Thomas Aquinas, Henry Adams, Steve Martin

In his conceptual travelogue Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres -- first distributed privately in 1904, then published in 1913 -- historian Henry Adams devoted a chapter to Thomas Aquinas.  There are oversimplifications and mistakes in it of the sort one would expect from a non-philosopher interested in putting together a compelling narrative, but some interesting things too.  Adams rightly emphasizes how deep and consequential is the difference between Aquinas’s view that knowledge of God starts with sensory experience of the natural order, and the tendency of mystics and Cartesians to look instead within the human mind itself to begin the ascent to God.  And he rightly notes how important, and also contrary to other prominent theological tendencies, is Aquinas’s affirmation of the material world.  (This is a major theme in Denys Turner’s recent book on Aquinas, about which I’ve been meaning to blog.)  On the other hand, what Adams says about Aquinas and secondary causality is not only wrong but bizarre.Most important for present purposes, though, is Adams’ motif of drawing parallels between theological tendencies and medieval structures.  The view of those who see the relation between God and man in terms of force is compared by Adams to Mont-Saint-Michel.  The view that the relation is best seen in terms of faith, he compares to Chartres Cathedral.  And he compares Aquinas’s appeal to reason to the cathedrals at Beauvaisand Amiens.  Writes Adams:

The architects of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries took the Church and the universe for truths, and tried to express them in a structure which should be final.  Knowing by an enormous experience precisely where the strains were to come, they enlarged their scale to the utmost point of material endurance, lightening the load and distributing the burden until the gutters and gargoyles that seem mere ornament, and the grotesques that seem rude absurdities, all do work either for the arch or for the eye; and every inch of material, up and down, from crypt to vault, from man to God, from the universe to the atom, had its task, giving support where support was needed, or weight where concentration was felt, but always with the condition of showing conspicuously to the eye the great lines which led to unity and the curves which controlled divergence; so that, from the cross on the flèche and the keystone of the vault, down through the ribbed nervures, the columns, the windows, to the foundation of the flying buttresses far beyond the walls, one idea controlled every line; and this is true of St. Thomas’ Church as it is of Amiens Cathedral.  The method was the same for both, and the result was an art marked by singular unity, which endured and served its purpose until man changed his attitude toward the universe.
In his book of surrealist humor Cruel Shoes -- first distributed privately in 1977, then published in a longer edition in 1979 -- comedian and onetime philosophy major Steve Martin devotes one of the best pieces in the volume to a fanciful recounting of the “Demolition of the Cathedral at Chartres.”  Here it is in its entirety:
Mr. Rivers was raised in the city of New York, had become involved in construction and slowly advanced himself to the level of crane operator for a demolition company.  The firm had grown enormously, and he was shipped off to France for a special job.  He started work early on a Friday and, due to a poorly drawn map, at six-thirty one morning in February began the demolition of the Cathedral at Chartres.
The first swing of the ball knifed an arc so deadly that it tore down nearly a third of a wall and the glass shattered almost in tones, and it seemed to scream over the noise of the engine as the fuel was pumped in the long neck of the crane that threw the ball through a window of the Cathedral at Chartres.
The aftermath was complex and chaotic, and Rivers was allowed to go home to New York, and he opened up books on the Cathedral and read about it and thought to himself how lucky he was to have seen it before it was destroyed.  (pp. 19-20)
Suppose we depart from Adams a little by identifying Aquinas’s system with Chartres Cathedral instead, and then read Adams’ analogy in light of Martin’s absurd scenario.  What do we get?
What we get, perhaps, is a parable for the nouvelle theologie revolution as described by Rusty Reno in a First Things article a few years ago, which I quoted at length in a recent talk at Thomas Aquinas College.  In the wake of the nouvelle theologie critique of Neo-Scholastic Thomism, Reno writes, “the old theological culture of the Church has largely been destroyed,” while the nouvelle theologie thinkers themselves “did not, perhaps could not, formulate a workable, teachable alternative to take its place…”  Indeed, their own work is not intelligible except within the context of the system they found inadequate, a context they swept away.  Hence, judges Reno, “the collapse of neoscholasticism has not led to the new and fuller vision [they] sought… It has created a vacuum filled with simple-minded shibboleths.”  Some of the nouvelle theologie thinkers -- such as Balthasar and de Lubac -- deplored this simple-mindedness, and the heterodoxy that has come with it.  But it was an unintended consequence of their own theological revolution.  They’re a little like Steve Martin’s Mr. Rivers, wistfully contemplating the loss of a glorious structure they had themselves demolished. 
So thoroughly has the nouvelle theologiecaricature of Neo-Scholasticism and traditional Thomism permeated the intellectual life of the Church that you will hear it parroted in the most unexpected contexts.  For instance, during lunch at a conference some time ago, a couple of well-meaning conservative Catholic academics matter-of-factly remarked how awful the Neo-Scholastic manuals were, how you couldn’t learn Aquinas from Thomists, etc. -- even as they praised my own work and the high-octane Thomism I was defending during the conference!  I thought: “Where the hell do you think I got it from?”
Whenever I encounter this kind of cluelessness, I reach for my copy of Cruel Shoes.