Theologian · Early modern
John of St. Thomas (João Poinsot), OP
1589–1644 · Thomism (commentatorial)
Portuguese Dominican; professor at Alcalá; confessor to Philip IV; the last of the three great commentators (with Cajetan and Bañez) whose reading of St. Thomas became “Thomism of the strict observance.”
Author of the Cursus Philosophicus and the Cursus Theologicus, the most complete systematization of St. Thomas by any commentator. His treatise on signs anticipated modern semiotics; his treatise on the gifts of the Holy Spirit is a classic of spiritual theology; and his doctrine of the “heretical pope,” that the Church must judge before the fact is established, is the traditional answer to sedevacantism.
Why he matters: The commentatorial tradition that runs from Cajetan through him to Garrigou-Lagrange is what most people mean by “Thomism”; Pieper and Chenu argued that it hardened Thomas's open, inquiring and Scripture-soaked theology into a closed system. Both sides are right about something, and he is where to test the claim.
School of Thomism · The commentators
Cajetan, Bañez and John of St. Thomas, who defended Thomas against Scotists, nominalists and Jesuits and in doing so systematized him: the real distinction, premotion, the analogy of proportionality. Rigorous, Catholic and indispensable, but a step away from Thomas's own voice.
Others in this strand: Cajetan (Tommaso de Vio), Domingo Báñez, Francisco de Vitoria
Reading
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Tractatus de Signis (The Semiotic of John Poinsot)John of St. Thomas, ed. John Deely · The treatise on signs, in a bilingual edition.
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The Gifts of the Holy GhostJohn of St. Thomas, trans. Dominic Hughes, OP · The classic treatise, and the root of Garrigou-Lagrange's spiritual theology.
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Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic ThoughtRéginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP · The commentators' Thomism in one volume.
Documented positions
Where this thinker stands on each dispute the test covers.