American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

Volume 83, Issue 3, Summer 2009

Contemporary Thomisms

A Postmodern Aquinas
The Oeuvre of Olivier-Thomas Venard, O.P.

The oeuvre of Olivier-Thomas Venard, O.P. offers a sensitive delineation of the central role which Aquinas gives to language and its careful composition in pursuing his intellectual inquiry. By suggesting a way of aligning “medieval” modes of inquiry with “postmodern,” this study brings to light the inescapable role which the language of religious expression plays in Aquinas’s manner of leading us to understand recondite matters which he avows we are able at best to “imperfectly signify.” All of this contributes to the strategy of manuductio for which his work is celebrated, as well as accounting for the chiseled clarity of expression which continues to impress commentators on his work and clearly distinguishes him from erstwhile peers. This manner of expression itself offers witness to that radical intellectual asceticism celebrated by Pierre Hadot: a benignly “postmodern” expression.