论的观点”（59）。这一观察将我们带到托马斯·阿奎那和沉思中反复出现的一个重要主题： Van Nieuwenhove 反对最近的一些奖学金，这些奖学金将阿奎那解释为“一位思想家，其神学也许最好被标记为智慧（例如 JP Torrell，B. McGinn），奥古斯丁光照派（John Milbank），甚至是魅力...... [也就是说，]深受圣灵恩赐的影响（例如 Servais Pinckers、Andrew Pinsent）”（18）。它们的共同点是试图将阿奎那变成文德的某种倾向，而范尼文霍夫的批评是尖锐的、有把握的、令人信服的，但总是以某种方式仁慈。由于我已经简要地看了他对“光照派”阅读的拒绝，我接下来转向智者阅读。第一次提到“spiential wisdom”这个概念时，我觉得很费解——毕竟 sapientia 只是智慧的拉丁语，without-y wisdom 是什么意思？——但 Van Nieuwenhove 解释说它的意思是“一种品尝或品味的智慧”智慧”（174）。Sapientia 确实来自动词 sapio，意为品尝或品味，而阿奎那并不反对使用词源来支持他的目的。因此，更值得注意的是，阿奎那认为智慧和品味之间的词源联系无关紧要：“在拉丁语中可能是这样，但在其他语言中不是这样”（178，引述 III Sent. d. 35，q. 2 , a. 1, qc. 3, ad 1；阿奎那在 ST II-II, q. 45, a. 2, ad 2) 中提出了同样的观点。一般来说，正如 Van Nieuwenhove 所表明的，阿奎那反对神学智慧本质上是情感的观点。即使是圣灵所赐的智慧，本质上也不是情感的：它是认知的，是智力的神圣提升，使拥有者能够正确判断神圣的事物。诚然，恩赐植根于爱德，它属于意志，并赋予信徒一种与神圣事物的亲缘关系或“同性”，以便她可以正确判断，但恩赐本身属于智力 (178-79)。这种天赋并不是——现在我们转向对阿奎那的“超凡魅力”解读——对于神学洞察力来说是必需的：“当然，理想情况下，神学家会享受圣灵的恩赐，或者至少在道德上是正直的。成为肉欲奴隶的神学家在追求真理时会受到阻碍。仍然，阿奎那拒绝将与神学学术追求相关的天赋赋予重要作用”（180）。这些批评，以及更多作为其基础的积极叙述，在第三部分（“神学，基督徒生活，和沉思”）。不可能通过简短的回顾来公正地评价这一讨论的丰富性。（特别值得注意的是 Van Nieuwenhove 在第 5 章中对神学——更严格地说，神圣教义——是一种 scientia（科学）从属于上帝自己的 scientia 的主张的重要性的解释，以及他在第 7 章对阿奎那的逐渐发展的描述理解圣灵恩赐的作用。）相反，我想更仔细地研究第二部分（“多米尼加语境”），一章考虑阿奎那对积极生活和沉思生活之间关系的描述，因为他一直在捍卫多米尼加秩序，反对反叛的著作。与最近的一些学术研究相反，范尼文霍夫令人信服地指出积极的和沉思的生活保持相当一致......：从一开始阿奎那就捍卫了一个既不是纯粹沉思也不是纯粹积极的理想，尽管在他的整个职业生涯中他愿意承认沉思生活的内在优越性（melior）“（74 ). 在句子评论中，阿奎那承认，积极的生活更有用（在某种程度上，它关心我们邻居的福祉，而不仅仅是一个人自己的卓越），但沉思的生活更有尊严，更有价值。Van Nieuwenhove 建议我们将 dignior 改写为“本身就更有意义”（79），这种解释起初让我感到愤怒，但随着讨论的进行，它似乎越来越正确。至于哪一个生命更有价值，《圣言》的注释留下了一些悬而未决的问题。在 Summa theologiae 的 Secunda secundae 和 Tertia pars 中，它明确地解决了：生活表现出更大的慈善是更有价值的。一般来说，禅修的生活更有价值：“尽管如此，一个人在积极生活的工作中获得的功德可能比另一个人在沉思生活中获得的功德更大”（ST II-II q. 182, a. 2）。伟大的慈善确实体现在那些“不时让自己与神圣默观的甜蜜分离一段时间”（同上）的人身上，通过教导或宣讲他们默观的果实，就像多米尼加人所做的那样。阿奎那说，这样的生活“比只涉及沉思的生活更完美”（ST III q. 40, a. 1, ad 2）。《托马斯·阿奎那与沉思》不仅仅是一本关于阿奎那思想中一个未被充分认识的方面的书想法。它创造性地综合了阿奎那的认识论、心灵哲学和道德神学的各个方面。它谨慎而不胆怯，固执己见而不好辩，关注历史背景，而不用不必要的细节使读者不知所措。这是一个了不起的成就。