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Wrocławski Przegląd Teologiczny

Vol. 33 No. 2 (2025): A Tribute to Thomas Aquinas

Philosophy

The triplex via: An Encounter Between Aquinas and Hegel?

DOI: https://doi.org/10.52097/wpt.9789  [Google Scholar]
Published: 2026-01-05

Abstract

This article aims to draw attention to the need to compare the proposals of Thomas Aquinas and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel regarding their projects on attaining knowledge of God. These projects have a striking structural similarity, both being various editions of the triplex via presented by theologians over the centuries, which is divided into a positive way (via affirmativa), a negative way (via negativa), and a way of eminence (via eminentiae). The presentation of the origins of the threefold way in Greek thought and in the Bible is followed by a brief presentation of Thomas’s approach and Hegel’s philosophical project. The outline of the two proposals makes it possible to compare them at the end of the text and to offer their theological evaluation. They differ substantially in their understanding of God’s transcendence, approach to history, and interpretation of the status of knowledge of God. Awareness of the consequences of adopting different perspectives on the interpretation of the triplex via must become the foundation of the contemporary theologian’s work. Today, there are many interpretations that implicitly—without extensive discussion—presuppose one approach or the other, and each of them is fundamental to the interpretation applied in theological methodology of the truth about God, His relationship with the created world, and the status of theological statements.

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