Aquinas: God and Action

This monograph examines Thomas Aquinas's understanding of divine action through a linguistic and philosophical analysis that challenges conventional readings of the medieval theologian. Burrell argues that Aquinas's treatment of God represents a sophisticated grammatical investigation rather than a straightforward metaphysical system, emphasizing how language shapes and limits theological discourse about divine activity.

The work's central thesis contends that Aquinas deliberately employs analogical predication to preserve divine transcendence while maintaining meaningful discourse about God's relationship to creation. Burrell demonstrates how Aquinas navigates between univocal and equivocal predication, showing that statements about divine action cannot be understood through ordinary causal categories. This approach directly challenges both neo-Thomist interpretations that treat Aquinas as constructing a rationalist system and process theologians who critique classical theism for rendering God inactive or remote.

Methodologically, Burrell draws on Wittgensteinian insights about language games and grammatical investigation, applying these to medieval texts in innovative ways. He shows how Aquinas's apparent metaphysical claims often function as grammatical remarks about the proper use of theological language. The analysis particularly focuses on how Aquinas handles divine simplicity, arguing that this doctrine serves not as an abstract philosophical principle but as a grammatical rule governing coherent speech about God.

The monograph engages critically with contemporary debates between classical theists and their critics, particularly process theologians and analytic philosophers of religion. Burrell demonstrates that many modern objections to Aquinas rest on misunderstandings of his linguistic strategy. By recovering Aquinas's grammatical sophistication, the work provides resources for defending classical theism against charges that it makes God either too remote from creation or logically incoherent.

Burrell's contribution significantly impacts how scholars approach medieval philosophical theology, shifting focus from doctrinal content to linguistic method. This reframing opens new possibilities for dialogue between Thomistic thought and contemporary philosophy of language. The work's influence extends beyond Aquinas scholarship, offering a model for how classical theological texts might address modern philosophical concerns about religious language. By showing that Aquinas anticipated and addressed many contemporary worries about God-talk, Burrell positions the medieval thinker as a surprisingly relevant voice in current debates about divine action, causation, and the limits of theological discourse.