THOMISM AND FILIPINO PHILOSOPHY IN THE NOVELS OF JOSE RIZAL: RETHINKING THE TRAJECTORY OF FILIPINO THOMISM Prof. Dr. F.P.A. Demeterio III He (Thomas Aquinas) was the world’s flower and glory, and has rendered superfluous the writings of Doctors who shall come after him. -Attributed to Albert of Cologne. “It’s hopeless,” he (Nicholas of Morimondo) went on. “We no longer have the learning of the ancients, the age of giants is past!”. . . “We are dwarfs,” William (ofBaskerville) admitted, “but dwarfs who stand on the shoulders of those giants, and small though we are, we sometimes manage to see farther on the horizon than they.” -Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose. PRELIMINARY REMARKS Western scholars have isolated at least five basic causes of the deterioration of western, or European, Thomism, namely: 1) the 15 th century Renaissance’s penchant for literary forms of the classics instead of the subdued style of the medieval scholastics, 2) the 16 th century Protestant Reformation’s distaste for dogmatic speculations, 3) the 16 th century scientific revolution’s bias against religious philosophy, 4) the 18 th century French revolution’s disruptive force that dismantled the remnants of ecclesiastical power, and 5) the 20 th century post-modernism’s dislike for grand narratives. Filipino Thomism, however, has been insulated against the first four basic causes. The tight grip of the Spanish friars on the intellectual sphere of the colonial Philippines had effectively warded the effects of the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and the scientific revolution, and our own version of political revolution did not dismantle the ecclesiastical power. On the contrary, the American colonization seems to consolidate the church’s power and hegemony. From these