15. Certain consequences of a methodological nature flow from the principles which we have just established, and which touch on the nature of moral philosophy adequately considered.

As St. Thomas Aquinas teaches in the passage from the Summa Contra Gentiles cited earlier:^{53} theology proceeds ex prima causa, philosophy, on the contrary, proceeds ex propriis rerum causis. Take for example the doctrine of the ultimate end. Since in the practical order ends play the same role as principles in the speculative, this doctrine should dominate all of moral philosophy; and yet in setting out to establish it moral philosophy will follow a different method than moral theology. Let us say that if theology, conforming to the natural conditions of our intelligence, bases itself on experience so as to show what man's last end is, this is in order to rise toward this end in a direct movement, gathering anew, as it were, from its own superior viewpoint and for its own purposes, the most essential findings on human nature which moral philosophy itself had reaped.^{54} But moral philosophy ascends to the last end, so to speak, by a spiral movement. It first examines inductively in their existential diversity the habits and customs, the internal and external deportment of man, and then it looks to the doctrine of man's ordination toward an eternal beatitude for the explanation (propter quid) of the facts (quia) so gathered and analyzed, and receives from theology, to which it is subalternated, the decisive and supremely explicative idea of what this beatitude really consists in, as well as the idea of the existential state of human nature in relation to its final end.

On the other hand, being subalternated to theology, it is not its business to take any steps on its own to introduce the documents of Sacred Tradition; it is enough for it to receive from theology the truths and insights needed for elucidating its proper objects and for the quest of their raison d'être. Its cognitional instruments remain essentially -- though completed as required -- the data of experience and their interpretation in a rational construct; whereas the principles of theological science are primarily the Scriptures and the Conciliary and Patristic Tradition, and only in a secondary and instrumental way the pronouncements of the philosophers.

We might say in this light that theology is by nature a "sacred" wisdom, and that moral philosophy adequately considered remains a "secular" wisdom, which owing to the claims of its practical object seeks enlightenment from the sacred wisdom.

From this it follows that since, unlike theology, it is not obliged to proffer only what can be linked to the revealed deposit, it will concede, as we have already remarked, a larger role to hypothesis, induction, and constructions of an interpretative kind, and will be empowered to tackle more readily manifold problems of a secular character. In particular, it would seem that there should open before it a boundless horizon of problems which bear on the philosophy of culture, and more generally on meaning and value, the destiny and governance of the works of man, not only in relation to eternity but in relation to the created and temporal order itself and to the history of creation. Then, as though by compensation, there are other problems, particularly those wherein the mind explores the sacred depths of the revealed deposit, which will not come within the purview of moral philosophy, even adequately considered.

Let me draw attention, in the last place, to another consequence of the principles advocated here. If there were not a moral philosophy adequately considered really distinct from moral theology, then we should have to say, in any exact use of terms, that those fields of research such as the history of religion, anthropology, politics, economics, and the rest, which depend on history or on methods of positive enquiry for all the observational material they amass, and for their empirical basis -- are not constituted as completely and genuinely explicative "sciences" unless integrated with theology. Only a theological anthropology or a political theology would merit the name of ethical science or political science strictly speaking. If, however, the distinction made in the course of this essay is admitted, it must be averred that these disciplines can also be set up as completely and genuinely explicative sciences (in the practical or moral realm) through integration with moral philosophy. As there ought to be a theological anthropology and a political theology, so too there ought to be a philosophic anthropology and a political philosophy in which the difference of outlook which sets off moral philosophy adequately understood from moral theology can be found, and which are by equal title and in the strict sense an anthropological science and a political science (subalternated to theology). Actually, is it not merely due to a rationalist and positivist bias -- yet doubtless also because of a sense of certain properties and propensities of their habitus -that anthropologists, sociologists, and the like, are loath to admit that the field of their choice could attain the status of a completely and genuinely explicative science only by a theological principle. Indeed it is difficult enough to convince many of them that for this at least a philosophic ground is needful.

If asked to give an illustration of the distinction which I am making here between political theology and political philosophy, I would say that the De Regimine Principum stems from the first, and that St. Thomas' Commentary on Aristotle's Politics stems from the second.^{55}

These considerations are applicable to what we know today as the philosophy of religion; they show that although the "philosophy of religion" par excellence is theology, there is nonetheless room for a philosophic discipline in the shape of an authentic philosophy of religion. If it is to become a true science, however, it must be integrated with moral philosophy adequately considered, and hence be subalternated to theology.

{53} Sum. Contra Gent., II, 4; Vide supra. p. 76-78.

{54} St. Thomas proceeds in this way at the beginning of the Prima Secundae, just as at the beginning of the Prima Pars he gathers the marrow of the knowledge about nature which speculative philosophy has provided and rises by a direct movement to the First Cause. Thus, like philosophy theology employs the analytico-synthetic method, yet it does so in a different and superior manner which is not suited to philosophy. The latter must creep and linger longer among the peculiar conditions and the created causes of things, which provide it with appropriate means of moving forward.