Category — Thomistic

One of the reasons for the Reformation, one that does not get the press it deserves, is the break with a ground-motive that was and is at odds with the Biblical motive of Creation-Fall-Redemption. The reigning spiritual structure of the years preceding the Reformation was expressed in the writings of Thomas Aquinas — the Nature-Grace synthesis, the child of the marriage between Hellenic and Biblical notions. The creeping specter of the synthesizing attitude is still around today. It means the end of Protestantism if it continues.

It is a fascinating fact of church history that the Eastern branch of the church has avoided this particular pitfall that has infected the Western. The Eastern theologians have put a bar at the door of Being and said, “None shall enter”. Their apophatic methodology has saved them from much of the Hellenic mistakes found in the West. This has laid them open, perhaps mistakenly, to the charge of mysticism, but the West’s rationalism has been and continues to be it’s Achilles heel — “You shall be like God” is a temptation that comes in all sorts of forms.

Semper reformanda.

“The third part of this liberty is that we are not bound before God to any observance of external things which are in themselves indifferent (ἀδιάφορα), but that we are now at full liberty either to use or omit them. The knowledge of this liberty is very necessary to us; where it is wanting our consciences will have no rest, there will be no end of superstition. In the present day many think us absurd in raising a question as to the free eating of flesh, the free use of dress and holidays, and similar frivolous trifles, as they think them; but they are of more importance than is commonly supposed. For when once the conscience is entangled in the net, it enters a long and inextricable labyrinth, from which it is afterwards most difficult to escape. When a man begins to doubt whether it is lawful for him to use linen for sheets, shirts, napkins, and handkerchiefs, he will not long be secure as to hemp, and will at last have doubts as to tow; for he will revolve in his mind whether he cannot sup without napkins, or dispense with handkerchiefs. Should he deem a daintier food unlawful, he will afterwards feel uneasy for using loafbread and common eatables, because he will think that his body might possibly be supported on a still meaner food. If he hesitates as to a more genial wine, he will scarcely drink the worst with a good conscience; at last he will not dare to touch water if more than usually sweet and pure. In fine, he will come to this, that he will deem it criminal to trample on a straw lying in his way. For it is no trivial dispute that is here commenced, the point in debate being, whether the use of this thing or that is in accordance with the divine will, which ought to take precedence of all our acts and counsels. Here some must by despair be hurried into an abyss, while others, despising God and casting off his fear, will not be able to make a way for themselves without ruin. When men are involved in such doubts whatever be the direction in which they turn, every thing they see must offend their conscience.” (Institutes III:19:7).

Thanks friend. “To the law and to the testimony”. — Isaiah 8:20

Siger of Brabant (1235-1282, assassinated by an angry secretary), asserted three doctrines that put him at odds with the views of Thomas. These were: 1. The eternality of the universe; 2. the oneness of the intellect; and, 3. the Double-truth doctrine. What Siger was resurrecting was Latin Averroeism, and in many ways a return to the more basic doctrines of Aristotle. In the Metaphysics, Aristotle asserted that thought and any non-material object are really one. Now, of course, Aristotle had no real conception of a god beyond the Prime Mover, but the implications from this that Thomas recognized should be obvious- the active intellect is God.

The real trouble was the Double-Truth doctrine, which was the notion that a thing can be theologically true and philosophically false, and vice versa. This is the direction that Siger was taking Thomas’s teaching. And, this is, it seems to me, the caricature of Thomas that we have inherited, as though he is immediately responsible for the divorce of ratio et fides. However, he never intended this, but rather insisted that there is only one truth, one destination with two paths. As Chesterton says: “Beginning with the grass, I am once again bound to the Lord”. 

For Thomas, there really was only one authority: the Blessed Holy Trinity, the Creator of all things. And, the Creator mediates truth through two avenues, both of which are self-justifying. The two paths were to be subject to the one truth, as a unity of knowledge. However, the trouble is in assuming that Being precedes meaning in our temporal experience, and in fact provides a self-evident meaning through observation. This is the Hellenic notion that is so sticky, and perhaps inevitably leads to the kind of conclusions that Siger was suggesting. 

“Everything that is in the intellect has been in the senses”.— Thomas A. 

In other words, everything is mediated. The neo-Platonists argued that all the light of understanding comes from within the man, like a light that is simply turned on in the house. But Thomas argues that the knowledge we have comes in through the windows, all five of them. Well intentioned believers who argue for sola Scriptura, and a Biblical epistemology need to remember that revelation is mediated to us through the senses: it is not immediate, there are prior sensate steps that need justification. The Scriptures are the object of knowledge as much as they are the foundation or justification for knowledge. Thomas suggested, as Aristotle did before him, that thinking upon thinking is the most divine kind of thought. And, thought and its object are the same in regards to things that do not have matter. Thought must have an object, and in this case it is the object that justifies the thought, as well as the mediators between the object and the thought.

The neo-Platonist perspective failed to take this in to account, and placed too much expectation in pure reason. But, they seemed to touch upon something crucial: the inner disposition of man guides the understanding. Perhaps they only reached so far as the mind, but there is the pre-theoretical work of the Holy Spirit on the heart that creates the receptivity and submission to revelation that is necessary for real understanding. Inner light is necessary to illuminate the meaning of Things and the Word. The basic hermeneutic of Scripture and of the natural world is based in a heart that is fitted to take them in. “I see trees walking” is the beginning of hermeneutics. 

Chesterton writes: “Because the Faith was the one truth, nothing discovered in nature could ultimately contradict the Faith. Because the Faith was the one truth, nothing really deduced from the Faith could ultimately contradict the facts”. 

The difficulty is understanding the facts, when the ens is an elusive and mysterious thing. Can we ever really get a grip on the “facts”, apart from categories and analysis? Thomas had confidence that regardless of whether we start with Faith or facts, we would come to the same truth. Siger took up the path of pure facts, and ended up rejecting truth. Thomas’ thesis was, in this way, a very fragile thing. He had always intended and expected the marriage of the two paths. 

In Thomistic studies, the name Aristotle stands for Philosophy. When they deemed him “The Philosopher” the scholastic Medievals intended him as the representative of the discipline as a whole; he is it, and it is him. At least this was the case in the University of Paris in the 13th century. As Pieper points out: ‘The name “Aristotle” was meant to serve as a cryptic word for natural reality as a whole, for the visible, sense-perceived world of physical, material things and — within man himself — for sensuousness, for nature and naturalness, and also for the natural cognitive powers of reason, the lumen naturale.’ This cryptic system was understood as distinct from the “Bible”, or revelation as a co-equal “whole”. 

The problem, in my mind, is the scholastic misunderstanding of the “Bible”. There is an assumption that “Aristotle” is necessary because in one way or another, an empirical approach to knowledge of the world cannot be justified by the Creation-Fall-Redemption ground motive of Scripture. Thus, an addendum is necessary. As Pieper says: “Thomas’ resolute worldliness set him apart from the spiritualistic, symbolistic unworldliness of the age’s traditional theology”. 

Thomas failed to recognize the fullness and philosophical foundation of Scripture for man’s life. Pieper suggests that for Thomas and others, “Aristotle” was not foundational, but rather an accessory to knowledge. However, the reductionism inherent in Aristotle eventually gained ground in Biblical studies. Rather than an aspectual approach to “things”, which would have taken into account a symphonic view of reality, “Aristotle” was absolutized as the determiner of what constitutes philosophy, of what in fact constitutes material existence in toto. 

As part of a graduate Medieval Church history course, I am doing readings on Thomas Aquinas, the “Dumb Ox” of the Roman church. One of the readings is Josef Pieper’s book, “Guide to Thomas Aquinas”. Pieper asks the question: “What, in short, is the greatness of Thomas that has made him doctor communis of Christendom?” Originality is not the answer, and Pieper’s explanation reveals the key to understanding the essential quality of Thomas’ work. “What is classical is not, properly speaking, original”. Recognizing the synthesizing quality of Thomas’ work, Pieper says: “Thomas was neither Platonist nor Aristotelian; he was both”. Disregarding the question of the possibility of this assertion, Thomas was essentially Hellenic in his most basic understanding of man and the world.  

In 1918, Thomas’ approach was incorporated into the Codex Juris Canonici which directs the educational branch of the Roman church to teach all priests in accordance with the “method, doctrines and principles of Thomas Aquinas”.

The basic religious motive of the heart cannot sustain the presence of two impulses; although the aspects of experience may coincide with one another given the imago Dei. “Socrates was a man” is true for me, and for Socrates. But, when I begin to ask the question, “What is man?” the resulting answers will be quite different. Poetically we might sound the same, existentially we may taste the same food, but once we get into prose, the ground will shift beneath our feet. 

I look forward to reading more.