Introduction
While it is often said that philosophy is the handmaiden of theology, some use this as an excuse to treat philosophy as optional. In the modern mind, the harmony of these two disciplines has fractured, even among advocates for the compatibility of faith and reason. On the contrary, Thomas Aquinas defends theology as a science precisely because it appropriates philosophy in a way that acknowledges the unity of all knowledge and the harmony of faith and reason.[1]
Aquinas’s work arose in a time of intellectual renewal in the twelfth century as the Latin West rediscovered Aristotle. The story of Aristotle’s rise, fall, and recovery is also the story of how the two separate paths of philosophy and theology converge into one. At the crossroads stands Thomas Aquinas, defending the unity of all knowledge and transforming systematic theology into a science. So the story of the transmission of Aristotle’s corpus is also the story of the birth and development of scholasticism.
I. The Loss and Recovery of Aristotle
Aristotle’s Missing Library
We know that Aristotle’s works were recovered in the twelfth century, but how were they lost and how were they recovered?[2] The loss of Aristotle began immediately after his death in 322 BC. Aristotle was born in 384 BC to the physician of King Amyntas III of Macedon. At age seventeen Aristotle attended Plato’s Academy in Athens and became his star pupil (c. 367 BC). Plato died twenty years later (c. 347), and Aristotle, age 37, traveled around the Aegean Sea to research biology with fellow academics, marry a princess, and father a daughter. In 343 BC, Philip II invited Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander (“the Great”). At age 50, Aristotle returned to Athens to found his own school, the Lyceum (c. 335 BC). He surrounded himself with a team of researchers studying philosophy, mathematics, logic, rhetoric, astronomy, and every other discipline. The Lyceum became the first research institute, and its library amassed an impressive collection of texts.
“While the Stoics saw the Logos as an impersonal transcendent creator, Philo introduced the Logos as the personal Jewish God, and John introduced Him as incarnate.”
Alexander the Great died in 323 BC, and anti-Macedonian sentiment arose in Athens. Aristotle fled, not wanting Athens “to sin twice against philosophy,” since Athens had executed Socrates seventy-five years earlier. Aristotle died of disease the following year, leaving his pupil Theophrastus (371–287) as his successor and head of the Lyceum. Theophrastus’s student, Demetrius of Phaleron, became advisor to Ptolemy I of Egypt and suggested that he build a library to imitate the Lyceum. Ptolemy’s plans were carried out by Ptolemy II, who built the famous Library of Alexandria. When Theophrastus died, Aristotle’s library did not pass to the next head of the Lyceum, but to Theophrastus’s nephew Neleus of Skepsis, one of Aristotle’s last surviving pupils. Neleus’s descendants claim he hid Aristotle’s works from being confiscated by King Eumenes II of Pergamon (197–160 BC), who built a library to rival Alexandria. Aristotle’s works were later returned to Athens where they were confiscated a century later by the Roman general Sulla when he sacked Athens (86 BC). Sulla moved the library’s contents to Rome to be published by Andronicus of Rhodes.
Meanwhile, Plato’s Academy was overrun by skepticism, and two other schools arose in Athens, started by Epicurus (341–270 BC) and the Stoic Zeno of Citium (334–262 BC). Fifty years after his death, Aristotle would not have recognized the intellectual culture of Athens. However, Plato’s Academy was re-founded in the second century BC to oppose skepticism, and Middle Platonism was born.
In Alexandria, Ptolemy II’s influence allowed scholarship to flourish, even among the Alexandrian Jews (see Acts 6:9, 18:24). He commissioned the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible, which later bore the influence of Greek philosophy. For example, The Wisdom of Solomon 8:7 lists Plato’s cardinal virtues: “If anyone loves righteousness, her labors are virtues; for she teaches temperance and prudence, justice and courage.” When Theophrastus met Jews in Alexandria, he said they were “philosophers by race”: “They converse with each other about the deity, and at night-time they make observations of the stars, gazing at them and calling on God by prayer.”[3]
The most famous Jewish philosopher of this time was the Middle Platonist Philo of Alexandria (25 BC–50 AD). He was the first to use Greek philosophy in theology. He used the Stoic conception of logos to describe the Mind of God. The Greek word logos originally meant only “word” until Heraclitus (c. 500 BC) extended it to include that which words represent—reason. Since intellect is the source of order, he saw the natural world as ordered by divine logos. The Stoics adopted the divine Logos as a fatalistic sovereign. As Stoicism became widespread in the Greco-Roman world, their conception of logos did too. Philo used the Stoic Logos to interpret the personification of wisdom in Proverbs, claiming Logos was the mind of God and part of a divine triad.[4]
Philo was an older contemporary of the Apostle John, who, like Philo, refers to the Logos as Creator in John 1. While the Stoics saw the Logos as an impersonal transcendent creator, Philo introduced the Logos as the personal Jewish God, and John introduced Him as incarnate. It seems that for the Stoics, “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” (Romans 1:19-20). When Paul talks to Stoics in Acts 17, he tells them that they can personally know “the unknown god,” and quotes the Stoic philosopher Aratus, saying, “We are indeed his offspring” (v. 28). Aratus and two of the heads of the Stoic school in Athens were also from Tarsus, Paul’s hometown.
Early Christianity and the Loss of Aristotle
The early church grew up in the Greco-Roman world, and many of its leaders were steeped in Greek philosophy. Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–215 AD), for example, adopted Philo’s Platonic hermeneutics by explaining away difficult passages of Scripture with allegory.[5] Allegorical interpretation would become common Christian practice for more than a thousand years. Clement was head of the Christian Catechetical School of Alexandria, which was founded by St. Mark the Evangelist.[6] He was succeeded by Origen (185–254 AD), who had studied under the Platonist Ammonius Saccas (c. 175–242 AD). Ammonius’s other famous student was Plotinus (c. 204–270 AD), the founder of Neoplatonism.
Plotinus and his student Porphyry (c. 234–305 AD) were perhaps the last philosophers with access to Aristotle’s complete corpus. Porphyry wrote an introduction to Aristotle’s Categories (Isagoge) and introduced Aristotle’s logic into Neoplatonic schools. Aristotle’s Categories and On Interpretation were translated into Latin by Gaius Marius Victorinus (290–364 AD), preserving their use in the West while the rest of Aristotle’s corpus fell out of use. Victorinus’s conversion to Christianity influenced the conversion of Augustine (354–430 AD), who drew heavily from Plotinus’s Neoplatonism in his Trinitarian theology.
Meanwhile, Christianity continued to use Aristotle’s logic. When the Nicene Creed says the Son is “of the same substance (homo-ousion) as the Father,” the councils of Nicaea (325 AD) and Constantinople (381 AD) were adapting Aristotle’s conception of substance(ousia) from his Categories. Not long after, Boethius (480–524 AD) prepared the way for scholasticism by using Aristotle’s logic in his On The Trinity and translating much of Aristotle’s work.
The exact date of the loss of Aristotle’s corpus is uncertain. We know that Augustine studied Aristotle’s Categories in his twenties in Carthage (c. 374 AD), but he does not refer to any other work.[7] Only 75 years earlier, Porphyry, also in North Africa, wrote commentaries on Aristotle’s work. After Plotinus and Porphyry, it is clear that only Categories and On Interpretation were widely circulated, thanks to the translations of Victorinus and Boethius. Despite their lives overlapping by three years, Boethius did not have access to as much of Aristotle as Simplicius of Cilicia (480–540 AD), who was educated by Ammonius in Alexandria and commented extensively on Aristotle.
By the fifth century, the East-West divide was strong enough to contribute to the loss of Aristotle. Use of the Greek language declined in the West, and Neoplatonism overshadowed Aristotelianism. The best estimate for when Aristotle’s corpus was lost is the third or fourth century: either following the life of Plotinus (c. 234–305 AD) or following Constantine’s relocating of the imperial capital to Constantinople in 330 AD. All of the Greek schools in Athens continued with fading influence until Emperor Justinian shut them down in 529 AD, because he declared the schools’ philosophy to be anti-Christian paganism.
“Scholasticism applied Aristotle’s logic to doctrinal dispute in order to demand dialectical proof based on careful argumentation. While doctrinal content was still more influenced by Platonism, theological method began to shift.”
The Birth of Scholasticism
While Aristotle’s corpus was absent in the West, a revival of learning took place that gave rise to scholasticism. In 787 AD, Charlemagne decreed that schools be established in abbeys across the empire.[8] The Irish Neoplatonist Johannes Scotus Eriugena (800–877) was invited to the capital, and his use of Aristotle’s logic caught on. Boethius and Eriugena paved the way for scholasticism, but Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) deserves the title “the father of scholasticism” for his extensive work uniting faith and reason.[9] Previous church Fathers developed a system for Christian philosophy based on Platonic thought, which leaned towards mysticism, allegorical interpretation, and spiritual intuition. Scholasticism applied Aristotle’s logic to doctrinal dispute in order to demand dialectical proof based on careful argumentation. While doctrinal content was still more influenced by Platonism, theological method began to shift.
In these dialectical debates, Anselm defended the existence of universals against Roscelin of Compiegne, whose nominalism denied that the three persons of the Trinity were one substance. Roscelin’s nominalism was also rejected by his student, Peter Abelard (1079–1142 AD), who used Aristotle’s logic to formally introduce the scholastic method of disputatio. In Sic et Non (Yes and No), Abelard presents the views of patristic authorities in opposition to each other, then presents his own view. Peter Lombard (1096–1160 AD) popularized Abelard’s method in his more extensive catalog of patristic authorities, The Sentences.[10]
The rise of scholasticism accelerated when the newly established University of Oxford (c. 1096) and University of Paris (c. 1150) adopted Lombard’s Sentences as a standard text and disputatio as their teaching method.[11] In disputatio, a lector would read a passage aloud, briefly explain its meaning, then address a series of questions that arose from the text. Lombard’s work inspired careful argumentation and conceptual analysis, though it was not yet recognizable as systematic theology. The recovery of Aristotle’s complete corpus in the West would change theology forever.
Recovery of Aristotle
The recovery of Aristotle’s corpus likely begins with the Arab conquest of Byzantine Syria in the seventh century. Muslim scholars gained access to many of Aristotle’s works, which had been preserved and translated into Arabic by Nestorian Christians. Aristotle came to dominate Muslim philosophy, which is exemplified in the most famous Muslim Scholastics Al-Farabi (870–951), Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (c. 980–1037), and Averroes (Ibn Rushd) (c. 1126–1198).
In 1085, a decade before the First Crusade, Muslim occupied Toledo fell to Christian Spain. Gerard of Cremona (1114–1187) visited Toledo and said that he was impressed by the “knowledge of each part of [philosophy]… which he did not find at all amongst the Latins.”[12] The translations of Aristotle and Muslim commentaries by Gerard, James of Venice, and others brought Aristotle back to the Latin West.[13] Its first significant impact was on Robert Grosseteste (1170–1253), who used Aristotle’s scientific method to become the father of experimental science.
“The reintroduction of Aristotle was tumultuous as theologians wrestled with how the philosophy of Aristotle would interact with the previous twelve centuries of Christian thought.”
The reintroduction of Aristotle was tumultuous as theologians wrestled with how the philosophy of Aristotle would interact with the previous twelve centuries of Christian thought. By 1230 AD, the Faculty of Arts at the 80-year old University of Paris were already hotly debating Nicomachean Ethics.[14] Some saw his denial of the immortality of the soul and other doctrines as incompatible with Christianity. In 1210, Aristotle was banned from Paris, but only five years later his Nicomachean Ethics was on the optional reading list.[15] By 1255, Aristotle’s corpus was compulsory reading, and it survived subsequent attempts at censure.[16] The greatest defense of Aristotle would come from a theological giant who would do for Aristotle what Augustine did for Plato, and his work would prompt Dante (1265–1321) to call Aristotle “the master of those who know.”[17]
Aquinas in Defense of Aristotle
While Oxford and Paris were debating Aristotle, the scholarly Franciscan and Dominican orders were founded and became established in the universities. In 1243, at age nineteen, Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) joined the Dominican Order against his family’s wishes. After studying at the University of Naples, where he first read Aristotle, and a short house-arrest by his family, he was sent to the University of Paris in 1245. He came under the tutelage of Albertus Magnus, who defended Aristotelian scientific method, though his theology was still Neoplatonic.[18] Thomas learned to appreciate Aristotle, and he took on the task of showing how Aristotle’s scientific method could transform theology.[19] In 1248, Albert was sent to Cologne, and Thomas followed him, turning down an offer by Pope Innocent IV to appoint him abbot of Monte Cassino. As a student, Thomas’s physical weight and introversion earned him the nickname “the dumb ox,” but Albert accurately predicted, “We call him the dumb ox, but in his teaching he will one day produce such a bellowing that it will be heard throughout the world.”[20] From 1252 to 1256, Thomas returned to Paris and studied to be a master in theology, and eventually become regent master.
Thomas left Paris in 1259 to teach in Italy. In 1265, he was appointed papal theologian in Rome where he wrote his apologetic work Summa contra Gentiles and began Summa Theologiæ. He returned to teaching in Paris from 1268 to 1272, until the Dominicans called him to establish a school in his home province in Italy. While celebrating mass in 1273, Thomas had a vision and ceased work on the Summa Theologiæ. His secretary, Reginald of Piperno, urged him to continue, but Thomas said, “Reginald, I cannot, because all that I have written seems like straw to me.” After Thomas’s death in 1274, Reginald and his colleagues completed the Summa by adding a supplement drawn from his other writings. Thomas Aquinas left behind a massive corpus of 8 million words, compared to Augustine’s 5 million. The Summa alone is 2 million words.
“While the last half of the twentieth century has seen Catholics divided on Aquinas, Protestants have displayed a renewed interest in him as central rather than ancillary.”
After Aquinas’s death, his writings came under attack by Franciscans, Avveroists, Bonaventurians, Scotists, and Ockhamists. Ralph McInerny says he “countered both the Averroistic interpretations of Aristotle and the Franciscan tendency to reject Greek philosophy. The result was a new modus vivendi [way of life] between faith and philosophy which survived until the rise of the new physics.”[21] In 1323, Aquinas was canonized by Pope John XXII who said, “There are as many miracles as articles of the Summa.” More recently the 1879 Aeterni Patris by Pope Leo XIII called Thomistic thought “the paladin of philosophy” against the modernist tradition, though Thomistic revival was shut down by Vatican II in 1962–65.[22] In 1998, John Paul II reaffirmed the importance of Aquinas in Fides et Ratio. While the last half of the twentieth century has seen Catholics divided on Aquinas, Protestants have displayed a renewed interest in him as central rather than ancillary.
What did Aquinas see in Aristotle that others around him did not? He had a vision that theology could use the tools of Aristotelian logic to pursue doctrine with the rigor of deductive reasoning and systematic analysis. Where Clement and Augustine employed Platonism for allegorical interpretation, Aquinas employed Aristotelian empiricism to demand evidence. He advocated the literal interpretation of Scripture and systematic theology.[23]
II. Theology as a Science
The history of the recovery of Aristotle paints the picture of how scholasticism came to maturity in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and specifically how Aquinas helped transform theology into a science. Aquinas’s effect on theology may be understood best by contrasting it with a Platonic approach to theology.
Platonic Hermeneutics Without Aristotle
Early attempts to synthesize Platonism with Christianity gave rise to gnosticism. A popular Platonic doctrine claims that the material world is a less dignified and distant reflection of what is most real. Gnosticism took this to mean matter was evil or that one’s licentious carnal life was disconnected from one’s philosophical life. This lack of integrity drove Augustine away from gnostic Manichaeism. Gnosticism (from gnosis, “knowledge”) gets its name from its claim that enlightenment comes by gaining secret knowledge from mystical experience. While orthodox Christianity attempted to filter Platonism through the Bible, it still had an adverse effect on biblical interpretation. Truth was seen as primarily beyond reason, distant, and accessible through mystical contemplation.
Early church contemplation was practiced through lectio divina. This process included reading Scripture (lectio), meditating on application (meditatio), prayerful response (oratio), and contemplative rest in God’s presence (contemplatio). This practice aims at immersing oneself in the text “in order to be transformed by it and thus advance on a road towards greater holiness.”[24] Lectio divina is actually a spiritual gem when used appropriately, but it emphasizes a mystical hermeneutic that encourages allegorical interpretation as exemplified in the devotional classics Journey of the Mind to God by Bonaventure, Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross, or Interior Castle by Teresa of Ávila. These works use heavy allegory with minimal Scripture and no exegesis. If ultimate truth was a distant reality, the goal in textual interpretation is to see the truer, more spiritual hidden meaning beyond the text. It is not hard to see its resemblance to gnosticism. Before Aquinas, “biblical exegetes operated in the intellectual context of Neoplatonism and sought, accordingly, to look for exemplar [allegorical] and final causality. The visible world and human history were viewed as symbols of spiritual realities known through illumination.”[25] Allegorical interpretation and mysticism would last well into the medieval church. If biblical truths were so mysterious, the church would be reluctant to let commoners read the words of God for themselves. As Nicholas Healy explains:
The visible surface of the text, its “literal sense,” was regarded as of secondary importance compared with its invisible depths, for it was in the latter [that] the true meaning of the text lay, through which one might ascend towards God. The monks thus tended to read through or around the literal meaning of the words in order to discern their more significant “spiritual” meaning.[26]
Allegorical interpretation was introduced by the Jewish philosopher and Middle Platonist Philo of Alexandria in his work Allegorical Interpretation. As he tried to harmonize the Torah with Platonism, he would explain difficult passages of scripture with allegory. What Philo did for Hellenistic Judaism, Clement—also from Alexandria—did for Christianity. Philo’s allegorical interpretation of Genesis was imitated by Clement of Alexandria, Basil of Caesarea, and Augustine. Augustine interprets Genesis 1:18, “Be fruitful and multiply,” as referring to fruitfulness of mind:
I do not see what objection there is to my thus interpreting the figurative words of your book. . . . If, therefore, we think of the natures of things not allegorically but literally, the word ‘increase and multiply’ applies to all creatures generated by seeds. But if we treat the text as figurative (which I prefer to think scripture intended . . .), then we find multitudes in the spiritual and physical creations (to which ‘heaven and earth’ refer); in both just and unjust souls (called ‘light and darkness’); in the holy authors through whom the law is ministered (called ‘the firmament’ established solidly between water and water); in the association of people filled with bitterness (‘the sea’); in the zeal of devoted souls (‘the dry land’); . . . in spiritual gifts which manifest themselves for edification (the ‘heavenly lights’); in affections disciplined through self-control (‘the living soul’).[27]
With such allegorizing, any interpretation is possible. Indeed, Augustine himself repeatedly claims that there is a “diversity of true views” and his was “perhaps only one out of the many true interpretations.”[28] With such eisegesis, one can easily allegorize the text in defense of one’s personal agenda. There is a long history of doing just that.
“If ultimate truth was a distant reality, the goal in textual interpretation is to see the truer, more spiritual hidden meaning beyond the text. It is not hard to see its resemblance to gnosticism.”
There is a time and place for appropriate allegorical interpretation. We all do this when we apply “deliver me from my enemies” (Psalm 59:1) to our hard circumstances or personal sin. We abuse allegory when we read “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13) as an unconditional promise for success. However, when interpretations differ, who is to judge which interpretation is based on textual evidence? How do we assess whether a doctrinal argument is deductively valid or fraught with logical fallacies? It is precisely these questions which the early church could not answer that scholasticism would attempt to address.
Aristotelian Logic & Scientific Method
Aristotle’s effect on biblical interpretation may be seen in his scientific method. Plato’s distrust of sensory observation led to his school being overrun by skepticism. This problem reappears throughout history when philosophers propose a Platonic epistemology where knowledge of the truth depends primarily on mysticism, intuition, or inner reflection.
By contrast, Aristotle says that knowledge begins with observation and that proof demands concrete evidence. As Aquinas says, we start with what is most well known to our senses and move to what is less well known.[29] Applied to hermeneutics, interpretations of the Bible demand textual evidence and difficult passages are interpreted with clearer ones. With his use of Aristotle, Aquinas defended the literal interpretation of Scripture. “Thomas’s position on the importance of the literal sense of Scripture puts him at odds with those who would see the text as merely a veil which had to be lifted in order to get at the inner and nobler spiritual message.”[30] When handling difficult passages, one does not need to resort to allegory but to an even more rigorous handling of Scripture.
Both Plato and Aristotle agree that knowledge is better than mere opinion. What Aristotle makes clear is that knowledge is justified true belief. His scientific method requires proper justification based in evidence and demonstrated through logically valid arguments.[31] When interpreting the Bible, interpretive claims must be justified by textual evidence and defended without logical fallacy. D.A. Carson’s Exegetical Fallacies (1996) is an exercise in Aristotelian logic, encouraging theologians to form valid arguments.
Aristotle’s logical method gives rise to scientific inquiry, which is why he is sometimes considered the father of science. According to Aristotle, a science is constituted by a subject, foundational principles, and demonstrated conclusions.[32] Knowledge starts with observation, so the first subject is the material world, and the first science is physics. Conclusions are drawn from premises, which may be the conclusions of prior arguments. This cannot go on forever, so there must be a set of first premises that are self-evident axioms. They are self-evident insofar as there are no more fundamental premises that exist, and so these starting points cannot be the conclusion of prior arguments. They are, however, provable with reductio ad absurdum arguments. The foundational principles of the first science, physics, are thus the self-evident axioms of logic: the law of identity, the law of non-contradiction, and the law of excluded middle.[33] Physics also depends on the principle of causality—all things have a cause (or explanation). Even God’s existence is said by Aristotle to be uncaused necessary existence. Aristotle identified four causes: formal cause, material cause, efficient cause, and final cause. Proofs in physics start from premises (either axioms or empirical data) and move to demonstrated conclusions. Conclusions become the principles or subject of the next science in a cumulative order of sciences. The basic order of the sciences is physics, mathematics, metaphysics. Physics can be further divided into astronomy, chemistry, biology, and so on.
From physics we can also learn about universals, essences, and God’s existence, which becomes the concern of metaphysics as it studies being itself.[34] Aristotle himself called metaphysics theology, and Aquinas called metaphysics natural theology to distinguish it from sacred theology (i.e. systematic theology).[35]
Theology as a Science
Since the sciences are cumulative, sacred theology is natural theology that includes the Bible in its foundational principles. There is really no difference between “secular philosophy” and “Christian philosophy.” Christian philosophy is either Christians doing philosophy or what systematic theology ought to be. Aquinas says that if a conclusion comes from human reason alone, it is philosophy; if it comes from reason and the Bible, it is sacred theology.[36] Theology is not parallel to philosophy but includes philosophy. Where modern theology does not use philosophy, it is handicapped. Without philosophy, theology risks losing its being systematic. It becomes unable to answer the most fundamental questions, often resulting in chronological snobbery, contradiction, or questioning long established orthodoxy.
How can sacred theology be considered a science? Aquinas answers:
I answer that, sacred doctrine is a science. We must bear in mind that there are two kinds of sciences. There are some which proceed from a principle known by the natural light of intelligence, such as arithmetic and geometry and the like. There are some which proceed from principles known by the light of a higher science: thus the science of perspective proceeds from principles established by geometry, and music from principles established by arithmetic. So it is that sacred doctrine is a science because it proceeds from principles established by the light of a higher science, namely, the science of God and the blessed. Hence, just as the musician accepts on authority the principles taught him by the mathematician, so sacred science is established on principles revealed by God.[37]
As theology includes the fruit of philosophy, it verifies the unity of all truth. Discussions of the unity of faith and reason become almost laughable. Faith steps in temporarily as grace helps us not suppress the truth, but faith will eventually pass into direct knowledge as we see God face-to-face in the beatific vision (Ro 1:18; 1 Cor 13:13; 2 Cor 5:7; Heb. 11:1; Rev. 22:4-5). Both faith and reason aim at knowledge of truth. As Aquinas says, “God never proposes through the Apostles and the prophets anything that is contrary to what reason indicates, although He does propose what exceeds the power of reason to comprehend.”[38] Seeing theology as subject to reason allows for rigorous doctrinal disputation. As William Carroll explains:
Such argumentation [of doctrinal disputation] is only possible because sacra doctrina is truly a science: it is an intellectual whole in which one can discover necessary connections amongst its parts, even though a recognition of the ultimate truth of revelation depends on faith. . . . For Thomas faith perfects reason, so sacra doctrina can perfect all other sciences. Such perfecting is not an elimination or destruction of these sciences; it is rather a recognition that human reason has limits to its scope. One of Thomas’s favorite phrases is applicable here: grace does not destroy nature but perfects it. . . . Sacra doctrina explores the new intelligibility of all reality as it is revealed by God, who is the beginning and the end. All knowledge based on reason alone can only provide an incomplete (but certainly not a false) view of reality.[39]
English Reformer Richard Hooker (1554–1600) says:
Even though Scripture says that it contains all things necessary for salvation, “all things” cannot be construed to mean absolutely “all things,” but all things of a certain kind, such as all things which we could not know by our natural reason. Scripture does indeed contain all these things. However, it also presupposes that we first know and are persuaded of certain rational first principles, and building on that, Scripture teaches us the rest.[40]
Thanks to Aquinas’s defense of theology as an Aristotelian science, allegory and mysticism gave way to literal interpretation and systematic theology. “Aquinas’s appropriation of Aristotle introduced a different perspective from which to examine God’s Word. For Aquinas, human knowing is not possible without sense and imagination. Efficient and formal causality receive greater recognition. The world and history take on their own value; they are not just symbolic of a higher realm.”[41] When philosophy is used properly in theology, it elevates theology to a science. It provides tools for developing systematic theology.
“If systematic theology is the result of treating theology as an Aristotelian science, we should not be surprised to see Aristotle’s fingerprints on doctrines of classical theism and Christian orthodoxy.”
Aristotle’s Theology
If systematic theology is the result of treating theology as an Aristotelian science, we should not be surprised to see Aristotle’s fingerprints on doctrines of classical theism and Christian orthodoxy. It may come as a surprise how much of Aristotle’s own theology influences how we articulate Christian doctrine.
Aristotle’s opening line in his work on theology, the Metaphysics, is “All men by nature desire to know,” and in the same section he clarifies that “all men suppose what is called wisdom to deal with the first causes.”[42] So humans are naturally fulfilled in seeking wisdom, which is knowledge of the first causes. He then goes on to prove the existence of the First Cause, or God: “Evidently there is a first principle, and the causes of things are neither an infinite series nor infinitely various in kind… if there is no first there is no cause at all.”[43] “The First Mover, then, of necessity exists; and in so far as it is necessary, it is good, and in this sense a first principle… without which the good is impossible, and that which cannot be otherwise but is absolutely necessary”[44]
Since all men by nature desire to know, and wisdom is in knowing causes, and God is the First Cause, or Unmoved Mover, then man’s fulfillment is found in knowing God.
“The activity of intellect, which is contemplative, seems both to be superior in worth and to aim at no end beyond itself, and to have its pleasure proper to itself… It follows that this will be the complete happiness of man… But such a life would be too high for man . . . but [we] must, so far as we can, make ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best thing in us; for even if we be small in bulk, much more does it in power and worth surpass everything.”[45]
For Aristotle, the complete happiness of man is found in contemplating God. Even though this is impossible for finite humans, we ought to “strain every nerve” attempting to know God. In the end, Aristotle wonders “If there is any gift of the gods to men, it is reasonable that happiness should be god-given, and most surely god-given of all human things inasmuch as it is the best.”[46] Aquinas comments on this passage saying, “It is reasonable that happiness be the gift of the supreme God . . . that the ultimate end, happiness, should come to man from the highest power of all, the supreme God.”[47] Aristotle certainly did not have the gospel, but he recognized God’s “invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature. . . ” (Romans 1:19-20).
Aristotle explains further that God is “immortal and eternal.”[48] God is a mind, but he is not merely a transcendent force, like logos of the Stoics. “Life also belongs to God, for the activity of thought is life . . . God’s essential actuality is life most good and eternal. We say therefore that God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belong to God; for this is God.”[49] In On The Heavens, Aristotle says God is “living the best and most self-sufficient of lives.”[50] For God, “It is clear then that there is neither place, nor void, nor time, [because he is] outside the skies. Hence whatever is there, is of such a nature as not to occupy any place, nor does time age it.” This is because “in the absence of natural body there is no movement,” i.e. God is immaterial. He is “immortal and divine” and “necessarily unchangeable.” Classical theism and Christian orthodoxy have much in debt to those who pioneered treating theology as an Aristotelian science.
Is Theology Still a Science Today?
The purpose of seeing theology as a science is to do theology well. For Aquinas, the theologian’s task is to preach faithfully and preserve orthodoxy: “Of these three offices, namely, to preach, to lecture, and to dispute, it is said in Titus 1:9, that he may be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to confute opponents.”[51] Good theology requires good reason, and philosophy provides the tools to approach theology systematically.
Biblicism is the result of keeping an Aristotelian emphasis on literal interpretation while losing Aristotelian methodology. Without the tools and questions philosophy provides, doctrines become compartmentalized, and fundamental questions are not even asked. Interpretation degrades into merely asking what the Bible says and not why. Theology loses its systematic coherence as theologians no longer understand the fundamental philosophical principles that knit the whole system together.
So what do we do now? To recover theology as a science, we need to stop treating sola scriptura as biblicism or chronological snobbery. It should be the case that new theology is better because it builds on the past. A biblicist hermeneutic neglects classical theism and is doomed to repeat old heresies. We need to not only renew an interest in the doctrines of classical theism but recover a scholastic method. If we appreciate Augustine and Anselm, do we imitate them? Do we just quote Calvin or do we imitate his ability to mine pagan philosophers for truth?
Theology today still bears the fruit of classical theism, but orthodox doctrines will dwindle if we do not maintain the scholastic method that gave birth to them. We must not treat theology as a collection of compartmentalized questions answered with a biblicist hermeneutic. We would do well instead, as we ask our deepest questions about God, to draw from the tools of philosophy, and treat theology as a science.
Tim L. Jacobs is Chief Administrative Officer at The Davenant Institute and Adjunct Professor at Gateway Seminary. He is co-author of Four Views on Christian Metaphysics and contributor to Lexham Bible Dictionary and The Jonathan Edwards Encyclopedia. His articles have appeared in Credo Magazine, Ad Fontes, Lex Naturalis, and others. He holds an M.Div. and Th.M. from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and is a PhD candidate at the University of St. Thomas, Houston.
[1] This article is revised from a paper given at the 2022 Davenant Convivium, “Theology as a Science: Aquinas on How Philosophy Transforms Theology.”
[2] See David Knowles, The Evolution of Medieval Thought (London: Longmans, 1962), 185–192; Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, Jan Pinbor, eds., The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy from the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism 1100–1600 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 55–64;
[3] Quoted in Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, 40.3.1–3.
[4] Philo, De Cherubim 1.27-28.
[5] David Dawson, Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992), 18.
[6] Jerome, De Viris Illustribus (On Illustrious Men), sections 8 & 11.
[7] Augustine says, “What good did it do me that at the age of twenty there came into my hands a work of Aristotle which they call the Ten Categories?” Confessions 4.28, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).
[8] Colish, Marcia L., Medieval Foundations of the Western Intellectual Tradition, 400–1400 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 66–67.
[9] Paul Schaff, Mediaeval Christianity, vol. IV of History of the Christian Church (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), § 176, “Johannes Scotus Erigena.”
[10] Joseph Koterski, “On the Aristotelian Heritage of John of Damascus,” In The Failure of Modernism: The Cartesian Legacy and Contemporary Pluralism, ed. Brendan Sweetman (Washington, D.C.: The American Maritain Association and Catholic University of America Press, 1999), 67.
[11] William E. Carroll, “Thomas Aquinas on Science, Sacra Doctrina, and Creation,” vol. 1, Nature and Scripture in the Abrahamic Religions: Up to 1700, ed. Jitse M. van der Meer (Danvers: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2008), 219.
[12] Charles Burnett, “The Coherence of the Arabic-Latin Translation Program in Toledo in the Twelfth Century.” Science in Context (2001), 14 (1–2): 249–288.
[13] Robert Pasnau, “The Latin Aristotle,” in the Oxford Handbook of Aristotle, ed. Christopher Shields (OUP: 2012), 666. Available at https://spot.colorado.edu/~pasnau/inprint/pasnau.latinaristotle.pdf.
[14] Valeria A. Buffon, “The Structure of the Soul, Intellectual Virtues, and the Ethical Ideal of Masters of Arts in Early Commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics,” in Virtue Ethics in the Middle Ages: Commentaries on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, 1200–1500, ed. Istvan P. Bejczy (Boston: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2008), 13.
[15] Aristotle and Averroist commentaries denied such doctrines as God as a passive unmoved mover, that there is numerical one intellect for all humans, that the separated soul cannot suffer from bodily fire, that God cannot grant immortality to mortals, that God cannot know singulars, that human acts are not ruled by Providence, and more. Thijssen, Hans, “Condemnation of 1277”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/condemnation/>. See also Rubenstein, Richard E. Aristotle’s Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004), 215–217.
[16] Irene Zavattero, “Moral and Intellectual Virtues in the Earliest Latin Commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics,” In Virtue Ethics in the Middle Ages: Commentaries on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, 1200–1500, ed. Istvan P. Bejczy (Boston: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2008), 31.
[17] il maestro di color che sanno.
[18] McInerny, Ralph and John O’Callaghan, “Saint Thomas Aquinas”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/aquinas/>.
[19] Führer, Markus, “Albert the Great”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2022/entries/albert-great/>.
[20] Quoted in Eleonore Stump, Aquinas (New York: Routledge, 2003, 2007), 3.
[21] McInerny, Ralph and John O’Callaghan, “Saint Thomas Aquinas”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/aquinas/>.
[22] McInerny and O’Callaghan, “Saint Thomas Aquinas”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. .
[23] Carroll clarifies that Aquinas would not interpret the Bible literalistically: “Thomas was a firm adherent to the medieval [Augustinian] principle that ‘Scripture is the interpreter of Scripture.’ . . . As we can see in the first question of the Summa, Thomas would reject any kind of biblical literalism since, for him, the literal sense contains metaphors, similes, and other literary forms” (233).
[24] Carroll, 222.
[25] Carroll, 223.
[26] Nicholas M. Healy, “Introduction,” Aquinas on Scripture: An Introduction to His Biblical Commentaries. Ed. Thomas G. Weinandy, Daniel A. Keating, and John P. Yocum (London: T & T Clark, 2004), 7; quoted in Carroll, 222.
[27] Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), XIII.37.
[28] Augustine, Confessions, XII.41–43.
[29] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ 1.2.3.
[30] Carroll, 223.
[31] See Aristotle, Posterior Analytics I.1.
[32] Aristotle, Posterior Analytics 72a.; Rollen E. Houser, “Essence and Existence in Ibn SÍná,” in The Routledge Companion to Islamic Philosophy, eds. Richard C. Taylor and Luis Xavier López-Farjeat (London: Routledge, 2016), 213. Note that Ibn Sina is Avicenna. For more detail on the science of metaphysics and the order of the sciences, see John F. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2000).
[33] See Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ I.2.1.; Aristotle, Metaphysics IV.3.1005b23-24; IV.3.1005b19-20; V.6.1011b13-14; VII.17.1041a16–18; Topics, I.7.103a19-20; On Interpretation V.6.1011b13-14
[34] Aristotle, Metaphysics I.1-2; Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, “Prologue.”
[35] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics I.9; X.7; Physics VIII.6; Metaphysics II.2.
[36] Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ I.1.1.
[37] Aquinas, Summa Theolgiae I.1.2.
[38] Aquinas, Questions Disputatae De Veritate 14.10, ad 7; quoted in Carroll 229.
[39] Carroll, 230–231.
[40] Richard Hooker, Divine Law and Human Nature: Book I of Hooker’s Laws: A Modernization, trans. W. Bradford Littlejohn, Brian Marr, and Bradley Belschner (Davenant Press, 2017), 81.
[41] Matthew Lamb, “Introduction,” Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, Thomas Aquinas (Albany, NY: Magi Books, 1966), 6.
[42] Metaphysics I.1
[43] Metaphysics II.2.994a.
[44] Metaphysics XII.7.1072b10.
[45] Nicomachean Ethics X.7.1177b ff.
[46] Nicomachean Ethics I.9.1099b11
[47] Aquinas, Commentary on Nicomachean Ethics, bk I, Lecture 14.167.
[48] Aristotle, De Anima III.5.430a20 ff., In The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984).
[49] Metaphysics XII.7.1072b26 ff.
[50] On The Heavens I.9.
[51] Quoted in Ralph McInerny, ed. Thomas Aquinas: Selected Writings (London: Penguin Books, 1998), 15.