Program / Course 12: Patristics and Historical Theology / Lesson 5.4
What you will learn
- Explain Aquinas’s distinction between truths of reason and truths known only by revelation.
- State what he meant by saying that grace does not destroy nature but perfects it.
- Describe how he thought human language can speak truly of God, using analogy.
- Compare Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant responses to his approach.
The big idea
Aquinas held that faith and reason come from the same God and so cannot finally contradict each other. Some truths about God, such as that God exists, can be reached by reasoning from the world. Others, such as the Trinity and the incarnation, are known only because God reveals them. Grace does not replace human nature but heals and raises it. Human words can say true things about God, not exactly as they say them of creatures, and not in a way that is simply different, but by analogy. These claims have been admired, qualified and rejected in different traditions.
Key terms
- Natural theology
- What can be known about God by human reason, from the world and from human experience, without special revelation.
- Revealed theology
- What is known about God because God has made it known, as in Scripture and the church’s teaching.
- Preambles of faith
- In Aquinas, truths such as God’s existence that reason can reach and that prepare the way for faith.
- Analogy
- In Aquinas, a way of speaking in which a word such as good applies to God and creatures neither in exactly the same sense nor in unrelated senses, but in senses that are related.
- Via negativa
- Latin for the negative way. Speaking of God by saying what God is not, such as not limited and not changing.
- Beatific vision
- The direct vision of God, which Aquinas taught is the final happiness of human beings.
- Infused virtues
- In Catholic teaching, virtues such as faith, hope and charity that God pours into the soul as gifts, as distinct from habits built by practice.
Background
Aquinas worked in a time when many scholars feared that the newly recovered Aristotle would lead people away from faith. Some masters at Paris, often called Latin Averroists, were accused of teaching that something could be true in philosophy and false in theology. Aquinas rejected this idea of two truths. He held that all truth is one, because its source is one.
He therefore had two tasks: to show that reason has its own proper field, and to show that revelation goes beyond it without contradiction. He argued that faith is a kind of knowing, based on trust in God who reveals. He also argued that the natural world is good and understandable, since God made it.
These views appear in several works, notably in the early questions of the Summa Theologiae and in the Summa contra Gentiles, which was written to help Christians discuss with Muslims and Jews and which therefore starts from reason.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: Two kinds of truth about God
Aquinas separated truths about God into two groups. Some can be known by reason, though few people may work them out, and then with errors. These include that God exists and that God is one. Others exceed reason and can be known only by revelation, such as the Trinity, the incarnation and the resurrection of the dead. He did not think reason could prove these or that it would contradict them.
He said that when a believer meets an apparent contradiction between a sound philosophical argument and the faith, one of two things has happened: the argument is flawed or the teaching is misunderstood. This conviction made it possible for him to use Aristotle freely. It also meant that he took the arguments of nonbelievers seriously.
Step 2: Why revelation is needed
In the first question of the Summa, Aquinas asks why a teaching beyond philosophy is needed. His answers are that human beings are ordered to an end beyond what reason can grasp, namely the vision of God, and that even truths of reason would reach few people, slowly and with mixture of error, if they depended on reason alone. Revelation fills these gaps.
Step 3: Nature and grace
A famous line in the Summa says that grace does not destroy nature but perfects it. For Aquinas, human nature is good, though wounded by sin, and it has real powers of knowing and willing. Grace heals the wound and raises the person to share in God’s life, for which nature alone is not enough. Grace works through nature, so reason, will and friendship are not set aside.
This shapes his ethics. Aquinas holds that the natural virtues, such as courage and justice, are real goods. The theological virtues of faith, hope and charity are added as gifts of grace and direct the whole person to God. He also teaches that merit is possible, but only because God’s grace first makes good works possible, a point on which Protestant critics have pressed hard.
Step 4: Speaking of God
Since God is not a creature, human words fall short. Aquinas starts with the negative way: God is known better by saying what God is not, not bodily, not changing, not limited. But he also holds that some words, such as good and wise, can be used of God truly. They apply to God and to creatures by analogy. A person is wise, and God is wise, but God’s wisdom is not a quality added to a being. It is God’s own being. The word keeps a relation of meaning while the manner differs.
This is subtle, and critics have argued that it either says too little or says too much. Aquinas is clear that human beings do not comprehend God. He wrote that human beings cannot know what God is, only what God is not.
Step 5: The goal
For Aquinas, the final happiness of human beings is not found in wealth, honor, pleasure or even virtue, but in seeing God, the beatific vision. This vision is not possible by natural power, so grace is needed. The whole structure of the Summa leads toward it. Faith is the beginning of that knowledge, and love, which does not end, is its completion (1 Corinthians 13).
- Is it comforting or troubling to think that faith and reason cannot finally conflict?
- What would be lost if only revelation could speak about God?
- What would be lost if only reason could?
- How would you explain analogy to a child?
- What does it mean to say grace perfects nature?
- Which part of human life seems to you most in need of healing, and which most in need of raising?
Examples
A good dog and a good God
The word good is used of a dog, of a person and of God. The sense is not exactly the same each time, and not completely different either. A good dog does what dogs are for. A good person lives as people should. God is good as the source of all goodness. Analogy tries to describe this.
Reason and a contradiction
A student reads a scientific claim that seems to contradict a doctrine. Aquinas’s advice is to examine both carefully: perhaps the science is not settled, or perhaps the doctrine is being read more narrowly than the church teaches. He expected that careful reading would resolve the difficulty.
Grace working through a person
A person who wants to forgive but cannot may pray for help. When the ability comes, the forgiveness is still the person’s own act. Aquinas would say that grace healed the will and the act was freely done.
Different perspectives
Catholic
The Catholic Church holds that God can be known by natural reason, a teaching affirmed at the First Vatican Council, and that faith and reason are two wings, as John Paul II wrote. Thomism is a major school but not the only one. Catholic theologians differ about how nature and grace relate, in debates of the twentieth century.
Orthodox
Orthodox theology emphasizes that God’s essence is unknowable and that human beings know God through his energies, as developed by Gregory Palamas. Many Orthodox writers think Aquinas is too confident about reason and about speaking of the divine essence. Others find resemblances, especially in his negative theology.
Protestant
Protestant views vary. Reformed thinkers like Calvin held that all people have a sense of God but that sin blinds them, and some twentieth century Reformed thinkers, such as Cornelius Van Til and Karl Barth, rejected natural theology as an independent path. Others, like Alvin Plantinga, defend rational belief in God in different terms. Lutherans emphasize that reason cannot reach saving knowledge.
Scholarly views
Scholars debate how best to read Aquinas on analogy, and whether his view of nature and grace is closer to later Catholic theology or to alternatives. They also debate how much he depended on Aristotle and on Neoplatonism, and whether the preambles are true proofs or reasonable arguments.
Why it matters
How faith relates to reason is one of the oldest questions in Christianity, and it is alive today in debates about science, history and belief. Aquinas gives a clear and influential answer. Even a person who rejects it can learn from it what the options are.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Aquinas thought reason alone can prove all of Christianity.
Correction: He held that doctrines like the Trinity and incarnation are known only through revelation. Reason can show that they are not contradictory and can defend them.
Misunderstanding: Aquinas believed in two truths, one of faith and one of reason.
Correction: He denied this. Truth is one, and he held that faith and reason cannot finally contradict.
Misunderstanding: Nature and grace are opposed in his thought.
Correction: He taught that grace builds on nature and perfects it. Some critics think the relation is too close, while others think it is not close enough.
Misunderstanding: Analogy means that God is only like a human being.
Correction: It is a way to speak of a real likeness while stressing that God is far beyond the likeness.
Knowledge check
What are the two kinds of truth about God in Aquinas?
Some truths, such as that God exists, can be reached by reason, though few might reach them clearly. Others, such as the Trinity and the incarnation, can be known only by revelation. Aquinas held that both come from one God, so truth is one and faith and reason cannot finally contradict each other.
What does grace perfects nature mean?
It means that human nature is good, though wounded, and grace heals and raises it without replacing it. Grace works through the powers of reason and will, and brings the person to share in God’s life, which nature alone cannot reach.
What is analogy in speaking of God?
Analogy is the claim that words like good and wise apply to God and creatures in senses that are related but not the same. The words say something true about God, while God remains beyond what any word can contain. Aquinas combined this with a negative way of speaking.
Why do some Orthodox and Protestant writers criticize Aquinas?
Many Orthodox theologians think he is too confident about reason and the divine essence, and they stress apophatic theology. Some Protestants, such as Barth and Van Til, reject natural theology as a path independent of revelation. Others admire his method. Views vary within each tradition.
Think it through
- Where in your life do faith and reason seem to pull apart? What might Aquinas say?
- What are the dangers of speaking about God too confidently? Of speaking too little?
- Does the idea of grace perfecting nature change how you think about ordinary work and friendship?
- What would you hope to see at the end, if the vision of God is the goal?
Independent assignment
Faith and reason in a short essay
Read Part 1, Question 1, Articles 1 and 8 of the Summa. In your notebook, write an essay of 400 to 600 words explaining in your own words why Aquinas thinks revelation is needed, and how he answers the worry that using philosophy damages faith. End by stating one objection you think a Protestant or an Orthodox reader might raise, and how Aquinas might reply.
Further study
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Read Part 1, Question 1 on sacred doctrine, and Questions 12 and 13 on knowing and naming God.
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, Q. 2: The Existence of God Read the article on the existence of God with its objections.
- Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church An Orthodox contrast, on the unknowable God and the energies.
- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion Read Book 1, chapters 3 to 5, for a Reformed view of the knowledge of God.
- Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief A modern Protestant account of the rationality of belief in God.
- Romans 1:19 That which may be known of God is manifest in them.
- Isaiah 55:8 My thoughts are not your thoughts.
- 1 Corinthians 13:12 Seeing through a glass darkly, then face to face.