Thomas Aquinas – Impulse and Impetus for Evangelical Memory

Abstract

Otto Hermann Pesch has suggested that the relation between Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther can be aptly captured by the two concepts “sapiential” and “existential”. This article takes a different path, distinguishing the Reformation hermeneutics of difference from the Thomasian hermeneutics of harmony: Reformation theology uses sharp distinctions – Law or Gospel, faith or works, as well as reason or revelation. While these things are not separate, Reformation doctrine puts them into a complex, critical relation to one another. By contrast, Thomas Aquinas seeks to build a harmonious relation between seeming opposites, as evident both from his foundation of theology and his doctrine of justification. While the conflicts of the Reformation period can be well explained in this way, it is noteworthy that Protestant theology, since the Enlightenment, seems to have developed its own hermeneutics of harmony, step by step. Against this background, a new, positive understanding of Aquinas in Protestant theology seems to be possible.