While there are many interpretations, I've been told that the revelation was so strong that Aquinas realized that no matter how much he tried to capture, or get to God (with his work), it would still be of no compare with regard to the infinite glory, beauty, goodness and truth of God. It might've happened, I've had mystical experiences of magnificent kinds myself.

Appearing in a vision, the Saviour said to him, "Thou hast written well of the Sacrament of My body," whereupon, it is reported, Thomas passed into an ecstasy and remained so long raised in the air that there was time to summon many of the brothers to behold the spectacle. Again, towards the end of his life, when at Salerno he was laboring over the third part of his great treatise, <Against the Pagans (Summa Contra Gentiles)>, dealing with Christ's Passion and Resurrection, a sacristan saw him late one night kneeling before the altar and heard a voice, coming, it seemed, from the crucifix, which said, "Thou hast written well of Me, Thomas; what reward wouldst thou have?" To which Thomas replied, "Nothing but Thyself, Lord."

http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/TOMAQUIN.htm

So, I don't really have a reason to doubt it, nor do I believe that this renders his work useless. It is because of what I've highlighted (among other things, i.e. observable philosophical depth, insight and wisdom) that I don't think that his work is useless.

Last edited by Dennis (5/29/2016 8:59 am)

I'll share my strongest experience as of yet.

So, I had just committed a grave mortal sin and I was feeling terrible about it all. I got on to bed, I cried for a little while and I was simply "exhausted" of trying and striving to do all that I can, since I obviously couldn't. 

I lay there for a while, drenched, and then it suddenly happens. My awareness heightened extremely in under a second or so and my vision got blurry, and I see a man whom I had met in passing in Church praying for me, as his hand reaches out for me and touches my head. My vision was fixed on him, I couldn't look anywhere else, nor could I move my body. As soon as he touches my head, I fall flat on the bed, face first, and I feel as though my face is going to break (literally). The pain was so intense that I cannot properly describe the moment. I'm not sure if I can call it excruciating pain, or even pain. The sensation was so strong that the expression "My face was going to break," best describes it. It wasn't anything "like" pain because my mind didn't go numb from it and my sanity remained while I observed the event, so I'm not sure what that feeling/sensation that ensued was.

My first thought was, "I'm gonna be demonically possessed!"

It didn't feel dark, it didn't feel oppressive, but I was still skeptical of it after it was over. Once it was over, I wanted to experience it again, it was simply unlike anything I've ever experienced. The intensity of this experience was simply beyond this world.

The experience ended after a few moments, it lasted for about 30 seconds or so if I recall. Later that day, I asked someone who is gifted in prayer to pray for me and find out what was going on. I can safely say, that this was a direct encounter with the hand of God.

Last edited by Dennis (5/29/2016 11:28 am)

I think it was a sort of mystical experience that, as Dennis said, gave Thomas insight into God's nature that he was confident he could not capture, and did not capture, in his theological writings.

I believe that it occurred and was veridical. Aquinas does not seem to have been a crank or a fabricator.

iwpoe wrote:

If all that is meant is Aquinas learned something about God such that he knows his writing is wrong on analog with...

But I don't think Aquinas meant that his writings were wrong. He was at least commended for what he had written on this sacrament. I take this to mean that his writings were on-spot, at least with regard to sacrament of the host. Obviously, he wasn't infallible and might err'd here and there. However, no matter how much on the money he was, it would simply pale in comparison to the actual immanent experience of God himself, and thus his works were "like straw".

Yes, I don't really see that there is a need to understand straw-likeness as a kind of falsity. It is less important, less exalted, more mundane.

I suppose one sort of analogy we could draw is between two philosophers, one who articulates a view in dry academic prose, the other who articulates "the same" view in lively prose with the aid of metaphors and other literary strategies, etc. Their views are similar in content but one is more "filled in"; perhaps the "style" of the latter communicates something over and above, but that communication would fail in any attempt to communicate it dry academic prose. That excess content has a kind of inarticulability--inarticulability, or unintelligibility, that is, relative to a particular mode of communication, but not relative to others. That does not seem to undermine its veridicality in any sense, though, so it might be articulable in other modes. That, I suppose, is the case of Aquinas's vision. Its content was inarticulable relative to written speech as in his corpus, but it is probably articulable, and intelligible, "in itself" if it is truly adequate to God's being.