Aquinas a Threat to Evangelical Seminary Students?

I have come upon a most distressing book entitled Evangelical Exodus: Evangelical Seminarians and Their Paths to Rome. The author, Douglas M. Beaumont, argues that the Southern Evangelical Seminary’s focus on classical apologetics, specifically its emphasis on the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, leads Evangelicals to the Roman Church. Apparently, studying Aquinas is bad for the Evangelical’s health. Beaumont has nine cases to demonstrate his claim.

As a philosophy student, I studied Aquinas. Frankly, I found him helpful in understanding Aristotle. He was also quite useful in understanding the intellectual issues underlying the Reformation. He held many views that differed from the Reformers, but these differences are still seen in the theological positions held by Protestants and Catholics. So he is not simply a footnote to history. In fact, his arguments for the existence of God still persuade and hold a vital place in modern classical apologetics. R.C. Sproul recognized the importance of his contribution to Christian theology, naming him as one of his personal Christian heroes and identifying him as one of the top theologians in Christian history. Norman Geisler, the noted Christian apologist, says that Aquinas has a great deal to say to Evangelical Protestants and that we should listen.

I must admit that at no time in my study of Aquinas did I feel drawn to embrace Catholic doctrine. Some may claim that, but this seems quite farfetched. The brilliance of his intellect cannot compensate for incoherent beliefs expressed by the Holy See. Why Evangelicals would exchange the authority of Scripture for the authority of a priestly hierarchy will not be found in the pages of the Summa Theologica. That cause will be found elsewhere. In my opinion, one promising place to look might be in the analysis given by Keith C. Sewell in his The Crisis of Evangelical Christianity: Roots, Consequences, and Resolutions.

But there is something more insidious in Beaumont’s thesis.
The very idea that the philosophical study of a great mind is somehow dangerous because it leads to possible conversions to the Roman Church seems anti-intellectual–more like a North Korean educational policy designed to exclude non-approved ideas. It’s offputting. I should think that the Evangelical mind would be more hearty and less vulnerable. Frankly, I find his criticisms of SES astonishing.

The status of Aquinas is not simply about theology. It is a matter of intellectual history. Christians who wish to understand the West’s philosophical tradition must study Aquinas. Those who don’t will simply not understand a significant portion of that tradition. A philosophy student who refused to study Plato or Aristotle would not be taken seriously. The failure to study Aquinas falls into the same category. Of course, studying a philosopher does not necessarily mean agreeing with him. In fact, it rarely does. Ask Aristotle about Plato. But to offer up the canard that studying Aquinas’ philosophy leads to spiritual disaster is simply a transparent attempt to suppress thought and discussion. It is an attack on the scholarly study of intellectual history in general and on the classical tradition in particular.

That is a curious thing for a book to attempt to do. In fact, it is a paradigm example of what C.S. Lewis called Bulverism, the practice of assuming that an idea is false and then explaining the motives or influences that would cause someone to advocate such a boneheaded point of view. This avoids any serious efforts of refutation, allowing one to get on with the important and more interesting work of discrediting an idea or an opponent in a public venue. In this case, the classical study of Aquinas is wrong. Why would anyone approve of studying his philosophy? “Well, we don’t have to show that the study is unscholarly or to distinguish what is true and false in his writings. We know that Aquinas is wrong and the study of his ideas worthless–even dangerous! Consequently, people who advocate such study simply want to drive Evangelicals to the Catholic Church and to their spiritual ruin. That is really what they are doing by boneheadedly embracing this Catholic thinker. So let’s get rid of such teachers and exclude Aquinas from the curriculum.”

How adolescently silly and how terribly depressing.

For the opposite view, here is a favorable review by K. Scott Oliphint, a covenantal presuppositionalist from Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA): http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/review/evangelical-exodus-evangelical-seminarians-and-their-paths-to-rome