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Adventures in Philosophy |
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by Jacques Maritain
Philosophy is the highest of the human sciences, that is, of the sciences which know things by the natural light of reason. But there is a science above it. For if there be a science which is a participation by man of the knowledge proper to God himself, obviously that science will be superior to the highest human science. Such a science, however, exists: it is theology. The word theology means the science of God. The science or knowledge of God which we can attain naturally by the unassisted powers of reason, and which enables us to know God by means of creatures as the author of the natural order, is a philosophic science -- the supreme department of metaphysics -- and is known as theodicy or natural theology. The knowledge or science of God which is unattainable naturally by the unassisted powers of reason, and is possible only if God has informed men about himself by a revelation from which our reason, enlightened by faith, subsequently draws the implicit conclusions, is supernatural theology or simply theology. It is of this science that we are now speaking. Its object is something wholly inaccessible to the natural apprehension of any creature whatsoever, namely, God known in himself, in his own divine life, or in technical language sub ratione Deitatis, not, as in natural theology, God as the first cause of creatures and the author of the natural order. And all theological knowledge is knowledge in terms of God thus apprehended, whereas all metaphysical knowledge, including the metaphysical knowledge of God, is knowledge in terms of being in general. The premisses of theology are the truths formally revealed by God (dogmas or articles of faith), and its primary criterion of truth the authority of God who reveals it. Its light is no longer the more natural light of reason, but the light of reason illuminated by faith, virtual revelation in the language of theology, that is to say, revelation in so far as it implicitly (virtually) contains whatever conclusions reason can draw from it. Alike by the sublimity of its object, the certainty of its premisses, and the excellence of its light, theology is above all merely human sciences. And although it is unable to perceive the truth of its premisses, which the theologian believes, whereas the premisses of philosophy are seen by the philosopher, it is nevertheless a science superior to philosophy. Though, as St. Thomas points out, the argument from authority is the weakest of all, where human authority is concerned, the argument from the authority of God, the revealer, is more solid and powerful than any other. And finally as the object of theology is he who is above all causes, it claims with a far better title than metaphysics the name of wisdom. It is wisdom par excellence. What relations, then, must obtain between philosophy and theology? As the superior science, theology judges philosophy in the same sense that philosophy judges the sciences. It therefore exercises in respect of the latter a function of guidance or government, though a negative government, which consists in rejecting as false any philosophic affirmation which contradicts a theological truth. In this sense theology controls and exercises jurisdiction over the conclusions maintained by philosophers. The premisses of philosophy, however, are independent of theology, being those primary truths which are self-evident to the understanding, whereas the premisses of theology are the truths revealed by God. The premisses of philosophy are self-supported and are not derived from those of theology. Similarly the light by which philosophy knows its object is independent of theology, since its light is the light of reason, which is its own guarantee. For these reasons philosophy is positively governed by theology, nor has it any need of theology to defend its premisses (whereas it defends those of the other sciences). It develops its principles autonomously within its own sphere, though subject to the external control and negative of theology. It is therefore plain that philosophy and theology are entirely distinct, and that it would be as absurd for a philosopher to invoke the authority of revelation to prove a philosophical thesis as for a geometrician to attempt to prove a theorem by the aid of physics, for example, by weighing the figures he is comparing. But if philosophy and theology are entirely distinct, they are not therefore unrelated, and although philosophy is of all the human sciences preeminently the free science, in the sense that it proceeds by means of premisses and laws which depend on no science superior to itself, its freedom -- that is, its freedom to err -- is limited in so far as it is subject to theology, which controls it externally. In the seventeenth century the Cartesian reform resulted in the severance of philosophy from theology, the refusal to recognize the rightful control of theology and its function as a negative rule in respect of philosophy. This was tantamount to denying that theology is a science, or anything more than a mere practical discipline, and to claiming that philosophy, or human wisdom, is the absolutely sovereign science, which admits no other superior to itself. Thus, in spite of the religious beliefs of Descartes himself, Cartesianism introduced the principle of rationalist philosophy, which denies God the right to make known by revelation truths which exceed the natural scope of reason. For if God has indeed revealed truths of this kind, human reason enlightened by faith will inevitably employ them as premisses from which to obtain further knowledge and thus form a science, theology. And if theology is a science, it must exercise in respect of philosophy the function of negative rule, since the same proposition cannot be true in philosophy, false in theology. On the other hand, philosophy renders to theology services of the greatest value where it is employed by the latter. For in fact theology employs in its demonstrations truths proved by philosophy. Philosophy thus becomes the instrument of theology, and it is in this respect and in so far as it serves theological argument that it is called ancilla theologiae. In itself, however, and when it is proving its own conclusions, it is not a bondservant but free, subject only to the external control and negative ruling of theology. As was shown above, philosophy is from the very nature of things obliged to employ as an instrument the evidence of the senses, and even, in a certain fashion, the conclusions of the special sciences. Theology, considered in itself as a science subordinate to the knowledge of God and the blessed, is not in this way obliged to make use of philosophy, but is absolutely independent. In practice, however, on account of the nature of its possessor, that is to say, on account of the weakness of the human understanding, which can reason about the things of God only by analogy with creatures, it cannot be developed without the assistance of philosophy. But the theologian does not stand in the same relation to philosophy as the philosopher to the sciences. We have seen above that the philosopher should employ the propositions or conclusions which he borrows from the sciences, not to establish his own conclusions (at any rate not conclusions for which metaphysical certainty is claimed), but merely to illustrate his principles, and therefore that the truth of a metaphysical system does not depend on the truth of the scientific material it employs. The theologian, on the contrary, makes use at every turn of philosophic propositions to prove his own conclusions. Therefore a system of theology could not possibly be true if the metaphysics which it employed were false. It is indeed an absolute necessity that the theologian should have at his disposal a true philosophy in conformity with the common sense of mankind. Philosophy taken in itself normally precedes theology. Certain fundamental truths of the natural order are indeed what we may term the introduction to the faith (praeambula fidei). These truths, which are naturally known to all men by the light of common sense, are known and proved scientifically by philosophy. Theology, being the science of faith, presupposes the philosophical knowledge of these same truths. Philosophy considered as the instrument of theology serves the latter, principally in three ways. In the first place theology employs philosophy to prove the truths which support the foundations of the faith in that department of theology which is termed apologetics, which shows, for example, how miracles prove the divine mission of the Church; secondarily to impart some notion of the mysteries of faith by the aid of analogies drawn from creatures -- as for instance when theology uses the philosophic conception of verbum mentale, the mental word, to illustrate the dogma of the Trinity; and finally to refuge the adversaries of the faith -- as when theology shows by means of the philosophic theory of quantity that the mystery of the Eucharist is in no way opposed to reason. We must not forget that, if philosophy serves theology, it receives in return valuable assistance from the latter. In the first place, so far as it is of its nature subject to the external control and negative ruling of theology, it is protected from a host of errors; and if its freedom to err is thus restricted, its freedom to attain truth is correspondingly safeguarded. In the second place, in so far as it is the instrument of theology, it is led to define more precisely and with more subtle refinements important concepts and theories which, left to itself, it would be in danger of neglecting. For example, it was under the influence of theology that Thomism elaborated the theory of nature and personality, and perfected the theory of the habitus, habits, etc. Conclusion III. -- Theology, or the science of God so far as He has been made known to us by revelation, is superior to philosophy. Philosophy is subject to it, neither in its premisses nor in its method, but in its conclusions, over which theology exercises a control, thereby constituting itself a negative rule of philosophy.
Excerpted from An Introduction to Philosophy, by Jacques Maritain (1930). |
An Introduction to Philosophy, by Jacques Maritain The Degrees of Knowledge, by Jacques Maritain
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