Chap. 1: The Contemporary Relevance of Aquinas
CHAP. 1: THE CONTEMPORARY RELEVANCE OF AQUINAS
CAN A SEVEN-HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD THINKER still be relevant today? Students of logic will recognize the implication of the question as the fallacy of "chronological snobbery." "New is true" and "old is mold," we are told. Logic informs us, however, that time has no necessary connection with truth. Or at least, if there were any kind of connection, then the time-honored thought ought generally to have the edge.
Traditional Evangelical Criticism
There has too long been a stylish reluctance among evangelicals to admit any allegiance to or dependence on Aquinas. After all, wasn't Aquinas Catholic, not Protestant? Didn’t his natural theology result from human reason, not a supernatural theology based on divine revelation? And didn't he hold an unorthodox Aristotelian view of Christianity as opposed to a more congenial Platonic philosophy, such as the Augustinian tradition preserved? Why should evangelicals be pro-Aquinas? Why should they borrow from a quasi-humanistic, heterodoxical, defender of Aristotle?
Many evangelicals answer these questions negatively. They join regularly in a harmonious chorus of "Ole Aquinas should be forgot and never brought to mind." A sample of some major evangelical thinkers will illustrate an almost universal disdain for the Angelic Doctor.
Widely read and highly regarded evangelical writer Francis Schaeffer blames Aquinas for the rise of modern humanism. He charges that Aquinas bifurcates faith and reason, giving autonomy to the latter. Further, Schaeffer claims that Aquinas denies the depravity of humankind, thus making perfectibility possible apart from God. In this way the stage was set for later humanists to affirm that reason alone is sufficient to resolve our dilemma. Aquinas's separation of faith and reason is an "incipient humanism" where "reason is made an absolute rather than a tool."1 Due to his wide influence in conservative Protestant circles, Schaeffer's position is taken as gospel by much of evangelicalism.
Reformed apologist Cornelius Van Til is scarcely more complimentary of the medieval saint from Aquino. Thomism, he believes, is based on the "autonomy of man." This, says Van Til, implies that man is "metaphysically distinct from 'god'." And if so, then "there is on this basis no genuine point of contact with the mind of the natural man at all." Further, "the revelation of a self-sufficient God can have no meaning for a mind that thinks of itself as ultimately autonomous." One of the problems that emerges from this autonomy of reason is "how it may be known that the God of reason and the God of faith are the same."2
Van Til describes Thomism as "a position half way between that of Christianity and that of paganism." Theistic arguments are invalid and, at any rate, do not lead to the "self-contained ontological trinity of Scripture." In fact, if we follow Thomistic apologetics, "then Christianity itself must be so reduced as to make it acceptable to the natural man."3 Van Til characterizes Aquinas's thought as a hybrid of "the pure staticism of Parmenides and a philosophy of the pure flux of Heraclitus with much the same appearance as is the Christ of modern dialectical Protestantism."4
Gordon Clark referred to Aquinas's thought as a "Christianized interpretation of Aristotelianism."5 He rejects Aquinas's arguments for God as "circular," purely "formal," "invalid," and "indefensible"6 because the skeptic David Hume and the agnostic Immanuel Kant gave irrefutable arguments against proofs for God. As for Aquinas's doctrine of analogous God-talk, Clark confidently declares it to be an "equivocation" based on a "fallacy."7
Edward. J. Carnell, former president of Fuller Seminary, yielded to the same temptation to stereotype and stigmatize Aquinas: "Thomas sets out to Christianize Aristotle's God." He, too, accepts the skepticism and agnosticism of Hume and Kant against theistic arguments. These arguments are all empirically based and "from flux only flux can come." Likewise, analogous God-talk is "sheer equivocation" that "makes God unknowable" and opens "the sluice gate . . . to [other] unknowables when one defends an 'unknown God.'"8
Noted evangelical theologian Carl F. H. Henry parrots the same type of criticism. Accepting the anti-theistic conclusions of Hume and Kant, he calls Aquinas's claims "extravagant" and built on a "debatable epistemology" whose conclusions are "hardly satisfactory." Furthermore, Aquinas's views are "betrayed also [by] a minimizing of the revelational insistence on the beclouding effect of sin in the life of man." In fact, Henry claims that "the acceptance of Thomism at the University of Paris after 1275 marks the real break from historic Christianity in the medieval Church."9
Former Wheaton College Philosopher Arthur Holmes was less than complimentary of Aquinas when he characterizes his view as an emphasis on "the unaided powers of human reason as to press towards a Cartesian position." Holmes also mistakenly represented Aquinas as believing that "natural philosophy can demonstrate the premises of revealed theology." Elsewhere he speaks of the "autonomous" nature of Aquinas's philosophy that "fell apart under the strain of history" when "Aristotelianism fell into disfavor."10 Holmes also characterizes Aquinas's view of God as "conceived abstractly as a metaphysical necessity, rather than showing himself concretely as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."11
On the seven-hundredth anniversary of Aquinas's death, Ronald Nash had perhaps the best opportunity to praise the relevance of Aquinas, but was reluctant to do so. He settled rather for a few general words of historical commendation, carefully qualified by theological criticism. These were based on alleged but unjustified assertions that the notorious problems of Thomistic philosophy were long ago exposed by Gordon Clark. Nash wrote, "There are two errors [Aristotelian empiricism and metaphysics] so significant that they render Aquinas's system beyond any hope of salvage."12
With the impressive authority of these evangelical leaders dominating the theological scene for the last generation, there was an almost universal reluctance among other scholars to say a positive word for the Angelic Doctor. There have been, of course, a few secret admirers of Aquinas among us who no doubt crept in unawares. These men have taken Thomistic positions in natural theology, but even so they are usually careful not to identify themselves as Thomists. John H. Gerstner, Stuart Hackett, R. C. Sproul, and Arvin Vos13 are noteworthy exceptions. There are also a few closet Thomists who borrow the arguments of Aquinas without frankly acknowledging their allegiance to him. When all is told, however, there is really a strong but too often silent minority among us who are directly dependent on Aquinas for our basic theology, philosophy, and/or apologetics."
However, times are changing. Many evangelicals have now joined the Thomistic ranks. As for myself, I gladly confess that the highest compliment that could be paid to me as a Christian philosopher and apologist is to call me "Thomistic." This, of course, does not mean I accept everything Aquinas wrote naively and uncritically. It does mean that I believe he was one of the greatest systematic minds the Christian church has ever had, and that I can see a lot farther standing on his shoulders than by attacking him in the back. No, I do not agree with everything he ever wrote. On the other hand, neither do I agree with everything I ever wrote. But seven hundred years from now no one will even recognize my name, while Aquinas's works will still be used with great profit.
The Irony of Evangelical Criticism
There is a certain irony and poetic justice involved in much of the criticism of Thomistic thought. Many theologians spend commendable effort via human reason and argumentation in order to establish their own view. This use of reason to argue for one's view of God would warm the heart of the Angelic Doctor. Indeed, even those who argue against rational theology for fideism have a kind of inverse natural theology of their own by virtue of the fact they are using human reason to convince others not to do so. Of course, much of evangelical thought is not very rich philosophically. But a poor man's philosophy is better than none at all. And in whatever sense we engage in systematic Christian thinking, we are in the broad sense of the term indebted to Aquinas.
What is even more ironic is that often evangelicals criticize Aquinas for holding a view he did not hold, while they unwittingly embrace the same view he did. Their views are often stereotypical distortions mediated through the teaching magisterium of our evangelical scholars. It is embarrassing to confess on behalf of our evangelical cause that it is still all too rare to find evangelical philosophers or apologists who really understand the views of Aquinas. As noted, many of them chastise Aquinas for views he never held. Perhaps first-hand and more sympathetic scholarship would have avoided this embarrassment to us. Others, like Schaeffer, make unsubstantiated claims, blaming Aquinas for the rise of modern secular humanism.
Several examples of evangelical misunderstanding of Aquinas will substantiate this point. There is wide agreement among evangelical scholars that the Thomistic view of analogy reduces to equivocation and skepticism. The reason given is that unless there is a univocal element in the analogy, we cannot be sure that language means the same thing when applied to God.15 And if there is a univocal element, then the language is not really analogical but univocal. What this criticism completely fails to understand is that Aquinas's doctrine of analogy allows the use of univocal concepts but denies that finite concepts can be applied in anything but an analogical way to an infinite Being (see Chap. 11). That is, Thomistic analogy is not a doctrine about the essential unitary meaning of a conception but, rather, refers to the essential analogical nature of a predication. Thomist’s have written massive works defending this thesis on an exegetical basis, but few evangelicals have read Garrigou-Lagrange, Etienne Gilson, Jacques Maritain, George Peter Klubertanz, Ralph McInerny, and Battista Mondin.16
Even worse, while criticizing Aquinas for applying finite concepts to God in less than a univocal way, there is scarcely an evangelical thinker who does not do the same thing. Who among us mortals has an infinite concept of the infinite God? Who would claim to have an unlimited knowledge of the Unlimited?17 But this is precisely what Aquinas means when he says that terms taken from our finite experience—which is the only kind of experience we finite beings have—cannot be applied to God in a univocal way. On the other hand, neither our colleagues nor Aquinas believe that there is a mere equivocal or totally different sense of certain terms as applied to both God and finite things. But if our language about God is neither totally the same (univocal) nor totally different (equivocal), then it must be similar but not identical, which is exactly what is meant by analogical predication. Why, then, do many evangelicals continue to criticize Aquinas when they hold the same basic position?
A second example will illustrate the irony of evangelical criticism of Aquinas. The Resurrection of Theism is one of the finest apologetic books ever produced by an evangelical who in many respects is a committed Thomist.18 Yet in it Stuart Hackett took Aquinas to task for having a tabula rasa (blank slate) empirical epistemology that does not account for the a priori element in 'mowers that would enable them to recognize truth when they see it.19 The insistence on an a priori element is well taken and Hackett is essentially right. Knower’s must have some a priori inclination to truth with which they are born or else they could never come to know truth. If people were born completely blank slates, they would never be able to know any more than a completely blank slate can. Unfortunately, Hackett wrongly assumes that Aquinas never allows for this a priori element in the knowing process. As a matter of fact, Aquinas speaks of an "innate cognition" of truth. Sometimes he calls this a priori element a "natural inclination" that is "divinely instilled in us by God." Elsewhere he refers to our minds as being "naturally endowed" with principles "not known by investigation" but "bestowed on us by nature"20 (see Chap. 6).
In fact, "there is nothing in the intellect that has not first been in the senses, except intellect itself."21 And there is within the intellect "preformed germs of which we have natural knowledge." In Aquinas's own words there is a "power of the soul" or "a form of nature," a "natural appetite" or inclination toward the truth that is not derived from sense experience but is the indispensable prerequisite of meaning and truth.22 Hackett is entirely right in defending this a priori element in the knowing process. But he is completely wrong in supposing Aquinas does not hold that there is an a priori, innate power or natural inclination to truth in us.
Cornelius Van Til, in a very frank summary of his own method in apologetics, castigates the "traditional method": "This method compromises God himself by maintaining that his existence is only 'possible' albeit 'highly probable,' rather than ontologically and 'rationally' necessary." Further, "it compromises the counsel of God by not understanding it as the only all-inclusive, ultimate 'cause' of whatever comes to pass." In addition, "it compromises the revelation of God by . . . compromising its authority. On the traditional position the Word of God's self-attesting characteristic, and therewith its authority, is secondary to the authority of reason and experience." We claim, therefore, that Christianity alone is reasonable for men to hold. It is wholly irrational to hold any other position than that of Christianity. Christianity alone does not slay reason on the altar of "chance". . . . The only "proof" of the Christian is that unless its truth is presupposed there is no possibility of "proving" anything at all.
Van Til also insists that we present the message and evidence for the Christian position as clearly as possible, "knowing that . . . the non-Christian will be able to understand in an intellectual sense the issues involved. In so doing, we shall, to a large extent, be telling him what he 'already knows' but seeks to suppress. This 'reminding' process provides a fertile ground for the Holy Spirit."
Finally, Van Til contends that "finite beings, by means of logic as such, [cannot] say what reality must be or cannot be." It is wrong that "man must be autonomous, 'logic' must be legislative as to the field of 'possibility' and possibility must be above God."23
What is so strange about this whole apologetic is how Thomistic it really is. Aquinas would heartily agree with virtually everything Van Til says. Aquinas would agree: (1) that speaking in the realm of being (metaphysics), logic is dependent on God and not God on logic;24 (2) that the existence of God is ontologically necessary;25 (3) that without God nothing could be either known or proven to be true;26 (4) that the basis for Christian truth is neither reason nor experience but the authority of God as expressed in Scripture;27 and (5) that there is a revelation of God in nature that depraved natural humankind is willfully repressing.28
Of course, it would be naive to assume Van Til was a Thomist in disguise. But he was far closer to Aquinas than he was willing to admit, probably because his understanding of Aquinas is more remote than he realizes. The basic difference between Van Til and Aquinas is that while they both agree ontologically that all truth depends on God, Van Til fails to fully appreciate the fact that finite people must ask epistemologically how we know this to be a fact. In short, Van Til confuses the order of being and the order of knowing. (A corollary difference is that Van Til holds a coherence view of truth and Aquinas a correspondence view.) If there is a theistic God, then surely everything Van Til said is true. But we cannot beg the whole question and merely assume or presuppose the theistic God of Christianity. Our presuppositions cannot be arbitrary, or our apologetics is merely an arbitrary way of begging the question. If, on the other hand, we argue, as Van Til implied that we should, that Christian theism is a rationally necessary position, then it is difficult to see on what rational grounds we could criticize Aquinas for providing rational support for it. What Aquinas would ask of Van Til's apologetical approach is this: How do you know the Christian position is true? If Van Til answered, "Because it is the only truly rational view," then perhaps the medieval saint would reply, "That is exactly what I believe. Welcome, dear brother, to the club of red-blooded rational theists."
Space does not permit the debunking of all evangelical myths about Aquinas, but several more significant ironies occur (see Chap. 4). Many of our colleagues will repeat with Tertullian vigor: "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What have the God of revelation and the God of reason in common? What concord is there between the God of Aquinas's demonstrations and the God of Abraham's revelations?" Then, oftentimes, scarcely more than a breath or two later, they will decry the Thomistic separation of faith and reason, when their very question implies an even more radical separation between the two domains.
Aquinas's answer as to how one identifies the God of revelation and reason is very clear. There is a formal distinction between faith and reason as procedures, but there is no actual bifurcation of them in the believer.29 The individual as philosopher can understand certain things about God via his natural revelation (Psa. 19; Acts 14, 17; Rom. 1-2). But the individual as believer in God's supernatural revelation has access to much more truth about God (see Chap. 8). We make similar distinctions today. A scientist who is a Christian says, "As a scientist I know that the moon is a celestial body that revolves around the earth about every 28 days and reflects the rays of the sun. But as a believer I know and accept that the moon was created by God and reflects his glory." But we would not say that this is a bifurcation in the scientist's functions, simply because he has used two different methods that yield different information about the same thing.
The Thomistic distinction between faith and reason is no more radical than this one (see Chap. 5). In fact, it is the evangelical fideists and quasi-fideists who make the radical separation between the God of revelation and the God of reason. They try to build an unspanable Kantian gulf between philosophy and theology, between God's revelation in nature and his revelation in Scripture. How can we identify the God of the cosmological argument and the God of the Judeo-Christian revelation?
Aquinas's answer to this question is deceptively simple: "And this we all understand to be God."30 Why do we all understand the Infinite Cause of all that exists to be God? Aquinas insists that there cannot be two infinitely perfect beings, both of which are the cause of all the finite things that exist.31 If there were two infinitely perfect beings, they would have to really differ to be really different. But if they really differed, one would have to possess some perfection that the other lacked. And if the other lacked this perfection, then it would not be infinitely perfect. Hence, it would not be God, since it lacked in perfection. It follows, then, that only one being can be absolutely perfect. But both the God of the cosmological argument and the God of Scripture are held to be infinitely perfect. Therefore, they must be one and the same God. So rather than maintaining an ultimate separation of the objects of faith and reason, such as quasi-fideistic evangelicals do, Thomism restores the ultimate unity between the God of the natural and the supernatural revelations.
Another interesting incongruity occurs in evangelical criticism of Thomistic thought. Very often the charge is leveled that Aquinas's faith in the Christian God is based on reason and evidence rather than on the authoritative revelation of God. Van Til speaks of this as "the authority of reason and experience." If all truth comes as a revelation from God, then God's authority, not human reason, is the ultimate basis for our belief in the Christian God.32 But here again Aquinas is in full agreement.
First, Aquinas strongly stresses that the truths of the Christian faith are above reason. While they are not contrary to reason, they are nonetheless unreachable by mere human reason and can only be known by way of supernatural revelation. But some Christian truth is above human reason and, therefore, cannot be based on human reasoning or experience.
Second, even the probable and historical type of evidence for Christianity cannot be used as the basis for belief.33 God alone is the basis for believing in God. The authoritative self-revelation of God is the only basis for Christian response. We may reason about and for God's revelation, but we must never use reason as a basis for accepting it. God should be believed for his own sake—for his Word's sake—and not for the sake of the evidence or reasons about him or his revelation. Faith should be placed in the God of the evidence and not in the evidence for God. This is not an incidental point for Aquinas; he goes to great length to make it clear. And yet the full force of his distinction is almost universally misunderstood in evangelical circles.
In point of fact, a proper understanding and application of this distinction can make a most significant contribution to contemporary apologetics. It can provide a needed mediation between opposing camps in evangelical apologetics. In the one camp are presuppositionalists, who claim that revelation must be accepted because it is God's revelation by faith and not because of any alleged rational proofs we may have for it. On the other side are the classical apologists, who insist that we have evidences for our faith that make it unnecessary to simply believe it on authority alone. Aquinas would agree with both groups and reconcile the difference as follows. There is no evidence, either rational or experiential, for believing in God. God's authoritative self-disclosures are the only basis for our belief in him. There are good reasons, however, for believing that the theistic God exists and that the Bible is his revelation." Of course, we do not believe in God because of (or based on) evidence. Rather, we believe in God because of who he is and because of the sovereign but worthy authority he possesses by virtue of his supreme Godhood.
On the other hand, it would be idolatrous for us to make a leap of faith toward, or make an ultimate commitment to, what is less than this sovereign and ultimately worthy God. We must possess good reasons and evidence for believing that it is this God we face before we believe in him for his own sake. Likewise, we must have reasons and evidence that the Bible is God's Word, as opposed to the Qur’an or the Book of Mormon, before we believe in the Bible as God's self-disclosed authority to us. Aquinas would argue that God must be believed in simply because he is God, and his revelations must be accepted simply because they come from his authority. That is the only adequate basis for Christian belief. On the other hand, he would agree that we must have good reasons for believing that there is a God and that the Bible is the Word of God, otherwise belief is without justification.
Aquinas and Evangelical Thought
There are numerous ways Aquinas can contribute to evangelical thought. We will only briefly mention some of these contributions here. The rest of this book will provide more detail.
First, Aquinas's view of the nature and interpretation of Scripture is helpful in the current debate on inerrancy and hermeneutics. While he strongly holds to the divine origin and inerrant nature of Scripture, nonetheless he has great appreciation of its human characteristics and profound understanding of the relation between its divine and human elements. In addition, Aquinas was a forerunner of the literal hermeneutic and was an astute exegete of Scripture (see Chap. 4).
Second, Aquinas can help us build a solid theistic basis for doing historical apologetics. It makes no sense to speak of miracles or interventions of God (e.g., the resurrection) that prove that Christ was the Son of God, unless we have first established that there is a God who makes it possible to count this event as a miracle. Theistic apologetics is the logical prerequisite of historical apologetics. Aquinas can help us do this foundational theistic work (see Chaps. 8 and 9).35
Third, Aquinas can provide a philosophical answer to the growing influence of the ‘finite god’ of process theology. There is no better philosophical system capable of answering the threat raised by process theology and defending the traditional theistic and biblical view of God as an eternal, unchanging, and absolutely perfect Being. Aquinas can give immeasurable help in responding to this growing movement of process thought that follows Alfred North Whitehead (see Chaps. 7, 8 and 9).36
Fourth, Thomistic analogy seems to be the only adequate answer to the problem of religious language (see Chap. 10). Without analogy there appears to be no way to avoid the sheer equivocation of skepticism (with its non-cognitive myths, parables, models, and bliks) or the linguistic idolatry of a univocal one-to-one correspondence between our finite ideas and the infinite mind of God. The middle road of analogy is one that was trod seven hundred years before us, and it still appears to be the best one. We can learn more about it from the scholastic sage.
Fifth, the value of Aquinas in overcoming the separation of the God of reason and of revelation has already been noted above. So too, we have already spoken of Aquinas's reconciliation of the role of reason and evidence with the authoritative revelations of God (see Chap. 5).
Sixth, Aquinas makes a major contribution in the area of epistemology. His answer to the age-old question of which elements in the knowing process are innate and which are acquired is both insightful and enduring. Without sacrificing its contact with the real world through the senses, he shows how it is possible to know eternal truths by human reason (see Chap. 6).
Seventh, Aquinas's answer to the relation of faith and reason is a surprising synthesis of the best elements of rationalism and existentialism. It preserves the sanctity of faith without sacrificing the necessity of reason (see Chap. 4). It stresses the need for faith without diminishing the importance of reason.
Finally, Aquinas addresses reconciliation of human freedom and divine sovereignty (see Chaps. 8 and 11), the nature of divine and human law (see Chap. 12), Parmenidean monism (see Chap. 7), and the problem of evil (see Chap. 11). On these issues, Aquinas adds significantly to a deeper understanding and better defense of the evangelical faith.
Overcoming Evangelical Antipathy
Before concluding this chapter, I wish to offer a proposal for overcoming some of the obstacles to a greater evangelical appreciation of Aquinas. First and foremost is the need for a first-hand reading of Aquinas. Few Thomistic critics are Thomistic scholars. One critic of Aquinas actually wrote out his criticisms of Aquinas and then asked his students to find citations from Aquinas that would support his conclusions. Most criticism of Aquinas is based on either stereotyped textbook scholasticism or second-hand evangelical pseudo scholarship. If these critics interpreted the Bible the way they approach Aquinas—through second-hand critical distortions—we would justly cry "Foul!" In order to appreciate Aquinas, we must read him firsthand for ourselves. It is not necessary to be a Latin scholar to do so. His basic writings are translated into English.
Second, it is well to remember that many of our great theistic apologists of the last two centuries—including William Paley, Joseph Butler, Frederick. R. Tennant, Robert Flint, Benjamin. B. Warfield, Charles Hodge, and C. S. Lewis—are to a large degree indebted to Aquinas. Let us not forget the friendly theistic hand of the saintly doctor that has fed us.
Third, as even Aquinas would readily admit, we need not accept all that he said on physics in order to learn from his metaphysics. Nor need we accept all he said about the church in order to learn from what he taught about God. Indeed, we need not be Catholics in order to learn from his theology. Indeed, Anglican Thomists like Eric Mascall, Jewish Thomists like Mortimer J. Adler, Reformed Thomists like John Gerstner, R.C. Sproul, Arvin Vos, and Baptist Thomists like Stuart Hackett are proof positive that this is not necessary.
Finally, a frank ecumenical confession of our prejudice would be commendable. In a Reformation zeal many have thrown out the Thomistic baby with the Romanistic bath water. My plea is this: the baby is alive and well. Let us take it to our evangelical bosom, bathe it in a biblically based theology, and nourish it to its full strength. As a mature evangelical, Aquinas is a more articulate defender of the faith than anyone in our midst.