Chapter 1 laid out the obstacles to speaking intelligibly about God, and presented the non-contrastive direction we must take to mitigate such impediments, using Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart as our guides for this endeavor. Chapter 2 provided us with the proper context in which to interpret these two medieval masters, who lived in a world directed by their academic obligations and wholly permeated by their religious life. This chapter considers Aquinas’ Summa, specifically his first thirteen questions, as a pedagogical instrument for developing a non-contrastive appreciation of religious language-use. Following upon this exercise, Chapter 4 explores how Eckhart masters Aquinas’ lessons on speaking about God in a way that protects both the Creator’s transcendence from and immediacy to creatures, a conviction central to both Christianity’s doctrines and its religious forms of life.
As Chapter 1 indicated, because our language requires us to make comparisons and contrasts when describing relationships between things in the created universe, all speech about the Creator–creature relationship risks reducing the Creator God into another being in the universe—thus compromising the Creator’s unique distinction from creatures and ultimately diminishing a sense of God’s incomprehensible mystery. But more than just a perception of God’s incomprehensibility is at stake, so too is the spiritual journey of the human creature drawing back to its Creator. Our journey towards our Ground and Source depends on a transcendent God who is at the same time wholly immanent, present to us in a manner so intimate that every breath is sustained and permeated by God’s existence. Of course, a creature (including a human creature) is united with its Creator regardless of any awareness of its created purpose or any effort on its part—this claim is also central to the Christian faith. But belief in a distant God gives little motivation for the Christian forms of life to which Scripture calls us: “Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”1
These two commandments encompass both personal and communal dimensions of our faith journey, and by extension, the religious language that expresses it. The two forms of speech are inseparable in this process of faith seeking understanding. Loving God includes speaking to God in praise as well as petition; loving your neighbors includes speaking about God with the hope of guiding them towards God’s loving embrace.
Speaking to and about God not only expresses our hope and desire to be united with God, but is integral in moving towards that end; for, being united with God means, metaphorically speaking, “seeing God face to face,” or, more intimately, “knowing” God. Believers seek to know the One who draws them near; faith seeks to understand—or, in the words of the Song of Solomon (echoed by Augustine): “I will seek him whom my soul loves.”2 This “understanding” is not the cold data resulting from discursive logic, but the passionate disclosure between lover and beloved, articulated such that what is voiced only hints at the unvoiced depths of the relationship. Knowledge this immediate and personal can only be revealed verbally through poetical language, as this Song of Songs brilliantly illustrates:
O my dove … let me see your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet and your face is lovely.”3
The kind of knowledge expressed in these few Scriptural words is something far beyond discursive language. It speaks of a presence so intimate, yet strangely invisible, compelling ardent yearning in the one to whom that presence has been revealed to “see” (not incidentally, a verb often used synonymously with “understand”) that which lies out of reach. The author’s words communicate an awareness of something unseen but at the same time familiar, something of unfathomable beauty and worth, and the hope of someday being reunited with it; this is Augustine’s journey of the “restless heart.” Speaking to and about the beloved goes further than articulating this awareness, however; in some imperceptible way it brings the lover closer to the object of desire. The author of the Song proclaims to the one he seeks, “Your name is perfume poured out,” and implores her, “[d]raw me after you.”4 As Scripture witnesses, speaking the “name of God”5—that is, speaking to and about God—draws us ever nearer to our ultimate end: communion with our Source.
As the second chapter reveals, the Order of Preachers took the Scriptural commands to “love God with all your might” and “love your neighbor as yourself” to heart, dedicating their friars to drawing closer to God through contemplation and to drawing others closer to God though religious language, specifically through their preaching. For the Dominicans this practice of speech about God must go beyond the moral exhortations of earlier preachers; they must be grounded in Church doctrine, which expresses Christianity’s articles of faith revealed in Scripture. While Scripture, especially the accounts of Jesus Christ and the early Christian communities, provides practical examples of the Christian life, the articles of faith derived from Scripture provide precepts upon which those Christian forms of life are based; in other words, the doctrinal aspects of Christianity shape and inform the practical aspects, and vice versa. Therefore, the soteriological aim of preaching is ultimately directed by Scripture. And, since Scripture contains the Revelation of God and is the primary source for theology (speech about God), study of doctrine must be grounded in contemplation.
Study as contemplation is an endeavor (if it can be called that) graced through and through, from beginning to end. Scripture was the core of every aspect of the medieval Dominican friar’s life, including their academic life, and this was no less true for Aquinas and Eckhart than for any of their brothers. Since Scripture contains the Revelation of God—God’s self-communication—then it is considered (by those who hold it as authoritative) to be thoroughly graced, God’s gift to humankind. Therefore, we must not presume we can “think” our way to God, a belief that renders God to our bidding, rather than the other way around. If we can become “closer” to God through rumination or speech, it is only because we have first been invited and beckoned to do so by God, not because we have the natural intellectual powers to do so ourselves.6 “Contemplation,” as it is used in the context of faith, is not equated with discursive reasoning. Yet as the notion of “study” itself implies, contemplation is in no way separated from the intellectual process. The Dominican approach of study through contemplation grows out of the friar’s religious practice, thoroughly based on and guided by Scripture: silent prayer, divine liturgy, sacraments, acts of charity, preaching. This practice exercises the whole range of the Dominican’s intellectual pursuits, from the novice’s memorization of the Psalter to the conventual teacher’s scriptural exegesis and to the parish priest’s discerning of appropriate penance for confession. Thus the Dominican method of study as contemplation not only holds together the delicate balance and interrelatedness of “faith” and “reason,” but, as it will soon be shown, Aquinas re-articulates this relationship in a way that reveals Scripture to be the most appropriate and important source for doing theology.
Scriptural study was also integral to the medieval university curriculum, upon which the Dominicans built their own educational system, and the brightest students such as Aquinas and Eckhart were sent to the university with the expectation that they would master its curriculum as well as contribute to the order’s own. But, as Chapter 2 infers, the religious life and soteriological mission that bound the Dominican student was not necessarily presumed in the university study of theology (and it certainly is not today);7 therefore, reading Aquinas’ Summa from a purely “academic” approach to theology inevitably misses Aquinas’ true intention in writing it. Fully appreciating the Summa’s design requires considering the specifically religious/spiritual life in which Aquinas was engaged; the divine liturgy and hours spent in prayer and service to his order creates an underlying narrative in Aquinas’ work not necessarily obvious from a surface reading of it.
Like other university masters, Aquinas wrote and lectured on Scripture, but he was also bound to his order’s goal of teaching novices, preaching doctrine, and even hearing confessions. We can infer from this that in his Summa Aquinas did not mean simply to provide information about the nature and attributes of God, or arguments to prove the existence of God, because these pursuits would hold little meaning in light of the Dominican mission to lead others to salvation, understood ultimately as communion with God, or “beatific vision.” Even if it were possible to know “what God is” (which Aquinas explicitly asserts we cannot),8 then we would still need to answer the deeper existential questions of “who” God is to us, and “how” we are united to this Divine Existence—issues that make up the very story-line of Scripture itself: creation, sanctification, and redemption. Regardless of whom Aquinas wrote the Summa for—advanced university students, colleagues, or the true “beginners” in theology (the Dominican novice9)—we must be attentive to the implicit Scriptural narrative that underlies the Summa.
As introduced in Chapter 2, the Neoplatonic cycle of emanation and return is recognized today by many scholars to be the framework within which the Summa is written; in more specifically Christian terms, we could also say the Summa closely follows the Scriptural narrative of creation–sanctification–redemption. As Boyle discerns, Aquinas wished to place the issues treated by “practical” theology (for example, moral theology and sacraments) within their fuller theological context by framing them within the doctrine of God: creation on the one end and redemption on the other.10 In this way, the form of the Summa remains closely attached to the journey of the believer from her emanation out of God (being created) to her return back to God through the redemptive power of Jesus Christ.
The “narrative” Aquinas employs in the Summa leads student-readers through their own journey by exercising them in appropriately extending human language to the Divine, thus developing in future preachers and teachers skills in using language flexibly in order to draw others away from misconstruing the articles and doctrines of the Christian faith and towards knowing God. To avoid distorting the Christian message revealed in Scripture, the believer must appropriate a non-contrastive grasp of religious language, where our Creator God is neither compared to nor contrasted from the world, but is realized as its unique Source and Ground. The ultimate goal of this narrative is moving the believer from focusing on knowledge about God towards knowing God—an awareness that “speaking about God” goes beyond describing God to building a relationship with God. In Eckhart’s terminology, the preacher assists believers in “detachment” from false conceptions that hinder their spiritual journey.
This chapter examines a non-contrastive reading of I.1-13 of the Summa theologiae. This interpretation assumes that whatever Aquinas asserts about the existence, nature, or attributes of God intends to preserve the unique distinction of the Creator from creatures, and, in so doing, assists the reader in developing a highly nuanced skill in speaking about God that will help others in their faith journey. In order to accomplish this task, Aquinas must first distinguish the theology, sacred doctrine, having as its goal the salvation of souls from the theology, metaphysics, which conveys knowledge about God by demonstrating (to the extent possible through human reason) the existence and nature of God.
According to a non-contrastive approach, the material presented in Question 1 on the nature and language of theology is key to understanding the questions that follow it; for without this question it would be difficult to make the connection between speaking about God and coming to know God. In fact, without the first question, it is too easy to read the Prima pars as a work of metaphysics, or as descriptive information about God’s nature and existence. To make the connection between speaking about God and knowing God, Aquinas must first show that sacred doctrine is a scientia, a “way of knowing”; second, that it is a type of knowledge leading the believer forward and deeper in faith seeking understanding; and third, that sacred doctrine necessarily employs language—for example, found in Scripture—in a way that challenges our discursive modes of thinking and helps us transcend the limitations of human language when we speak about the Divine.
Ultimately, the role of Question 1 is to lay a foundation in the Summa for a non-contrastive grasp of religious language, in other words, on how to avoid contrasting or comparing words that refer to creatures with God. The source and narrative for this foundation is Scripture, providing the exemplar of analogical language-use, because it uses ordinary language—rocks, water, the bodily senses, human relations—in extraordinary ways to communicate God’s divine activity in human history as well as God’s incomprehensible presence and meaning to human life. Therefore the connection between theology and Scripture is imperative in setting readers on the correct track for doing the theology they will be called upon to do in their religious vocations—whether these vocations are specifically academic or pastoral.
After establishing the nature and language of theology as sacred doctrine, Aquinas begins the journey designed to lead the reader away from the temptation of trying to impart knowledge or facts about God—although apart from Question 1 and by outward appearances, the opposite may seem to be true, because Questions 2-26 treat God’s existence and divine attributes, the very material of metaphysics. For our purposes, Questions 1 through 13, where Aquinas explicitly treats “analogy,” a concept that has received considerable attention from scholars with regard to articulating the Creator–creature relationship, will be considered. The fundamental goal of using these thirteen questions is to show how Aquinas in fact takes us beyond conventional notions of analogy and develops the skill of analogical language-use, that is, of using language non-contrastively.
Although only the first few questions of the Summa will be considered, it is helpful to briefly note the arrangement of the Summa as a whole, because, guided by an implicit Scriptural (or exitus/reditus) narrative—creation–sanctification–redemption—the Summa continues the non-contrastive lesson introduced in its Prima pars. Questions 1-13 set the tone and direction for doctrinal and practical topics contained within the Summa. After these initial questions follow questions on the Divine operations (God’s knowledge, will, and power), the Trinity, creation, and creatures, and Divine government (control of things in the universe), topics which give the Summa the anterior of its doctrinal framework. The second part of the Summa concerns the human being’s movement towards God, the “practical” or moral content of the Summa; the third part discusses Christ “who, according to his humanity, is for us the way that leads toward God,”11 thus closing the theological circle (God as Creator, God as Redeemer) as well as the Scriptural narrative and cycle of emanation and return.
Having laid out the Summa’s arrangement, it seems appropriate to ask just what kind of a theological work it is. According to a non-contrastive interpretation (and according to Aquinas’ own words),12 the Summa is concerned with the theology of sacred doctrine, rooted in Scripture with soteriology as its goal. However, the Summa is not itself a work of sacred doctrine, because it employs many sources other than Scripture: the Church fathers, “pagan” philosophers, even non-Christian theologians (for example, Maimonides and Avicenna). In fact, on the face of it the Summa reads more like a philosophical treatise than a scriptural exegesis, especially because of Aquinas’ heavy use of Aristotle and metaphysical terms such as esse, essentia, action. But the Summa cannot be read strictly as a work of metaphysics either, because, as it will become clear, Aquinas tells us rather bluntly that metaphysics will not get us where we want to go; it cannot bring us closer to God, and, it cannot even do what it apparently claims to do: give us knowledge of what God is.
Given the Dominican emphasis on education laid out in Chapter 2 as well as Aquinas’ own preface, the Summa is rather best regarded as a pedagogical work, a tool for teaching skills needed for “doing” sacred doctrine. As Victor White observes, “St. Thomas’s own treatment and arrangement will be governed, not by the interests of the professional investigator … but … by the ordo disciplinae—the order of learning, pedagogical method.”13 However, ingeniously, metaphysics does play an important role for Aquinas in this aspiration. The “metaphysics” of the Summa is the content by which Aquinas brings about his pedagogical goal of developing the reader’s skill in religious language-use. Employing philosophy and all other sources at his disposal, and guided by an implicit Scriptural narrative, Aquinas assists the reader in making the essential connection between speaking about God and knowing God lying at the root of the believer’s journey of faith seeking understanding.
Aquinas states in the Summa’s prologue that he plans to “treat of whatever belongs to the Christian Religion, in such a way as may tend to the instruction of beginners.” He refers to the matter under consideration (“whatever belongs to the Christian Religion”) as “sacred science,” which in Question 1 he also calls “sacred doctrine.” Aquinas has a particular perspective of “science” as well as of “sacred doctrine” in mind, however, that he carefully lays out before proceeding further in presenting the contents of his instruction.
Aquinas takes what was at his time a conventional understanding of “science,” based upon translations of Aristotle circulating within the university and, inevitably, in his religious order as well (despite earlier bans on Aristotle’s natural philosophy).14 In order for “science” to include sacred doctrine, he must reinterpret Aristotle for his students, because Aristotle’s method does not include a Christian concept of revelation or faith.15 Aristotle’s God, the “unmoved mover” (received by Aquinas through Avicenna), while ultimately transcendent—that is, at the top of the chain of creation—is not also immanently present and therefore does not communicate or reveal itself to creation with the same immediacy and intimacy as does the Creator God of Scripture. Aristotle’s God is far removed from creation by a number of intermediaries while the Hebrew/Christian God creates all things directly. However, Aquinas does show how an Aristotelian notion of science may indeed include Revelation, and furthermore is well suited to assisting in the journey of faith seeking understanding.
In addition to explaining sacred doctrine as a science in a modified Aristotelian sense, Aquinas clarifies for his Dominican readers (or introduces to his non-Dominican readers) the nature, scope, and content of “sacred doctrine.” Aquinas’ particular interpretation of sacred doctrine is vital to his pedagogical aim, because sacred doctrine must make the connection between speaking about God and knowing God—for his Dominican reader, the connection between preaching and leading others to God. Aquinas goes about making this implicit connection through ten articles, moving from topics about the nature of theology as sacred doctrine to the language employed by this science (particularly through its primary source, Scripture):
1. Whether there is a need for a science outside of philosophy
2. Whether sacred doctrine is a science
3. Whether sacred doctrine is one science
4. Whether sacred doctrine is a practical science
5. Whether sacred doctrine is nobler than other sciences
6. Whether sacred doctrine is the same as Wisdom
7. Whether God is the object of sacred doctrine
8. Whether sacred doctrine is a matter of argument
9. Whether holy scripture should use metaphors
10. Whether a word in holy scripture may have several senses
Articles 1-8 deal with the scope, nature, and content of theology. The scope of theology depends upon what we want to get out of it: definitive knowledge about what God is or deepening of faith leading to salvation.16 Thus Aquinas qualifies two different “types” of theology, metaphysics and sacred doctrine. The nature of theology as sacred doctrine is leading others to salvation, and its content is everything relating to God, both doctrinally and practically.17 The scope of sacred doctrine, therefore, is much broader than that of metaphysics, and since sacred doctrine encompasses not only topics of the existence and attributes of God, but all things related to God, Aquinas chooses it as the theology with which the Summa is concerned; and so too it is theology as sacred doctrine more so than metaphysics that concerns this book. Articles 9 and 10 take up scriptural language and its relationship to sacred doctrine. The connection between theology and Scripture is not initially obvious from the list of articles Aquinas presents—there seems to be a break between Article 8 on the function of argument in sacred doctrine and Article 9, which switches from sacred doctrine to the use of metaphors in Scripture. In fact, some scholars contend that Aquinas uses “sacred doctrine” and “sacred scripture” interchangeably.18 However, the connection between theology and Scripture is established very early on in the question, because the scope, nature, and content of theology as sacred doctrine are determined by its primary authority and source: Scripture. This determination is grounded by the soteriological goal of sacred doctrine, as revealed through Scripture: the beatific vision, “knowing” God.19
Since this theology’s goal is ultimately soteriological, there must be an essential link between theology (speaking about God) as sacred doctrine and coming to know God. Aquinas ingeniously makes this connection by investigating theology as “science”—“science” understood not merely as a body of knowledge, but as a way or mode of knowing. However, the inclusion of sacred doctrine as a science raises several difficulties that Aquinas must overcome: first, other sciences employ discursive reasoning20 as their primary mode of knowing; yet, because of the element of Revelation (the reality of God disclosed through grace) inherent in sacred doctrine’s primary source, discursive reasoning always falls short of its theological goal. Second, language employed by Scripture includes metaphor and other poetical language, making clear and direct statements about God problematic at best. In effect, it seems that trying to put sacred doctrine into the category with other sciences is doomed to failure on the side of both faith and reason; since the object of a science is to lead inquirers to making true statements through the human intellectual process, “science” seems to be a poor apparatus for faith seeking understanding.
Aquinas is not hindered by these problems, however; instead he uses the difficulties to his advantage, transforming in the process our very perception of “science” itself, as well as the relationship of reason and faith. Essentially (if implicitly), Question 1 introduces us to the direction the theologian must take to do what “faith seeking understanding” demands: provide a way of knowing appropriate to its incomprehensible object.21 This “way” is by necessity non-contrastive—transcending yet encompassing discursive reasoning and the comparisons and contrasts that this mode of knowing employs. Three strategies in the first question help Aquinas establish the non-contrastive direction of the Summa: he affirms first, that theology as sacred doctrine is a science, and furthermore one that has salvation—beatific vision/knowing God—as its ultimate goal; second, that faith plays a critical role in the method of this sacred science (“faith seeking understanding”) not opposed to reason; and third, that sacred doctrine employs unique and fitting mode(s) of speaking about God of which holy Scripture is the exemplar. In the words of Marie-Dominique Chenu, “[f]aith has its dwelling within reason, and it is thus entitled to ‘theologize.’”22 Thus Scripture, as the original narrative of faith seeking understanding, is the constant source and inspiration for theology.
Question 1 opens with whether a doctrine of God is needed beyond philosophy. In response to the objection that everything concerned with being, even God, is treated within philosophy, Aquinas refers to the need for the unique type of knowledge given in holy Scripture:
It was necessary for man’s salvation that there should be a knowledge revealed by God, besides philosophical science built up by human reason. Firstly, indeed, because man is directed to God, as to an end that surpasses the grasp of his reason: The eye hath not seen, O God, besides Thee, what things Thou has prepared for them that wait for Thee (Isa. Lxvi.4). But the end must first be known by men who are to direct their thoughts and actions to the end. Hence it was necessary for the salvation of man that certain truths which exceed human reason should be made known to him by divine revelation.23
Here Aquinas emphasizes the essential Dominican objective: what matters is knowledge needed to direct others towards salvation, not simply information about God. For Aquinas, the theology that is part of philosophy, metaphysics, does not provide that knowledge. Yet there is still needed a teaching dealing with saving knowledge revealed in Scripture, and this is called “sacred doctrine.”
In drawing this distinction between philosophy (metaphysics) and Scripture (sacred doctrine), Aquinas implicitly raises the critical problem of reason versus faith—since we cannot reach the knowledge we need for salvation through reason (and even if we can get “part way” it would take much too long),24 then we must hold it by faith. But, given the apparent dichotomy between faith and reason, is it not futile to develop or pursue any doctrine of God?—should not reading Scripture itself be enough? It seems even from Aquinas’ own explanation above that the need for the type of knowledge (salvation) and the method of obtaining it (Revelation) creates a vicious circle leaving out the process of rational intellection and learning altogether.
The first article has raised a difficult problem for the teacher of theology: given that knowledge “above” reason is necessary, does sacred doctrine stand on the same footing with philosophy and other disciplines that a student is expected to master? Following upon the necessity of revealed knowledge, Aquinas’ second article considers whether sacred doctrine is, in fact, a science. From the first objection it seems evident it is not, because other sciences, like philosophy, “proceed from self-evident principles” whereas “sacred doctrine proceeds from articles of faith which are not self evident.”25 In other words, since sacred doctrine cannot proceed logically in the same manner as other disciplines—that is, from principles ascertained through the reasoning process (for example, deduction, where “from certain known things, other, unknown things are recognized”26)—then it cannot be a science. But Aquinas will declare in Article 5 that not only is sacred doctrine a science, but it is one more noble than other human sciences.27 In Article 2 he hints at sacred doctrine’s exalted position among the other disciplines by referring to Augustine: sacred doctrine is the only science whereby “saving faith is begotten, [and] nourished.”28
The question Aquinas does not ask, but assumes, in Article 2 is more interesting and relevant than whether sacred doctrine is a science: that is, why should we want it to be? For sacred doctrine does not have the same goal (obtaining knowledge about something) as the other disciplines. This question is not innocent, because it hints there are presumptions about what a science is that may prevent us (as well as it apparently did many of Aquinas’ own colleagues) from a faithful reading of the Summa. If this insinuation is true, Aquinas has his work cut out for him. For, whether sacred doctrine is a science strikes at the very heart of the process of faith seeking understanding. We want to understand the God that we seek. And as Preller reminds us: “[t]hat of which we cannot speak is that of which we cannot know. … In order to talk about something, we must be able to refer to it in a meaningful way.”29 If we cannot trust our reason in making such references to God, then how can we trust our faith, which seems much less certain, to do so? The question of sacred doctrine’s status as scientia anticipates the important relationship of faith and reason.
But before broaching the issue of faith’s relation to reason directly, we must first examine what lies behind the notions of “doctrine” and “science” Aquinas has raised: A doctrine of God beyond philosophy is necessary for salvation; furthermore, as Aquinas’ predecessors have advanced and as Aquinas will re-affirm a few articles later,30 this doctrine has a superior relationship with regard to the other disciplines or “sciences.” In these first two articles Aquinas has thrust us into the middle of the dilemma. And he has also given us a clue for finding our way through it. By emphasizing the soteriological dimension of theology in Article 1, he has told us that his concern is a Dominican one, and therefore we must approach the text as a Dominican would. As discussed in Chapter 2, the Order of Preachers carefully developed the already dynamic medieval method of pedagogy (lecture, repetition, disputation—and to this they added preaching), and they emphasized contemplation as their mode of study (prayer, liturgy, silence, and acts of charity). In this light, “doctrine” and “science” have added dimensions that must be recovered in order to perceive how Aquinas plans to proceed with this introduction in the Summa.
Although sensitivity to pluralism and diversity developing since the latter half of the twentieth century has certainly begun to change the pedagogy of academia, it is probably no exaggeration to say that in the West the university is still tainted with a rationalistic ideology. From this deeply ingrained perspective, to qualify as “knowledge” (as opposed to a matter of opinion, for example) a proposition or claim must be either “demonstrated” through scientific evidence or explained by discursive and syllogistic logic.31 Aquinas, however, shows us a different way, ironically using Aristotle, the philosopher often credited with bequeathing to us the very principles of syllogism, as his inspiration.
As Thomas Gilby observes, “doctrine” is derived from the Latin, docere, to teach.32 It has already been ascertained that the medieval method of teaching was a very active one, and for the Dominican, the entire person, including his or her spirituality, is involved in the learning process. For Aquinas, there is an intimate connection between the teacher and the student, and the process of learning is by no means a passive one. There are two ways of understanding the process of learning that Aquinas rejects: first, that knowledge comes from outside of a student and is received as if into an empty receptacle; second, that all knowledge is already in the student and is waiting to be unlocked or unfolded.33 Rather, Aquinas adheres to a third understanding of knowledge as potential. While knowledge must come from external sources, through sense experience, it is not imposed upon but actively received, interpreted, and assimilated by the student. The student is, in effect, transformed by knowledge as well as by the process of learning, and ultimately, through this process a bond or identity between the student and teacher is formed.34 This understanding of doctrine, where the teacher and the student are actively engaged, allows for the possibility that “sacred doctrine” may be a means of uniting the student (who is also by extension the believer) with the ultimate Teacher who is God.
Aquinas takes a similar approach when explicating how sacred doctrine is a science. His goal is to show not only that sacred doctrine is a science, but that it is one leading towards beatific vision—a union between the Supreme Teacher and the student of faith. “Science” must be understood as more than a body of knowledge obtained through demonstration. At the very least, Aquinas has something more organic in mind.35 As Victor White observes, “the second article asks: Utrum sacra doctrina sit scientia, whether this holy teaching is knowledge. This is sometimes read to mean, ‘Whether theology is a science.’ But this is not what is asked.”36 White implies that “science” in the modern sense carries a specific meaning for us that it does not for Aquinas. We are accustomed to associate “experiments” and “demonstration” with science. Aquinas uses the term scientia much more liberally to indicate a “way of knowing.”37 This connotation is not limited to discursive intellection, thereby opening the way for modes of knowing other than employed by metaphysics. In order for a science to include salvation as its goal and Scripture as its source, its mode of knowing must include Revelation (on the part of God, the Teacher) and faith (on the part of the human student/believer).
The objection raised in Article 2 is that in order for a doctrine to be a science, it must “proceed from self-evident principles.”38 Responding to this objection, Aquinas exposes and then dispels the underlying presumption that in order for a discipline to be a mode of knowing, it must proceed by way of “natural” reason, what is often referred to as “discursive” or “logical” reasoning. In fact, Aquinas observes, it is not the method of reasoning that qualifies a discipline as a science, nor the logic that can be abstracted from it, but its first principles, which may be—and often are—“borrowed” from a higher science. Regardless of whether first principles are “self-evident” (accessible through the reasoning process) or “borrowed” (assumed), they somehow illuminate the object of the discipline, thus allowing the object to be “known.”39 According to Eugene Rogers, “when Thomas writes that a science ‘proceeds from first principles,’ he is not remarking on its discursivity or its logic. He is remarking on its deep connectedness with a concrete object that gives rise to it.”40
Principles are not a set of propositions abstracted from some perceived internal logic of a science, but the reality that holds a discipline together, the formal unity that makes it “what it is,” and the creation of this unity involves a process. This understanding is thoroughly Aristotelian. “Both things and thoughts, for Aristotle, are on the way from something to something, and the whole journey hangs together”41 by virtue of its principles: “the beginning is a first principle (archê), the end is a final principle (telos), and the way in between is an inner principle, or form (morphê).”42 First principles are the “unitary beginnings (archai) that make both things and ideas work.”43
A discipline, then, is a science by virtue of the existing reality that underlies and inheres within it, not by virtue of our ability to discover that reality through the process of deduction or discursive thought.44 Thus sacred doctrine is more of a science, in an Aristotelian sense, than are other human disciplines, because the reality out of which it arises (and the object to which it aspires) is God. Since a “discipline counts the more as an Aristotelian science the more it attends and returns to its first principles,”45 and sacred doctrine borrows its principles from the highest “science”—God’s self-knowledge—then sacred doctrine is a higher or more noble science than metaphysics, which according to the objection raised in Article 1 presupposes its principles are self-evident, demonstrable through the process of reasoning (for example, proofs of God’s existence).
In employing Aristotle’s notion of “first principles” Aquinas goes further, however, than showing sacred doctrine to be a higher science than metaphysics; he “co-opts” Aristotle to re-orient his readers to a different type of “knowing” calling for a distinct pedagogy: first, there exists a profound relationship between the knowing subject and the object (the reality) the knower seeks; and second, the knower does not simply obtain knowledge, but goes through a process ultimately transformative in bringing the two together.46 In terms of sacred doctrine, the “concrete object” giving rise to the principles of sacred doctrine is God and God’s own self-knowledge (although we do not normally think of God as concrete since God is incorporeal, and as already established we should not think of God as an object), therefore there is an intimate connection between the student of sacred doctrine and the objective after which the student seeks: union with God. In Chenu’s words, “[t]o know is in some sort to become the object. … In truth, theology is a participation in God’s own knowledge of himself.”47 Despite the fact that God’s self-knowledge radically transcends human reason, the first principles of sacred doctrine allow for the process of knowing to take place—that is, for the journey of faith seeking understanding to proceed—by virtue of God’s initiative (not ours) and God’s unique distinction: transcendence-in-immanence.
Since first principles are not limited to the confines of human intellection, the possibility for Revelation to function within a mode of knowing not only exists, but is absolutely required for theology in its most profound sense. The first principles of sacred doctrine are the articles of faith derived from Scripture and revealed by God. Thus, sacred doctrine “borrows” its first principles from the highest science, the “science of God and the blessed”; this is God’s knowledge of God’s-self and the knowledge disclosed to the departed blessed who are now reunited with God.48 “A real science enjoys its scientific character ‘not just on account of the play of categories, judgments, and syllogisms in it;’ it enjoys scientific character just ‘because an object shows itself, because a real source of light presents itself.’”49 Revelation found in Scripture is just that: God’s presenting God’s-self through the events and persons of human history. The articles of faith derived from Scripture sacred doctrine borrows as its first principles are truly Revealed principles.
Rogers clarifies the relationship between “borrowed first principles” and Revelation. In some way, “borrowing” principles from a higher science is itself a kind of revelation, no matter what science we consider, because principles are presumed, not demonstrated, within the confines of the discipline itself (even if they can be demonstrated).50 For example, the melody a musician plays is based upon mathematics (arrangement of patterns, meter, scale, and so on), although the musician may know nothing about mathematics at all: the musician is unconcerned about mathematics; he cares about music.51 However, the principles of music are implicitly revealed through the practice of his art; a mathematician listening to the music may be very aware of the specific mathematical character of the melody—and may even take more pleasure in the music because of this recognition. The mathematician is able to render explicit the mathematics revealed through the operation of the music, even though the average listener and the musician are not required to know math in order to enjoy or play the music. As this example illustrates, any given science is dependent to some extent on revelation, because the discipline relies on principles to which it is has no immediate access in order to function; demonstration or explanation of first principles is not a part of the discipline itself. The most important point of this example is that there exists a “deep connectedness” between the higher science lending its principles and the science receiving them, and, since those principles are what makes the lower science “work”—indeed, according to Aristotle they operate at every level from beginning to end of it52—they are revealed practically within the science that borrows them.
It may certainly be beneficial in mastering an art to study the principles which inhere within it. Following the example above, if a musician desires (and is intellectually inclined) to understand the first principles of this discipline, it is possible to do so; the musician can study math and it may be demonstrated how mathematics and music are connected. But this is not the case for sacred doctrine. The first principles of sacred doctrine, revealed by the highest science, the scientia Dei, cannot be demonstrated, because God is ineffable, and we therefore have no direct access to God’s knowledge. The difference between the revelations to which other human sciences are privy and the Revelation upon which sacred doctrine relies is not simply a matter of degree, but of kind, for the Revelation of Scripture is imparted by a reality “outside” of the created world,53 a Creator who is not a being within the created order—indeed not a type of being at all. Therefore, the knowledge obtained through sacred doctrine also differs in kind from that of other human sciences, and the identification or participation that is the end or goal of this science is one of a unique union, a transformation on the part of the student far outreaching other human disciplines. As Rogers remarks,
Thomas pursues a science that proceeds from principles that lie outside the world…. Under those circumstances, to proceed from first principles must therefore mean to proceed from … revealed first principles—no longer in the straightforward sense in which all science proceeds from the revelations of existing things, but now in the radically theological sense in which a revelation sheds a light that goes beyond the created tendency to associate being with the deliverances of our natural conceptual scheme and requires an intentionality empowered by God’s elevating agency.54
This “radically theological sense” to which Rogers refers is the very orientation Aquinas is driving at in Question 1. Unlike a specifically philosophical sense that strives to analyse (for example, in the case of metaphysics, analysis of God’s existence, nature, and attributes), theology in its deepest sense aspires to change the lives of those who consider its “object” (God), to arouse an awareness of the deep connectedness between the principles of theology (doctrine) and its practical operation (Christian forms of life), and to move its subjects closer to its ultimate goal (beatific vision). Like other disciplines, sacred doctrine has its own object and principles. Its radically theological nature suggests two aspects proper to sacred doctrine alone: first, sacred doctrine enjoys access to knowledge other disciplines do not by virtue of its divinely revealed principles; second, sacred doctrine’s objective is ultimately soteriological. However, a further aspect of science now must be considered: its specific mode of knowing.
Aquinas hints in the first article that sacred doctrine has its own proper mode of knowing, by virtue of its revealed first principles: since the goal of sacred doctrine lies “outside” of human discursive intellection, its first principles are not subject to demonstration. The revealed first principles of sacred doctrine must be taken on “faith.” Therefore, the mode of knowing that operates in sacred doctrine must include “faith” on the part of the theologian as well as on the part of the one to whom this doctrine is imparted. But Aquinas must carefully explicate exactly how “faith” operates in this discipline in a way compatible with our “rational” or discursive manner of thinking, for preachers and teachers under his tutelage must learn how to articulate to their audiences the connection between the believer’s faith (manifested in Christian forms of life) and the Church’s doctrine (which is often expressed propositionally) in order to lead them forward in their search to know God.
In the opening articles of Question 1, Aquinas establishes sacred doctrine as a science, a way of knowing, despite (and ever because of) the fact it relies on Revelation; now he must show that sacred doctrine is a way of knowing originating in faith but proceeding by reason. The problem lies in the tendency to oppose faith and reason, consequently undercutting theology’s reason for being (to render explicit our conceptions of God) as well as the traditional conviction, so eloquently expressed by Augustine, that the human creature’s particular rational nature is vital to its end in God.55 It is within the context of human creatures’ endless questioning to understand their destiny that faith in God, as well as hope for salvation, evolves. Hence, the paradox: faith must be related to reason—the question of faith only arises because of our (so-called) rational nature (as far as we know, other creatures do not have faith in God). But the contents of faith transcend the boundaries of reason, and therefore faith cannot originate in or be generated by discursive thought. Indeed Christianity adamantly asserts that faith exists only through grace, God’s free gift of self-communication and not through our efforts; it is not because we are rational creatures that we are united with our Creator. It is because the Creator freely willed such a personal and intimate union with the human creature that it was created with a rational nature and graced with an incipient awareness and direction towards its Source.56
Once again, Aquinas must examine certain presumptions germane to our conception of faith. The first presumption is to see faith as another type of reason or further knowledge sharply contrasted to our natural mode of intellection (that is, discursive thinking). The second presumption is understanding faith as replacing reason. In both cases, faith is opposed to reason rather than compatible with it. Furthermore, both presumptions prevent the reader from perceiving how Aquinas adapts Aristotle to his own end throughout the Summa, and from following the non-contrastive directive of the Summa. His adaptation is so subtle it can lead to a reading of the Summa as a work of metaphysics.
Three articles in the first question contribute to re-visioning a relationship between faith and reason that, in compliance with Aquinas’ intent, is essentially non-contrastive. Article 5 re-affirms the superiority of sacred doctrine over other human sciences, first by virtue of its certitude, transcending the certainty human reason can attain, and second because of the worth of its higher subject matter, God—even extending to the discipline’s practical goal, the beatific vision. Article 6 identifies sacred doctrine with “wisdom above all human wisdom” because it derives its principles from divine knowledge, which orders and prioritizes (in other words, judges) knowledge gained through human reason. Finally, Article 8 asserts that sacred doctrine employs human reason, not to prove faith, but to clarify faith assertions upon which Church doctrine is formed. In this article Aquinas explicitly treats the vital relationship between faith and reason. Reason does not function to prove the tenets of faith; rather the reverse: faith re-forms and re-orients reason, ultimately imbuing all human knowledge with existential meaning. As will become clear, all three of these articles imply that, rather than being opposed to reason, faith provides our rational intellection with its foundation and direction; non-contrastively speaking, faith becomes the ground and source of rational intellection about God.
In Article 5 Aquinas responds to the objection that, since the principles of sacred doctrine are articles of faith, which can be doubted, sacred doctrine is less noble than other sciences, whose principles can be shown to be certain. The stated premise of this objection is that the nobility of a science depends upon the certitude it establishes. But the unstated presumption is that faith can never lead to certitude, because it cannot be reached through demonstration or discursive reasoning. Aquinas accepts the precept connecting “nobility” to “certitude” but attacks the underlying presumption that faith cannot lead to certitude because it is opposed to reason.
To the premise that the nobility of a science depends on its certitude, Aquinas adds, with regard to “speculative” sciences, that nobility can also depend on the worth of the subject matter, and with regard to the “practical” sciences, to the ultimate goal or “further purpose” to which the science aspires. It is clear where Aquinas’ additional qualification is leading: obviously sacred doctrine is more noble than other sciences because its “subject matter” is the highest possible subject matter, God, and its goal the ultimate end, “eternal bliss” (in which all things relating to God participate).57 Thus, because sacred doctrine covers both speculative and practical aspects of theology, it is even more noble than metaphysics, which is primarily a speculative discipline. Furthermore, Aquinas’ additional qualification that sacred doctrine is both speculative and practical justifies the entire contents of the Summa, both the doctrinal (speculative) and the moral (practical) sections.
But Aquinas does not abandon the issue of certitude; rather, in Article 5 he uses the notion of “certitude” to begin laying the foundation for aligning faith with reason that he further develops in Article 6 and makes explicit in Article 8. In Article 5 Aquinas asserts that what we take to be less certain in this life may indeed be more certain in reality, but because of the weakness of our intelligence, we simply are not able to ascertain it.58 The rationale for this statement has already been given in previous articles: there is an ultimate reality beyond ourselves which we seek and the issue is whether or not and if so how we can access that reality. This reality is the highest reality, God. Since this divine reality is beyond ordinary rational intellection, knowledge of it cannot be realized through discursive reasoning; only God and the blessed are privy to it. This fact, however, does not diminish the objective certainty of that knowledge. In other words, God’s knowledge is certain and irrefutable knowledge and is no less certain because we cannot demonstrate it. Therefore, holding something by faith does not necessarily mean it is less certain than what has been demonstrated. To follow our example of music and mathematics, just because a musician does not know math—or perhaps has no aptitude for math—does not mean the principles of mathematics operate any less through the music, or the music is less mathematical in nature.
Likewise, holding articles derived from Scripture by faith does not mean the knowledge revealed by God in Scripture is simply opinion without any objective reality until it is proved through demonstration. In fact, Christianity asserts that belief in God is not holding an opinion about whether or not God exists—faith in God has existential implications for one’s entire life. Proving that a god exists does not prove one must or ought to relate to it; take, for example, Avicenna’s unmoved mover, who operates through intermediaries, and is therefore too far removed to touch the daily concerns of one’s ordinary life. This is why, to preview the dilemma raised by the next question of the Summa, proofs of the existence of God typically fail to move an unbeliever to faith, and are therefore not the main objective of theology (especially of sacred doctrine), a point Aquinas foreshadows in Question 1, Article 8.59 Faith in God has implications that opinion and even belief do not. According to Berard Marthaler:
In the New Testament, pistis [faith] is made to incorporate the meaning of several Hebrew words that suggest the trust and confidence one puts in a person or a person’s word because that person is judged trustworthy and dependable. Old Testament faith meant that the Israelites committed themselves to Yahweh and accepted with full confidence that the word spoken by God would be fulfilled. … In the Gospels, faith connotes the trust and confidence that arise from accepting the person of Jesus and his claims.60
Marthaler contrasts this dynamic Scriptural understanding of faith with the notion of “belief” we tend to hold today:
Whereas to believe originally meant to hold dear and clearly implied a strong personal commitment based on trust, it now connotes an element of uncertainty, and even when addressed to a person—“I believe you”—it signals a minimum of trust and does not imply commitment. … “Faith” and “belief,” as defined in our modern dictionaries, are not synonymous. Faith is more than believing. It rests on the kind of certitude that is implied in the phrase “believing in.” Faith establishes a personal relationship. But strictly speaking one has faith—believes—only in a person.61
The proposition “I believe that God exists,” for example, is open to revision if it could be demonstrated through physical evidence that such a being could not exist. However, if one assumes that God does exist and asks the further question of the implications of believing in—having a personal relationship with—God, the proposition now takes on great existential significance. Faith is therefore not an abstract concept, but is directly related to the believer’s concrete situation:
An act of faith that does not take the world and the human condition seriously does not, in effect, accept God as the ground of all being. It implies that God is finite and an entity apart from the created universe. The locus of faith, like the proper place for prayer, is not a niche in a corner of one’s life, a space, however small or large, where “religious” activity and perhaps ethical decisions take place. Faith is more like the atmosphere, fresh air that permeates and enlivens every hour of individual and communal life, waking and sleeping, work and leisure, production and consumption. Where faith is concerned, there are no gaps. … In making an act of faith a person exercises a fundamental choice that defines one’s views about reality, about what is important and what is not, about what is moral and immoral. Faith is not an optional accessory one adds like a fireplace in a house or air-conditioning in an automobile.62
Marthaler’s distinction between “faith” and “belief” implies not only that faith plays an essential role in shaping Christian forms of life, but further, that faith provides a function unique with regard to proofs and demonstrations; in other words, it is not merely a replacement for proof. This function becomes clear in Article 8 as the misperception that faith versus reason evaporates.
But Article 6 first makes a critical and rather bold move which further erodes the presumption that faith is opposed to reason by identifying sacred doctrine with wisdom, a step above and beyond Aquinas’ assertion in Article 5 that sacred doctrine is privy to certain and irrefutable knowledge. Not only is the knowledge of sacred doctrine certain, it is “wisdom above all human wisdom.”63 By moving from certainty to wisdom Aquinas has a very specific intent in mind; he not only further disintegrates the notion that demonstration or proof is essential to knowledge, but he replaces it with the method of study rooted in contemplation. By demoting the importance of demonstration as a mode of knowing, Aquinas is ready to reposition faith with regard to reason, and by implicitly raising the notion of contemplation, he moves us a step closer to the language of Scripture as the foundation for theology’s speech about God.
The objection raised in Article 6 is that sacred doctrine cannot be the same as wisdom because “part of wisdom is to prove the principles of other sciences,” a task that we know sacred doctrine cannot do, for its principles are revealed in the most profound sense of the word. Aquinas fells the postulate that proving is a task of wisdom with one swift blow: wisdom does not prove, but arranges and judges. “The wise … arrange and judge … [using] the light of some higher principle” to judge lesser matters.64 Since sacred doctrine uses the highest principles, borrowed (that is, revealed) from the scientia Dei, then sacred doctrine is more wise than any other human science.
The act of judging serves a very different end than that of proving something. To prove or disprove something is simply to say whether it is or is not true; to judge something is to evaluate its worth and prioritize its importance among other things. For example, in the well-known story, King Solomon discerns that the life of a newborn infant is more important to the babe’s true mother than her claim to it.65 He does not seek proof of motherhood through physical or biological evidence (even if he could have access to DNA testing, we assume he would not), because for him wisdom dictates that life has priority over possession, and that motherhood is more about nurturing children than being biologically related to them. In order to wisely judge the case before him he must evaluate and interpret the details presented to him.
Wisdom, acting as judge, interprets and arranges knowledge. Recall in Article 5 that Aquinas discerns that sacred doctrine is above other sciences by virtue of its subject matter and objective. So, because of its elevated status, which rises to the level of wisdom, sacred doctrine has the task of judging other disciplines, interpreting and ordering them to its own end. This is why Aquinas, quoting Proverbs 9:3, “Wisdom sent her maids to invite to the tower,” asserts that “[o]ther sciences are called the handmaidens of this one [sacred doctrine].”66
Sacred doctrine derives its principles from divine knowledge, “through which, as through the highest wisdom, all our knowledge is set in order.”67 Remember, the Revelation upon which sacred doctrine is built differs in kind from other sciences in that it is concerned with a different type of knowledge—not knowledge about God, but knowing God, a pursuit that transcends the realm of ordinary experience to personal identification with our Divine Source—and therefore demonstration does not render the type of knowledge sought by sacred doctrine; demonstration yields knowledge about something in the world (that is, whether or not something exists, how it is structured, and so forth). We typically say, then, that the principles of sacred doctrine must be held by faith. But the fact that we are dealing with a different type of knowledge should in turn indicate that “faith” functions differently than demonstration.
Aquinas’ discussion of wisdom implies this very point: since the principles of sacred doctrine are held by faith and not by demonstration, and since we are seeking something different than ordinary knowledge, then faith does not simply replace demonstration, but functions in a way proper to its own discipline. If sacred doctrine is wisdom, whose task it is to judge, then faith assists in the interpretation and arrangement of the knowledge obtained through sacred doctrine, and, by virtue of its higher subject matter, all knowledge obtained by the other human disciplines as well. Faith, then, is not opposed to demonstration, because it has a different function: demonstration provides proof; faith requires (and provides the means for) interpretation. Thus, if demonstrations reveal the truth or existence of something, then faith judges the importance and meaning of that something. With regard to sacred doctrine, believers assume God exists, and seek why and how God’s existence is relevant to their lives.
But before moving on to articulate how faith manages this task, Aquinas wants to open up a specific avenue of learning for his reader, one proper to its task. The objection raised in Article 6 is that sacred doctrine cannot be the same as wisdom because it is “acquired by study, whereas wisdom is acquired by God’s inspiration.” The same presumption of which Aquinas desires to rid us inheres within this objection: that faith (given through grace, God’s inspiration) is opposed to the reasoning process (study). In order to achieve his end, Aquinas qualifies the term “judging”: There are two kinds of judging, one gained by virtue of the judge, who is the measure of the act, and the second due to knowledge gained through study, which does not originate within the one judging. The first type of judging stems from grace. The judging that belongs to sacred doctrine is “acquired by study, though its principles are obtained by revelation.”68
The second type of judging is likened to the abilities that a human judge must acquire through the active process of learning, say, law school and practice on the bench. However, the measure or standard used by sacred doctrine in the act of judging comes from elsewhere (outside of the theologian’s own power of reasoning), and this measure is revealed—that is, given by grace—in Scripture by God who is in reality the measure itself.
If we recall the Dominican method of learning, there is no contradiction between the active life and the “graced” life—in other words, between study and contemplation. For we must now understand contemplation to involve every dimension of the religious life—and these dimensions are all ground in Scripture. Both types of judging are involved in sacred doctrine; the ultimate judge, God, lends the measure that the human judge, sacred doctrine (and by extension, the theologian and believer), “studies.” Sacred doctrine holds the place of wisdom both by grace and by study. We must therefore continually return to Scripture to discern how and why God gives meaning to our lives, for Scripture contains the original example for this expression. Far from hindering that Wisdom held by faith, study actively engages it through contemplation.
This method of study is non-contrastive. It does not seek data or information, but attempts to arrange and prioritize the contents of faith (articles, doctrine) in such a way that the believer is led back towards God who is both transcendent and immanent. As Aquinas has indicated, since the scope of sacred doctrine comprises anything relating to God, all human sciences are servants to this end. Thus, sacred doctrine employs its method of study through contemplation in order to interpret and direct knowledge gained by human disciplines, whether specifically theological (as is metaphysics) or not (as are mathematics and music), towards its soteriological end. By identifying sacred doctrine with Wisdom, Aquinas has begun to raise our awareness regarding the role of faith in the reasoning process—faith provides a lens or filter through which reason may be directed towards God. In other words, faith refocuses the intellect in such a way that the unique Creator–creature relationship is preserved: we are not seeking an impersonal, distant deity, nor a god who is a superior version of creation, but a God who is the ground and source of creation.
Article 8 finally makes this role of faith explicit by deconstructing the remaining perception of faith’s opposition to reason. Aquinas achieves this task by considering whether sacred doctrine is a matter of argument. Of course, the groundwork has already been laid, the main contentions already worked out; Aquinas only needs to re-articulate them. Aquinas highlights two misunderstandings about faith constituting the presumption that faith and reason are opposed: first, that faith can replace reason; second, that faith is a kind of knowledge above reason. Against these misperceptions, Aquinas suggests that faith employs reason in order to lend meaning to everything within the realm of human knowledge; nothing, even proofs of God’s existence and other information obtained through argument, is irrelevant. Faith allows knowledge from every discipline to participate in the believer’s journey back to its Source.
The objection is raised that sacred doctrine is not a matter of argument, because it is based on the weakest form of proof, argument from authority, which, in the case of sacred doctrine must be held on faith. In contrast to this, the objection assumes, reason is the strongest form of argument. Following his previous articles, Aquinas reiterates that proof is not what sacred doctrine is after. However, human reasoning holds an important place in sacred doctrine’s objective; “sacred doctrine makes use even of human reason, not, indeed, to prove faith (for thereby the merit of faith would come to an end), but to make clear other things that are put forward in this doctrine.” Aquinas continues,
since therefore grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it, natural reason should minister to faith as the natural bent of the will ministers to charity. Hence the Apostle says, “Bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ.”69
The presumption that faith and reason are opposed is uncovered and consequently deconstructed in three ways in this text. First, reason and faith have different functions. Reason is supposed to clarify the articles of faith, not prove them. Their truth and certainty are already assumed by virtue of the subject matter’s existential importance to the believer. In other words, it has already been judged that the subject matter of sacred doctrine has priority over obtaining other kinds of knowledge. Second, reason should therefore minister to faith, for faith possesses the superior function. In Aquinas’ analogy of the relationship between charity and the will, it is charity that holds the superior position, giving direction to the will. The will is not in competition with charity, but is a vehicle for it—after all, an act cannot be considered charitable if it is forced. However, if it is to comply with charity then an act must be performed for no other motivation than that dictated by charity: disinterested piety.
Likewise, faith directs reason to its own end, not the other way around. For example, so-called proofs of God’s existence rarely lead to faith in God. Even belief in the existence of God does not necessarily lead to faith. Rather, God’s existence is assumed, and believers’ faith in God directs their reasons—as well as their actions—to the end of communion with God. Faith must direct reason, for any rumination or action that is directed by any other motivation than disinterested piety will not achieve faith’s intended goal.
Finally, faith suffuses rational intellection about God with existential meaning, consequently transforming—that is, perfecting—reason and, by extension, the rational creature. Human reasoning about God is thus formed and informed by faith. To put it in Marthaler’s terms, faith provides the “atmosphere that permeates” our reflections about and actions with regard to God. This is very different than saying that human reasoning yields propositions or definitive knowledge about God. Such knowledge (if it could exist) would be neutral, it would not answer the questions of why God is meaningful and relevant to our lives and how we are united to God; but faith actually brings us towards the answer, by identifying with the Source itself. The end result of faith’s guidance is not information or data, but communion with the object of that knowledge. So not only are the two compatible with each other, but reason in fact depends upon faith; faith makes all things under God reasonable and the intellectual quest to know God possible. We cannot therefore say that faith replaces reason. In fact, we must say that faith calls for reason; it compels the process of intellection to move beyond itself and bring the believer with it.
As Article 8 clarifies, the tenet, “faith perfects reason,” though a familiar phrase, is empty if we operate under the presumption that faith and reason are opposed. The misperception that faith replaces reason or is additional knowledge must be dispelled in order for a non-contrastive train of thought to develop. As Preller remarks:
The popular notion that natural reason can take us part of the way toward God and thus supply us with a logical platform from which we can take a “leap of faith” fails to discern the locus of the problem. … The propositions of natural theology … postulate the “reality” of a meta-empirical being to which no significant and intelligible reference can be made.70
The concept of a “leap of faith” is contrary to a non-contrastive grasp of the Creator–human relationship because it breaks the continuity between faith and reason. In other words, a “leap of faith” tries to bypass rational intellection altogether; it supposes that we want to know “what God is” and because of our intellectual limitations, cannot do so naturally. “Faith” operating in “leap of faith” is understood as a kind of supernatural knowledge above natural knowledge. This faith-knowledge does not engage (let alone perfect) our intellect in a meaningful way.
A non-contrastive understanding of the Creator–human relationship supposes that what we desire is “knowledge” that is existentially significant. A leap of faith cannot produce this end because it is not reasonable—it cannot supply our intellect with reasons why or how speech about God is relevant to our lives. Rather, faith must supply our rational intellection precisely with such “reasons” yet it can do so only if faith directs intellection about God towards its goal.
Faith is a perfection [of reason] because it is not merely an extension … of the natural powers of the intellect. Faith perfects the language of natural reason by enabling it to do what it cannot do on its own—point toward the God of faith. … Faith, then, perfects the language of natural reason by giving to it a referential value that it cannot achieve on its own.71
Thus, faith judges (re-prioritizes, arranges) knowledge in such a way that “what” is interpreted as “why” and “how”; and “why” and “how” are the atmosphere that shapes and guides our knowledge, which terminates in our actions. This is the process whereby faith perfects reason.
Non-contrastively speaking, faith judges knowing God above knowledge about God in level of importance. Knowledge about God (if indeed we can have any at all)72 as well as knowledge about human acts and the created world assists in the faith journey. As Preller puts it, “just as no object in the world can be judged intelligible without the natural light of reason, so also no particular object can be judged salvific without the supernatural light of faith.”73 Far from replacing reason, faith directs and transforms rational intellection to the human creature’s soteriological end. “The application of the light of faith to certain empirical events … makes present to the intellect nonempirical aspects of those same events, their soteriological efficacy.”74 The illumination of an event’s soteriological significance (for example, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ) allows us to direct our thoughts and actions to that particular end.
Furthermore, theological reflection directed by faith moves believers’ thoughts and actions in a properly non-contrastive direction, so that Christian forms of life may be better aligned with the Church’s faith claims. It is one task of theologians to ensure faith statements not be taken improperly, because the result is practices which do not appropriately reflect the faith of the Church. A closer examination of the following two articles reveals that when we encounter speech about God that is, on the one hand, articulated using ordinary language (as it must be) but, on the other hand, fails to capture the depth of our religious experience (as it inevitably does) we should conclude such statements must be referring to a reality uniquely distinct from anything in our created experience—for our salvation lies “outside” of the world, that is, outside of our ordinary concerns of daily survival. Therefore, we can (and do) say more about God than we can know about God. Through Question 1’s articles, Aquinas lays the groundwork for the connection between speaking about God and knowing God.
If the mode of knowing employed by sacred doctrine (Revelation on the part of God and faith seeking understanding on the part of the theologian) is unique, then its mode of expression must also be unique. In Question 1, Article 7, Aquinas speaks generally of theology as the “treating” of God;75 his purpose here is to defend the inclusion of practical theology within the science of sacred doctrine. However, the etymology of the word “theo-logy,” God-talk, is also very relevant to Aquinas’ objective. Of course, “theo” refers to god or that which relates to god. But for Christianity, the second half of “theo-logy”—derived from logos (speech)—also has a particularly profound meaning, for we refer to the second person of the Trinity as the Logos or Word (who as incarnate is Jesus Christ), and liturgically we extend this reference to holy Scripture as the “Word of God.” Furthermore, scriptural interpretation of Logos is often Wisdom, and therefore Aquinas’ identification in Article 6 of sacred doctrine with “wisdom above all human wisdom” is especially ingenious: speaking about God (theologizing) is connected to divine Wisdom, which in its perfected end is beatific vision, a participating in God’s self-knowledge—and even in this life, as the Song of Songs poetically attests, we “know” God through an inchoate awareness as the one we must seek and with whom we yearn to be reunited.
The essential connection of scriptural language to Christian theology is in no way lost on Aquinas. Aquinas asserts not only that Scripture is the primary source for sacred doctrine, but that the language Scripture employs, far from being a hindrance, is particularly appropriate to the theologian’s ultimate purpose of leading others towards God. It may even be inferred that Aquinas believes one cannot really do theology without Scripture and its poetical language, and thus there is no true theology other than sacred doctrine.76 The conclusion that sacred doctrine, by virtue of its divinely-inspired source, is the only true Christian theology is justified by the last two articles of Aquinas’ first question. These articles move from the nature, scope, and content of sacred doctrine to its proper mode of expression.
Article 9 considers whether holy Scripture should use metaphors, and Article 10 considers whether a word in Scripture may have several senses. Aquinas establishes the place of Scripture as the primary source for sacred doctrine in Article 1, so we must assume Article 9—whether Scripture employs metaphors—extends to the question of whether sacred doctrine itself should employ or rely on any source using language in such an imprecise and indirect manner; indeed, as stated earlier, there is even some question as to whether Aquinas equates sacred doctrine with Scripture in this article.77 But, as Article 10 explains, there is at least one essential distinction between the language of sacred doctrine and the language of Scripture, and that is the place of the so-called “spiritual senses,” which exist only in Scripture, thus eliminating any true equating of the Scripture and sacred doctrine.
This apparent inconsistency in Article 9 between Aquinas’ use of Scripture and sacred doctrine does, however, implicitly direct us to the underlying issue, which takes a more concrete form when we get to Question 13. There we find Aquinas’ explicit treatment of analogy, which tackles how we can refer to God at all, be it in a Scriptural context or in a theological one, without violating either God’s transcendence or God’s immanence.
As the first chapter of this book indicates, the problem with religious language is in the tendency to believe theologians are somehow able to translate the poetical language of Scripture into concrete propositions (for example, articles of faith, doctrine), and in so doing, allow us to make direct references to or statements about God. Aquinas tells us straight out in Article 9 that it is not possible for theology to translate the language of Scripture into purely non-metaphorical language. Furthermore, all of the articles leading up to Articles 9 and 10 have consistently maintained that is not what sacred doctrine intends to do; while sacred doctrine is by necessity expressed in a much more “discursive” manner than its primary source, Scripture, the purpose of this science is not to define, describe, or demonstrate God.78
The task of theology is to render concrete our conceptions of God, but for sacred doctrine not in order to define what God is—rather, to exercise our skills of extending ordinary language beyond itself when referring to the Divine, and thus pave a pathway for faith seeking understanding to proceed. The skill of extending language continually raises our awareness that the One we seek is not a being in the universe or part of the universe, but One who—while radically transcending the created world—is also intimately present within it. Through speaking about God in such a way that this awareness develops, one is imperceptibly drawn closer to knowing God, a knowledge that respects, even intensifies, a sense of God’s incomprehensible Mystery.
The objections to Article 9 highlight the misperception that the purpose of sacred doctrine is translating Scripture into propositions describing the Divine. The first two objections allege metaphorical language is not fitting for a primary source of theology, first because metaphor is the mode of expression proper to poetry, and second because this type of language obscures truth, contrary to the intent of sacred doctrine which is to make truth clear. A further objection is offered that, assuming we could accept metaphorical language for doing theology, we should at least use representations taken from higher creatures, “yet in Scripture representations are often taken from the lower creatures.”
Aquinas answers all of these objections by referring to sacred doctrine’s true task: Divine Revelation does not allow those “within whom revelation is made” to rest in metaphors, “but raises them to the knowledge of truths; and through those to whom the revelation has been made others also may receive instruction in these matters.”79 Again, as in previous articles, the role of the intellect does not contradict but serves faith, for “[t]he very hiding of truth in figures is useful for the exercise of thoughtful minds.”80 Therefore, the use of metaphorical language is valuable to theology, both in “exercising” believers on their journey of faith and in “elevating” theologians and believers to Divine truth. We must infer, however, that when Aquinas refers to the “knowledge of truths,” he does not mean discursive knowledge about God, but the kind of knowledge that cleaves the believer to God—a type of knowledge that cannot be realized directly in this life.81
Furthermore, as Eckhart will better express for us than does Aquinas, the type of knowledge attained through sacred doctrine is never intended, even in the “after-life,” for any kind of discursive expression. When the blessed creature is reunited with its ultimate Source and End, there is no need at all for propositions; for, detached from all creaturely limitations, the very function of speech—to bring the hearer closer to that subject which is being addressed—is now altogether vanquished. The creature and Creator now enjoy an identity of distinction without separation. Therefore, there is no subject about which to speak. For instance, in one of his German works, Eckhart queries:
But now I ask: “What is the prayer of a heart that has detachment?” And to answer it I say that purity in detachment does not know how to pray … [A] heart in detachment asks for nothing, nor has it anything of which it would gladly be free. … And as the soul attains this, it loses its name and it draws God into itself, so that in itself it becomes nothing.82
For Eckhart, when the transcendent-yet-immanent Creator and the creature are reunited, even the medium of language disappears, for it no longer has a purpose. Not only the assertions, claims, and statements which are expressed by propositions, but even prayer—even naming—disappears, so intimate and personal a knowing is that to which the restless soul aspires. In order to express such an immediate sense of the Creator–creature relationship, Eckhart stretches language as far as he possibly can: to the extent of paradox.
However, before Eckhart’s bold language of “detachment” can be appreciated and grasped in the deeply orthodox way intended, we must come to realize by its very nature (and by necessity, in this life) theology calls for a distinct mode of speaking which inevitably remains “metaphorical” in a very broad sense of the word. The problem then becomes: how are we able to navigate around the difficulties inherent to such imprecise language? The answer to which Aquinas directs us lies in Question 13: through analogical language-use. But in Question 1, Article 9 he foreshadows and prepares his readers for his understanding of analogy by indicating the use of ordinary language in preserving God’s unique distinction.
Responding to the objections that similitudes (such as metaphor) proper to poetry, the lowest science, obscure truth and are unfitting for the highest human science, Aquinas replies that due to the capacity of the human intellect which relies on sensible objects, spiritual truths must be expressed verbally through figures of corporeal things; therefore metaphor is “both necessary and useful.” To cut to the chase, that is all that we have. We do not have a special language reserved for divinity (not that it would help if we did). But Aquinas then goes a step further and takes this answer as a springboard for his true target, the objection that, given we have no choice but to use metaphorical language, representations of the Divine ought to be taken from higher rather than lower creatures. Aquinas’ reply is key:
As Dionysus says, it is more fitting that divine truths should be expounded under the figure of less noble than of nobler bodies …. Firstly, because thereby men’s minds are the better preserved from error. For then it is clear that these things are not literal descriptions of divine truths, which might have been open to doubt had they been expressed under the figure of nobler bodies, especially for those who could think of nothing nobler than bodies. Secondly, because this is more befitting the knowledge of God that we have in this life. For what He is not is clearer to us than what He is. Therefore similitudes drawn from things farthest away from God form within us a truer estimate that God is above whatsoever we may say or think of Him.83
The most obvious conclusion drawn from this text is that Aquinas wishes to maintain a primarily negative theology, especially evident in the statement that “what God is not” is clearer to us in this life than “what God is,” a claim Aquinas will reiterate in Question 3. However, Aquinas in fact exposes in this text an insidious underlying predisposition—of which he may have thought Dionysus to be instinctually aware—that is, the possibility for believers to understand references made to God in their ordinary sense, which would inevitably render God another being in the universe. To follow Aquinas’ example, if we use the most noble figure we can think of to refer to God, we are by admission saying that God is or is like the greatest thing in the universe. This implies some proportion between God and created beings, which transgresses God’s radical transcendence from the world. The use of less noble figures (and the less noble the better), on the other hand, preserves God’s unique distinction: using references that are almost ridiculously contrary to any proportional notion between the Creator and creatures draws attention to the fact that we are employing ordinary language in an extraordinary way, thus exercising our skills in extending human language to the Divine.
Article 10 establishes Scripture as the exemplar of flexible language-use. That a text in Scripture may have several different but related senses, some of which are distinct to Scripture, functions first to set Scripture apart as uniquely appropriate for theology, and implicitly points to the flexibility of human language—and human language-users—in transcending language’s limitations to make meaningful and existentially significant references to God. Ultimately, Aquinas’ discussion of the various senses of Scripture assists in developing a non-contrastive understanding of religious language, because we learn that even a so-called “literal” sense has the capacity to refer to and open the believer to a profound reality inaccessible through a “propositional” understanding of language-use. In a propositional understanding of language, we perceive there to exist (mistakenly) virtually a one-to-one correspondence between the words used and the reality to which they refer; in a non-contrastive understanding of language, we know first of all there is always some discrepancy between a reality and the verbal expression of it, and second, when that reality is God, the words we use refer to a reality distinct from any other thing and therefore the correspondence between the two is incomprehensible.84 The hearer must rely on the verbal and non-verbal context surrounding speech about God in order to discern its meaning—that is, to make the connection between the words and the reality to which they refer.
Article 10 opens with the objection that a word in Scripture cannot have several senses: first, because confusion and deception will result, and second, because all force of argument will be destroyed. From this, the precept is advanced that “Scripture ought to be able to state truth without fallacy.” By this time it should come as no surprise that Aquinas attacks not the precept but its underlying presumption, which in this objection is that in order for truth to be stated without fallacy, it must be stated in a direct and straightforward manner—in other words, propositionally. The issue of Scripture as an authoritative source for argument has already been resolved: Scripture is only effective for argument if the opponent holds to at least some of the articles of faith. Argument is mainly used to bring the opponent into agreement with other tenets of faith; belief in the existence of God and the authority of Scripture is presupposed.85 So, in this case, the mode of argument is in question, and as Aquinas has established through earlier articles, due to the subject matter of sacred doctrine and our limited intellectual access to it, we have no direct recourse and must rely on the flexibility inherent in poetical language in order to perceive the truth towards which we strive.
Scripture is the unique source for Christian theology, and due to its inclusion of “metaphorical” or poetical language, Christian tradition has assigned several “senses” or ways of interpreting it, generally: historical or literal, allegorical, tropological, or moral, and anagogical. Aquinas further points out that there are additions to this categorization, which include etiological and parabolical. The objections addressed in Article 10 warrant sifting through all these senses to ascertain which one sense is proper for sacred doctrine’s purpose. From the conditions of the objection it seems that this task is fairly straightforward: the prevailing sense must be the one that does not produce confusion or deception, and must be able to articulate the truth.
Aquinas’ response to the objection that the truth cannot be articulated through more than one sense is based upon a distinction between the “literal” sense and the “spiritual” sense. The “literal” sense, sometimes referred to as the “historical” sense, is the meaning that is signified by the word, and the “spiritual” sense is a further signification indicated by the thing itself; according to Aquinas, the spiritual sense is “that signification whereby things signified by words have themselves also a signification.”86 The spiritual sense has a threefold division: the allegorical, wherein things of the “Old Law” or the Hebrew Scriptures prefigure the “New Law” or Christian Scripture; the moral, wherein things done in Christ or which signify Christ are types of what we ought to do; and the anagogical, wherein things signify “what relates to eternal glory.”87
Although written by human hands, ultimately God is the author of Scripture in its entirety. But, while a human author may intend the literal sense of a word or text, the Holy Spirit alone is responsible for the spiritual sense(s).88 Therefore, the spiritual sense is found only in Scripture; it is a mode of expression proper to Scripture alone, rendering it a unique authority for the divine science. On the other hand, the literal sense has a priority over the spiritual senses, and this for three reasons: first, the spiritual senses are “founded” or based on the literal sense, thus putting all the senses in relation to each other (and the spiritual in a relation of dependence to the literal); second, the literal sense is the only one from which argument can be drawn; and third, because “nothing necessary to faith is contained under the spiritual sense which is not elsewhere put forward by the Scripture in its literal sense.”89
And so it appears clear that the literal sense wins out as the primary sense to be employed by sacred doctrine, for it seems to lead to the most forthright and direct interpretation. However, Aquinas is not through with the matter for he goes on to qualify the “literal” sense in such a way that presumes the inherent flexibility of both human language and human language-users. He responds that the literal sense includes history, etiology, analogy, and parable. For Aquinas, the historical sense is “whenever anything is simply related,” the etiological sense, “when its cause is assigned,” the analogical sense “whenever the truth of one text of Scripture is shown not to contradict the truth of another,”90 and the parabolical sense, wherein a word signifies something figuratively. To explain how parabolic language fits into the literal sense, Aquinas uses the example of Scripture’s reference to God’s arm: “when Scripture speaks of God’s arm, the literal sense is not that God has such a member, but only what is signified by this member, namely, operative power.”91 Far from being direct and straightforward, the literal sense still relies on the context of the passage and the ability of the human reader to perceive and even creatively interpret the meaning of the words. Among the expressions of the literal sense, only the historical appears to relate a “plain” fact. Other types of language-use, especially parabolic, indicate that neither religious nor theological language can escape being to some extent metaphorical. Consequently, we cannot equate the “literal” sense with propositional statements about God.
The metaphorical nature of theological and religious language allows for a non-contrastive perception of the Creator–creature relationship, as well as the creature’s journey back to its Source, to develop. According to Janet Martin Soskice, a metaphor is not merely “ornamental”—that is, a prettier way to say the same thing (although it can be). More importantly, metaphors can be used to expand one’s understanding:
[M]etaphor goes beyond the role of ornament. … The purpose of … metaphor is both to cast up and organize a network of associations. A good metaphor may … be … a new vision, the birth of a new understanding, a new referential access. A strong metaphor compels new possibilities of vision.92
Unlike propositional language, where the intent is a one-to-one correspondence, metaphorical language strives to go beyond, expressing something to which the words themselves do not (and cannot) exactly correspond. When used with this intent, metaphor “suggests new categories of interpretation and hypothesizes new entities, states of affairs, and causal relations.”93 Through metaphor, language transcends its own limitations and increases the language-users’ understanding by developing a new horizon in which to view life. From this perspective, statements about God are not confined to propositions comparing and contrasting God with things in the world. Such statements permeate every aspect of ordinary living with salvific meaning.
Soskice’s description of metaphor’s potential resonates well with Aquinas’ attempt to increase his student’s skill in using ordinary language in an extraordinary way to refer to God. Soskice confirms that in order for metaphors to go beyond ornamentation, the context must be taken into consideration.94 As we have seen, context is vitally important to Aquinas’ literal sense, which includes metaphorical language. Referring to Aquinas’ last article of Question 1, Soskice contends that:
The mutability of literal senses does pose a problem for some accounts of metaphor, for if one assumes that literal senses and literal truth conditions can readily be assigned to words and sentences independent of contexts of use, then inability to specify precise literal senses of terms will block any exhaustive description of a natural language.95
If “literal” and “propositional” are equated, consequently the literal is opposed to the metaphorical, because propositional language expects a one-to-one correspondence, which metaphor does not do. Language-users expecting such a correspondence will not be able to move forward in their search to refer meaningfully to that which is incomprehensible. Indeed, they cannot really appreciate the implications of an Incomprehensible Reality.
The context of the literal sense is not only essential to derive its intended meaning, but also to grasp that the Divine reality to which the term refers is not being contrasted or compared to anything in the world. For example, to know that God’s “arm” literally refers to God’s operative power and not to some bodily appendage, one must know that God is incorporeal, as is revealed in other Scriptural texts. In this context, the use of “arm” to express an incorporeal reality tips the audience off that the writer is using ordinary language in an extraordinary way. As Aquinas attests, similes drawn from things farthest away from God prevent us from perceiving God to be like anything noble in the universe, thereby forming an awareness “that God is above whatsoever we may say or think of Him.”
Furthermore, Soskice’s assertion that metaphorical language has the potential to increase understanding in the language-user reveals the link between speaking about God and knowing God; this is the end to which Aquinas directs his readers in Question 1 of the Summa. For Soskice, metaphorical language-use allows novel visions and referential access to emerge. For Aquinas, this is the task of faith in perfecting reason. As Marthaler expresses it, faith is the “opening up of a new vision of reality,” a grace “whereby human potentialities are caught up and given a new dimension by God acting on the person.”96 Through the lens of faith, all things, acts, and knowledge are imbued with new existential significance. Faith and metaphor are inextricably bound to one another in the process: Faith is the mode of knowing on the part of the believer; metaphor (as Aquinas uses it, in the broadest sense of the term) is the proper mode of expression allowing for the possibility of knowing to progress.
Aquinas broaches the relation between “metaphorical” and “literal” references to God again in Question 13, for asserting metaphorical language to be appropriate for sacred doctrine (as Aquinas does in Question 1) does not in itself exhaust—in fact, does not satisfy—the requirements for a non-contrastive grasp of religious language. A non-contrastive grasp of religious language demands the Creator’s unique distinction, transcendence-in-immanence, be preserved in order for Christian forms of life to conform to Christian tradition and its faith assertions. Strictly employed, metaphor tends towards a univocal understanding of the Creator–creature relationship, because these metaphors refer properly to creatures and appear to highlight a likeness between the Creator and creature. Thus, in order to allow for the range of flexibility required for a non-contrastive interpretation, metaphor must be taken to encompass all types of poetical language-use, a practice duly carried out by our Master Eckhart.
Eckhart is indebted to Aquinas for attending to this non-contrastive dimension manifested throughout Eckhart’s work, for in his Summa Aquinas provides his successors with a rigorous exercise in religious language-use. As Question 13 illustrates, all linguistic applications (even analogy) fail to capture the Divine; therefore, we must effectively qualify our speech about God by finding ways to call attention to the fact that we are not applying our language in an ordinary way when referring to the Divine. But in order to really absorb this lesson, we must first work our way through the preceding questions, which offer instructions on how to use language non-contrastively. Characteristic of Aquinas, he makes use of every source at his disposal to lead his students onward in their vocation of faith seeking understanding; and in this case—given the emerging importance of Aristotelian philosophy in his order as well as in the university—Aquinas employs the language of metaphysics, modifying it to achieve his pedagogical end.
1 Mt 22:37, 39 (NAB).
2 Sg 3:2. The identification of knowing and loving God will be discussed later in this book.
3 Sg 2:14.
4 Sg 1:2-4.
5 In his exegesis on Exodus, Eckhart explores the “names of God” (“I am who Am”), the difficulties of speaking about God. This text will be considered in Chapter 5.
6 Terms like “closer” or “towards” are not literal when applied to the faith journey: we cannot know how we become united to God, nor can we ever be “away” from God.
7 Although medieval universities and the Church were often closely linked; therefore many scholars wrote with religious intent, explicitly stated or not. We must not read any medieval author—especially Aquinas—from the perspective of the contemporary secular university. This will be reiterated regarding Aquinas’ notion of scientia, which has a much different connotation than the one we have today.
8 See, for example, STh, I.3: “Sed quia de Deo scire non possumus quid sit sed quid non sit, non possumus considerare de Deo quomodo sit sed potius quomodo non sit.”
9 Victor White captures Aquinas’ intention to address the broadest audience possible as a teacher of Catholic faith. See Holy Teaching: The Idea of Theology According to St. Thomas Aquinas (London: Blackfriars, 1958), 5-6.
10 See Boyle, Setting of the Summa, 15-16.
11 Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 148.
12 See, for example, STh, I.1.
13 See White, Holy Teaching, 7. For more on sacred doctrine in medieval education, see T.C. O’Brien, “Sacra Doctrina Revisited: The Context of Medieval Education,” The Thomist XLI, No. 4 (1977): 475-509.
14 See Chapter 2, section B.1.b) “The Rise of Aristotle in the Dominican Order.”
15 See Eugene Rogers, Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth: Sacred Doctrine and the Natural Knowledge of God (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 32-4.
16 The contrast between “definitive knowledge about God” and “salvation” is drawn because Aquinas intends to dispel the misconception that knowledge about God can lead to salvation. On the contrary he contends that salvation is not gained through knowledge about God; this type of discursive, definitive, or positive knowledge cannot be possessed in this life.
17 See STh, I.1.7, reply obj. 2.
18 Victor Preller asserts, “Normally, Aquinas uses the expression sacra doctrina inter-changeably with sacra scriptura—and that is clearly its primary use; he also applies it, however, to the Apostles’ Creed, the ordinary teachings of the Church, and the speculations of the theologian. … The prime and radical locus of sacra doctrina is the Word of God” (Divine Science, 232).
19 The beatific vision is reserved for the “afterlife” and for those “blessed departed.” This knowing is ultimately communion with God, a state of distinction without separation. See Preller, Divine Science, 259-60.
20 Discursive reasoning is the movement of the mind from one conclusion to another until the end of the reflexive process. See Rogers, Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth, 24-5. Discursive reasoning is understood as a linear way of thinking and is often contrasted to other types of intellection or ways of knowing, such as “intuition.”
21 Of course, the term “object” is improper here—God is in no way an object; however, it can be applied since knowing God is the objective of sacred doctrine.
22 Marie-Dominique Chenu, Is Theology a Science?, trans. A.H.N. Green-Armytage (New York: Hawthorn, 1959), 49.
23 STh, I.1.1, reply.
24 Ibid.
25 STh, I.1.2, reply obj. 1.
26 Rogers, Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth, 26.
27 STh, I.1.5, reply.
28 STh, I.1.2, sed contra.
29 Preller, Divine Science, 4.
30 STh, I.1.5.
31 Evidenced, for example, by the predominance of the “lecture” format of most undergraduate courses.
32 Thomas Gilby, STh, Blackfriars translation, Appendix 5, “Sacra Doctrina,” 61. See also White, Holy Teaching, 7-10.
33 Gilby, STh, ed. Blackfriars, Appendix 5, “Sacra Doctrina,” 59-60.
34 Ibid., 61.
35 Ibid.
36 White, Holy Teaching, 12.
37 See Preller, Divine Science, 4 and 233; White, Holy Teaching, 12-13; Rogers, Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth, 34.
38 STh, I.1.2.
39 According to Preller, “for us to know what God is … would be for God to be a kind of thing, a being essentially conditioned by his relationship to contingent beings, and, indeed, a contingent being in his own right” (Divine Science, 90-91).
40 Rogers, Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth, 24-5.
41 Ibid., 22.
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid., 26.
44 In other words, there is a distinction between the reality that is the object of the science and the logic that best describes it. See ibid., 24-5.
45 Ibid., 20.
46 Aquinas postulates a new mode of knowing, the “lumen gloriae, which enables the beati to internalize that which man in via can in no way conceptualize—the ‘whatness’ or form of God.” Preller, Divine Science, 233. Since we cannot know “what God is” in this life, we must be concerned with the journey which draws us to God’s self-knowledge.
47 Chenu, Is Theology a Science?, 23-4.
48 Ibid., 90-91.
49 Rogers, Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth, 24 (emphasis mine).
50 See STh, I.1.8, reply.
51 See Rogers, Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth, 26, for more on the relationship between mathematics and music.
52 As Rogers explains Aristotle: “the beginning is a first principle (archê), the end is a final principle (telos), and the way in between is an inner principle, or form (morphê).” Ibid., 22.
53 “Outside” of the created world must be understood non-contrastively and metaphorically, of course, since nothing is outside of God.
54 Rogers, Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth, 41.
55 Augustine, Confessions, I.
56 To preserve the distinction between grace and nature, we must qualify that the end to which our natures are directed is freely bestowed by God: human beings may have been created rational creatures with no awareness of God—human intellection need not necessarily have been involved in the process of salvation or being drawn back to the Creator. Furthermore, Christianity holds that even human creatures with extremely limited intellectual abilities are directed towards God. The task remains for theology to revise its notions about what “rational” means, and what essential role persons with such disabilities play in salvation.
57 See also STh, I.1.7, reply obj. 1; I.1.3, reply.
58 However, Aquinas gives much credit to the human intellect, which is actively involved in the faith journey.
59 STh, I.1.8, reply.
60 Berard Marthaler, The Creed: The Apostolic Faith in Contemporary Theology, revised ed. (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1993), 22.
61 Ibid., 23-4. Marthaler states the classic distinction of St. Augustine: “credere Deo (to believe on God’s authority), credere Deum [esse] (to believe that God exists), and credere in Deum (to believe in God). Only this last illustrates true faith. Medieval theologians repeated St. Augustine’s threefold distinction, with Aquinas asserting all three as aspects of the single act of faith” (24). See also Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Faith and Belief (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), esp. ch. 5, “Credo and the Roman Catholic Church,” 69-104 and ch. 6, “The English Word ‘Believe,’” 105-27.
62 Marthaler, The Creed, 27-8.
63 STh, I.1.6, reply.
64 Ibid.
65 1 Kg 3:16-27.
66 STh, I.1.5, sed contra.
67 STh, I.1.6, obj. 1.
68 STh, I.1.6, obj. 3.
69 STh, I.1.8, obj. 2.
70 Preller, Divine Science, 182.
71 Ibid., 181.
72 See STh, I.1.9, obj. 3 (“Magis enim manifestatur nobis de ipso quid non est quam quid est”) and I.3 (“Sed quia de Deo scire non possumus quid set sed quid non sit”).
73 Preller, Divine Science, 246.
74 Ibid., 252.
75 STh, I.1.7, reply.
76 Rogers emphasizes the Christo-centric character of the Summa, easily overlooked unless one pays attention to the structure and implicit references in Question 1 (Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth, 58-70). Christian theology cannot be solely based on metaphysics, because metaphysics is not compelled to consider the Word incarnate. In Article 7, sacred doctrine is one science that treats not only the divine, but all matters relating to the divine, including human “things and signs; or the works of salvation; or the whole Christ, as the head and members.”
77 See, for example, Preller, Divine Science, 232.
78 See, for example, Chenu, Is Theology a Science?, 74-5.
79 STh, I.1.9, obj. 2.
80 Ibid.
81 According to Preller, Aquinas ordinarily uses “scire” for “know,” and never in connection with cognitions of God through natural reason. Cognito and cognoscere are the broadest possible generic terms, referring to any state of mind connected with the apprehension of reality (Divine Science, 32).
82 On Detachment (Colledge and McGinn, Essential Sermons, 292).
83 STh, I.1.9, reply obj. 3.
84 God’s “incomprehensibility” does not negate God’s intelligibility. God’s incomprehensibility provides the basis for intelligibility. This will be discussed later in the book.
85 STh, I.1.8, reply.
86 STh, I.1.10, reply.
87 Ibid.
88 There is considerable debate over Aquinas’ definition of the literal sense. See Robert Kennedy, “Thomas Aquinas and the Literal Sense of Scripture” (PhD Diss., University of Notre Dame, 1985); Mark Johnson, “Another Look at the Plurality of the Literal Sense,” Medieval Philosophy and Theology 2 (1992): 117-41; John Boyle, “Saint Thomas and Sacred Scripture,” Pro Ecclesia 4 (1995): 92-104; Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983); and Wilhelus Gerhard Bonifatus Maria Valkenberg, Did Not our Hearts Burn? Place and Function of Holy Scripture in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Utrecht: Thomas Instituut, 1990).
89 STh, I.1.10, obj. 1.
90 Aquinas does not give an example of what he means by “the truth of one text … not [contradicting] the truth of another.” However, inferring from the non-contrastive exercise following Questions 1-13, he may include in the “analogical” sense texts that appear paradoxical, such as those that refer to Christ’s dying as a means to everlasting life. When such texts are explicated, they are found not to be contradictory but complimentary and essential to expressing a more profound truth than one text alone could articulate.
91 STh, I.1.10, obj. 3.
92 Soskice, Metaphor and Religious Language, 57-8.
93 Ibid., 62.
94 Ibid., 21.
95 Ibid., 84.
96 Marthaler, The Creed, 22.