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Critics like Garrigou-Lagrange worried that Maritain's "gaze turned away from himself" leaned too close to Ontologism—the condemned philosophical error that the human mind has an immediate, intuitive view of God or divine things without the mediation of creatures. [1, 2] Critics maintained that Maritain's attempt to bridge the medieval "theocentric gaze" with modern human rights resulted in a philosophy that implicitly prioritized the individual ego, creating an anthropocentric loop despite his claims of defending a theocentric past. [1]

Strict traditionalist and Neo-Thomist critics (such as Charles De Koninck, Étienne Gilson, and members of the Garrigou-Lagrange school) offered serious critiques of Maritain’s historical romanticism and the theological conclusions he drew from it.
1. The Myth of the "Non-Reflex" Age
The Critique: Critics argue that Maritain's dichotomy between a "non-reflex" medieval age and a "reflex" modern age is an oversimplification. [1]
  • The Thomist Reality: Medieval scholasticism was fundamentally reflex and analytical. St. Thomas Aquinas dedicated significant portions of the Summa Theologiae to psychological introspection, analyzing human agency, the mechanics of the human intellect, internal passions, and the architecture of the human soul.
  • The Error: By characterizing the medieval gaze as solely "turned away from himself," Maritain inadvertently minimized the deep medieval focus on individual moral responsibility and psychological self-examination (such as the widespread development of the sacramental practice of confession). [1]
2. The Danger of "Theocentric" Naiveté in Politics
The Critique: Maritain uses this view of the medieval past to build his concept of a "New Christendom"—a pluralist, democratic society that is still implicitly aligned with divine law. Rigid Thomists like Charles De Koninck fiercely critiqued this evolution. [1, 2]
  • The Thomist Reality: Traditional Thomists argued that by romanticizing the medieval "point of view of God," Maritain decoupled the medieval political structure from its actual institutional requirements. [1]
  • The Error: Critics charged that Maritain’s "Integral Humanism" surrendered the objective temporal rights of Christ the King to modern liberal secularism. They claimed his vision relied on an idealized, mystical orientation toward God while abandoning the concrete, structural requirements for a Catholic state. [1]
3. Epistemological Ambiguity: The Intuition of Being
The Critique: To explain how medieval man possessed this unreflective, immediate grasp of reality and God, Maritain heavily relied on what he called the "Intuition of Being" (an intellectual flash). [1]
  • The Thomist Reality: Strict Thomists argue that St. Thomas never advanced a doctrine of a sudden, quasi-mystical intellectual "intuition" of existence. For Aquinas, knowledge of the world and of God is strictly discursive and abstractive—climbing from sensory data up to metaphysical concepts via reason (as demonstrated in the Five Ways).
  • The Error: Critics like Garrigou-Lagrange worried that Maritain's "gaze turned away from himself" leaned too close to Ontologism—the condemned philosophical error that the human mind has an immediate, intuitive view of God or divine things without the mediation of creatures. [1, 2]
4. Over-Correction Into Personalism
The Critique: Maritain’s reading of history led him to champion Christian Personalism, elevating the "human person" as a transcendent whole that cannot be entirely subordinated to the state. [1, 2, 3]
  • The Thomist Reality: De Koninck famously argued that Maritain inverted the Thomistic relationship between the person and the Common Good. In genuine Thomism, the individual creature is always ordered to the common good of the universe, and ultimately to God as the extrinsic Common Good.
  • The Error: Critics maintained that Maritain's attempt to bridge the medieval "theocentric gaze" with modern human rights resulted in a philosophy that implicitly prioritized the individual ego, creating an anthropocentric loop despite his claims of defending a theocentric past. [1]
Summary Comparison
AspectMaritain's ViewStrict Thomist Critique
The Medieval MindObjective, unreflective, focused entirely outward on God's perspective.Highly reflective, analytical, and deeply concerned with human psychology and agency.
Knowledge of GodA natural, intuitive, and holistic grasp of reality rooted in the intuition of being.Discursive, abstractive, and rational; strictly mediated through material effects.
Political GoalA "New Christendom" utilizing modern democratic frameworks.A preservation of the objective social and institutional reign of Christ the King.

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