The Nature of Philosophy

5. In the teaching of St. Thomas, substances are specified absolutely and by virtue of themselves; their powers of operation, by virtue of their acts; and these latter, by virtue of their objects. If a particular development and dynamic organization of the spirit, which we know as philosophy, takes form in us, it will be -- as in the case of every act of knowing, searching and judging -- essentially related to an object to which it makes our intelligence adapted and co-natured; and it will be exclusively specified by this object. Hence it is uniquely in function of the object that philosophy is specified, and it is the object toward which it tends by virtue of itself (by no means the subject in which it resides) that determines its nature.

Within the realm of the real, created and uncreated, there exists a whole class of objects which are of their nature attainable through the natural faculties of the human mind. If this were not the case, the distinction between the natural and the supernatural, between the orders of grace and nature, would be illusory.

Thus, whether the form of knowledge which of itself is directed to the understanding of this universe of naturally attainable objects is actually achieved in human minds or not, and even if it is achieved with more or less serious deficiencies and flaws, its essence is clearly marked out: it is intrinsically a natural and rational form of knowledge.

St. Thomas, it is true, was satisfied with a less arrogant idea of reason than Descartes or Spinoza. And yet, it was in a fully and integrally rational sense, though surely not in a rationalist one, that he looked on philosophic wisdom as the perfect achievement of reason, perfectum opus rationis.^{16}

Whoever fails to recognize that the philosophic domain is of its nature within the reach of the sole natural faculties of the human mind -- whatever else his conception of philosophy may embrace -- negates philosophy; he does not define it.

The affirmation of this natural or rational character of philosophy is basic with St. Thomas. It may be said that by the very fact that he is a Christian it takes on an added value and import compared with the views of an Aristotle, who had no idea of an order of revelation. Such an affirmation, as made precise and explicit in relation to knowledge obtained through faith and theology -- from which it sharply differentiates philosophy -- ought to be valued as a definitive acquisition gained during the "progress of Western consciousness." If we are reluctant to forfeit it at any price, it is in order to safeguard the exact nature of faith and reason and remain true to essences, and to keep intact the primordial distinction between the natural and supernatural orders. Viewed as a formally constructed philosophy, Thomistic philosophy -- I do not say Thomistic theology -- is wholly rational: no reasoning issuing from faith finds its way into its inner fabric; it derives intrinsically from reason and rational criticism alone; and its soundness as a philosophy is based entirely on experimental or intellectual evidence and on logical proof.

From these considerations it follows that since the specification of philosophy hinges entirely on its formal object, and since this object is wholly of the rational order, philosophy considered in itself -- whether in a pagan or Christian mind -- depends on the same strictly natural or rational intrinsic criteria. So that the designation Christian which we apply to a philosophy does not refer to that which constitutes it in its philosophic essence: simply as a philosophy, reduplicative ut sic, it is independent of the Christian faith as to its object, its principles, and its methods.

Let us not be unmindful, however, that we are dealing here with a pure, abstract essence. It is all too easy a matter to endow such an abstraction with reality, to clothe it as such with a concrete existence. An ideological monster results; such as, in my opinion, occurred in the case both of the rationalists, and the neo-Thomists whom Mr. Gilson has called to task.

History seems to indicate that at the time of Guillaume de Vair and of Charron, and later of Descartes, certain thinkers, who still professed the Christian faith, conjured up a man of pure nature whose lot it was to philosophize, and to whom might be superadded a man of the theological virtues destined to merit heaven. Later on the non-Christian rationalists, more logical in the same error, were to slough off this man of the theological virtues as a superfluous counterpart; they satisfied themselves that to philosophize properly, that is to say, according to the exigencies of reason, it is necessary to believe only in reason, in other words to be only a philosopher, existing only qua philosopher. What they failed to see was that in so doing they made of the philosopher a simple hypostasierung of philosophy, and denied him existence as a man, asking him to lose his soul for the sake of his object. But where man departs philosophy can no longer remain.

{16} Sum. Theol., II-II, 45, 2.