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Pope Benedict XVI- General Audiences |
General
Audience
On Aquinas, Philosophy and Theology
"Faith Protects Reason from Every Temptation to Mistrust its Own
Capacities"
H.H. Benedict XVI
June 16, 2010
www.zenit.org
Dear brothers and sisters,
Today I would like to continue a presentation of St. Thomas Aquinas, a
theologian of such value that the study of his thought was explicitly
recommended by the Second Vatican Council in two documents, the decree "Optatam
Totius," on formation for the priesthood, and the declaration "Gravissimum
Educationis," which deals with Christian education. However, already in
1880, Pope Leo XIII, who greatly esteemed [Thomas] and was a promoter of
Thomistic studies, wished to declare St. Thomas the patron of Catholic
schools and universities.
The main reason for this appreciation lies not only in the content of
his teaching, but also in the method he used, above all his new
synthesis and distinction between philosophy and theology. The Fathers
of the Church had found themselves faced with different philosophies of
a Platonic type, in which a complete vision of the world and of life was
presented, including the question of God and of religion. In confronting
these philosophies, they themselves elaborated a complete vision of
reality, starting from the faith and using elements of Platonism, to
respond to the essential questions of man. They called this vision,
based on biblical revelation and elaborated with a correct Platonism in
the light of faith, "our philosophy." The word "philosophy" was not,
therefore, the expression of a purely rational system and, as such,
different from faith, but it indicated a comprehensive vision of
reality, constructed in the light of faith, but made by and thought out
by reason; a vision that, it is true, went beyond the capacity proper to
reason, but that, as such, was also satisfying for it.
For St. Thomas the encounter with the pre-Christian philosophy of
Aristotle (who died around 322 B.C.) opened a new perspective.
Aristotelian philosophy was, obviously, a philosophy elaborated without
knowledge of the Old and the New Testament, an explanation of the world
without Revelation, by reason alone. And this consistent rationality was
convincing. Thus the old form of the Fathers' "our philosophy" no longer
worked. The relationship between philosophy and theology, between faith
and reason, had to be thought out again.
There existed a complete and convincing "philosophy" in itself, a
rationality preceding faith, and then "theology," thinking with the
faith and in the faith. The pressing question was this: Are the world of
rationality, philosophy thought out without Christ, and the world of
faith compatible? Or do they exclude one another?
There was no lack of elements that affirmed the incompatibility between
the two worlds, but St. Thomas was firmly convinced of their
compatibility -- more than that, that a philosophy elaborated without
the knowledge of Christ almost awaited the light of Jesus to be
complete. This was the great "surprise" of St. Thomas, which determined
his path as a thinker. To show this independence of philosophy and
theology and, at the same time, their reciprocal rationality was the
historic mission of the great teacher. And thus we can understand why,
in the 19th century, when an incompatibility between modern reason and
faith was forcefully declared, Pope Leo XIII indicated St. Thomas as the
guide in the dialogue between the one and the other.
In his theological work, St. Thomas presupposes and makes concrete this
rationality. Faith consolidates, integrates and enlightens the patrimony
of truth that human reason acquires. The trust that St. Thomas accords
to these two instruments of knowledge -- faith and reason -- can lead
back to the conviction that both proceed from the one source of all
truth, the divine Logos, which operates both in the realm of creation as
well as in that of redemption.
Together with the agreement between reason and faith, it must be
acknowledged that they make use of different cognitive procedures.
Reason accepts a truth on the strength of its intrinsic evidence,
indirect or immediate; faith, instead, accepts a truth based on the
authority of the Word of God who reveals himself. At the beginning of
his Summa Theologiae St. Thomas writes: "The order of the sciences is
twofold; some proceed from principles known through the natural light of
reason, such as mathematics, geometry and similar ones; others proceed
from principles known through a higher science: as perspective proceeds
from principles known through geometry and music from principles known
through mathematics. And in this way the sacred doctrine (namely,
theology) is a science because it proceeds from principles known through
the light of a higher science, namely, the science of God and of the
saints" (I, q. 1, a. 2).
This distinction ensures the autonomy both of human sciences as well as
of the theological sciences. However, this is not the equivalent of
separation, but implies rather a reciprocal and advantageous
collaboration. Faith, in fact, protects reason from every temptation to
mistrust its own capacities, it stimulates it to open to ever more vast
horizons, it keeps alive in it the search for foundations and, when
reason itself applies itself to the supernatural sphere of the
relationship between God and man, it enriches its work. According to St.
Thomas, for example, human reason can without a doubt attain to the
affirmation of the existence of one God, but only faith, which receives
divine Revelation, is able to attain to the mystery of the Love of God,
One and Triune.
On the other hand, it is not only faith that helps reason. Reason also,
with its means, can do something important for faith, rendering it a
threefold service that St. Thomas summarizes in the preface of his
commentary to Boethius' De Trinitate: "To demonstrate the foundations of
the faith; to explain through similarities the truth of the faith; to
refute the objections that are raised against the faith" (q. 2, a. 2).
The whole history of theology is, fundamentally, the exercise of this
effort from the intelligence, which shows the intelligibility of faith,
its internal articulation and harmony, its reasonableness and its
capacity to promote the good of man. The correction of theological
reasoning and its real cognitive meaning is based on the value of
theological language, which is, according to St. Thomas, primarily an
analogical language. The distance between God, the Creator, and the
being of his creatures is infinite; the dissimilarity is always greater
than the similarity (cf. DC 806). Despite this, in all the difference
between Creator and creature, there is an analogy between created being
and the being of the Creator, which enables us to speak with human words
about God.
St. Thomas based the doctrine of analogy, as well as his exquisitely
philosophical arguments, also on the fact that with Revelation, God
himself has spoken to us and has, therefore, authorized us to speak of
him. I consider it important to recall this doctrine. In fact, it helps
us to surmount some objections of contemporary atheism, which denies
that religious language is equipped with an objective meaning, and
maintains instead that it has only a subjective or simply emotional
value. This objection results from the fact that positivist thought is
convinced that man does not know being, but only the functions of
reality that are experienced. With St. Thomas and with the great
philosophical tradition, we are convinced that, in reality, man does not
only know the functions, object of the natural sciences, but he knows
something of being itself -- for example he knows the person, the you of
the other, and not only the physical or biological aspect of his being.
In the light of this teaching of St. Thomas, theology affirms that,
though limited, religious language is equipped with meaning -- because
we touch being -- as an arrow directed toward the reality it signifies.
This fundamental agreement between human reason and Christian faith is
recognized in another basic principle of Aquinas' thought: divine grace
does not annul but supposes and perfects human nature. Human nature, in
fact, even after sin, is not completely corrupt, but wounded and
weakened. Grace, lavished by God and communicated through the Mystery of
the Incarnate Word, is an absolutely free gift with which nature is
healed, strengthened and aided in the pursuit of happiness, the innate
desire in the heart of every man and every woman. All the faculties of
the human being are purified, transformed and elevated by divine grace.
An important application of this relation between nature and grace is
recognized in the moral theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, which is very
timely. At the center of his teaching in this field, he puts the new
law, which is the law of the Holy Spirit. With a profoundly evangelical
focus, he insists on the fact that this law is the grace of the Holy
Spirit given to all those who believe in Christ. To such grace is joined
the written and oral teaching of the doctrinal and moral truths,
transmitted by the Church. Stressing the fundamental role in moral life
of the Holy Spirit's action, of grace, from which the theological and
moral virtues flow, St. Thomas makes one understand that every Christian
can attain the lofty prospects of the "Sermon on the Mount" if he lives
an authentic relationship of faith in Christ, if he opens himself to the
action of his Holy Spirit. However -- Aquinas adds -- "even if grace is
more effective than nature, still nature is more essential for man"
(Summa Theologiae, Ia, q, 29, a. 3), due to which, in the Christian
moral perspective, there is a place for reason, which is capable of
discerning the natural moral law. Reason can recognize [this law]
considering what is good to do and what is good to avoid to obtain that
happiness which is in each one's heart, and which also imposes a
responsibility toward others and, hence, the search for the common good.
In other words, the virtues of man, theological and moral, are rooted in
human nature. Divine grace supports, sustains and drives the ethical
commitment but, on their own, according to St. Thomas, all men,
believers and non-believers, are called to recognize the exigencies of
human nature expressed in natural law and to be inspired in it in the
formulation of positive laws, that is, those issuing from the civil and
political authorities to regulate human coexistence.
When the natural law and the responsibility it implies are denied, the
way is opened dramatically to ethical relativism on the individual plane
and to the totalitarianism of the state on the political plane. The
defense of man's universal rights and the affirmation of the absolute
value of the dignity of the person postulate a foundation. Is not the
natural law precisely this foundation, with the non-negotiable values
that it indicates? The Venerable John Paul II wrote in his encyclical "Evangelium
Vitae" words that remain very timely: "It is therefore urgently
necessary, for the future of society and the development of a sound
democracy, to rediscover those essential and innate human and moral
values which flow from the very truth of the human being and express and
safeguard the dignity of the person: values which no individual, no
majority and no State can ever create, modify or destroy, but must only
acknowledge, respect and promote" (No. 71).
In conclusion, Thomas proposes to us a broad and trustworthy concept of
human reason: broad because it is not limited to the spaces of the
so-called empirical-scientific reason, but open to the whole being and
hence also to the fundamental and inalienable questions of human living;
and trustworthy because human reason, above all if it accepts the
inspirations of the Christian faith, is a promoter of a civilization
that recognizes the dignity of the person, the intangibility of his
rights and the strength of his duties. It is not surprising that the
doctrine about the dignity of the person, fundamental for the
recognition of the inviolability of man's rights, matured in realms of
thought that took up the legacy of St. Thomas Aquinas, who had a very
lofty concept of the human creature. He defined it, with his rigorously
philosophical language, as "that which is most perfect found in the
whole of nature, that is a subsistent subject in a rational nature"
(Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 29, a. 3).
The profundity of St. Thomas Aquinas' thought stems -- let us never
forget it -- from his lively faith and his fervent piety, which he
expressed in inspired prayers, such as this one in which he asks God:
"Grant me, I pray, a will that seeks you, a wisdom that finds you, a
life that pleases you, a perseverance that waits for you with trust and
a trust that in the end succeeds in possessing you."
[Translation by ZENIT]
[The Holy Father then greeted the people in several languages. In
English, he said:]
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Continuing our catechesis on the Christian culture of the Middle Ages,
we turn to the teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas, which the Church has
consistently upheld as a model of sound theological method. Thomas'
insistence on the harmony of faith and reason respected the autonomy and
complementarity of these two ways of knowing the truth which has its
ultimate origin in God's Word. Faith sheds fuller light on the truths
which reason is naturally capable of knowing, while drawing from
revelation a supernatural knowledge of the divine mysteries and the
Triune God himself. Reason for its part serves to demonstrate faith's
credibility, to defend its teaching, and to show its inner consistency
and intelligibility. The complementary relationship between faith and
reason reflects the truth that God's grace build on, elevates and
perfects human nature, which is thus enabled to pursue the felicity
which is its deepest desire. Thomas' conviction that we are naturally
able to acknowledge the principles of the natural moral law remains
timely, since that law, grounded in the truth of man's nature, is the
basis of respect for human dignity and universal human rights. Saint
Thomas is the patron of Catholic schools and universities; let us ask
him to obtain for all of us the wisdom and understanding born of a deep
and living Christian faith!
I am pleased to greet the English-speaking visitors present in today's
audience, especially the many parish and student groups. I offer a warm
welcome to all who have come from Hong Kong, Pakistan, the United
Kingdom and the United States of America. Upon all of you I invoke God's
blessings of joy and peace!
©Copyright 2010 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
[In Italian, he said:]
I greet, finally, young people, the sick and newlyweds. Dear young
people always draw from Christ present in the Eucharist the spiritual
food to advance along the way of sanctity; for you, dear sick people,
may Christ be the support and comfort in your trial and suffering; and
for you, dear newlyweds, may the sacrament which has rooted you in
Christ be the source that nourishes your daily love.
[Translation by ZENIT]
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