Theory as Icon

Putting Intellectual Efforts in Their Place

Reginald of Piperno was one of Thomas Aquinas’s closest friends. He was also, at least for a time, Thomas’s secretary: Reginald’s pen, not Thomas’s, first wrote down many of the texts Thomas wrote, including the words of Thomas’s magnum opus, the Summa Theologica.

Thomas was, of course, absurdly prolific. In just two decades of writing, he produced more than eight million words. Much of this is lost: what we have presently represents around only an eighth of what he authored. Nevertheless, what we have has kept scholars busy for centuries. Thomas’s extant corpus contains some of the most sophisticated and insightful philosophical and theological reflection the world has ever known. The scale of his contribution, of his continuing contribution, is difficult to overstate.

We don’t know Thomas’s birthdate, but we do know the day he died: March 7, 1274. He was 48 or 49 years old, and his death was unexpected. While traveling to Lyon to participate in a council convened by Pope Gregory X, Aquinas fell ill. Despite attempts by monks at Monte Cassino, and then the Cistercian Fossanova Abbey, Thomas could not recover.

When Thomas died, Reginald was there.

Just three months before his death, on December 6, 1273, Thomas had an ecstatic experience while celebrating the mass. The experience changed him. Despite Reginald’s prodding, Thomas would no longer dictate his unfinished Summa.

The reason? Thomas’s experience of the Triune God made his life’s work pale by comparison:

Reginald, I cannot [get back to work on the Summa], because all that I have written seems like straw to me.¹

Sometimes I’ve heard this story presented as if Thomas expressed regret at having worked as he had. I don’t read it that way.

Consider what Paul says to the Philippians:

Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death. (3:7-10)

Paul is not expressing regret at having worked as he did, at having run his race, at having written letters and preached sermons and planted churches and trained pastors. He is not expressing regret at having battled on behalf of the Gospel, even the theoretical battles over Judaizers and Super-Apostles.

What Paul is expressing is that these things pale by comparison. Not that they have no value.

Thomas is testifying to the same reality.

This is what we should expect. The content of our hope is not that we will one day receive answers to our questions or dot the i’s and cross the t’s on our theology. Perhaps we will get those things. Indeed, I’d like to think that we would! But that is not what we hope for. What we hope is that we will one day see God face to face.

This is no different than any other relationship. We don’t pursue knowledge and understanding of a friend or a spouse solely so that we can perfect our mental image of them or out of some abstract interest. Instead, we pursue those things in order to draw nearer to them in love. In order that we might love and be loved by them.

In this present life, we “see through a glass, darkly,” and so our theoretical work, especially our theological work, is aimed at taking what is murkily visible in that mirror and straining to piece it together so that we might glimpse God face-to-face. One doesn’t wipe the steam off the mirror merely so that the mirror is clean, nor does one clean a windshield so that you can bask in the glory of its cleanliness. You wipe the steam off the mirror and clean a windshield so that you might see more clearly through them.

Without the cleaning, you’ll never be able to see what you ultimately want to see. Similarly, without theological effort, face-to-face encounter with God ordinarily does not occur. Theology, and all forms of theoretical endeavor, is meant to be responsive to the illumination that God provides for us in creation and in the Scriptures, and in illumining our minds He is preparing us to meet Him. He is, as it were, turning on the porch light of His house, and lighting the walkway to His front door. As it happens, His walkway is all on its own interesting and beautiful, and his front door is likewise worth attending to for its own sake. But they aren’t the fundamental telos of our work.

Knowledge and understanding is good in itself, but it is not an end in itself. Knowledge and understanding of a spouse ought to be directed toward marital union with them. Theological knowledge ought to be directed toward spiritual union with the Triune God of heaven and earth.

Encounter with God is, therefore, the reward of the effort exerted by folks like Thomas. Is it nevertheless straw by comparison? Of course. But it’s crucial in the process.

Our work, not just in theology but in any area of human cognitive endeavor, ought to be directed at glimpsing the face of God. In this way, theology is a kind of iconography.

Why think of theology this way? Icons are a kind of art, capable of intrinsic beauty. They can be appreciated in themselves. But icons aren’t ends in themselves. Icons are meant to draw the viewer through the icon and into somewhere else, to someone else. Religious icons, seen correctly, are meant to transport us to heaven, where God receives us face to face.² The same can be said of theology. Theology, in and of itself, can be good and beautiful. But the end game of theology is not itself. The end game of theology is encounter with God.

Theology’s status as a kind of iconography is, I think, the point Thomas testifies to when he refuses Reginald’s prompting to return to the Summa. Far from having been pointless, Thomas’s work had achieved its end, and in the short run it caused his desire for theory to wither. Whether he would have returned to it, we don’t know; again, he died three short months after his ecstatic rapture.

But what we learn from this story is that Thomas understood the ultimate telos of his theoretical work: face-to-face encounter with God.

1. Brian Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Oxford, 1993), p. 9.

2. To forestall confusion, I’m Reformed enough to have certain doubts about whether icons properly speaking, icons like the one in the image embedded in this piece, are apt to achieve this sort of end. I’m speaking here about the true intent of icons, not what they accomplish in the messiness of our fallen world. Of course, the same could be said of those who claim to connect with God through nature, or through poetry, or through theology or the stars. It’s a fine line between using an icon—that is, using something as an icon—and worshipping one.