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April 2005 I a famous though possibly mythological moment in the history of theology, Albert the Great, preaching at the funeral of Thomas Aquinas in 1274, is supposed to have declared that all theology henceforth would be nothing but a footnote to his student’s massive body of work. In the 1960s Vatican II is still urging that dogmatic theology be “exercised under the tutelage of St. Thomas.”1 In so many ways, therefore, Albert was right: all theology after Aquinas would be inspired by him. In another sense Albert was wrong, and especially wrong when we consider today that theology is not so much a content to be understood as a process to be entered into, a conversation in which Christians engage not only with the content of Scripture and tradition but also with the context in which they live.2 No one can write a universal theology, not even Thomas Aquinas. As Dominican theologian Thomas O’Meara puts it so well: “Aquinas’ thinking offers insights and principles but it does not give final systems or universal conclusions. . . . The future of his thought lies with us.”3 There is and there must be real theology done after Aquinas, even though it will always be with his inspiration. Successors like Luther, Calvin, Las Casas, Barth, Gutierrez, and Ruether have contributed more than their share from perspectives that Aquinas could never have imagined. Theology continues today to be much more than a footnote to the past, no matter how brilliant and normative that past has been.
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