I’ll be in Florida all of next week, so I will probably not be posting anything.

Destin, FL

However, I do have plans of things to discuss in the weeks following.  As you can probably tell by the amount of information on Aquinas on this blog, I really like his stuff.  Also, I think Aquinas’s philosophical theology is invaluable to Christians of all churches and denominations. I also think that most Reformed folks either (a) have never read more than 100 pages of Aquinas, (b) have read a bit but think that he is too Catholic, (c) are really scared of his incorporation of Platonic and Aristotelean philosophy, (d) have read a substantial amount and would admit the value of knowing Aquinas’s thought but only ever publish critiques of his writings.  Van Til’s predecessors tend to fall in the last category. 

Therefore, as I mentioned over at Tim’s blog , over the next couple of weeks I plan to defend Aquinas against those in category (d).  I hope to present critiques of:  Van Til’s argument that the Reformed need a “different” apologetic because we have a different doctrine of God, Oliphint’s accusation that Aquinas failed to present an adequate separation between Creator and creature, and Frame’s assertion that Aquinas’s anolgia entis neglects the “univocal meaning” of some God-language; plus a few more if time permits.  

That’s all for now.  I’ll be back in a week. After BH!  

This looks to be a promising read and a great resource for understanding Aquinas’s philosophical theology from - Oxford University Press (June, 2008 ). Here’s a brief description from the publisher:

This book offers an in-depth examination of what divine simplicity means for Aquinas and how he argues for its claims. Simplicity and other divine predicates are analyzed within the larger metaphysical and semantic framework surrounding Aquinas’s philosophy of God. The work thus goes beyond the issue of simplicity to some of the fundamental tenets of Aquinas’s philosophical theology and his views on divine predication. The author also engages with a variety of Aquinas’s recent commentators, bringing the insights of this great figure to bear on contemporary discussions.

HT: Thomistica.net

Peter Leithart and others have noted the post-modern phenomenon of what I shall call the impenetrable ego. In his book on baptism Leithart notes that the idea that the ritual actually affects the person (socially, psychologically, ontologically) seems eerie because we have this idea that “who I am is deep down inside and cannot be touched by anything from the outside” - a kinda Neo-Stoicism.  

Since I have occupied my summer with readings of Aquinas I shall not digress.  He had to fight with the gnostics as well (those who would radically separate mind and body, ego and flesh).  Aquinas does not fall victim to scholarly critiques of the Medieval theology such as that of N.T. Wright; who says that the popular idea that when we die our souls go to heaven never to return was invented by the Medieval church.  St. Thomas was waging war against the Albigenses (a.k.a. Cathari/Medieval Manichees). Fergus Kerr says we should read all of Aquinas with this context in mind.  

Aquinas’s argument against the idea that “what is real in me is separate from matter” is fairly simple: Because the soul is only part of the person it cannot be spoken of as if it characterizes the whole. Sure, he also says that the soul is the form of the body - giving actuality to the body’s potential to exist.  I’m not denying the “superiority” of the soul or the fact that Aquinas did not diverge from the traditional teaching that the soul is separated from the body at death. My point is to note the anti-gnostic strain in Aquinas’s teaching on the soul.  He denies that phrases such as “my essence is the real me” or “who I really am is immaterial” can have any legitimacy.  In his De Ente et Essentia he confirms this:

For the phrase human being expresses it [essence] as a whole (not cutting out demarcated material but including it implicitly and indistinctly in the way we said a genus includes its differentiating characteristics): so individuals can be called human beings.  But the word humanness expresses it as a part (including in its meaning only what belongs to humans as humans and cutting out all demarcation), and so we don’t call an individual human being humanness.  This is why the word essence is sometimes asserted of things (Socrates, we say, is an essence of sorts) and sometimes denied (Socrates’ essence, we say, is not Socrates).

“Essence”, says Aquinas, can refer to an individual human being as a whole and also to the part of the individual that is purely immaterial.  Therefore, to say that the “essence” in the later sense is the real person is to say that part of the whole human is more human than the whole, which is a contradiction.  It is like saying “my arm is the real me” or “my face is more me than the rest of me.”  He demonstrates this more clearly in his commentary on 1 Corinthians 15:17-19:

For it is clear that the soul is naturally united to the body and is departed from it, contrary to its nature and per accidens. Hence the soul devoid of its body is imperfect, as long as it is without the body. But it is impossible that what is natural and per se be finite and, as it were, nothing; and that which is against nature and per accidens be infinite, if the soul endures without the body. And so, the Platonists positing immortality, posited reincarnation, although this is heretical. Therefore, if the dead do not rise, we will be confident only in this life. In another way, because it is clear that man naturally desires his own salvation; but the soul, since it is part of man’s body, is not an entire man: my soul is not me; So that even if soul achieves well-being in another life, that doesn’t mean I do or any other human being does. Moreover, since it is by nature that humans desire well-being, including their body’s well-being, a desire of nature gets frustrated.

He confirms here that a soul detached from the body is an incomplete human being. Therefore, neither the soul by itself nor the body is the true source of a person’s identity; rather, the composite body-soul which is the human being.  As John Nevin says, “The soul to be complete to develop itself at all as a soul must externalize itself, throw itself out in space; and this externalization is the body.” (Mystical Presence, pp. 161, 162)

The whole realist/nominalist argument among the Medieval philosophers often seems arcane and pedantic to us post-moderns.  I mean, who cares if the form is in the thing or somewhere else?  The whole idea of a form in things is way too “spooky.” Reality is given to us; we don’t need forms right?  Well, without answering that question directly I must point out that the import of the Medieval argument between the realists and nominalists can be seen when we realize that they were seeking an answer to the same question with which we are often plagued; the question, “How do I know that what I believe about reality is true?” Pilate asked a similar question to Jesus, recorded in John’s Gospel 18:38:  ”What is Truth?”  

John 18:38

Obviously, Pilate was not asking Jesus how one comes to know the essence of a thing, but I can’t help but notice the irony of the situation.  St. Thomas also noticed - it caused him to get sidetracked in his commentary on this Gospel. Here’s what he had to say:

Apropos of this [Pilate's] question, note that we find two kinds of truth in the gospel. One is uncreated and making: this is Christ: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (14:6); the other truth is made, “Grace and truth came [were made] through Jesus Christ” (1:17).  By its nature truth implies a conformity between a reality and the intellect. The intellect is related in two ways to reality. An intellect can be related to things as a measure of these things; that would be the intellect which is the cause of these things. Another intellect is measured by things, this would be an intellect whose knowledge is caused by these things. Now truth is not in the divine intellect because the intellect is conformed to things, but because things are conformed to the divine intellect. While truth is in our intellect because it understands things, conforms to them, as they are. And so uncreated truth and the divine intellect is a truth which is not measured or made, but a truth which measures and makes two kinds of truth: one is in the things themselves, insofar as it makes them so they are in conformity with what they are in the divine intellect; and it makes the other truth in our souls, and this is a measured truth, not a measuring truth. Therefore, the uncreated truth of the divine intellect is appropriated, especially referred, to the Son, who is the very concept of the divine intellect and the Word of God. For truth is a consequence of the intellect’s concept.

Pilate’s question about Truth interrupted Aquinas’s train of thought.  Perhaps he asked himself the same question and needed to reiterate it in relation to what he saw in the text - a man asking Jesus, “What is Truth?”  Aquinas immediately thought to himself that Truth is a conformity between reality and the intellect. But that’s not all.  Man’s conception of Truth cannot be all there is.  This would mean that Truth is relative. There has to be one who establishes Truth, one who makes the things in his mind exist in reality as they are in his mind.  This One is God and his Son is the eternal Idea who sustains the life of all things. This is where the forms come in - the essence/quiddity/nature of things.  If God makes them the way he thinks them then they are true. If they are true then they cannot change. If they do not change then they cannot be reduced to matter.  Therefore, we need the forms.  We need our immaterial minds to get to the immaterial thing behind the thing.  We need the “spooky” stuff.  The Medievals knew this (some of them liked it way too much).  I fear that we’ve become too materialistic to recognize it.

Rudi Te Velde says that Aquinas did not write the Summa contra Gentiles as a missionary manual for Dominicans to evangelize the Muslims.  This timeless work was written to refute certain errors that had come to light in the Medieval context. These errors go beyond that of the Muslim faith.

Thomas Aquinas

The list of errors is not restricted to contemporary thought. The errors are attributed to the ancient natural philosophers, to the “Platonists,” to Avicenna and Averroes (they are not in all respects trustworthy guides in interpreting Aristotle), to heretics like Origen and the Manichees, but most of all simply to “quidam,” to anonymous teachers who hold a more or less reasonable opinion, based on philosophical principles, that conflicts with the truth of Christian faith. (Te Velde, “Natural Reason in the Summa Contra Gentiles” in Brian Davies, ed. Thomas Aquinas: Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives, p. 127)

Aquinas must be seen in his context.  The Christian world had known the philosophy of the Neo-Platonists since the very beginning but the Medieval world experienced a rebirth of Aristotle, who was being introduced and interpreted mainly by Muslim and Jewish authors.  Aristotle’s non-Christian interpreters were leading Medieval teachers at the University of Paris and elsewhere astray with their extreme synthesis. Therefore, Aquinas saw it as his goal to rescue Aristotle from the extremists and preserve the Christian faith, all in the name of Truth.  Te Velde also affirms that Aquinas did not present arguments based on pure reason divorced from Christian Truth.  He was doing the opposite - basing his arguments for truth on the first principles claimed by his opponents:

Aquinas’s strategy is to discuss and combat the claims in the light of reason’s own criteria and rules learned from the philosophi themselves. Insofar as faith requires not only confession but also reflection and understanding in order to be a human faith, Aquinas shows the believer how ‘philosophical’ reason can be assimilated if only reason is brought to correct its errors and false pretensions and becomes aware of its human point of view in relation to the truth of faith. (Ibid)

The contra Gentiles was therefore written for Christians to consider the arguments of the philosophi and their contradictions, not only with the claims of Sacra Pagina but with those philosophi’s own first principles of knowledge.  That’s not all either. Aquinas aimed to demonstrate the foolishness of relying solely on natural reason as a foundation for claims at Truth.  Te Velde continues:

A reason that cannot tolerate our being asked to hold something on faith represents a veritable Trojan horse for the Christian community.  If reason were justified in its claim to autonomy, the only way Christianity could affirm its faith would be by rejecting reason, by excluding rational reflection based on philosophy.  Aquinas chooses not to go along that way.  It is his conviction that natural reason can be integrated in the Christian consciousness of truth, but not unless reason gives up its claim to autonomy and acknowledges its human condition in knowing the truth [emphasis added].  Not reason as such, but the presumption of reason to have an absolute hold on truth prevents a reasonable understanding of the truth of faith.  So the issue is not a defense of the ‘reasonableness’ of Christian faith before reason. Aquinas’s objective is to confirm natural reason with its own condition, to make reason aware of its limitations in order to prevent reason from unreflectively imposing its own limits on the search for truth.  We need more truth than our reason can grasp. (Ibid., p. 129) 

So, contrary to what Evangelical Christians often assume about Aquinas his was actually an argument against autonomy.  The contra Gentiles was not written to atheists nor to anyone outside the Christian community.  It was written to Christians as a guide for the perplexed in order to answer the “new” philosophical arguments that seemed to contradict Christian tradition and faith.  In the end Aquinas’s answer to the gentiles was based on the authority of scripture, pointing out the absurdity of claiming absolute Truth and certainty from an autonomous appeal to the human intellect.

In a previous post I quoted Fergus Kerr who noted that Aquinas’s epistemology presupposed theology. Because the Christian God created the world and creatures in order for them both to interact on an essential level the world can be known by man.  Norman Kretzmann’s article “Infallibility, Error, and Ignorance” (in the 1992 Supplementary Volume 17 of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy) is the most thorough and clear treatment of Aquinas’s epistemology that I have come across. He places the Thomistic theory of knowledge within the camp of reliabilism - that the mind is a reliable tool for discovering truth outside of the mind.  He notes that Aquinas did not cease to follow Aristotle in his philosophy of knowledge but:

For Aquinas, the theological component of his theistic reliabilism naturally comes first [...] The component of cognitive reliability in theistic reliabilism could reasonably be said to be implied by a few basic theological doctrines which Aquinas of course argued for, quite independently of their implications for epistemology:  God, the creator, is omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good; and part of his purpose in creating is the manifestation of himself to rational creatures. From those central doctrines alone it seems to follow that skepticism is frivolous - that human beings must have been created with reliable access to created reality and with reliable faculties for the processing of the reliably acquired data. (Kretzmann, pp. 162, 163)

These assertions on Kretzmann’s part are immediately backed up by Aquinas’s own language:

The immediate purpose of the human body is the rational soul and its operations, since matter is for the sake of the form, and instruments are for the sake of the agent’s operations.  I maintain, therefore, that God designed the human body in the pattern best suited to that form and those operations. (ST Ia.91.3c)

Therefore, because God designed the human body with the rational soul as an instrument for comprehension then truths outside of the mind can be known, and thus man can have infallible knowledge. Coming from a Reformed perspective, and Van Tilian at that, this relationship between theology and epistemology in St. Thomas, as a friend of mine responded to me the other day, sounds “presuppositional”. I’d recommend this article (although it may be hard to find) by Kretzmann to anyone interested, especially newbies like myself.

I don’t think it is autonomous rationalism to begin one’s apologetics with theological proofs.  The whole point of beginning with reason is not to start from a neutral ground where all facts are brute facts and everyone agrees that religion is not an issue.  The point of beginning with reason is to demonstrate the necessity of faith. One must differentiate, as St. Anselm did, between an “independent” argument and an argument made directly from Holy Scripture.  Neither can be called “autonomous.”  Both presuppose the necessity of the Triune God.  

The Middle Ages fashioned summae in stone and stained glass as well as in theology.  In the twelfth century a new architecture (what would later be called pejoratively “Gothic” in contrast to the earlier “Roman” style) produced a building out of freedom and synthesis.  Sharp arches pointed toward heaven and, since the arches could sustain more weight, the wallspace was free.  Some creative personality suggested filling it with windows of red and blue, yellow and green glass.  Colored light poured in.  The artists with their theological consultants faced in the rose windows of the cathedrals the same questions of multiplicity and order as did the university professors in planning their summary works of theology.  Just as light comes from the sun and pours into the church through colored windows, so God passing through the events of salvation-history pours grace into the individual spirit. (O’Meara, Thomas Aquinas: Theologian, p. 47)

Assuming we all hold to some form of divine simplicity:  It seems that many Reformed folks, especially those who believe that the “5 points” are the quintessential articulation of “Calvinism”, have forgotten the historic apophatic theology, including the functions of the intellect in acquiring knowledge and consequently the doctrine of analogy.  This can be seen by the fact that we prioritize the incomprehensible hidden decree (which is convertible with God’s essence) in contradistinction to the revealed.  If you don’t think we have forgotten St. Thomas’s doctrine of double-agency (as it relates to man’s knowledge of secondary causes) then ask yourself how comfortable you are with the statement, “the unrepentant go to hell because they chose to reject the gospel.” We, who accuse the Thomists of rationalism, should look in the mirror. 

Thomas O’Meara notes:

The theologian and historian Yves Congar once told young Dominicans that it would take them fifteen years to grasp Aquinas. (Thomas Aquinas: Theologian, xvi)

Hmmm.