Lectures on St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles I
A. Philosophy in general. Philosophy is the love of wisdom. The basic notion of (absolute) wisdom, common to the two notions of philosophy to be discussed below, is a systematic understanding of and ordering of "the truth which is the origin of all truth, viz., the truth that pertains to the first principle of being for all things" (Chapter 1). The One who is wise in the preeminent sense is the one who orders the whole universe and to whose intellect the universe conforms [truth in the primary sense], whereas human beings are wise in the absolute sense to the extent that their intellects conform to the universe as so ordered [truth in the secondary sense]. So wisdom has the role of meditating on the truth and refuting the contrary falsehoods. In Chapter 9 St. Thomas divides knowledge of the first principle of all things into three parts: (i) knowledge of God in Himself [God's existence and nature], (ii) knowledge of the procession of creatures from God [creation, conservation, kinds of beings in general], and (iii) knowledge of the ordering of creatures to God as an end [providence, concurrence, miracles, the end of human beings]. So the knowledge of God in the final analysis involves a knowledge of all creatures as well insofar as they proceed from Him and are ordered back toward Him as their end. The above topics define the first three books of the Summa Contra Gentiles, whereas the fourth book consists of the refutation of errors with respect to specifically Christian doctrines. (We will return later in the course to the section of chapter two that deals with the refutation of error.) The pursuit of wisdom (studium sapentiae) is identified on Biblical grounds with the search for God ["My mouth will meditate upon your truth and my lips will hate what is impious..."] and simultaneously identified with what Aristotle calls First Philosophy or Metaphysics ["It belongs to the one who is wise to order"]. This is an important step in his attempt to integrate the Greek philosophers' intellectual quest, which he takes to express a natural human desire for metaphysical knowledge, with the sort of quest that the Christian is embarked on as well. What St. Thomas believes is that the Christian quest is continuous with and perfective of the Greek philosophers' pursuit of wisdom--though this claim is subject to many qualifications and subtleties that we will see more clearly below. In any case, the main idea is that wisdom in some form or other is required if we are to order our lives correctly toward our ultimate fulfillment, which consists in the vision of God in heaven. B. The fruits of philosophy in general According to St. Thomas, the pursuit of wisdom is the "most perfect (perfectius), sublime (sublimius), useful (utilius) and delightful (iucundius) of human endeavors" (Chapter 2): 1. It is the most perfect [or, better, perfective] because the limited grasp of 'divine truth' possible in this life furnishes us with a foretaste of that evident and face-to-face knowledge of God which is, according to Christian revelation, the principal constituent of ultimate human fulfillment. 2. It is the most sublime because it is through wisdom that we become most like God and are joined to God in friendship. 3. It is the most useful because through this wisdom we can order our lives in such a way as to attain the reign of immortality. 4. And it is the most joyful because the discussion of wisdom has no bitterness but only gladness and joy. Notice immediately the centrality of truth here. Philosophy has these fruits only if it leads us to what is true. From this two things follow. First, it is the attainment of its goal rather than the search itself which is the ultimate end and in the absence of which the fruits are absent (vs. romantic and sceptical notion that the search for truth is more important than finding the truth). Second, if two metaphysical visions differ from one another, then at most one of them can be true on the points of difference. Hence, they cannot be equivalent, and to the extent that the divergence is on crucial points the differences between them are crucial. Hence, it is false that all such ultimate visions are in an important sense equivalent. All that follows from the proliferation of such worldviews is that there is a deep human need to know the truth about first causes and all that that implies. It does not follow that this search for wisdom is always or for the most part successful. Besides this intrinsic motivation for delving into divine matters and attaining the highest sort of knowledge available to us (all other things being equal), there is also an extrinsic, more specifically, an apologetic justification for pursuing the knowledge of God on the basis of reason alone. Now while revelation enhances a Christian thinker's ability to identify false philosophical conclusions, it does not by itself supply a philosophical (in the narrow sense) justification for rejecting the arguments that lead to those conclusions. Only natural reason can do this. Further, the project of replying to such arguments on their own terms is, according to St. Thomas, a demand of intellectual virtue for Christians as a community (though not for each individual) and an integral part of the Church's mission to reach out to those intellectually sophisticated unbelievers who accept none of the theological authorities Christians typically have recourse to: Some of the [Gentiles], such as the Mohammedans and the pagans, do not agree with us on the authority of any Scripture by means of which they could be won over--in the way that we can argue with Jews by appealing to the Old Testament and with heretics by appealing to the New Testament. But [the Mohammedans and pagans] accept neither [the Old nor the New Testament]. Therefore, it is necessary to revert to natural reason, which everyone is compelled to assent to--although in divine matters reason is wanting. (Chapter 2) This last remark confirms my previous contention that St. Thomas's optimism about our innate intellectual powers is tempered; he obviously believes that reason de facto needs the guidance of revelation to do its best. Nonetheless, he just as clearly accords natural reason and philosophy (in the narrow sense) a relative autonomy denied them by anti-secularists. Reason and faith are reliable sources of truth which are independent of one another, and because of this mutual independence they stand in a dynamic relationship. The deliverances of faith not only disclose limits beyond which reason cannot go without falling into error, but also steer reason toward more adequate philosophical theories and arguments, perhaps even suggesting some theories and arguments that would otherwise go unnoticed. But just as important, the deliverances of reason constrain the interpretation of the sources of revelation, viz., Sacred Scripture and the teaching tradition of the Church. Thus, prima facie conflicts between philosophical conclusions and articles of the faith may in some instances call for careful analysis of doctrinal statements as well as of philosophical arguments. And, as the history of Christian theology amply attests, there is often room for legitimate disagreement over just what the upshot of this mutual interaction between reason and faith is in particular cases. Even in as unified a tradition as that associated with the Roman Catholic Church, official decrees that settle such disputes one way or another are rare, and, like court decisions, they are normally rendered on narrow grounds. C. Two ways to understand philosophy This immediately raises the question: Is such wisdom possible for us? If so, to what degree? What are the sources of this wisdom? Is it attainable by us simply by recourse to our natural powers of cognition? Or is more required? In the middle of a discussion of the immortality of the soul, Socrates remarks in the Phaedo: "One should achieve one of these things: learn the truth about these things or find it for oneself, or, if that is impossible, adopt the best and most irrefutable of men's theories, and, borne upon this, sail through the dangers of life as upon a raft, unless someone should make that journey safer and less risky upon a firmer vessel of some divine doctrine." St. Thomas, of course, believes that we are the beneficiaries of a "divine doctrine" whose main elements are the Trinity, the Creation, the Fall, the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Resurrection, the Holy Spirit, the Church and the Sacraments. And now the question is how this revealed doctrine or revelation is related to that which was discovered by the Greek philosophers in the absence of such revelation. Does revelation render the Greeks otiose? Or does their philosophy render Christian theology otiose? As we will see in more detail below, in Chapter 3 St. Thomas distinguishes two ways in which the truth about the first principles of things is made manifest to us, viz. through divine revelation [and faith in this revelation] and through natural reason. On this basis we can distinguish two ways of conceiving of philosophy as the quest for wisdom. 1. The broad sense. This is philosophy understood expansively as the endeavor to articulate and defend a comprehensive metaphysical vision of the world; philosophy so understood is free to, indeed obliged to, draw upon every source of truth available to us as human beings, viz. both revelation and natural reason, where the latter ostensibly includes every source of truth distinct from Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church. He realizes that many will balk at his unabashed insistence that Christian revelation counts as a legitimate source of truth, but before we talk about that, let's get his view out on the table. 2. The narrow sense. In the narrow sense philosophy is the search for wisdom by appeal only to the deliverances of natural reason and not to revelation. In a later lecture we will look more carefully at the underpinnings for and ramifications of this distinction, but its significance is great for our topic. On the narrow conception, philosophy draws its premises from natural reason alone and is thereby set off from theology, which takes propositions qua revealed as its starting points and tries, within the limits of human finitude, to order them and understand them systematically. This distinction between philosophy and theology became pivotal in the thirteenth century when Aristotle's works flooded into European universities, and since then it has served within Catholic universities as the theoretical foundation for the separation of philosophy departments from theology departments. St. Thomas singles out this narrower sense of philosophy in part because it helps him clarify what he regards as the proper posture Christians should assume toward secular learning in general and secular philosophy in particular. The history of Christianity has been marked by recurrent and bitter disputes over this issue. From the earliest times some Christians (I will dub them 'anti-secularists') have denounced secular 'wisdom' as an adversary of Christianity. They have sternly warned fellow Christians about the pitfalls of syncretism, and they have acerbically asked why, if not because of an obsequious (and typically futile) desire to curry favor with intellectually prestigious unbelievers, a Christian might want to study, say, the books of Aristotle with the same intensity as the books of Sacred Scripture. They recall that when St. Paul preached in Athens, he was ridiculed by the philosophers, who in their pride preferred the wisdom of the world to the wisdom of God (Acts 17:16-34). What, they ask disdainfully, has Jerusalem to do with Athens? Christianity is itself a philosophy or wisdom that competes with secular philosophies and aims to displace them. (Observe the fallback here to the broader conception of philosophy.) Some typical anti-secularist tendencies are (i) to spurn efforts to
articulate Christian doctrine with the help of conceptual resources borrowed
from secular philosophy (an animus against the intrusion of secular philosophy
into theology characterizes many of the most important and influential
reactionary movements in Church history, e.g., the fourth- and fifth-century
resistance to the conciliar definitions of the doctrines of the Incarnation
and the Trinity, at least some elements of the thirteenth-century opposition
to Aristotle, sixteenth-century Lutheranism's call for a return to the
Bible, and twentieth-century Barthian neo-orthodoxy) and (ii) to repudiate
in theory the natural theologian's attempt to show that at least some revealed
truths can be established on grounds that unbelievers as such should or
at least can accept. A. Preambles of the faith and mysteries of the faith Notice that philosophy, understood expansively as the endeavor to articulate and defend a comprehensive metaphysical vision of the world, is free to, indeed obliged to, draw upon every source of truth available to us as human beings. St. Thomas distinguishes two ways in which divine truth is made manifest to us, viz., through revelation and through natural reason, where the latter ostensibly includes every source of truth distinct from Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church. He realizes that many will balk at his unabashed insistence that Christian revelation counts as a legitimate source of truth, but I will simply ignore this issue for now. St. Thomas is in any case more concerned with another question. Mindful of the metaphysical achievements of Plato, Aristotle, and their philosophical progeny, he asks whether reason can serve as an alternate source of the truths revealed to us by God and, more specifically, whether reason can demonstrate such truths by arguments from evident premises. The answer is both yes and no: In those things that we profess about God there are two types of truths. For there are some truths about God that exceed every capacity of human reason, such as that God is [both] three and one. But there are other truths that natural reason is also capable of arriving at, such as that God exists, that there is one God, and others of this sort. Indeed, philosophers, led by the light of natural reason, have proved these truths about God demonstratively. (Chapter 3) Although he thus divides revealed truths into what he elsewhere calls the mysteries of the faith, which "exceed every capacity of human reason," and the preambles of the faith, which reason can at least in principle establish on its own, St. Thomas does not deem it foolish for us to accept the preambles on faith, i.e., to assent to them because we freely place our trust in God revealing them rather than because they have been rendered intellectually compelling to us by arguments from evident premises. In fact, he argues in Chapter 4 that because of the vicissitudes of human life, the inherent complexity of the subject, and the debility of human reason, very few people come to the cognition of any preamble on the basis of an argument that turns it into an object of evident knowledge (scientia) rather than of faith (fides). However, accepting the preambles on faith, though wholly proper and even praiseworthy in our present state, is intellectually inferior to having evident knowledge of them. For, other things being equal, the more evident our knowledge of God is, the more closely we approach true human flourishing. In Chapters 3-6 St. Thomas addresses four questions immediately prompted by this distinction between the mysteries and the preambles: Is it reasonable to believe that there are truths about divine matters which in principle exceed our natural capacities for systematic understanding? Wasn't it pointless for God to reveal truths that natural reason is capable of establishing on its own? Is it proper for God to demand that we accept on faith propositions that reason cannot even in principle attain to? Isn't it frivolous and intellectually irresponsible for us to assent to the mysteries of the faith? We will now deal with these questions: QUESTION 1 (chapter 3): Is it reasonable to believe that there are truths about divine matters which in principle exceed our natural capacities for systematic understanding? REPLY: "That there are certain truths about God that totally surpass man's ability appears with greatest evidence." (Question: What exactly does it mean for a truth to surpass our ability [excedere omnem facultatem humanae rationis]? It could mean that the truth is (a) beyond our power to entertain, or that it is (b) beyond our power to comprehend, i.e., to understand in a systematic way, or that it is (c) beyond our power to prove in demonstratively, or that it is (d) beyond our power to give a compelling argument for. In this question St. Thomas seems to have something very strong in mind, perhaps as strong as (a).) 1. Argument from our incapacity to grasp the divine substance (i.e., nature): We cannot even in principle comprehend the divine nature, where comprehension includes intellectus with respect to the substance itself and of all its possibilities. But if that is so, then in principle we cannot by our natural intellective power attain to a grasp of God's substance. For all our knowledge begins with that which falls under the senses. But our cognition of the sensible effects of God is a cognition of effects that are not "equal to" their cause. (Contrast this with the way in which the effects of natural agents are equal to their causes.) So even though knowledge of God's sensible effects might be able to lead us to knowledge in the strict sense of some truths about God, it cannot lead us to a full comprehension of God's substance--for sensible things are not effects which are "equal to" the divine cause. 2. Argument from the gradation of intellects: Just as it is reasonable for a less intelligent person to believe that there are truths grasped by a more intelligent person which he cannot grasp. But the intellect of an angel surpasses any human intellect by a greater distance that any human intellect surpasses any other. (For an angel cognizes God through a much more perfect effect, viz., himself, than any through which we cognize God.) And the divine intellect exceeds the angelic intellect more a greater distance than that by which the angelic intellect exceeds the human intellect. So even an angel cannot grasp all of the things about God which God himself grasps: "So just as it would be the height of folly for a simple person to assert that what a philosopher proposes is false on the ground that he himself cannot understand it, so (and even more so) it is the acme of stupidity for a man to suspect as false what is divinely revealed through the ministry of the angels simply because it cannot be investigated by reason." 3. Argument from our failure to grasp even those things which we can in principle investigate and grasp: Even with respect to sensible things we realize every day that we are in ignorance to a great extent, and in most cases we are not able to discover fully the natures of those things. (This argument is hardly less convincing even today when natural science has advanced so far beyond what it was in the days of St. Thomas.) So it is hardly surprising that our intellect is not equipped to comprehend God. St. Thomas's conclusion is this: "Therefore it is not the case that everything said about God--even if it cannot be investigated by reason--should be immediately rejected as false, as the Manicheans and other unbelievers thought." Note: All of this should put us on our guard against an easy literalism and against anthropomorphism in our speculations about God, but St. Thomas also means this chapter to constitute an argument against rationalism.
REPLY: If the preambles were not revealed, then three really bad consequences would ensue: 1. Only a few people would have knowledge of the preambles. a. Some people are by dint of their intellectual endowment incapable of coming to a natural knowledge of the preambles of the faith. No amount of study and studious application would bring them to a knowledge of the preambles. b. Most people have to tend to the necessities of life and hence do not have enough leisure time to pursue philosophical studies. (Even within the Church there are many other roles to be filled.) c. Many who have the innate intellectual prerequisites and the possibility of being freed from other duties are nonetheless too indolent (indolence = pigritia) for such studies. Much hard study is required and those who are willing to undergo such a regimen are few in number--even though God has implanted in human nature a natural desire for knowledge. 2. Those who did discover the preambles would do so only after a long time--which is bad because it is important for them to adhere to the truth as soon as possible. a. This is in part because of the profundity of these truths and of the arguments leading one to knowledge of them. b. It is in part because of the long preparation needed in order to approach these matters with even a modicum of confidence. c. The passions of youth get in the way of this long and necessary preparation, as does senility. "Thus if reason were the only way to come to a knowledge of God, then the human race would remain in the darkest shadows of ignorance. For the cognition of God, which makes human beings especially perfect and good, would come only to a few and to them only after a long time." 3. The chances are great that the knowledge attained would be admixed with error and uncertainty, and this because of the weakness of our intellect. a. Many would fail to see the truth of those things which have been demonstrated, because they know that many who have been called wise have disagreed with one another and thus accepted falsehoods on important matters. b. Many of the demonstrations probably contain so falsehoods, and so are deserving only of tentative assent ex parte obiecti. It may be that the best you can do is to attain opinio, or perhaps knowing without knowing that you know. At least this much is true: You won't get the adherence of the martyrs just from philosophical studies. "And so it was necessary that a fixed certitude and pure truth with respect to divine matters be presented to human beings through the way of faith."
REPLY: There are several reasons why God might do this: 1. Faith in the mysteries is an inception of eternal life, and such an inception is necessary if we are to tend with zeal to a form of happiness which exceeds what reason can aspire to here and now. These truths call us to something beyond the state of the present life; in this sense they serve as an antidote to pessimism. Even the philosophers felt impelled to call us to the pursuit of goods beyond those which are obvious to the senses. (This sort of argument is not to be disdained; oftentimes we must have a glimpse of something beyond in order to challenge us: Can we so much as imagine what would lead someone to live the sort of life that Mother Teresa lives?) 2. This makes our knowledge of God more correct, since it reinforces the idea that we do not comprehend God. For otherwise we might tend to forget that we know God truly only when we believe that he is beyond everything that it is possible for a human being to think of. 3. This curbs the presumption of reason and thus serves as an antidote to a rash optimism about our cognitive powers: "For there are those who rely on their own abilities to such an extent that they think that they are able to measure the whole nature of things by their own intellects--so that, namely, they consider true only what seems true to them and false only what does not seem true to them. So in order that the human mind, liberated from this presumption, might be able to attain to a modest investigation of the truth, it was necessary that God should propose to human beings things which altogether exceed their intellect." 4. These truths give us the greatest delight and keep us from being satisfied with mortal things. We need this sort of delight and this sort of challenge in order to keep from falling back into a sort of 'forgetfulness'. "From all these things it is clear that even a very imperfect cognition of these most noble things confers the greatest perfection on the human soul. And so even though those things that are beyond reason are such that human reason cannot fully grasp them, still the soul acquires much perfection if it at least holds to them in some way by faith."
REPLY: It is right to worry about credulity as well as pride and presumption. If the search for wisdom depends upon authority and there is no way to distinguish competing claims to authoritativeness, then it seems that the only alternative to scepticism will be a blind leap into any old dogma or creed. St. Thomas, however, warns us against credulity with the same sternness with which he warns us against presumption. Even in the case of the mysteries, he tells us, we can see in retrospect how they are fitting (conveniens). But there is another way to go, and that is to show that it is reasonable to trust this authority. That is, this is a case where the intellect, at least in retrospect, can discern signs that indicate that accepting the mysteries of faith on this authority is not credulous. Perhaps we can even show something stronger. a. Miracles: St. Thomas mentions healings and raisings from the dead, along with changes in the heavenly bodies, but he seems even more impressed by the spread of the early Church by idiotae and simplices filled with the Holy Spirit. b. The spread of the early church via the force of this testimony and not by the force of arms or by the promise of pleasure--just the opposite. c. The witness of the martyrs: The early Church spread among persecutions. d. The nature of the message: i. does not play to our weaknesses: rather, things that surpass the human intellect are preached, the desires of the flesh are to be curbed (not so popular these days) and the things of this world (wealth, glory, fame, power, etc.) are to be despised. ii. consistent with what we know by reason e. The fulfillment of prophecy: That all this happened was no accident, but was instead the fulfillment of the Scriptures. f. The character of the founder: Note the contrast here with Mohammed, a violent man who spread his religion by the force of arms. g. The marks of the church: One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic h. Respect for intellectual integrity: i. seeking to be catholic without compromising the faith ii. nurturing and drawing upon its intellectuals iii. apologetic mission to nonbelievers a. negative b. positive iv. challenges claims of miracles The discussion of Mohammedanism is very interesting. While St. Thomas
is not claiming that other religions and worldviews are devoid of truth,
he nonetheless believes that it's foolish to trust those who throw reason
to the winds, who cater to people's weaknesses, who have an unjustifiable
faith in reason. Important here are the character of the founder, the nature
of the message, etc. (One interesting criticism is that Mohammed's doctrine
does not contain anything that could not be discovered by someone with
modest intellectual endowment--i.e., nothing akin to the mysteries of the
faith.) Notice that St. Thomas does not deny that there are truths taught
by Islam, but these truths are mixed with falsehoods. And one who is a
true seeker of wisdom will not be satisfied with falsehoods. A. The Big Picture However, as we shall see shortly, he does evince anti-secularist leanings on one important issue. All sides agree that because human reason stands in need of the illumination of faith, it is not surprising that philosophers who operate in ignorance of revelation often come to conclusions that are contrary to the faith. According to anti-secularism, however, a Christian is not obliged to refute such conclusions on their own terms, i.e., by appealing only to the deliverances of reason. Indeed, anti-secularists allege that in many cases a philosophical (in the narrow sense) refutation may well be impossible, given that human sinfulness has rendered reason unreliable. Perhaps this means that Christian doctrine will inevitably appear foolish in the eyes of secular philosophers. So be it. The Christian's task is to emulate St. Paul, who preached the Gospel in its own terms and on its own terms even to the intellectually sophisticated Athenians. It would be a mistake to suppose that St. Thomas does not feel the force of these considerations or that he does not recognize a grain of truth in them. To the contrary, he issues regular warnings of his own about the frailty of human reason in its postlapsarian state and about the intellect's susceptibility to prejudices and distortions that are induced by the affective disorders attendant upon human sinfulness. Nonetheless, he maintains that the effects of sin do not prevent reason from functioning as an independent and inherently trustworthy measure of both truth and intellectual virtue. Just as, appearances sometimes to the contrary, there can be no genuine conflict between the moral law imposed upon us by God and the standards of moral perfection intrinsic to human nature, so too there can be no genuine conflict between our divinely imposed obligation to accept revealed truths and the standards of intellectual perfection intrinsic to human nature. For the deliverances of faith and the deliverances of reason both emanate from the same mentor: "The teacher's knowledge contains the very same thing that the teacher introduces into the soul of the student--unless [the teacher] teaches deceitfully, which cannot be said of God. But the cognition of naturally known principles is implanted in us by God, since God Himself is the author of our nature. So these principles are also contained in the divine wisdom. Therefore, anything contrary to principles of this sort is contrary to the divine wisdom; so it cannot come from God. Therefore, those things that are held by faith on the basis of divine revelation cannot be contrary to natural cognition." (Chapter 7) As part of our nature we have strong inclinations to assent to certain evident principles. Such inclinations, instilled in us by God, are irresistible (or nearly so) for any human intellect that is operating normally, and they effect what St. Thomas calls natural cognitions. So if God required us to accept on faith propositions that run contrary to these natural cognitions, we would find ourselves in the well-nigh desperate position of being obliged to assent to propositions whose contraries are, under normal circumstances, irresistible for us (or nearly so). God would in effect be commanding us to assent to propositions that we cannot assent to without doing violence to ourselves as human beings. Accepting revealed doctrines on faith would in that case be the moral equivalent of ingesting mind-altering drugs that induce doubts about evident propositions. (This, of course, is exactly how some unbelievers view the situation.) St. Thomas asserts that because of God's essential veracity such a predicament is metaphysically impossible: "Our intellect is bound by conflicting considerations in such a way that it cannot proceed to a cognition of what is true. Therefore, if contrary cognitions were instilled in us by God, our intellect would thereby be hindered from cognizing the truth--[an effect] that cannot come from God." (Chapter 7) According to St. Thomas, then, natural cognitions cannot by themselves lead us into error. But if this is so, then philosophical objections to Christian doctrine can always in principle be shown not to follow from the evident deliverances of reason: "From this it clearly follows that whatever arguments might be propounded against the doctrines of the faith, they do not proceed correctly from first principles, known per se, which are implanted in [our] nature. Thus, [such arguments] do not have the force of demonstration, but instead are either [merely] probable arguments or sophistical arguments. And so room is left for answering them." (Chapter 7) Someone might object that what St. Thomas says here, taken just by itself, can be used to sanction the irrational rejection of a philosophical argument that is overwhelmingly probable but falls short of satisfying the stringent requirements for being a demonstration properly speaking. However, the thrust of St. Thomas's remarks and his own theological methodology suggest the following thesis, which is not vulnerable to the objection in question: No philosophical argument or theory that entails a conclusion contrary to the faith is warranted to so high a degree as to render its philosophical competitors (including its own negation) rationally unacceptable. A detailed explication of this thesis would have to delve deeply into the concepts of subjective probability and rational acceptability, but the thesis as it stands will be sufficient for our present purposes, since, as will become clear, Ockham rejects it on any plausible interpretation. Now while revelation enhances a Christian thinker's ability to identify false philosophical conclusions, it does not by itself supply a philosophical (in the narrow sense) justification for rejecting the arguments that lead to those conclusions. Only natural reason can do this. Further, the project of replying to such arguments on their own terms is, according to St. Thomas, a demand of intellectual virtue for Christians as a community (though not for each individual) and an integral part of the Church's mission to reach out to those intellectually sophisticated unbelievers who accept none of the theological authorities Christians typically have recourse to: "Some of the [Gentiles], such as the Mohammedans and the pagans, do not agree with us on the authority of any Scripture by means of which they could be won over--in the way that we can argue with Jews by appealing to the Old Testament and with heretics by appealing to the New Testament. But [the Mohammedans and pagans] accept neither [the Old nor the New Testament]. Therefore, it is necessary to revert to natural reason, which everyone is compelled to assent to--although in divine matters reason is wanting." (Chapter 2) This last remark confirms my previous contention that St. Thomas's optimism about our innate intellectual powers is tempered; he obviously believes that reason de facto needs the guidance of revelation to do its best. Nonetheless, he just as clearly accords natural reason and philosophy (in the narrow sense) a relative autonomy denied them by anti-secularists. Reason and faith are reliable sources of truth which are independent of one another, and because of this mutual independence they stand in a dynamic relationship. The deliverances of faith not only disclose limits beyond which reason cannot go without falling into error, but also steer reason toward more adequate philosophical theories and arguments, perhaps even suggesting some theories and arguments that would otherwise go unnoticed. But just as important, the deliverances of reason constrain the interpretation of the sources of revelation, viz., Sacred Scripture and the teaching tradition of the Church. Thus, prima facie conflicts between philosophical conclusions and articles of the faith may in some instances call for careful analysis of doctrinal statements as well as of philosophical arguments. And, as the history of Christian theology amply attests, there is often room for legitimate disagreement over just what the upshot of this mutual interaction between reason and faith is in particular cases. Even in as unified a tradition as that associated with the Roman Catholic Church, official decrees that settle such disputes one way or another are rare, and, like court decisions, they are normally rendered on narrow grounds. (I am glossing over many complications that a full account of the relation between faith and reason would have to deal with: How much certitude must a philosophical or scientific theory have before it necessitates the reformulation of a doctrinal statement that it appears to conflict with? And how far can such a reformulation go before it is no longer a reformulation but a repudiation of the doctrine in question? These problems are exacerbated by the fact that what reason normally yields are probabilities rather than certainties. St. Thomas would win too easy a victory if he only had to show that philosophical or scientific theories which seem to conflict with doctrine are not demonstrated in the strict sense. But neither should one be forced on pain of irrationality to accept the most probable or most popular current theory. I suspect that, as with scientific rationality, advances in our understanding of theological rationality will depend on close and sophisticated studies of concrete historical cases.) B. Theses concerning the relation between faith and reason 1. Taking a deliverance of reason to respresent the best that reason can do and a deliverance of faith to be a proposition with theological certitude: It is impossible for a deliverance of reason to conflict with a deliverance of the faith. 2. Apparent conflicts between the deliverances of reason and the deliverances of faith are possible, but they are always resolvable either by showing that a purported deliverance of reason does not have epistemic certitude of the appropriate degree or by showing that a purported deliverance of the faith does not have theological certitude of the appropriate degree or by showing that they are not really incompatible with one another. 3. Philosophical arguments against deliverances of the faith can be met on their own grounds, i.e., they can at least in principle be shown not to have epistemic certitude of the appropriate degree. 4. Philosophical arguments against deliverances of the faith should be met on their own grounds because the integrity of reason is an important element of the faith. 5. Reason in its postlapsarian state, while not corrupted to the extent that it yields falsehoods as certitudes, nevertheless needs the guidance of the faith to do its best at getting the truth. 6. Because of the likeness of effects to causes, human reason can invent arguments that render the faith plausible (a balance here between respect for mystery and respect for our natural desire to understand). Summa Contra Gentiles, chaps. 13-28 A. The Proof for God's Existence (chap. 13) We will not spend time on the proof itself, though two things are worth noting: 1. St. Thomas puts forth the proof under the assumption (which he takes to be in fact false) that motion is eternal. He remarks later that there must be an unmoved mover if motion has a beginning in time. 2. St. Thomas takes this argument to show that there is an unmoved (i.e., immutable) mover, and it is this concept of God from which the via remotionis begins. This contrasts with the Anselmian strategy of proving God's existence under the description being greater than which none can be conceived, and then proceeding from this notion of a perfect being directly to the divine perfections. B. Via Remotionis (chap. 13) This chapter is the key to this section, since it describes clearly what St. Thomas is up to in chapters 14-28. 1. We have no positive quidditative concept of God. The first claim, which we have seen before, is that we do not know what God is, i.e., we do not have a positive quidditative (or natural kind) concept of God, a concept akin to the concept animal or water or gold or white oak or collie. That is, we do not have the sort of concept on the basis of which we could construct a science with respect to its essence. 2. Beginning with the concept of an unmoved mover, we can separate God off from other things. Think of a game of 20 Questions, in which the answer is 'a being which is not X, Y, or Z. In each case what we reach is not a positive natural kind concept which could then be used as the basis for a science with respect to God, but instead the exclusion of classes of quidditative concepts. So the strategy is to begin with the notion of an unmoved mover and to show by way of negation that whatever is an unmoved mover is not X and is not Y and is not Z, until we have eliminated every possible creature. (There is hardly a fit example, since anything concrete we can come into immediate contact with, no matter how strange, is such that we can put it in the genus material substance. How about a burning bush?) So the via remotionis begins with the assumption of divine transcendence and provides a backdrop for all predications made of God.
a. God is eternal, i.e., he has no beginning and no end and is not subject to generation and corruption (chapter 15) 1. God is a unmoved mover; but whatever comes to be or ceases to be undergoes motion (i.e., change); therefore, God neither comes to be nor ceases to be. 2. God is not measured by time, since he does not change; so there is no before or after in God, i.e., there are no transitions from non-being to being or from being to non-being in Him, since such transitions cannot be understood without imputing temporality to Him; therefore, he neither comes to be nor ceases to be. 3. Suppose that there were a time at which God existed after not having existed; then he would have been brought into being from non-being by something. Not by Himself, since nothing brings itself from non-being into being; therefore by something other than Himself. But God is by hypothesis the first cause and so could not have been brought into being from non-being by anything other than himself. Therefore, it is false that there was a time at which God existed after not having existed. So God has never begun to be. But whatever exists and has not begun to be is. But if this is so, then God will never cease to be. For if he has existed without beginning he is intrinsically able to exist without end. And there is nothing that can make him cease to be. (Note: Suicide is impossible only if there are extrinsic conditions that he depends on for his existence.) 4. Some beings are intrinsically able to be and able not to be and so are subject to generation and corruption. But if a being subject to generation and corruption exists, then it must be caused to exist by something other than itself. Now there cannot be an infinite regress among the generable and corruptible causes of a generable thing's existence. Therefore, there is something such that it is necessary, i.e., it is not subject to both generation and corruption. But such a necessary being has its necessity either from another or from itself. And once again one cannot have an infinite regress among necessary beings that have their necessity extrinsically. This is God. But whatever is necessary through itself is eternal. Therefore, etc. 5. If time is everlasting, then motion is everlasting and, consequently, the unmoved mover is everlasting. On the other hand, if motion had a beginning, then it must have begun because of some mover, and if this mover had a beginning, then it must have begun because of some mover. So either there will be an infinite regress of movers with beginnings (which is impossible) or there is a moving cause that has no beginning. (This argument is much more powerful than it looks, I think.) b. God lacks passive potency, i.e., he has no intrinsic potentiality to become more perfect or more imperfect (chapter 16) 1. Since God is everlasting, he cannot cease to be; but whatever has passive potency admixed in its substance can cease to be (since such things are such that their existence is distinct from their essence). Therefore, etc. 2. Act is prior to potency in the sense that whatever is in potency has to be reduced to act by something already in act. So whatever is in potency has something prior to it. But God is the first being and the first cause. Therefore, etc. 3. That which is a necessary being per se is in no way in potency to being, since a thing in potency to being has a cause. But God is necessary per se. Therefore, etc. 4. What is not totally act acts by some part of itself. So such a thing acts not with the whole of itself, i.e., not through its essence, but by means of participation in another. So the first agent is pure act. 5. God is impassible and immutable, therefore he has no passive potency. c. God is not the matter of the universe, i.e. God is not primary matter or the stuff of which created material substances are made (chapter 17) 1. Whatever is matter has passive potency. 2. Matter is not a principle of acting; but God is the first efficient cause. Therefore, he is not the material cause of the universe. Therefore, he is not matter. 3. If there is just matter, then everything happens by chance. So if God is the material cause of things, then everything happens by chance. The Catholic faith teaches that God created all things out of nothing and not out of his own substance. David of Dinant asserted that God is primary matter. d. In God there is no composition, i.e., God is simple (chapter 18) e. In God there is nothing violent or beyond his nature (chapter 19) f. God is not a body (chapter 20) g. God is not distinct from his essence in the way that a human being is distinct from humanity (chapter 21) h. In God being (esse) is not distinct from his nature or essence, i.e., God's being is not contracted to any subset of the set of all perfections. (chapter 22) i. In God there are no (separable or inseparable) accidents. (chapter 23) j. The divine being cannot be designated by the addition of a substantial difference to a genus (chapter 24) k. God is not in any genus (chapter 25) l. God is not the formal being of all things (chapter 26) m. God is not the form of any body (chapter 27) CONCLUSION: GOD IS PERFECT, THE FULLNESS OF BEING (chapter 28) God has esse, the principle of perfection, in such a way that it is not limited by any other receptive principle to a subset of the set of all perfections. Therefore, God has all perfections in an unlimited way. This, then, is the presupposition of any affirmative predication made
of God in the via affirmativa. Hence, any such predication of a term normally
used of a creature is being made of a transcendent being and hence must
never be interpreted in such a way that this is lost sight of. No hint
of imperfection is to be attributed to God, and a hint of imperfection
is present when we could imagine a being who would be more perfect in a
certain respect. A. Foundation: the similarity between God and creatures (chapter 29) "On this basis one can now consider in what way it is possible and in what way impossible for a similarity to God to be found among things." To this point we have emphasized the distinction between God and creatures and the inadequacy of created effects to give us scientific knowledge of God or even a quidditative concept. However, this does not mean that we are completely in the dark or that any given concept is just as applicable to God as any other. Indeed, the negations already posited rule out many predications as just literally false. The next step is to note that there is a similarity of some sort between a cause and its effects, even if this similarity is feint and must be stated carefully. God is not a univocal cause of creatures, and so they do not share his nature and name. However, even an equivocal cause is such that its effects bear a similarity to it. The best way to proceed here is to consider examples, but St. Thomas's example of the sun is not really an apt one (though perhaps it would be if we looked at different examples of heat in modern chemistry). Still, we can find apt examples; let's think of some ... how about a photographic image or a pictorial image.) For even though effects which fall short of their causes do not share the same name and nature with their causes, nonetheless "in an exceeding cause the form of the effect is found in some way, but according to a different mode and different ratio". And so it is that creatures are like God. For God possesses in a perfect or eminent way whatever is found in a deficient or participatory way in creatures. And so creatures are likened to God in the way that an image of a human being is likened to a human being. (Thinking through this analogy may be helpful). Think about skin color in the two cases. (However, it is misleading to say that God is like a creature--similarly, we say that the portrait is like the one that it is a portrait of, but it would be at least odd to say that you are like the portrait. The term 'like' thus in some uses connotes an asymmetric dependence on the thing that the image is an image of. B. The names that can be predicated of God (chapter 30) The above discussion entitles us to the following rules: 1. Any name that signifies a pure perfection in an unqualified way is truly predicable literally of both God and creatures. Examples: 'wise', 'good', 'powerful', etc. 2. Any name that signifies a perfection while expressing a mode that can belong only to creatures is predicable of God only via simile and metaphor. Examples: 'You rock-head' (for a human being); 'You are a lion' (for God)--this includes both natural kind terms and property terms. 3. Any name that expresses a perfection in the mode of supereminence is predicable of God alone. Examples: 'first being', 'highest good', 'first cause', etc. St. Thomas says below that this mode can be signified by our names only via negation or relation to creatures. There is more to be said here about terms that fall into (1) and (3): 1. Terms that signify pure perfections Note that we must distinguish here between that which is signified and the mode of signifying: As far as that which is signified (or: that which the term is imposed to signify) is concerned, some terms signify pure perfections and some do not. But every term that signifies a pure perfection is, as applied to God, defective with respect to its mode of signification: A non-defective perfection term be one which expressed both simplicity and subsistence, since God's perfections are both simple and subsistent by virtue of the fact that they are identical with God. However, because our intellect begins with the senses and does not transcend the mode of those things the cognition of which arises in the senses, our perfection terms cannot express both simplicity and subsistence. More specifically, our mode of understanding inevitably involves subsistence and inherence. On the one hand, the created forms signified by abstract perfection-terms (e.g., 'goodness', 'wisdom') are simple but not subsistent, since they are accidents which inhere in a substance; on the other hand, the corresponding concrete perfection-terms (e.g., 'good', 'wise', etc.) signify in the mode of concretion, i.e., they signify the perfection as made concrete in a composite subsistent thing. What our intellect signifies as subsistent, it signifies as composite; what it signifies as simple, it signifies as non-subsistent but rather as inherent. Thus such perfection-terms, whether in their concrete or abstract forms, do not signify the divine nature in a mode proper to divinity; rather they continue to signify in a mode proper to creatures and hence are defective. To sum up: a. Concrete mode of signifying: The concrete form of perfection terms, e.g., 'wise', 'good', 'powerful', 'provident', etc., is applied to subsisting form-haver which, while it is subsistent, is composite and not simple. b. Abstract mode of signifying: The abstract forms of perfection-terms express an inherent form which, while simple, inheres in another and does not subsist in itself. "And so in every name that we predicate there is, as far as the mode of signifying is concerned, an imperfection that cannot belong to God, even though the thing signified belongs to God in a certain eminent manner. This is clear in the case of the names good and goodness. For goodness signifies as non-subsistent, whereas good signifies as concrete. And as far as the mode of signifying is concerned, no name is appropriately suited to God, but only as far as concerns that for which the name was imposed to signify." So Dionysius is correct in claiming that names of this sort are both affirmed of God (because of what they signify) and denied of God (because of the mode in which they signify). 2. Terms that express perfections in the mode of supereminence. These terms are predicable of God alone, but do not constitute quidditative concepts of God. What's more, this mode can be signified by our names only via negation or relation to creatures. C. Univocal, Equivocal and Analogical Predication of the Pure Perfections (chapters 33-36) 1. No perfection-name is predicated univocally of God and other things a. Creatures do not receive from God forms that are specifically the same as the forms found in the agent (God). For created things do not measure up to their cause, and they receive in a divided and particular way what is found in God in a simple and universal way. b. What's more, even if an effect does measure up to its cause, it does not receive univocal predication unless it receives the form in question in the same mode of being. For example, the architect's idea of the house is not a house in the same sense that the house built from that idea is a house. But created things participate in perfections, whereas God has (is) them in an unparticipated way. (This hooks up with para. §7.) c. Whatever is predicated univocally is either a genus, a species, a difference, an accident, or a property--Aristotle's five predicables; see Topics. But none of these apply to God. 2. Not all perfection-names said of God are predicated equivocally (by chance) of God and other things a. In equivocals by chance there is no order, but there is an order between God and creatures, viz., an order of cause and effect. b. If there were equivocal predication in this case, we could not be led to knowledge of God from knowledge of creatures. 3. The names said of both God and other things are predicated analogically The names said of God and creatures are analogical in the sense that they are predicated in a certain order, because God is the cause and creatures are the effect which in some way is similar to the cause in perfection: a. priority secundum rei naturam: What is predicated belongs to God first and to creatures insofar as they are caused by God and resemble God. So the name is predicated of God first as far as the reality is concerned. b. priority secundum rationem nominis: The name is taken from creatures and predicated of them first, and it is then predicated of God insofar as God is the cause of the creatures whose power contains the perfection in an eminent way. So the name is predicated of the creature first as far as the origin of the name is concerned. |