“What’s the big deal with Thomas Aquinas? Why is everyone always talking about him now?”
I have been asked these questions dozens of times over the last year or so. A handful of theologians have pushed the “Great Tradition” paradigm to such an extent that they now urge evangelicals and Reformed folks to embrace Thomas as the church’s greatest theologian (or one of them). This is true even in Baptist seminaries. Thomas’s method, doctrine, and system is thus commended to the next generation of pastors as exemplary, albeit with a few disagreements. Some are left asking a correlated question: “With Thomas’s program, can’t we just appreciate the good parts, and leave aside the bad parts?”
It’s a fair and good question. There is just one problem with such an approach, however well-intentioned: Thomas Aquinas was a syncretist. As a faithful Roman Catholic theologian, he blended concepts that Scripture teaches cannot be blended. His entire method, in fact, is syncretist. This is why Aquinas has gotten so little affirmation from most of the Reformed crowd since the Reformation. In this respect, he is different than Luther, Calvin, Edwards, or Warfield, all of whom erred in certain respects in their theological program. Thomas errs not merely in discrete doctrines as we all will, but in the entire method of his system.
Let me illustrate. I recently had the opportunity to practice some elite carpentry. My task was extensive and impressive (sarcasm alert): I drilled screws into boards for a few hours. As I did so, I reflected on the Aquinas conversation. Watching the process of home renovation, I thought this to myself: theology is like a saw. If your settings are off, every board you cut will be off. It cannot be otherwise, no matter how fancy your saw is, no matter how intensely you scrutinize your work. This is how it is with Thomas. It is not merely that a few boards come up a little short, or come out a little rough. No, with Thomas it is not individual boards (or doctrines) that are off; it is the entire system.
Thomas stated some truths, sure. But at base, Thomas was a methodological syncretist. As a result, he is a doctrinal syncretist. Examples abound: he blended grace and works. Justification for him was an infusion that yielded acts of obedience that filled out our righteousness before God. Beyond this, Thomas blended Jesus and Aristotle, essentially creating an attribute of God, divine immobility. He blended Scripture and church tradition, arguing subtly yet powerfully for the need to depend on the Word of God, yes, but also the traditions developed by the Catholic Church. In his apologetics, he blended the truths of the Bible with the best arguments from unfettered reason, even allowing for reason itself to lead the truly enlightened to God.
We could go on. Even the little I have shared is enough to stop cutting wood altogether with Aquinas’s saw. This is what my faculty colleagues at Grace Bible Theological Seminary and I argue in our brand-new journal, Pro Pastor. The elegant cover image is above; below is the Table of Contents, just so you can get a taste of what we offer. This journal is not for the fancy-talkers; it is for Christ’s church, with a special burden to translate deep theology for busy pastors who love their flock but cannot read thousands of pages of theological academic-ese.
In terms of Thomas’s penchant for syncretism, you’ll find the various writers—GBTS faculty all—engaging it with Scripture and sound scholarship. James White shows how Thomas blended Catholic tradition and Bible; Jeff Johnson shows how Thomas blended Jesus and Aristotle; Jeff Moore shows how Paul did not blend faith and non-Christian philosophical reason as Thomas did; I seek to show that Thomas blended grace and works. The closing chart marvelously contrasts Thomas’s views with the Bible’s. Clarity abounds as a result. Please do read this journal, and as you do so, hear these words echo in your mind: Thomas Aquinas was a syncretist par excellence. He deserves this label both methodologically and doctrinally.
There is no place in the Christian faith for syncretism. You cannot blend Christian truth with non-Christian thought (Exodus 20:3; 1 Cor. 1). Doing so does not enhance your Christianity, making it Christian but with more intellectual horsepower. Doing so makes your Christianity not Christianity anymore. As just one example, this is what we see with Thomas’s soteriology (doctrine of salvation). Though he talks a big game about God’s sovereign saving action, Thomas blends grace and works, and in doing so, loses grace.
These are truths that the church used to know but seems to have forgotten. This is a really basic point, but apparently it is up for grabs today, so let us say it clearly and without apology: if you add even a single work to grace, you lose grace. If your merit before a holy God is based in even a shred of your own merit, you lose all the merit of Christ. If you trust in just a single indulgence to clear your spiritual account (Thomas loved indulgences!), your sin debt remains unpaid, and you will be damned forever.
Unbiblical soteriology is not okay. It is not a small thing. It is not a fourth-order disagreement in the church. It is not a take-it-or-leave-it reality. If you do not know and confess the true biblical gospel, you do not know the true biblical God, and you go to hell for eternity. Thomas gives us a developed and nuanced soteriology in the Summa Theologica and other sources. But tragically, despite all his sophistication and erudition, Thomas did not proclaim the one gospel of Scripture in his program. Thomas taught a changed gospel, an adjusted gospel, a syncretist gospel. In doing so, Thomas taught a changed God, an adjusted God, and a syncretist God.
Because he did so, Thomas neither knew nor taught the true biblical God. I do not mean that he never said anything true about God or other subjects; he surely did. But you cannot know the true God without knowing and confessing the true gospel. The two are linked, inextricably bound, and eternity hangs upon this connection. Thomas taught a compromised soteriology and theology proper for the reason we have covered: he was a syncretist. He blended Christian thought anchored in the Scriptures with man’s reason anchored in the mortal mind.
Thomas Aquinas was a brilliant man. Theology students can indeed read him and can learn some truths from him. But he is different than the Reformers or Puritans or later Reformed Baptists, all of whom stumbled theologically and spiritually as we ourselves do. Thomas’s entire method was wrong. His saw cut wood badly; its settings were off, terribly off. As a result, Thomas’s program did not preserve the true gospel; it produced mangled wood, and a mangled gospel. This gospel is no gospel at all.
Today, seemingly trustworthy voices tell us to embrace Thomas with open arms. But my colleagues and I at GBTS would say to the church, in all faith and hope and charity, Please, we beg of you, do not do so! Be warned! Beware Thomas. Beware his method. Beware his syncretism. It has already led to bitter fruit at one evangelical institution (see here and here). It will do so again.
We at GBTS have spoken up not out of anger; not out of spite; not out of a competitive spirit. We have spoken up because people in the church are being taken captive by a compromised system with a compromised gospel at its core (Col. 2:8). It is not loving to sit by and let this happen. It is loving to speak up and rebuke those who contradict sound doctrine (Titus 1:9). This we do in the new issue of Pro Pastor, our new journal. This we do, please note, in our classes at the seminary.
Let me close on that note. If you want a seminary course anchored in the Bible, with a very strong connection to the Reformation and big-God Baptist tradition, apply to Grace Bible Theological Seminary today. We are no huge school, but we seek in all necessary humility to proclaim a great and awesome God. We do so in glad continuity with the historic Protestant church. In a time when medieval theology and the medieval method threatens a truly Sola Scriptura paradigm, you can know with certainty that by God’s sheer grace there is at least one seminary out there that will not bow to Rome. We have not, and God working, we never shall.
At GBTS in Conway, Arkansas, we will not be commending Thomas as an exemplary theologian to our students. We will not encourage our students to affirm ecumenism. Instead, on our watch, we will drive our beloved students to the Word, to the true gospel, and to the historic confession of the church founded by Jesus himself. Christ will have no other gods, and no other sages, beside him. Aristotle and pseudo-Dionysius and Thomas must all go silent in his presence, now and in days to come.
One day, we will all bow before the returning King. On that day, I assure you that no one will savingly confess Jesus as a syncretist Savior, nor will anyone then think that the Lordship of Christ is a syncretist Lordship. The glory of the lamb slain before the foundation of the earth will be unmixable, and unmissable. Until that day, hold fast to the good deposit, stay dressed for action, and keep your lamps brightly burning.