In a culture of chatter, blogs and tweets it is both refreshing and challenging to encounter a studied examination of language, of how we speak about reality and about God. For far too many people what we say is about political power, an unbridled freedom of speech that has no control, no restraints. From violent racial riots to murderous fanaticism we see that our language about ultimate values, about absolute realities, can be explosive. What we say and how we say it, especially when speaking about God, is such a foreign concern to many modern readers. Sadly this excellent book by Anastasia Wendlinder will be dismissed by some because discourse today has become meaningless spin. But for Aquinas and Eckhart our speaking about God was important because it was relational, it brought us to God.
Wendlinder sets forth her thesis telling us: ‘It is the task of this book to show how Aquinas moves us beyond conventional views of ‘analogy’ when articulating the creature's relation to its Creator, and how Eckhart then employs this dynamic analogical usage to detach us from any conception of God that may hinder us in developing the ‘Christian forms of life’ that will lead us closer to God’(p. 24). She does this by first exposing the inadequacy of conventional definitions of analogy (p. 14) that reduce the Creator to a created thing. Borrowing from Kathryn Tanner the notion of ‘non-contrastive’ (Christ the Key, 2010) she underscores the importance of religious language preserving the Creator-creature relation, calling for a ‘different ‘universe of discourse’ that moves beyond our normal mode of describing relationships within the world’ (p. 15).
In order to appreciate both Aquinas and Eckhart, Chapter 2 provides a context for these two thinkers fashioned by their Dominican life. I believe all too often this formative element unfortunately is over-looked by many scholars. Wendlinder enables us to see that for both Aquinas and Eckhart theology is ordered to preaching, ‘…learning to speak about God in order to draw closer to our ultimate Source…’(p. 64). Chapters 3 and 4 provide an engaging treatment of Thomas Aquinas's monumental work the Summa Theologiae. These two chapters form the real heart of Wendlinder's work and provide a reading of Aquinas everyone should appreciate, drawing together his thought and his Dominican life. ‘The Dominican approach of study through contemplation grows out of the friar's religious practice, thoroughly based on and guided by Scripture: silent prayer, divine liturgy, sacraments, acts of charity, preaching’ (p. 67). For Aquinas, according to Wendlinder, analogy is ‘…a linguistic tool protecting the Creator's transcendence-in-immanence’ (p. 102). This principle is applied to her reading of the Prima pars questions 1–13 and provides a transition into Eckhart's ‘dynamic analogy’ (p. 156) bringing ‘…hearts and minds to full awareness of God's presence and the possibilities of absolute union with God’ (p. 157). For Eckhart and Aquinas analogy, as they use it, safeguards the Creator-creature relation, the absolute transcendence and otherness of God from all created reality and the immanent intimacy of God to His creation. The shared understanding of Eckhart and Aquinas is often rejected by scholars who oppose these Dominicans as a negative theologian versus a positive theologian. Wendlinder rightly notes that ‘…closer examination of Aquinas’ development of analogy reveals it not to be a positive theology but apophatic, rejecting both positive and negative attribution; moreover it transforms attribution altogether’ (p. 159).
The three chapters on Aquinas and Eckhart are the pearl of great price found in this work and stand out in the literature on these two Dominicans. They eclipse what might be considered minor deficiencies in the brief and at times disconnected final chapter which bravely attempts to transpose Aquinas's and Eckhart's insights ‘…to teach contemporary students of faith…’ (p. 191). It is a valiant effort to bridge the medieval and modern worlds but it could have benefitted from finer brush strokes. I readily concede the challenge of relating these profound thinkers to a post-Enlightenment world and a Millennial Church, but doing so requires finding proper cognates if it is to be done well. For example on pages 196–198, treating medieval Christian forms of life, Wendlinder contrasts a post-Vatican II understanding with what she takes to be a medieval understanding of eucharistic theology. Unfortunately this section relies on poor generalizations guided by Luther's critique, and never even mentions both Aquinas's and Eckhart's understandings of the eucharist. This, I believe, would have benefitted both her argument for non-contrastive understanding as well as her goal to allow Aquinas and Eckhart to teach contemporary students of faith.
As a Dominican, schooled in the same forms of life that shaped Aquinas and Eckhart, I would not want my last word to be on what is a mere speck of criticism in light of this work's excellent contribution. Aquinas and Eckhart shared a common vision best understood in their particular understanding of analogy and Dominican preaching. I give the last word to Wendlinder: ‘…this is the preacher's soteriological calling, to gather believers into Christ. Eckhart, through practical exercise of Aquinas’ analogy, lends a new and dynamic meaning to Augustine's repose of the restless heart. The heart at rest in God is a silent heart, but not a speechless one, until it has completed its last earthly beat’ (p. 189).
