Theology and Philosophy
15. Before completing these pages I should like to propose a few further remarks. First of all, a few words about the relations of theology and philosophy. In my opinion, many an account of medieval philosophy has been impaired or vitiated by an insufficiently drawn distinction between these two disciplines.
Some seem to think that theology supplies cut and dried answers to the major philosophic questions, and in this way nullifies the endeavors of philosophy. Then there are those who fancy that in a Christian regime philosophy is subjugated to theology.
In real fact, theology possesses an object, a light, and a method that differ entirely from those of philosophy. Rooted in faith, it conducts its reasoning on the authority of the revealed word and proceeds ex causa prima; its object is the revealed datum itself, which it seeks to elucidate rationally.{20}
When, therefore, a particular theological inquiry happens to provide an answer to a philosophic question, this answer is not given philosophically; the whole philosophic endeavor is to move along another plane. Philosophy, moreover, is not paralyzed but rather stimulated by this state of affairs. In fact, the mighty intellectual curiosity which stirred the Christian ages can only be explained against the background of the sublime mysteries propounded to them.
A word about the adage philosophia ancilla theologiae. Its origin, of course, is to be sought in St. Peter Damiani, who intended to silence philosophy with it. The Scholastic position is something entirely different. Therein philosophy is placed in the service of theology when, and only when, in its own workings theology employs philosophy as an instrument of truth in order to establish conclusions which are not philosophic but theological. Ancilla, then, it may be, but not serva, for theology handles philosophy in accordance with its own proper laws; a Minister of state yes, but a slave it can never be.
But in itself, or when engaged in its own pursuits, philosophy is not a handmaid; it is free, it enjoys the freedom to which as a form of wisdom it is entitled. I am fully aware that revelation teaches it certain truths, including philosophic. Even so, God alone is not subject to being taught, the angels themselves enlighten one another; being taught does not stifle the freedom of the mind, but merely attests that it is a created freedom. And for every created spirit truth holds primacy even over the quest for knowledge, however noble this quest may be. Some modern philosophers who disbelieve in Christian revelation presume to judge in terms of their own peculiar assumptions concerning this revelation the relationship established in the Christian system between philosophy and faith. Their method leaves something to be desired, for their assumptions are without validity save in a non-Christian system. Surely, if I did not believe that the primordial Truth itself is my teacher in the tenets of faith, if I believed that faith presents me with a mere code binding me to a human tradition, I would not accept the subordination of philosophy to faith. What I mean to say, in fine, is that no one will grant that philosophy should suffer duress: neither the non-Christian, in whose eyes faith would impose restraints on philosophy and obstruct its view; nor the Christian, for whom faith does not restrain philosophy but strengthens it and helps it to improve its vision.
And yet, as in the case of every organic regime, certain drawbacks more or less serious in nature can accidentally (per accidens) spring from the vital solidarity established in a Christian regime among the hierarchically ordered virtues of the intellect. Thus, in the Middle Ages philosophic problems, while being stirred up by theology, often remained posed too exclusively in function of theology. Thomistic philosophy suffered some impairment of a secondary sort in this respect; not as to its innermost worth, to be sure, but as to the autonomy of its organization. One of the causes of misunderstanding which estrange "scholastics" and "moderns" today, I believe, rests on the fact that exactly those very enrichments -- the admirable purity and profundity -- -which this philosophy owes to its enlistment in the service of theology and to its captivation by a superior light, have slowed down its technical elaboration in an autonomous doctrinal body, wherein it would lead a life of its own outside the theological organism and proceed in all its parts and without exception according to the due methods and modes of philosophy. Let me say here that Thomistic philosophy, completely distinct in itself from theology, and dwelling, as it always must, both in its own home and in that theology (where it is better off than in its own), has still many tasks, arrangements, and reclassification of materials to attend to before it can finally take up residence in its own quarters -- without breaking off its vital relations with theology in the process. Even though these quarters cannot boast of the spacious chambers and lofty ceilings of theology's imposing mansion, it has withal the duty not to neglect them.
Yet it is my belief that these drawbacks which originated in a regime of openly declared subordination were of a less serious nature than those brought about by the subordination of philosophy to undeclared theologies and mystical urges.
At any rate, it is not solely to Plato, but far more -- and in fact by a much closer historical bond -- to the theologians and philosophers of the Middle Ages that the modern Western world is indebted for the very concept of a purely objective science, and for all the intellectual self discipline that it entails. This purification of the speculative is one of the attainments of Christian philosophy.
Finally, as we observed earlier, distinction does not mean separation. Once the distinction between the respective natures of philosophy and theology is acknowledged, there is nothing to forbid thought, now equipped in both disciplines, to pass in a single, concrete movement from one to the other. What theory sunders is at one in life. A free Christian wisdom which unites the philosophic and theological lights without confusing them, can accordingly follow out a line of thought which resembles, if you wish, that of Malebranche -- without mixing up formal objects as he does, however.
{20} A more precise discussion of the nature of theology will be found in Note II at the end of the book.