That's kind of a book length question. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on either-- I've read several of Ficino's books on magic, two of his Platonic commentaries, and skimmed his Theology (I only own the first two volumes, and reading through the complete set is going to have to wait until after I get through Proclus's 6 volume work on the same subject). Aquinas I know from having read parts of the Summa, some summaries of his thoughts on this and that topic, a great deal of Catholic Theology influenced by him, and having listened to many hours' worth of contemporary Thomist thinkers, including Edward Feser and Chad Ripperger. So take this for what it's worth.
The basic answer is that the difference between Aquinas and Ficino is the difference between Aristotle and Plato. Aquinas calls Aristotle The Philosopher, and relies heavily on him. His Platonism seems to be gotten secondhand via Dionysius. (He also, I've read, had Proclus's Elements of Theology, which he believed to have been written by Aristotle.) Ficino relies directly on Plato.
Now, that said, I'm willing to admit that I may be being too hard on Aquinas. The Summa Theologica is one of these immense volumes that people far more often know secondhand than firsthand, and contemporary theologians have various reasons for distorting older texts-- sometimes for pedagogical purposes, sometimes in order to make them conform to modern forms of thinking. That said, I just cracked open my copy of Aquinas, and read his discussion of the Ideas. It includes the following:
God does not understand things according to an Idea existing outside Himself. Thus Aristotle likewise rejects the opinion of Plato, who held that Ideas existed of themselves, and not in the intellect.
In other words: Aquinas, like Aristotle, accepts the existence of Ideas. But, following his teacher, he doesn't accept the existence of an Intellectual level of being, in which ideas have their own existence. It's a kind of contraction of the Platonic universe. Later, on the same subject, writes:
As Ideas, according to Plato, were the principles of the knowledge of things and of their generation, an Idea, as existing in the mind of God, has this twofold office. So far as the Idea is the principle of the making of things, it may be called an exemplar, and belongs to practical knowledge. but so far as it is a principle of knowledge, it is properly called a likeness, and may belong to speculative knowledge also. As an exemplar, therefore, it is related to everything made by God in any time period; whereas as a principle of knowledge it is related to all things known by God, even though they never come to be in time; and to all things that He knows according to their proper likeness, in so far as they are known by Him in a speculative manner.
Ficino basically places Angels in the place of Intellect and Ideas. Concerning the understanding of God, he writes,
Strictly speaking, we consider Angel to be Mind, and God to be above Mind such that He is the mind of minds and the light of lights.
He then goes on to describe the nature of angels in a way that is very reminiscent of a discussion by Proclus about the nature of gods, which is itself derived from Plato's discussion of the Intellectual World (that is, the world outside the Cave) in the Republic.
The thing is, Aquinas is closer to Plato or to Ficino than any of the three are to modern thinkers. They are all mutually intelligible; one can imagine the three of them plus Aristotle in a room having a debate somewhere in the Afterlife, while if you plopped the discarnate soul of Richard Feynman into the same room, he couldn't even understand the words they were using.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2022-09-01 02:10 pm (UTC)The basic answer is that the difference between Aquinas and Ficino is the difference between Aristotle and Plato. Aquinas calls Aristotle The Philosopher, and relies heavily on him. His Platonism seems to be gotten secondhand via Dionysius. (He also, I've read, had Proclus's Elements of Theology, which he believed to have been written by Aristotle.) Ficino relies directly on Plato.
Now, that said, I'm willing to admit that I may be being too hard on Aquinas. The Summa Theologica is one of these immense volumes that people far more often know secondhand than firsthand, and contemporary theologians have various reasons for distorting older texts-- sometimes for pedagogical purposes, sometimes in order to make them conform to modern forms of thinking. That said, I just cracked open my copy of Aquinas, and read his discussion of the Ideas. It includes the following:
In other words: Aquinas, like Aristotle, accepts the existence of Ideas. But, following his teacher, he doesn't accept the existence of an Intellectual level of being, in which ideas have their own existence. It's a kind of contraction of the Platonic universe. Later, on the same subject, writes:
Ficino basically places Angels in the place of Intellect and Ideas. Concerning the understanding of God, he writes,
He then goes on to describe the nature of angels in a way that is very reminiscent of a discussion by Proclus about the nature of gods, which is itself derived from Plato's discussion of the Intellectual World (that is, the world outside the Cave) in the Republic.
The thing is, Aquinas is closer to Plato or to Ficino than any of the three are to modern thinkers. They are all mutually intelligible; one can imagine the three of them plus Aristotle in a room having a debate somewhere in the Afterlife, while if you plopped the discarnate soul of Richard Feynman into the same room, he couldn't even understand the words they were using.