Aquinas on the Incarnation | Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P.

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Aquinas responds [to Jewish and Muslim medieval arguments against the Incarnation] in the corpus of [article 1 of question 1 of the tertia pars] by saying the key attribute or property of God under which we should think about the Incarnation is God's supreme goodness; that the Incarnation is a mystery of God's supreme goodness and love that he should, out of solidarity with us, become human -- become one of us -- so that we might know who God is.

So, Aquinas doesn't deny that God is very transcendent, mysterious, ineffable, unknown in many ways, high above our comprehension, but he says because he is all those things, it is supremely fitting and wise that God should become human so that we can, as it were, perceive the human face of God; so that he could, as it were, cross the gulf of transcendence and be born in a manger, and even suffer a human life like ours even unto death, and a cruel death at that, in solidarity with us, so that we might see who God is. And this is an expression of God's goodness.

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About the speaker:

Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P. currently serves as rector of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome (the “Angelicum”).

Fr. White grew up in southeast Georgia in an inter-religious household. He completed his bachelor’s in religious studies from Brown University (1993) and his Master’s (1995) and Doctorate (2002) in Theology at Oxford University. He entered the Order of Preachers in 2003. He completed his licentiate in Sacred Theology (2007) at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. He professed final vows on May 17, 2007, and on May 23, 2008, was ordained a priest. His research and teaching have focused on topics related to Thomistic metaphysics, Christology and Roman Catholic-Reformed ecumenical dialogue. He was appointed an ordinary member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas in 2011. Fr. White taught at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C from 2008-2018. He was also the founder and Director of the Washington DC Thomistic Institute from 2009 until his departure for Rome in 2018.

In 2015 White became a co-editor of Nova et Vetera Journal, an American Catholic Theological journal. In 2018 he was assigned to teach at the Angelicum and function as the Director of the Angelicum Thomistic Institute. In June of 2021, he was appointed rector of the Angelicum. Fr. White is also a musician and one of the founding members of the American folk and bluegrass band, The Hillbilly Thomists, for which he sings and plays the banjo, dulcimer and steel guitar. The U.S.-based group, made up of Dominican friars, has released two albums since 2017.

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