Aquinas on Disability, Deification, and Beatitude

abstract: This essay provides an approach to interpreting Thomas Aquinas on the topic of disability. That approach is brought to bear in a careful presentation of Aquinas’s speculation on the eschatological significance of bodily vulnerability, individuating bodily differences, and the redemption and perfection of our fragile flesh. According to Aquinas, Christ’s resurrection and glorified wounds reveal a surpassing beauty—a beauty relevant to theological speculation on the deification and beatitude of the blessed. In section I, the essay describes a key contemporary methodological challenge. In sections II and III, Aquinas’s Commentary on the Gospel of John sheds light on that contemporary challenge and marks out an approach to theological reflection on phenomena typically organized under the heading “disability.” In section IV, the essay presents a groundbreaking interpretation of the concepts corporales infirmitates (bodily infirmities) and corporales defectus (bodily defects) in Aquinas’s theology, which are then discussed in relation to the states of original justice, corruption, and the life of the viator . In section V, Aquinas’s teaching on beatitude and resurrection provides the terms for a set of Aquinas-conversant speculative claims about the eschatological significance of bodily infirmities and defects.