Critique

Critique

Critique

In this section, we will address the problems inherent in Thomas’s epistemology. There are a number of significant and serious issues at stake for anyone who is concerned to affirm a biblical, Reformed epistemology. We will point to the foundational errors in Thomas in order to argue for a more consistently Christian approach to the problem of knowledge.

Reason and Revelation

In thinking about the relationship of reason to revelation, there are certain general principles that everyone would affirm. It is certainly the case that we must use our reasoning and empirical faculties in order to understand the central place of biblical revelation. There is no question that people, made in the image of God, normally come into this world with the ability to think about and experience the world that God has made and in which he rules. In that sense, there is a certain temporal priority to the use of reason and our senses that is presupposed in anything else that we affirm, know, and believe.

But temporal priority does not a principium make. Principia refer, not to the tools that all people have and use in their commitments, but to the content of those commitments. They are concerned, in the first place, not with how their knowledge or existence originates, but with what that knowledge or existence is. It is the content of the principia, not the tools used in their acquisition, that is centrally important.

When we think of categories like “reason” and “revelation,” then, we are not focusing on the same category. One is a tool we have and use; the other provides content for that tool. So, we want to focus, in the first place, not on the medium of knowledge and existence (such as the medium of reason, or of experience), but on its content. In that sense, principia are foundational in the content they contain, and that content is the foundation for everything else we know (cognoscendi) and are (essendi).

In this section of our critique, as we think about the principium cognoscendi, we will focus on the discussion of “Reason and Revelation” at the beginning of this chapter. That is, we will be specifically interested in Thomas’s notion of natural reason.

It might be tempting to think that by “natural reason,” Thomas means the reasoning faculty of the redeemed. If the new Gilsonian interpretation of Thomas were correct in its view that Thomas was exclusively concerned with theology, leaving no room for the autonomy of philosophy, then it might be the case that natural reason would have to be infused, in some way, with some kind of prevenient grace.

But this is one of the reasons why the Gilsonian view is highly suspect.⁴⁰ Thomas is clear that natural reason is that which is employed by the philosophers, especially Aristotle:

Having shown then that it is not futile to endeavour to prove the existence of God, we may proceed to set forth the reasons whereby both philosophers and Catholic doctors have proved that there is a God. In the first place we shall give the arguments by which Aristotle sets out to prove God’s existence.⁴¹

During the time of the Reformation, it became clear that this principium of the suitability and stability of natural reason had to be rejected. Richard Muller, whose extensive assessment of the continuities and discontinuities of Reformed theology relative to its medieval forebears is virtually without peer, has this to say about theological prolegomena in the early Reformation:

These early Reformed statements concerning theological presuppositions focus, virtually without exception, on the problem of the knowledge of God given the fact not only of human finitude but also of human sin. The critique leveled by the Reformation at medieval theological presuppositions added a soteriological dimension to the epistemological problem. Whereas the medieval doctors had assumed that the fall affected primarily the will and its affections and not the reason, the Reformers assumed also the fallenness of the rational faculty: a generalized or “pagan” natural theology, according to the Reformers, was not merely limited to nonsaving knowledge of God—it was also bound in idolatry. This view of the problem of knowledge is the single most important contribution of the early Reformed writers to the theological prolegomena of orthodox Protestantism. Indeed, it is the doctrinal issue that most forcibly presses the Protestant scholastics toward the modification of the medieval models for theological prolegomena.⁴²

In other words, what the medievals, including Thomas, neglected to incorporate in their theological system was the radical effect that sin has on the mind of fallen man. As Muller notes, the inclusion of a “soteriological dimension” in epistemological discussions is “virtually without exception” among the Reformers. The soteriological dimension of theological prolegomena required an antithesis between the knowledge of unbelievers and the knowledge of Christians.

What this means is that natural reason, infected as it is, through and through, with the ravages of sin, is wholly unable to come to proper conclusions with respect to God and his existence. The natural knowledge of God that is demonstrated by any and all pagan philosophies, as Muller notes, is “bound in idolatry,” in that the god it acknowledges is a god of its own imaginings, not the God of Christianity.

But what about Paul’s use of the philosophers in his Areopagus address in Acts 17? We saw above what Thomas thinks about this. That is, “Hence sacred doctrine makes use also of the authority of philosophers in those questions in which they were able to know the truth by natural reason, as Paul quotes a saying of Aratus: As some also of your own poets said: For we are also His offspring (Acts 17:28).”

The problem with Thomas’s assessment of this passage is that he fails to appreciate the way in which Paul uses the pagan quote. When the statement “For we also are his offspring” was first penned by Aratus, “his” referred to Zeus. Thus, it was a statement of idolatry. It was not, as Aquinas avers, the truth known by natural reason. It was a false statement. When the apostle Paul takes that false statement into his own discussion, he imports into the word “his” the biblical picture of God that he has just proclaimed to the Athenians (Acts 17:24–27). The reference of Paul’s pronoun “his,” in other words, is completely different from Aratus’s, and that substantial difference changes a false proposition into a true one.⁴³ For Paul, “his offspring” refers, not to Zeus, but to the God whom he has just proclaimed. Thus, Paul is not referring to philosophical truth in his address on Mars Hill. Instead, he is taking an idolatrous proposition, as a point of persuasion, and transforming it into a statement of the truth about God.

The “Light” of Reason?

There is another significant point with regard to Thomas’s understanding of natural reason that we must address. As we noted above, one of Thomas’s central reasons for ascribing universal commonality to natural reason lies in his understanding of John 1:9. Let’s quote Thomas’s assessment of John 1:9 again, before we look more closely at the passage:

However, if we bear in mind these distinctions and take “world” from the standpoint of its creation, and “enlighten” as referring to the light of natural reason, the statement of the Evangelist is beyond reproach. For all men coming into this visible world are enlightened by the light of natural knowledge through participating in this true light, which is the source of all the light of natural knowledge participated in by men.

Here Thomas was influenced by philosophical thinking, to the neglect of faithful biblical exposition. When we look closely at John 1:9 in its context, we will see that Thomas’s interpretation of it has no basis in the text itself.⁴⁴

In the prologue to his gospel, the apostle John refers, in two verses, to the Logos as “light.” In verse 4, he says, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” The question is whether the “light” of which John speaks in this verse is the light of redemption or of creation. In view of Thomas’s assessment, we also need to ask if John is referring specifically to the reasoning faculty of all people.

The clear indication of this passage is that the “light” here refers to the light that is applicable to man in God’s image, that is, to every person. One reason for this is that, in the previous three verses in the prologue, John has yet to introduce the specific activity of redemption as found in Christ. His immediate concern is the cosmic and universal activity of the Logos. So, if we would paraphrase verse 4, John is telling us that the Logos gave life to man. To man as well he gives light, and he gives light to each and every person. The life that he gives to man is light, in distinction to the life that he gives to everything else. Man’s life is the life of light, given by the Logos. This is probably why Thomas says that all men “participate” in the true light. However, this text has much more in view than some kind of universal “participation” in the Logos, or some amorphous reference to the “natural reason” that all people have.

The “life of light” that John introduces in verse 4 is explained more fully in verse 9. There John says, “The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.” In verse 9, John reiterates the point already made, that this Logos “was the true light” ⁴⁵ but he also notes that this Logos, who is the true light, was “coming into the world” In this latter phrase, the question, again, is whether John is referring to a universal cosmic activity of the Logos, as the one who was coming into the world, or whether the reference is to the Logos coming now as the incarnate Christ. The latter might seem to be the most obvious meaning, especially as John has just introduced the Baptist, who has come to announce the coming of the incarnate Logos (vv. 6–8). It seems natural to assume that the “coming into the world” in verse 9 refers to the fact that the Logos was in the process of coming as incarnate at the time of the Baptist’s ministry (cf. John 11:27).

But how then shall we understand the relative clause (i.e., “which gives light to everyone”— Is the “enlightening” of everyone by the Logos meant to be connected with the incarnate coming of the Logos, so that it is specifically redemptive, or does it refer to a more general, universal “enlightening”? And, if the latter, is it simply referring to a universal, natural reason?

We should first note, in response to this question, that the universality of John’s language in this verse is beyond question. Whatever John means by “enlightening everyone,” some account must be given of the universal application of the enlightening. It might be useful, before we offer our own account, to see how a couple of commentators have attempted to explain this passage.

Andreas Köstenberger, for example, following Raymond Brown, chooses this explanation:

As the “true light,” Jesus is here presented as the source of (spiritual) light. That light enlightens every person. . . . The present verse does not suggest universalism—the ultimate salvation of every person—for John does not speak of internal illumination in the sense of general revelation . . . but of external illumination in the sense of objective revelation requiring a response.⁴⁶

Köstenberger recognizes that John uses the language of a universal enlightening, but he refers it to “external illumination requiring a response,” which, not being internal, does not result in salvation for all persons. For Köstenberger, what John means when he says that the Logos “gives light to everyone” is that he is the spiritual light, objectively, for everyone. He does not, however, actually enlighten everyone savingly. In this, Köstenberger thinks John has redemption in view.

Herman Ridderbos, in another otherwise useful commentary on John’s gospel, thinks John means this in verse 9:

Because of [ Jesus’] uniqueness, it is also true of this light that it “enlightens every person” (cf. vs. 4b). This statement describes the light in its fullness and universality. It does not say that every individual is in fact enlightened by the light (cf. vss. 5, 10f.) but that by its coming into the world the light is for every human being that by which alone he or she can live (cf. 8:12).⁴⁷

Like Köstenberger, Ridderbos sees John’s use of “light” here as redemptive and objective. Instead of referring us to the universal activity of the Logos, verse 9, they both think, refers to Christ as the redemptive light of the world.

What is recognized by both of these commentators, as well, is the universality necessitated in the relative clause. There can be no question that John affirms that “everyone” is enlightened by the true light.

What is problematic in both of these commentaries, however, is that the full force of the verb “enlightens” seems to be muted or undermined, especially if John has redemption in view. John does not say that the light could enlighten everyone, nor does he say that the light remains external to us, in some kind of objective, redemptive way. He does not say that the light may or might enlighten everyone, or even that it will, perhaps in the near future, enlighten everyone. Rather, he clearly affirms here that the light enlightens everyone.

According to Geerhardus Vos, the use of this verb “clearly passes beyond the sphere of objective potentiality into that of subjective effectuation.”⁴⁸ In other words, since John says that the true light “enlightens everyone,” it must be the case that everyone is, in some way, enlightened. Are we now able to affirm Thomas’s notion of natural reason as taught in John’s prologue?

The flow of thought in verse 9 seems to be that this Logos of whom John has spoken so majestically, who is the one who is life and light for every person, is himself, at the time of the Baptist’s ministry, coming into the world. That is, the Logos is about to embark on a more specific, redemptive ministry in a way that has heretofore not been seen in the world. His “coming” is going to be a coming quite distinct from his universal presence and ministry in the world; it will be a new and different kind of “coming” into the world.

We see, then, a connection in verse 9 between the redemptive and the universal, or cosmic, aspects of the activity of the Logos. “In other words,” says Vos, “the purpose of the relative clause may well be to identify the redemptive light with the cosmical light.” Furthermore, says Vos,

If it be objected that such a specific reference to the φωτίζειν [enlightening] to natural revelation would have to be indicated in some way in order to be understood, we answer, that it is sufficiently indicated by the object πντα νθρωπον [everyone]. A light of which it is said that it enlightens every man, is thereby clearly enough characterized as the general light which is common to the world as such.⁴⁹

The most natural and obvious understanding of the relative clause, therefore, is that this true light actually, in terms of his subjective (not merely objective and potential) activity, enlightens everyone, even as the life which is in the Logos is the light of every person (vv. 4–5).

Thus, there is a universal, revelational activity attributed to the Logos, prior to and apart from his appearance as incarnate. Says Vos, “Here the Logos-revelation is actually mediated through the subjective life which man in dependence on the Logos possesses. The life here naturally produces the light. The meaning here is . . . that the life which man receives carries in itself and of itself kindles in him, the light of the knowledge of God.”⁵⁰

Here we have a direct refutation of any notion of “natural reason” that is thought to be taught in John. Instead, the universal, enlightening function of the Logos is a revealing function in which we all, by virtue of that activity, know God. We will return to this matter below. What is of supreme importance at this stage is to recognize that John 1:9, far from affirming some kind of generic light of “natural reason,” as Thomas would want, instead teaches us that the cosmic activity of the Logos is his universal revelation of the knowledge of God that is had by all people, everywhere.

This truth takes us to a critical assessment of the notion of self-evidence as it is discussed by Aquinas.

The Problem of Self-Evidence

We will remember, from our discussion of “The Problem of Self-Evidence” earlier in this chapter, that self-evidence, for Thomas, is centrally propositional. That which is self-evident in itself is so because the predicate is, in some essential way, contained in the subject; Aquinas’s example is “Man is an animal.” A proposition that is self-evident to us must first be self-evident in itself, but it must also be the case that the terms of the proposition are known by the subject. So, the knowledge of God cannot be self-evident to us because, since we are “unable to conceive mentally the selfsame thing which is God, that thing remains unknown in regard to us.”

Thus, also, according to Thomas, Anselm’s argument for the existence of God cannot be correct because (1) many people have the word “God” in mind, but think, for example, that the world is God (so God is not the greatest conceivable being), and (2) even if they did understand “God” to mean the greatest conceivable being, the existence of such an idea in the mind is no guarantee of its existence in reality.

Furthermore, says Aquinas, what we all naturally know is not God per se. Instead, we have general and universal notions in mind—such as happiness or goodness—which themselves are only a likeness of who God is; those notions cannot be equated with knowledge of God. Universal, “implicit” knowledge is of generalities only. For true knowledge of God, he says, we must reason to his existence by way of his effects.

It may be easier to recognize the central problem in Aquinas at this point. Our brief look at John 1:9 above showed that, from the beginning of the human race, the second person of the Trinity, the Logos, has been actively revealing the knowledge of God to each and every person. His “enlightening” activity has brought about true knowledge of God in all who are themselves the image of God.

We can support this reading of John’s prologue by turning to Paul’s account of general revelation in Romans 1:18–2:16. We can restrict our discussion here to verses 18–20, as those are referenced by Thomas.

As Scripture lays out the sinfulness of all people, both Jews and Greeks (cf. 3:9), it sets our universal rebellion against the backdrop of a universal knowledge of God:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Rom. 1:18–20)

Verse 18 announces the fact that God’s wrath is revealed and why that wrath is revealed. The cause of God’s wrath toward us is our unrighteous suppression of the truth. In other words, God’s wrath is revealed from heaven because, in our wickedness and unrighteousness (in Adam), we suppress (in our souls) that which we know to be true.⁵¹ Within the context of this general announcement, however, Paul knows that he has introduced two concepts, suppression and truth, that will need clarification. In verses 19–23 (and, to some extent, verse 25), Paul develops and amplifies these two concepts.⁵²

If we take verses 18–32 as a unit, we can see how Paul puts flesh on his (so far skeletal) notion of “truth” as he reiterates what he means by truth in verses 19, 20, 23, and 32 (with verse 25 repeating the notion of “the truth about God”). In each of these verses, Paul gives more specificity to the concept of truth mentioned in verse 18. We shall take these verses together in order to understand what Paul means by “the truth” that is suppressed.

In verse 19, Paul tells us that by “truth” he means “what is known about God.” The truth that is suppressed, therefore, is specifically truth about God.⁵³ The way in which we come to know this truth is twofold. We come to know it, in the first place, because it is evident (φανερόν) among us.⁵⁴ Paul will expand this idea in the next verse. Before that, however, he wants us to understand just how this truth, this knowledge of God, is evident, or clear, among us.

This is vitally important for our discussion of Thomas’s view of self-evidence. It is vitally important, as we will see, both because Scripture is concerned with God’s activity in revealing himself (more specifically, his wrath and his other “invisible attributes”), and, in tandem with that, because Paul wants to highlight the contrast between what God is doing in this revelation, on the one hand, and what we (in Adam) do with it, on the other.

So, Paul says immediately (even before he explains the sweeping scope of that which is evident among us) that God’s revelation is evident among us because God has made it evident to us.

We should be clear here about Scripture’s emphasis. What Paul is concerned to deny, in this context, is that we, in our sins, as covenant breakers in Adam, would ever, or could ever, produce or properly infer this knowledge of God in and of ourselves. Paul wants to make sure that we are not tempted to think that the truth of God, as evident among us, is evident because we have marshaled the right arguments or have set our minds in the proper direction to discover it. In this, Thomas has wholly misread and misunderstood what Scripture is arguing.

The point of the argument in this entire section of Romans is to remind us of the devastating effects that sin continues to have on our minds. The truth that we know, that we retain, possess, and suppress, therefore, is truth that is, fundamentally and essentially, given by God to us. God is the one who ensures that this truth will get through to us. It is his action, not ours, that guarantees our possession of this truth.

The truth that we all, as creatures, know and suppress is a truth about and of God himself. It is not, as Aquinas supposes, a generic idea of happiness or goodness or being. Even more specifically (v. 20), it is a truth concerning the “invisible attributes” (τ όρατα ατο) of God, which Paul further specifies as his eternal power (ΐδιος ατο δύναμις) and deity (θειότης).

What does Paul mean by this description? While it is perhaps not possible to be absolutely definitive, it seems that Charles Hodge is right in his assertion that what Paul has in mind here are “all the divine perfections.”⁵⁵ Had Paul wanted to limit his description or to be more specific, he would more likely have delineated just exactly what characteristics of God were known through creation.

This truth that we all know, then, is the truth of God’s existence, infinity, eternity, immutability, glory, wisdom, etc.⁵⁶ As Paul is developing this thought in verse 23, he speaks of this knowledge of God as “the glory of the immortal God.” It is this that we all know as creatures of God. It is this that God gives, and that we necessarily receive and have as knowledge, that comes to us by virtue of God’s own natural revelation (through the Logos).

There are two important aspects to this knowledge of God that are crucial to see. First, we should be clear about the context for this knowledge. It is not knowledge in the abstract of which Paul speaks. He is speaking here of a knowledge that ensues on the basis of a real relationship. It is not the kind of knowledge we might get through reading about someone or something in a book or in the newspaper. This is relational, covenantal knowledge. It is knowledge that comes to us because, as covenantal creatures of God, we are, always and everywhere, confronted with God himself through the things he has made. We are, even as we live in God’s world every day, set squarely before the face of the God who made us, and in whom we live, and move, and exist (Acts 17:28). This, then, is decidedly personal knowledge. It is knowledge of a person, of the triune, personal God, whom we have come to know by virtue of his constant and consistent revealing of himself to us.⁵⁷ This personal aspect of the knowledge of God that we have is made all the more prominent in verse 32:

Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

This verse serves as a transition between Paul’s exposition of God’s revelation in creation in chapter 1 and of the natural revelation of God’s law in chapter 2. Notice that Paul can affirm that those who are in Adam “know God’s righteous decree.” This knowledge of the righteous decree of God (τ δικαίωμα το θεο) is coterminous with the knowledge of God given in natural revelation. To know God by way of natural revelation, in the way that Scripture is affirming here, is to know (at least something of) what he requires of us. Along with the knowledge of God, in other words, comes the knowledge “that those who practice such things deserve to die.” Instead of repenting, however, we, in Adam, rejoice in our disobedience and attempt to gather together others who share in our rebellion. We become adept at celebrating sin and its practices.

Because this knowledge is a relational, covenantal knowledge, and because the relationship is between God and the sinner, he ensures that we all know that the violations of his law in which we willingly and happily participate are capital offenses; they place us under the penalty of death. Our knowledge of God is a responsible, covenantal knowledge that brings with it certain demands of obedience and a certain penalty of death—and we all know it.

Second, Paul emphasizes that this knowledge of God that we have, as given, is abundantly clear and understood (νοούμενα καθορται) (v. 20). There is no obscurity in God’s revelation.⁵⁸ It is not as though God masks himself in order to keep himself hidden from his human creatures.⁵⁹ The problem with the natural revelation of God—and on this we need to be as clear as possible—is not from God’s side, but from ours.⁶⁰

What we see, then, in the prologue to John’s gospel and in this section in Romans, is clear and unimpeachable biblical support for the antithesis of Thomas’s notion of self-evidence.

Recall from our discussion above that, at one point, Thomas notes a threefold knowledge of God. The first kind, he says, is “that by which he is known only in his effects, as if, insofar as someone knows being or something created, he has some sort of knowledge of God the creator and his creation of it” (emphasis added). This is indeed implicit or intuitive knowledge. But for Thomas it only includes generic notions of “being” or of “something created.” This kind of knowledge, for Thomas, is not true, personal, and specific knowledge of God.

Had Thomas seen the crux of Scripture’s explanation of general revelation, he would have noticed that his view of self-evidence requires revisions. These revisions would include a recognition that something can be self-evident to us without requiring propositional content in our minds. Scripture is not concerned, in these passages that affirm universal knowledge of God, to specify exactly how this knowledge of God is received or held in our minds. The fact that it is the backdrop for our universal condemnation, however, requires that such knowledge not necessarily be inferred knowledge. Paul’s argument is not that every person properly and intellectually processes God’s natural revelation, such that we all come to the same inferential and propositional conclusions about God. As a matter of fact, the argument is that we, in our sins, whenever we do process the truth that God gives, actually suppress, deny, pollute, and pervert the clear knowledge that is given by God (the Logos) through creation. In that way, the universal knowledge of God that all have must be seen as independent of our reasoning processes. It is, we could say, our very reasoning process, as it receives the true knowledge of God given, which is grounds for our condemnation.

To put the matter another way, Scripture’s point is that the existence of God is indeed self-evident, and it is self-evident to all people, everywhere, at all times. The reason that we don’t recognize what is so obviously known by us all is not that we are not privy to a proper demonstration of God’s existence. Instead, it is because we sinfully refuse to acknowledge what we know. We will not admit what we naturally acquire, as creatures made in God’s image, living in the world of his exhaustive and dynamic revelation to us, in all places and at all times, from the beginning of creation into eternity future.

Epistemology and Metaphysics

With this biblical picture now in view, we can begin to see that Thomas was correct, at least formally, when he argued for the inextricable link between epistemology and metaphysics. We will remember from our discussion above that Thomas’s notion of immediate knowledge and knowledge that is inferred on the basis of immediate knowledge, included, for its tenability, a particular understanding of the nature of the world. According to MacDonald, we saw that, for Thomas, “immediate, indemonstrable propositions express metaphysically immediate facts.”

What we see now from Scripture is that the “metaphysically immediate facts” in the world are themselves the revelation of God. This revelation gets through to each and every one of us—it has been “clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Rom. 1:20). So, the normal and natural condition of man would be to acknowledge what God has unconditionally given, that is, the knowledge of his character, and to acknowledge it as something that is immediately known by us. In other words, in antithesis to Thomas’s notion of self-evidence, we should recognize that, normally, the revelation of God, of which every fact consists, issues forth in our giving honor and praise to God (Rom. 1:21).

But, since the entrance of sin into the world, normal turned to abnormal. What we ought to do is traded for what we rebelliously want to do. And all we want to do, apart from redemption in Christ, is sin. Our sin causes us to suppress the truth that God gives to us through his creation.

Since, as MacDonald says of Thomas, “the structure of demonstration is isomorphic with the metaphysical structure of reality,” we should see the inextricable link between the knowledge of God that comes through each and every fact of creation, and the existence of the one who has condescended to reveal himself to us. Because of this revelational activity of God, contra Aquinas, we do indeed have knowledge of God intrinsically. But our natural, sinful tendency is to work tirelessly to sever the link between the metaphysical and the epistemological. In that way, we try—in vain, to be sure—to know ourselves and our world without God. Apart from regeneration, we will never acknowledge the true God whom we all truly know.

Thomas desperately needed a closer exegetical consideration of John 1 and Romans 1. Instead, he paid closer attention to Aristotle and his Muslim followers. That attention rendered his foundations biblically untenable. He built his house of philosophical theology on sand, and no matter how ornate the rooms of such a house may be, unless they are removed from the sand and moved to the solid foundation of Scripture, they will crumble and fall.

The facts of this world are not, first of all, common and available for all to see in the same way. They are, at their core, God’s facts, and they continue to declare the glory of God, as God is present, revealing himself in and through them all.

Praeambula Fidei

With respect to the “preambles of the faith,” we can be brief in our critique. We have already noted that McInerny’s argument is convincing. The traditional Roman Catholic view of Thomas, mediated as it is by Cajetan, is the only one that is able adequately to include Thomas’s principium of “natural reason” within his philosophical theology. To argue, with the new view, that Thomas was affirming only a Christian philosophy, rather than a purely philosophical foundation to his theology, requires, at best, as McInerny shows, some confusing interpretations of what Thomas meant in his writings.

All told, however, it makes little difference to our critique and discussion whether the new view or the traditional view is correct. We will remember that McInerny’s primary target in criticizing the new view was Étienne Gilson.

In his penetrating and pointed critique of Gilson’s view of Thomism, Van Til rightly notes Gilson’s problems with a notion of “being” that is derived only from reason. Reason, apart from grace, can only deal with essences and not with existence. In order to deal properly with existence, Gilson argues, one needs the light of Exodus 3:14—“I Am Who I Am.” In other words, the relation of essence and existence, so central in Thomas’s metaphysical system, can be properly ascertained only by revelation.

Van Til recognizes Gilson’s argument, but he also sees the conundrum that such an argument presents. After quoting Gilson, Van Til says,

Taking over this philosophy of Aristotle, St. Thomas was bound, in consequence, to “translate all the problems concerning being from the language of essences into that of existences.” But could he do so without suppressing reason? Was it St. Thomas the theologian who, because of his faith, was able to make this transposition from the realm of abstract essences to that of existence? If it was, then no progress has been made in solving the problem of the relation of authority and reason. In fact the problem then seems to be more difficult than ever. For the god of Aristotle has then begun to appear to be quite different from the God of the Christian faith. Aristotle’s god, it is admitted, has not created the world and does not know the world. If such a god is the natural outcome of the activity of reason when it is not enlightened by faith does it not seem as though faith will have to reverse the decisions of reason with respect to God? A philosophy that deals with essences only would seem to resemble a merry-go-round hovering above reality but never touching it. Yet according to Rome, St. Thomas the Christian theologian need not at all ask St. Thomas the autonomous philosopher to reverse his decisions on the fundamental question about the existence of God.⁶¹

Here Van Til pinpoints the problem. The problem, both for the traditional view and for the new view, is that if there is a principial difference between what Aristotle was able to produce with respect to divine knowledge and what Christianity affirms about God, then how might the two principia be naturally and integrally related? Are they producing the same content, or is the content of one antithetical in any way to the content of the other?

According to Van Til, Gilson’s new view has no way of reconciling the problem of authority and reason. It has no way adequately to synthesize what “truth” Aristotle has produced with the truth of biblical revelation. To put it another way, if it is the case that Aristotle’s truth is able to deal with essences only, and not with existence, how might one merge essence and existence (as Thomas purports to do) when, as merged, one is in conflict with the other in Aristotle?

We can begin to answer this conundrum if we remember Richard Muller’s assessment above. The Reformers were clear about the necessity of including the deep and dire consequences of depravity in their theological prolegomena. Once that truth is understood, applied, and developed, we begin to see that there is no such thing, since the fall, as a “natural reason” that can produce true knowledge of the true God. The best that natural reason can do, since the fall, is to produce an idol, a god of our own imaginings.

This discussion leads us naturally to an assessment of Aquinas’s notion of apologetics and his proofs for the existence of God. Once we recognize what Thomas was arguing with respect to the God he purports to demonstrate, it will be necessary for us, as well, to look at Thomas’s understanding of who God is.

1. It should be noted that this is the typical order of (most) Reformed confessions. For example, the Westminster Confession of Faith begins with the doctrine of Scripture in chapter 1 and then moves to the doctrine of God in chapter 2.

2. Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Contra Gentiles of Saint Thomas Aquinas, trans. the English Dominican Fathers, 5 vols. (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, 1923–29), 1:4–5.

3. Ibid., 1:16.

4. Ibid., 1:7.

5. Aquinas, ST, I q.12 a.12 s.c.

6. Ibid., I q.12 a.12 resp. (emphasis original).

7. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John: Chapters 1–21, trans. Fabian R. Larcher and James A. Weishiepl (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press of America, 2010), 241.

8. Ibid., 27.

9. Ibid., 54–55.

10. Thomas Aquinas, On Love and Charity: Readings from the Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, trans. Peter A. Kwasniewski, Thomas Bolin, and Joseph Bolin (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008), 59–60.

11. Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, 1:21 (emphasis added).

12. Specifically, chapter 10 of the Summa contra gentiles, in book 1, is entitled, “Of the opinion of those who aver that it cannot be demonstrated that there is a God, since this is self-evident,” after which, in chapter 11, Thomas moves to a “Refutation of the foregoing opinion and solution of the aforesaid arguments.”

13. Aquinas, ST, I q.2 a.1.

14. Ibid., I q.2 a.1 resp. (emphasis added).

15. Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, 1:20.

16. The ascription “ontological” was Kant’s, not Anselm’s.

17. Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, 1:20.

18. Ibid., 1:21. See also Aquinas, ST, Ia.2.1.c. Here we see again Thomas’s affirmation of an implicit knowledge in man, but that knowledge is nothing but a vague notion of God’s likeness, e.g., “happiness.”

19. See, for example, Ernest Sosa, “The Raft and the Pyramid: Coherence versus Foundations in the Theory of Knowledge,” in Knowledge in Perspective: Selected Essays in Epistemology, ed. Ernest Sosa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 165–91.

20. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Posterior Analytics of Aristotle, trans. Fabian R. Larcher (Albany, NY: Magi Books, 1970), 17.

21. Suffice it to say at this point that, generally speaking, modern foundationalists seek to provide an epistemological structure without any reference to metaphysics.

22. Aquinas, Commentary on the Posterior Analytics of Aristotle, 21.

23. Scott MacDonald, “Theory of Knowledge,” in The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas, ed. Norman Kretzmann and Eleonore Stump (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 172.

24. Ibid. (emphasis added).

25. Ibid., 170 (emphasis added).

26. Ibid.

27. Ibid. (emphasis added).

28. “Preambles of faith.” These are thought, by traditional Thomists, to be philosophical principles that are necessary for the rationality of the Christian faith.

29. To be clear, Thomas recognized that one could believe by faith what one is able to know by natural reason. His point is not that philosophy is necessary for faith, but only that what philosophy could produce by natural reason forms the rational foundation for what is believed by faith.

30. The new view has gained many of its adherents since Vatican II. Specifically, de Lubac’s influence on John Paul II is unquestionable. See Andrew Dean Swafford, Nature and Grace: A New Approach to Thomistic Ressourcement (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2014). Swafford hopes for a via media of the two views through the dogmatic theology of Matthias Scheeben.

31. Ralph McInerny, Praeambula Fidei: Thomism and the God of the Philosophers (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2006), 32.

32. Speaking of this section of the ST, McInerny says, “This is why Thomists devote so much attention to it, and it is why theologians think they can make a name for themselves, both for genius and doctrine if, as generals attacking the enemy’s strongest fortification, they bring their heaviest artillery to bear on this part of the Summa.” Ibid., 42.

33. See ibid., 37–38 and ch. 2.

34. Aquinas, ST, I.q.2 a.2 ad 1 (emphasis added).

35. This is the sum of McInerny’s entire argument.

36. Aquinas, ST, I q.1 a.5 ad 2.

37. Ibid., I q.1 a.8 ad 2 (emphasis added).

38. Ibid., I q.1 a.1 ad 2 (emphases added).

39. For a more extended discussion of Thomas’s realism, see K. Scott Oliphint, “Bavinck’s Realism, the Logos Principle, and Sola Scriptura,” Westminster Theological Journal 72, 2 (2010): 359–90.

40. To be fair, there are Roman Catholic notions of grace that can be used to account for Thomas’s notion of natural reason. The debate between the traditionalists and the new view has in view whether, as in the traditional account, Thomas is arguing for “pure nature” as a foundation for (the Roman Catholic notion of) the grace of redemption.

41. Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, 1:23.

42. Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725, vol. 1, Prolegomena to Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 108 (emphasis added).

43. For a more extended discussion of Paul at Athens, see K. Scott Oliphint, Covenantal Apologetics: Principles and Practice in Defense of Our Faith (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013), ch. 3.

44. We will consider briefly the prologue of John since Thomas refers to it and since it has direct application to our critical concerns.

45. There is a question whether is the subject and the predicate, or whether the subject is supplied from the previous verses. Without rehearsing the details, we have chosen the latter, though the former is adopted by the ESV translation quoted.

46. Andreas J. Köstenberger, John, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 35–36.

47. Herman Ridderbos, The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 43.

48. Geerhardus Vos, “The Range of the Logos Title in the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel,” in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos, ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr. (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1980), 82. For a more extensive, nearly exhaustive, and helpful exposition of John’s prologue, consult this entire article.

49. Ibid.

50. Ibid., 76 (emphasis added).

51. The word translated “suppress” here is the participial form of the verb κατέχω. This verb can mean “suppress,” but it can also be translated “possess” or “retain.” While “suppress” is the best translation of this verb, given that the instrument of this activity is our unrighteousness, it seems likely as well that we should include, along with this suppression, the notions of retention and possession. Here there is, perhaps, a purposeful ambiguity, such that all aspects of this verb are meant to be included. Paul’s own analysis of suppression will necessarily include the fact that the truth that we suppress we nevertheless continue to retain and possess. See Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 103.

52. Verses 19 to 21 are to be seen as a part of the one declaration given in verse 18. Note the connections: διότι, v. 19; γάρ, v. 20; and διότι, v. 21.

53. As “truth,” we should emphasize here, Paul is speaking of something that is known. Paul’s use of γνωστός can be translated as “what is known” or “what can be known” (ESV). The former is the more common rendering, though some would see it as a redundancy when coupled with that which is clearly visible to us (cf. Moo, Romans, 103). It seems, however, that since Paul is concerned to explicate just what this “truth” is that we all already possess, the more common translation is more fitting. In that case, Paul is simply saying that what is (not “can be”) known, is, quite literally, right before our very eyes.

54. The preposition ν, usually translated “in,” is in verse 19 probably best translated as “among” (ESV: “to”). This does not, however, mean that there is no revelation of God in us, since God’s revelation is in all that he has made.

55. Charles Hodge, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Louis Kregel, 1882), 37.

56. As a matter of fact, it would be difficult to improve on the Westminster Larger Catechism’s description of God (Q/A 7) as an apt description of what we know by virtue of God’s natural revelation: “God is a Spirit, in and of himself infinite in being, glory, blessedness, and perfection; all-sufficient, eternal, unchangeable, incomprehensible, every where present, almighty, knowing all things, most wise, most holy, most just, most merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.” This does not, of course, mean that every individual knows each and every one of these characteristics of God at all times. What it does mean is that they are all revealed in and through creation, to all people, throughout all of history.

57. To be clear here, Paul does not say here that God’s triunity is known through natural revelation. What he does affirm is that true knowledge of God is given by God to all human creatures.

58. In one of his most brilliant essays, Van Til argues that the attributes that we apply to Scripture—i.e., necessity, authority, sufficiency, and perspicuity—should be applied as well to God’s natural revelation. We should understand natural revelation, therefore, to be perspicuous in that the information communicated by it is never fuzzy or otherwise obscured. This, of course, does not mean that natural revelation provides a sufficient knowledge of salvation. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, special revelation is needed for that. See Cornelius Van Til, “Nature and Scripture,” in The Infallible Word, ed. N. B. Stonehouse and Paul Woolley (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1978).

59. Of course, God is hidden in the sense that he is incomprehensible. Most discussions of God’s hiddenness in the (post?)modern philosophical context, however, center around the virtual obscurity, if not the nonexistence, of his revelation to us. See, for example, J. L. Schellenberg, Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), and Daniel Howard-Snyder and Paul K. Moser, Divine Hiddenness: New Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

60. For a more detailed exegetical account of this passage, see K. Scott Oliphint, “The Irrationality of Unbelief,” in Revelation and Reason: New Essays in Reformed Apologetics, ed. K. Scott Oliphint and Lane G. Tipton (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2007).

61. Cornelius Van Til, Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., ed. K. Scott Oliphint (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008), 155–56.

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