Conclusion

Abstract This chapter summarizes the main points of the book: contemplation covers a broad semantic range but in the strict sense it is to be understood as intuitus simplex (chapter 2); while contemplation is inherently more meaningful than the active life, Aquinas, as a Dominican, defends a version of the mixed life in which contemplation informs activities such as teaching and preaching (chapter 4); the nature of theology (as a science sub-alternated to divine Scientia) and the relation between theology and other sciences, including philosophy, are revisited (chapter 5); although the role of the gifts in theology evolves throughout Aquinas’s career, his thought should not be characterized as ‘charismatic’ or ‘sapiential’ (chapter 7); the role of charity in contemplation is also dealt with (chapter 6). Finally, while Aquinas’s discussion of the beatific vision (chapter 8) appears to be in tension with his overall epistemological account, there is, nevertheless, an important element of continuity, namely the non-discursive nature that characterizes both intuitus simplex on earth and the beatific vision.