Thomistic Common Sense by Réginald Gerrigou-Lagrange: A Brief Review

I enjoyed Thomistic Common Sense, although I found Garrigou-Lagrange’s organization slightly annoying; and since I was unaware of some of the people he argues with, I often felt a bit apathetic to the whole debate.

That said, where Garrigou-Lagrange exceeds is defining exactly what he means by claiming with Thomas Aquinas that the formal object of the intellect is being.

Being in this is is all that can be comprised among the division of being, that is, what the intellect sees: substance, potency (non-being) and actuality (being), the principle of non-contradiction (A cannot be and not be in the same way and time); the principle of identity (something must be that is); and more.

These intellectual principles are known by a sort of intuition, which is common to all people; hence, common sense.

For Garrigou-Lagrange, these first principles of being undergird the universal truths of creedal statements, despite their being situated with Greco-Roman language (ousia, substantia, etc.). The concepts they convey are available to common sense (even if their precision is not).