Leszka Kołakowskiego rozumienie Akwinaty
Kolakowski's understanding of Thomas Aquinas

Summary/Abstract: Leszek Kołakowski, initially a radical Marxist, became interested in the work of St Thomas Aquinas because of the duty assigned to him in the IKKN to criticise Christian doctrine. The Radom philosopher thought that an understanding of Thomas's doctrine was essential for an effective critique of the Church. At first he saw Aquinas as a defender of the old, prerevolutionary social order. His theology, in Kolakowski's interpretation, was merely a camouflaged political philosophy that sacralised ecclesiastical power structures. The metaphysics of second causes aimed to justify that reality is entirely subordinate to God, whose only representative is the institution of the Church. Similarly, the epistemological postulates of Thomism, describing the relationship between faith and knowledge, were intended to emphasise the supremacy of claims derived from Revelation - subordinating all particular sciences to theology. Later in his career, after the publication of the essay 'Jesus Christ - Prophet and Reformer' (1965), Leszek Kołakowski began to emphasise the positive significance of Christianity for European culture. His perception of Thomism therefore changed in a certain way. Departing from the demands of party propaganda, he reformulated his criticism of the views of St Thomas Aquinas - but never theologically took his side. The metaphysics of second causes, already nonpolitically interpreted, makes it possible to justify the relative autonomy of created reality. Also Thomas's description of the relationship between knowledge and faith, apart from political communist dogmatism, points to their methodological independence. Tensions - if they arise - are only because science has overstepped its methodological limits.

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