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How did some 20th-century thinkers connect Thomism with idealism, phenomenology, and existentialism?

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St. Thomas Aquinas Enthroned Between the Doctors of the Old and New Testaments, with Personifications of the Virtues, Sciences, and Liberal Arts, fresco by Andrea da Firenze, c. 1365; in the Spanish Chapel of the Church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence. — Thomism *St. Thomas Aquinas Enthroned Between the Doctors of the Old and New Testaments, with Personifications of the Virtues, Sciences, and Liberal Arts*, fresco by Andrea da Firenze, c. 1365; in the Spanish Chapel of the Church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence.

During the 20th-century revival of Thomism, known as neo-Thomism, several theologians sought to bridge the gap between the medieval philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas and modern intellectual movements. Thinkers such as Desiré-Joseph Mercier, Joseph Maréchal, Pierre Rousselot, Erich Przywara, Emerich Coreth, J.B. Lotz, Karl Rahner, Gustav Siewerth, and Bernard Lonergan explored potential affinities between Thomism and modern schools of thought, including idealism, phenomenology, and existentialism.1

These efforts often involved reinterpreting Thomistic principles to address contemporary philosophical concerns. For instance, Edith Stein, a philosopher who transitioned from phenomenology to Catholicism, famously attempted to synthesize the diverse philosophies of Aquinas and her teacher, Edmund Husserl, in her metaphysical work Finite and Eternal Being.2

By engaging with these modern frameworks, these theologians aimed to demonstrate the continued relevance of Aquinas’s thought, positioning it as a robust alternative or a complementary perspective to the subjectivist and modern philosophical traditions that had largely rejected medieval foundations.1