Catherine Pickstock has described the impact of Duns Scotus's thought in the following manner:As a "proto-modern" thinker, Scotus' contributions had implications for the alliance between theology and the metaphysical (in the broad sense of pre-Scotist Platonic-Aristotelian philosophical realism, not in the sense of onto-theology). For within the prevailing theologico-metaphysical discourse of participated-in perfections, there was a ready continuity between reason and revelation: reason itself was drawn upwards by divine light, while, inversely, revelation involved the conjunction of radiant being and further illuminated mind. Here, as we have seen, to rise to the Good, before as well as within faith, was to rise to God. But once the perceived relationship to the transcendentals has undergone the shift described above, to abstract to the Good tells us nothing concerning the divine nature. To know the latter, we wait far more upon a positive revelation of something that has for us the impact of a contingent fact rather than a metaphysical necessity.One can interpret the latter outcome as modern misfortune: the loss of an integrally conceptual and mystical path. 1 Pickstock's central claim-that the fourteenth century marks a shift away from the understanding of "participated-in perfections", and that Scotus
In Christs Fu!fillment oflbrah and Temple, Matthew Levering has written a thoughtful, insightful study, one that will be valuable for Aquinas studies and beyond. In one sense, Levering's is a unique undertaking. His central thesis is one which, to the knowledge of this reviewer, has never before been advanced: Aquinas' understanding of salvation can best be understood in terms of Christ's fulfillment of God's earlier work in Israel, specifically-as the title suggestsfulfillment of Torah and Temple. On the other hand, Levering's work is highly consistent with a recent trend in Aquinas scholarship: this is Aquinas the theologian, deeply grounded in the historical particularities of revelation and in the concrete narrative of Scripture. Such particularity, of course, finds its climax in Christ, but Levering reminds us that Aquinas recognizes its presence long before the incarnation, in Israel. Levering's thoughtful treatment of the matter will make his work useful not only for Aquinas studies, but for another conversation he clearly intends to enter: contemporary Jewish-Christian dialogue. Levering engages both Michael Wyschogrod-to show that Aquinas does not simply advocate abrogation of concrete Torah-observance-and Jon Levenson-to show that the twofold focus on "Torah and Temple" Levenson ascribes to Aquinas also emerges naturally from within Judaism itself. Overall, he offers Aquinas as a serious resource in the present-day conversation, describing with care the way in which Aquinas insists that neither Law nor Temple are revoked, but rather reach their fulfillment in Christ. As the title suggests, the argument unfolds in two parts. In the first section of the book, dealing with Torah, Levering advances his
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