Rethinking Intellectual Ecumenism in Interfaith Debates on God's Existence

From Avicenna's Salvation and Maimonides's Guide to Aquinas's De Ente

Bibliographic Data

ID4305562
AuthorsMatthew K Reising (0000-0002-6028-969X, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume59
Issue2
Pages242-262
Publication date2024-03-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of ecumenical studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-0558 • E-ISSN: 2162-3937
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/ecu.2024.a931513
OpenAlexW4400463415
LanguageEN
Citations received1

precis: Scholars have long contended that Aquinas managed to escape the devastating critique launched by Averroes against the being/essence distinction by reimagining being/essence according to an analogy of act/potency rather than Avicenna's model of accident/substance. This essay complicates the scholarly consensus that Aquinas defined his metaphysical thought on being and essence against the philosophy of Averroes and instead argues that Aquinas's De Ente et Essentia can be seen as modeling interfaith dialogue, intellectual ecumenicism, and hybridity. Aquinas developed his thought through interlocution and philosophical interchange rather than opposition, a process that emphasized openness rather than alterity. After showing through the source material that Aquinas would not even have had access to Averroes's critique, I offer a reexamination of the historical development of Aquinas's reimagining of being/essence as act/potency and argue that Aquinas developed his thought not in opposition to Averroes's Long Commentary of the Metaphysics but, rather, in dialogue with Maimonides

Alterity · Analogy · Ecumenism · Epistemology · Interfaith Dialogue · Islam · Metaphysics · Openness to experience · Opposition (politics) · Theology · Historical and Linguistic Studies · Islamic Thought and Society Studies · Law · Medieval and Classical Philosophy · Philosophy

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