INTRODUCTION
I. THE PROBLEM OF THE RELATION BETWEEN FAITH
AND REASON
II. THE
EXISTENCE OF GOD
I.1. The problem of the demonstration
I.2. The five
ways
III. GOD ESSENCE
IV. THE CONCEPTION OF MAN
IV.1. The structure of created reality
IV.2.
The man, image of God
IV.3.
The man towards God
a) God as ultimate object of knowledge
b) God as ultimate object of will
c)
Social behaviour towards God. The law
INTRODUCTION
Christian’s conception of the world is the
result of a mixture of elements: the sacred texts and its different
interpretations, sometimes even opposed, the influence of Neo-Platonism
and stoicism and the controversial dialogue with classic philosophy.
First of all Christianity is a salvation doctrine, that is to
say, a set of ideas about reality and a set of rules whose
fulfilment grant paradise to believers after this world.
Nevertheless, philosophy and religion have some elements in common:
philosophy tries to give a rational solution to the great problems
of man, whereas religion, on the other hand, displays its own
privileged solution to these problems based on faith. Naturally,
religions -Christianity in this case- are not philosophy, but some
of the most important elements they use in their salvation proposal
have been traditional objects of philosophy, and that’s why they
usually use this discipline as foundation for some of their beliefs.
One of the most important concerns of
medieval thought is the relation between theology and philosophy
or, in other words, between faith and reason. The genuine
problem here is to determine the relation between supernatural
knowledge, achieved by revelation, and natural knowledge, achieved
by the intellect and the senses. Thus, reason and faith are two
different sources for knowledge that can be compatible or not.
I.
THE PROBLEM OF THE RELATION BETWEEN FAITH AND REASON
This problem reaches its culminating point
with Saint Thomas and, for many theologians, its solution. The
distinction between philosophy/theology rests on the difference
between natural and supernatural order. They are two different
levels, but they are not opposed or contradictory one to the other
but complementary: the order of natural knowledge comes from
human reason, from which arises philosophy with its own laws,
methods and demonstrative value. The supernatural order, on
the other hand, comes from revelation and faith and is essentially a
dark knowledge ("the act of believing is an understanding act that
asserts divine truth by the empire of the will moved by God through
grace"); some of the divine truths are within the reach of the
reason, others exceed our intellect. Both kinds of knowledge
ultimately come from God, and for that reason they cannot
be contradictory. Saint Thomas uses this explanation to reject
Averroes’s theory of the double truth.
These two spheres of knowledge can
collaborate: revelation serves as guide for reason (preserving
it from mistakes and indicating the final solution it must come to);
and reason serves to clarify, explain and defend the mysteries of
faith. The result of this collaboration is theology. Some
beliefs could never be demonstrated by reason (for example, the
mystery of Trinity or the Eucharist) but others can, like the
basic beliefs of faith (the existence of God and the immortality
of the soul). This means there are issues on which theology and
philosophy cover each other (the existence of God, for example) but,
in spite of it, Saint Thomas believes faith is necessary because not
every man can reach the truth by means of the reason, either by lack
of time or by lack of capacity; in addition, faith must guide reason
to avoid mistake. Thus is necessary to distinguish two types of
theologies: the rational or natural theology; which reaches
God from a purely rational perspective and is called natural because
is based on human capacities and the Christian or supernatural
theology: which is based on faith and on the revealed doctrine
but uses reason for clarifying and as dialectic weapon.
II. THE
EXISTENCE OF GOD
II.1. The problem
of the demonstration. Although God cannot be
perceived by the senses we could think He can be directly perceived
by reason. Examples of this direct knowledge are the propositions "men
are rational animals" or "triangles have three sides". Saint Thomas
calls this type of propositions self-evident propositions;
and they are because the characteristic named in the predicate
belongs essentially to the object at issue (the predicate is
included in the subject). The previous examples are, in addition,
evident for us because we see them as true just understanding
the concept which serves as subject. If the existence of God were an
essential characteristic of Him or, in other words, if His existence
were included in His essence, then the proposition "God exists"
would be shown as true with the mere understanding of the term "God”;
some philosophers (Saint Anselm and Descartes) think so, and this
reasoning is called the "ontological argument". Saint Thomas,
on the contrary, declares this kind of reasoning does not fit with
the example of God because God’s essence is not as clearly given to
us as, for example, the essence of the triangle. This means the
proposition "God exists" is not evident for us, although it is a
self-evident proposition (because it is true that the existence is
included in the essence of God).
II.2. The
five ways.
Nevertheless, Saint Thomas thinks the existence of God can be proved.
He thinks the mere rational argumentation is not fit for it because
we should start off from the most known for us; that is, the
sensible experience. Saint Thomas’s proofs (the five ways)
are a posteriori demonstrations: the existence of God is
deduced as ultimate cause of the effects shown in the world. These
ways do not allow an exhaustive knowledge of the essence of God -given
our limited capacities- but are proof enough of His existence.
Similar arguments were displayed by other philosophers, specially
Aristotle and Plato, who used a similar reasoning scheme: the
starting point is a real data of experience, a feature of the
physical world; secondly they introduce a Metaphysical principle
(this feature must have a cause which cannot be itself or this
perfect feature cannot have its origin in something less perfect
than itself...); on the third step they agree a concatenated
causal series cannot last indefinitely, it has to have an end;
and finally they conclude there must exist a supreme being.
The first way begins observing the movement all
over the world and ends up asserting the existence of God as
Immovable Motor; the second way observes the existence of causes in
the world and concludes the existence of an ultimate Cause; the
fourth way observes the existence of different levels of perfection
in the beings of the world and ends up proposing the existence of a
supremely perfect being. Nevertheless, the most interesting ways are
the third and the fifth. The Third Way emphasizes one of the
most important features of all finite objects, the radical
insufficiency of their being, their contingency: the beings
of the world exist but they could equally not exist, they have
specific features which they could equally not have. If they do
exist but could not then we can think of a time in which they didn’t;
and if they were the only beings of the world, then nothing would
have existed. As this is obviously not the case, then we should
conclude that along with those contingent beings there must exist
a necessary being, a being which has its origin in itself
instead of in another being, and that being is God. The fifth Way
starts off from the existence of order in the natural world and from
the necessary existence of an intelligence that guides the behaviour
of those beings which do have a final purpose in the world. Natural
beings do not have intelligence, so they must have been created by
other being who has given them their natural disposition to those
behaviours better adapted to their aims. In conclusion, there must
be an Ordering Intelligence which we could call God.
III. GOD ESSENCE
One of the main challenges Saint Thomas faces is to
defend the possibility of the knowledge of God without
underestimating the quality of His being. We need hold a balanced
position, avoiding ends: asserting the possibility of the knowledge
of God at the cost of approximating Him too much to this world (which
would be an anthropomorphism); or letting our concern for His
essence be so strong we solely accept a negative or an irrational
approach to Him (a mystic approach, for example). Saint Thomas
displays several ways to preserve this equilibrium: the
affirmative way: we assign God solely those features which bring
him no imperfection; the negative way: we get a negative
concept of God denying the features which imply imperfection: God is
immovable, is pure act, is immutable and simple; the eminence way:
we assign Him those perfect features we find in other beings, but
declare He have them infinitely: kindness, intelligence, will.
Besides, the analogy means words do not have exactly the same
meaning when we talk about God or about finite beings. They neither
have a univocal nor an ambiguous meaning, but an analogical meaning,
which means they have partly the same and partly different meaning.
The five ways provide us five predicates
for God: Immovable motor, uncaused Cause, necessary and supremely
perfect being, supreme Intelligence. The formal constituent
is the fundamental attribute that, according our knowledge, is first
ontologically speaking and of which every other attribute is derived.
The formal constituent of God is His subsistent being:
essence and existence are identified in Him. This perfect
feature is the origin of all others in him and it distinguishes his
essence from the essences of created beings as essence and existence
are different in the rest of beings. The divine attributes come out
from the formal constituent and can be ontological or operative.
The ontological attributes are features of His Being: some of
them can be directly derived from the constituent attribute (simplicity,
perfection, infinity, immutability and unity) and others are only
indirectly derived (kindness, immensity, omnipresence and eternity);
they all make God a transcendent being, completely different
from all the created beings and superior. The operative
attributes refer to His Acting and there are two types:
immanent actions (internal): to understand and to want, and
transitive actions (external): to be able. As understanding and
wanting are vital actions, God’s life is also an operative attribute.
On the other hand, God is free and has a will. The effects of divine
will are love and joy, and its virtues are justice, mercy and
liberality. The active power of God is displayed in three
fundamental ways: the creation, the conservation and the government
(providence).
IV.
THE CONCEPTION OF MAN
IV.1. The structure
of created reality
Aquinas starts off from the contingency of all
finite being. Things have not given themselves their own being:
neither their existence nor their essence, and this is indeed the
Metaphysical foundation for asserting the existence of God: the
radical contingency of all finite being demands the existence of a
being which could be a foundation for itself and for the rest of
reality, that is, God. All creatures are Metaphysically
made of essence and existence (they are contingent, limited); on
the contrary, the only necessary and infinite being, God, is the
reason of their existence. And He is the reason of the whole world
in an absolute sense (God creates the world starting off from
nothing) and not, as in Greek explanations, starting off from
some pre-existing reality (as the Demiurge of Plato). Saint Thomas
offers us a vision of creation as a hierarchically and pyramidal
reality. Created beings are composed, structured. Aquinas uses
Aristotelian concepts to talk about them: act and power, substance
and accidents, material and form, adding the original distinction
essence/existence (Metaphysical composition responsible for
their contingency). The hierarchical structure of beings of the
world is ordered depending on their level of simplicity and
proximity to the pure existence of God. Angels (compounds of
essence and existence) are on the peak of creation, and then come
men (whose substantial form is the soul, which is united with
material). Material world substances are a compound of
material and form. The man is the intersection point between the
merely corporeal and spiritual being. The "form" called soul can
exist independently of the body; however, the sensitive beings
-as animals- or purely vegetative -as plants- have a
corruptible form that cannot exist independently of the material.
The form of the inert beings and the form of the first
elements are the most imperfect ones. Still on an inferior
degree there are the accidental forms, which do not exist by
themselves -as substances- but in another being. And finally, in the
lowest degree, is the absolute potentiality of the raw material,
which is pure capacity of being.
IV.2.
The man, image of God
Much more than the rest of the natural beings,
but less than angels, the man reflects in his being certain
proportion with the divine being, locating between two worlds: made
up of material body and spiritual soul, the first one
ties him to the sensible world and the second to the spiritual world.
He is the most perfect being of the sensible world and the less
perfect in the level of the intellectual substances. Aquinas’s
conception of man resembles the Aristotelian point of view, but
acquires an specific character in combination with the Christian
thought: living beings have a realm of characteristic functions
different from the nonliving beings: to be born, to nourish
themselves, to grow, to reproduce, to move locally and to die, and
in superior degrees to feel, to think and to want. Saint Thomas
defines the soul as a principle of life and as the form of
a physical body which potentially has life. The soul is what
distinguishes the living beings from the nonliving beings.
Saint Thomas mentions the faculties: they
are the active powers of the soul and the principles of vital
functions. We should distinguish between corporeal and
incorporeal powers or faculties: the first ones require a
corporeal organ, whereas the second ones -as understanding and will-
don’t; they do operate from the essence of the soul where they
belong. Apart from the intellect, divided in
theoretical (which function is the knowledge of truth) and practical
(which function is the action), human soul holds other three kinds
of mental faculties: will or rational appetite, sensation
faculties (vision, hearing, etc.) and sensuality or sensible
appetite. Although Saint Thomas defends an anthropological
dualism, his position is not as radical as Plato’s as he
declares "man" is a conjunction of body and soul, and not solely
soul (Plato). He even argues that, as the body has been created by
God, we must love it as the consequence of our love for God.
IV.3. The man towards God
Man belongs to natural and supernatural orders,
but there is continuity between both. Thanks to the divine grace,
he reaches a perfection he couldn’t have reached by himself though,
on the other hand, all the spheres of the human activity should be
understood within their reference towards God; this tension towards
the transcendent order is particularly clear in three spheres of the
human being: knowledge, moral behaviour and social behaviour.
a) God as ultimate
object of knowledge: human being’s intellectual
vocation towards God is clear not only in the fact that theology is
the supreme science and constitutes the utmost perfection of our
intelligence but, basically, in the fact that knowledge tends to
truth and God is the supreme truth. Every human knowledge is
ultimately knowledge of God and every truth is somehow connected
with God: in the first place because God is its creator and is the
one who brings intelligibility to reality (without which there would
be no truth) and finally because we know God in everything else we
know as the world is the "physical revelation" of God. Anyway,
the supreme purpose of man is the vision of God in the other life,
that is to say, a purely intellectual and direct knowledge of Him.
b) God as ultimate
object of will: being and rightness are equivalent;
thus God, being the superior being, is also perfect and infinite
rightness. Moral life is ultimately guided towards beatitude.
Saint Thomas defends a teleological point of view: the whole
creation and every event of the universe have an aim. The
exceptional status of man comes from the fact that, apart from God
and the angels, he is the only being capable of being aware of his
aims and means. Man is the only being impelled to action by ideas of
good and right. The will naturally tends to good, will is that
tendency to good. But this search for the good would be a total
chaos without the guide of the reason, which tells us what’s good
and what’s wrong. Regarding God, the supreme Good, human’s will is
ruled by necessity laws: God necessarily moves our will. Regarding
less perfect goods, nevertheless, the will is free. That’s the
reason why ethic’s main interests are those less perfect and earthy
goods whose accomplishment allow man reaching God. In his theory of
the virtues, Aquinas follows Aristotle adding some elements of
the Christian perspective. The virtues are those habits
which allow the soul the better accomplishment of each aim. As the
soul have different parts, there will also be different kinds of
virtues: intellectual virtues or intellectual perfections (art,
prudence, intelligence, science and wisdom); moral virtues or
appetizing faculties perfections (emphasizing justice or will’s
perfection) and inferior appetizing perfections (strength
and temperance) which will always consist on achieving a medium
point between two vices, one by defect and the other by excess.
To these traditional Greek virtues Aquinas adds the supernatural
or theological virtues (faith, hope and charity) which specific
purpose is God and which are instilled on us by God, improving
human’s natural disposition to supernatural order.
c) Social behaviour towards God.
The law: once again,
Saint Thomas’s political doctrine is a synthesis of Aristotelian
policy and Christian beliefs. Man has a supernatural aim he must
try to achieve by his social actions and life in the State, although
he would only achieve them completely in the other life. The State
is a natural institution based on man’s nature. Man is a
political being who lives in community, which means there must
be a government who care for social welfare. Being indispensable for
human being, society and government are ultimately justified in God,
who created human nature. As the supernatural aim of man is
eternal beatitude, aim for which the Church is responsible, thus
the State, though independent, must come to indirectly depend on the
Church. Thus, the State must guide and legislate so that citizens
live virtuously and reach that aim: eternal salvation. The law
(which rests on reason and induces citizens to act) must be guided
towards the attainment of social welfare.
Saint Thomas distinguishes three
kinds of laws: natural, positive and eternal law. The natural law
guides and orders natural being’s actions towards their respective
aims. Aquinas uses the Greek notion of nature as intrinsic
dynamic principle which determines natural being’s behaviour, and
thus uses also the Greek idea that “naturalness” is the perfect
criterion for deciding right from wrong: natural is identified with
right while unnatural is identified with wrong. Regarding this point,
the main difference between Saint Thomas and Greek explanation is
natural inclinations ultimately rest on God for Aquinas, God
whose providence governs everything and gives them their specific
disposition in order to achieve their own perfection. The eternal
law involved in the nature of irrational beings passively and
necessarily determines their behaviour whereas on rational beings (man)
this eternal law rests on reason and is accomplished by a free will.
Strictly talking, natural law for Aquinas means moral law,
moral law he identifies with the human reason which distinguishes
right from wrong and orders consequently. The moral law is
natural and rational: rational because is dictated by reason;
natural because not only reason is natural, but it identifies the
best behaviour according our nature. The natural law involves the
fundamental rules that govern moral life, the first of which is "do
the right and avoid wrong", principle on which every other are based.
Since the natural law is based on human nature, and human nature is
a creation of God, the natural law is not conventional, but
immutable and universal.
The positive law is the law established by
the States, but it must be the expression of the natural law, and
therefore must not be conventional. Thus, those positive laws
opposed to natural laws are bad laws, and it is right if the
citizens refuse to fulfil them, whereas those according the natural
law are good and the citizens are forced to fulfil them. Legality
does not always agree with morality: if the politician promulgates a
law opposed to natural law and, therefore, opposed to the divine law,
it is morally right to rebel, though it is not legitimate.
The natural law has its origin in a universal order: the order of
the Universe, which is expression of the eternal law that rests on
the reason of God and from which derives the rest of laws. The
eternal law is eternal and immutable because its origin is God.
God orders all actions, human and not human, towards their aims.
Unlike Aristotle, for Saint Thomas rightness is founded on something
more transcendental than our nature: God.
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