Christian Philosophy and Intellectual Freedom

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TH E GAB RIEL RICHARD LECTURE

CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY AND

INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM BY ANTON C. PEGIS, F.R.S.C., LL.D. �

1955 CO-SPONSORED BY THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION AND ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY, ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI

THE BRUCE P UBLISHING COMPANY • Milwaukee

NIHIL OBSfAT: JoHN A. ScHuLrnN

Censor librorum IMPRIMATUR:

+ WILLIAM E.

CousINs

Archbishop of Milwaukee July 22, 1960

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 60-15483

© 1960

NATIONAL CATHOLIC EDUCATIONAL AssocuTION

MADE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To The Right Reverend Monsignor Sylvester J. Holbel Amicitiae causa Habet namque fides oculos suos, quibus quodam­ modo videt verum esse quad nondum videt, et quibus certissime videt nondum se videre quod credit. ( St. Augustine, To Consentius Epist. CXX, II, 8; PL 3 3, col. 456)

PREFACE

Pope Leo XIII issued his famous Encyclical Aeterni Patris on August 4, 1879. One year later, to the day, in his Brief Cum hoc sit he declared St. Thomas Aquinas the patron of Catholic schools and took this occasion to describe Aeterni Patris as "Our encyclical letter on the restoration to Catholic schools of Christian philosophy according to the mind of St. Thomas Aquinas." No less pro­ vocative than this statement was the formula for Christian philosophy that Pope Leo had given in Aeterni Patris: "Those, therefore, who to the study of philosophy unite obedience to the Christian faith, are philosophizing in the best possible way; for the splendor of the divine truths, received into the mind, helps the understanding, and not only detracts in nowise from its dignity but adds greatly to its nobility, keenness, and stability." 1 Christian philosophy as realized by St. Thomas Aquinas is a remarkable notion. It has tested the mettle of St. Thomas' students, dividing them at that precise moment when it has seemed to some that the adjective "Christian" destroys the noun

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''philosophy." For how can philosophy obey the Christian faith and remain philosophy? And how does divine truth add to the penetration and stabil­ ity of philosophy? In revising and expanding the present Richard Lecture for publication I have sought to direct its main attention to the point that occupied Leo's mind: philosophy in a Christian climate is a better philosophy because of its religious state. This was a lesson to be drawn from St. Thomas' personal reflections as a theologian. But how was such a paradoxical notion to be understood? Judging by the attitude of St. Thomas toward Greek and Ara­ bic philosophy, we could put the point as follows. By becoming Christian, philosophy was both truer and freer in the development of its proper nature. The theologian who wrote the Summa Contra Gentiles had underlined this consideration for the benefit of the Moors and of the Parisian devotees of a pure Aristotle. Nor did St. Thomas mean simply that, by coming under the influence of the Christian revelation, philosophy was made aware of more truths than the ancient Greeks had known. He meant something much more radical. Under the guidance of divine truth philosophy achieved a deeper and fuller expression of its own life. By be­ lieving, the philosophizing intellect became a more authentic intellect m the conduct of its philo­ sophical life.

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As the discussions of the past three decades have made abundantly clear, this Thomistic notion runs counter not only to what some historians think about the intellectual creativeness of Christianity but also to what many of our contemporaries be­ lieve about Catholic philosophy and education. They recognize that Catholic education is religious, but they do not see how an educational philosophy guided by a divine revelation is intellectually free; and still less do they understand how an education rooted in the life of the Christian religion can cherish v.rithin itself the ideal of an integral Chris­ tian man whose supernatural vocation both re­ deems and fulfills what is natural within him. And assuredly it is not easy to grasp such an extraordi­ nary idea. The record of Catholic philosophers themselves is far from harmonious on this point. If they have defended the inherent freedom of the believing intellect, some of them have thought it necessary to separate philosophy from faith as the means of maintaining the rationality proper to the intellect in philosophy. Hence, if Catholic philoso­ phers have not always been clear on the propriety of the adjective in the name "Christian philosophy," the confusion of others on this point is at least understandable. Remarkably enough, the successors of Pope Leo XIII have repeatedly returned to the Thomistic teaching on Christian philosophy with an urgency

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that has become sharper and more emphatic in the last fifty years. On September 23, 1958, the late Pope Pius XII addressed a group of delegates who had attended the Twelfth International Congress of Philosophy held in Venice and Padua from September 12 to 18. The main theme of his brief and informal remarks was the benefit bestowed on philosophy by the Christian revelation. Making his own the teaching of Pope Leo XIII, Pope Pius spoke as follows to the philosophers present: Historians of medieval philosophy have given particular emphasis to this remarkably significant fact: the super­ natural truth of the Christian faith has enabled the human reason to reach a full awareness of its own autonomy, of the absolute certitude of its first prin­ ciples, and of the fundamental liberty of its decisions and its acts.

What, then, does Christianity expect from the philosopher? He is not being asked to give up the methods of research proper to his work. ...he is being asked to take into account the whole of reality, including the destiny of man, such as it exists concretely in all its dimensions - individual and social, temporal and eternal, afflicted by suffering and enslaved by sin and death.

Finally, taking note of the decadence of early modem scholasticism and of the "bitter fruits" of the long reign of rationalism since the seventeenth century, Pope Pius formulated for philosophers this statement of the Christian invitation to philosophy:

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Assuredly, the acceptance of the Christian faith does not solve all speculative problems, but it obliges the philosopher to emerge from his isolation; it locates him in a much vaster world; it gives him firm points of reference, both in the order of knowledge and in the order of action. Instead of stifling the inquiry of the philosopher, revelation calls it into being and stimulates it; and it makes known to him the true splendor of man, the very splendor that he received from the In­ carnation of the Son of God, Who is his Savior and Who enables him to share in the glory of His redemp­ tive work. 2

The philosopher who is a Christian cannot do less than follow the lead of this invitation. Con­ scious- that nature is a preamble to grace, the Chris­ tian must come to recognize that in the mystery of man's creation metaphysics and history come to­ gether: the very structure of man's being as studied by the metaphysician is already man's first step in the historic drama of the eternal destiny for which God created him. To reach this moment of equilib­ rium in the problem of Christian philosophy has been my main purpose in preparing the manuscript of the present lecture for publication. It is a great pleasure for me to express my thanks to the National Catholic Educational Association for inviting me to give the Gabriel Richard Lecture on December 4, 1955, under the auspices of St. Louis University. To Monsignor Frederick G. Hochwalt, the Executive Secretary of the N.C.E.A., and the Reverend Paul C. Reinert, S.J., President 11

of St. Louis University, I am indebted for their consideration toward me on all occasions. I am especially indebted to them for being patient dur­ ing my long delay in rewriting the manuscript. I should like to add, too, that I well remember the generous remarks with which the Reverend George P. Klubertanz, S.J., the Dean of the School of Philosophy and Letters, introduced this lecturer, and the warm hospitality of the St. Louis Uni­ versity faculty. Yonkers, New York December 21, 1959

ANTON

12

C.

PEGIS

CONTENTS

7

PREFACE . I II III

IV V

AN UNFINISHED EDUCATIONAL DEBATE

17

TowARD AN OPEN INTELLECTUALISM

29

THE PROBLEM OF "CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY''

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REVELATION, TRUTH, AND THE INTELLECT

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CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY AND CATHOLIC EDUCATION

65 75

NOTES

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CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY AND INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM

I AN UNFINISHED EDUCATIONAL DEBATE It is almost a quarter of a century since Robert M. Hutchins published his entirely provocative little book, The Higher Learning in America. At the time, he took a look at American education and said that the "most important job that can be per­ formed in the United States is first to establish higher education on a rational basis and, second, to make our people understand it." It did not take long for Mr. Hutchins to hear from his colleagues. By his defense of medieval metaphysics as the sci­ ence that could again give unity to the American university, he immediately incurred the charge of intellectual dictatorship. From another quarter, Mr. Hutchins received a different sort of criticism. He appealed to Plato, Aristotle, and St. Thomas Aquinas in order to discover the nature of intelli­ gence and of intellectual virtue, and it was pointed out to him that Harvard, Yale, Chicago, and

17

similar schools could return only to their own re­ ligious and cultural origins.3 But by far the severest criticism that Mr. Hutchins received came, properly enough, from the pen of John Dewey in the pages of The Social Frontier.4 In writing The Higher Learning in America, Mr. Hutchins had charged that in the mid-thirties we were living in an age of pressure and propaganda when "the pursuit of truth for its own sake is actually regarded as dangerous by nervous news­ paper publishers and worried businessmen." 5 Our world was not only unintellectual but also anti­ intellectual. Our colleges and universities them­ selves were anti-intellectual, substituting an educa­ tion of how to do things for why we do them.6 Against an abject vocationalism, Mr. Hutchins pro­ posed a scheme of general education whose pur­ pose was to "cultivate the intellectual virtues" 1 as developed by the ancients, which to l\1r. Hutchins meant St. Thomas Aquinas. 8 The ideal held up for all to see was that of a human intellect properly trained through habits of virtue, properly cultivated and disciplined, and therefore fulfilling human na­ ture in its permanent humanity rather than merely adjusting it to the circumstances of a particular moment and age in history. 9 The core of this uni­ versal human education was to be "the cultivation of the intellect." 10 The curriculum proposed by Mr. Hutchins, moreover, proved to be the most notori-

18

ous part of his program, namely, the "great books," which connect us with the best that men have thought and are classics because of their permanent freshness and contemporaneity in every age. 11 Fi­ nally, through educating and devoloping "the ele­ ments of our common human nature," Mr. Hutch­ ins' curriculum would prepare the young for in­ telligent action by introducing them to the wisdom of the greatest minds of the past; at the same time, should our college graduates want to go on to graduate studies in the university, this same cur­ riculum would provide a basis. 12 \1/e cannot say that Mr. Hutchins was not brave in preaching intellectual virtue as the basic objec­ tive of college education. But he was braver still when he went from the general education of the college to the higher learning of the university. A university is dedicated to the pursuit of truth, which of its very nature is hierarchical and imposes a hierarchical structure upon the university. To ivir. Hutchins it was plain skepticism to make truth democratic, that is to say, to suppose that all truths were equally important.13 "The modern university," he wrote, "may be compared with an encyclopedia. The encyclopedia contains many truths, it consists of nothing else. But its unity can be found only in its alphabetic arrangement. The university is in much the same case. It has departments running from art to zoology; but neither the students nor

19

the professors know what is the relation of one departmental truth to another." 14 Nor is this all. With the alphabetism of the modern American university Mr. Hutchins con­ trasted the unity of the medieval university, whose principle of unity was theology. Medieval theolo­ gians had developed "an elaborate statement in due proportion and emphasis of the truths relating to man and God, man and man, and man and nature. It was an orderly progression from truth to truth." First in importance came the truths concerning God and man. From these there followed the truths governing the relations of men to one another. Fi­ nally there came the truths concerning the relations of man to nature. There was an insight running through this work of medieval theologians. "The insight that governed the system of the medieval theologian was that, as first principles order all truths in the speculative order, so last ends order all means and actions in the practical order. God is the first truth and the last end." 15 Of course, Mr. Hutchins was not na:ive enough to think that he could really propose the medieval university as a model for modern America. As he himself said, "theology is based on revealed truths and on articles of faith. vVe are a faithless genera­ tion and take no stock in revelation. Theology im­ plies orthodoxy and an orthodox church. We have neither. To look to theology to unify the modern

20

university is futile and vain. " 16 What, then, did Mr. Hutchins have in mind for a generation without faith, orthodoxy, or theology? He looked behind the theology of the middle ages to the Greeks from whom the Western world learned the highest purely human wisdom, namely, metaphysics. Among the Greeks, "metaphysics, rather than the­ ology, was the ordering and proportioning dis­ cipline." 11etaphysics is the highest and most uni­ versal science, being the study of the highest principles and causes, and it lies within the reach of any human intellect that is capable of acquiring virtue.11 According to Mr. Hutchins, metaphysics "ordered the thought of the Greek world as the­ ology ordered that of the middle ages." The con­ clusion is obvious. "If we cannot appeal to the­ ology, we must turn to metaphysics. Without theology or metaphysics a unified university cannot exist." Here, then, is the challenge that Mr. Hutch­ ins flung at a faithless generation desperately lack­ ing rational order and unity. "If we can revitalize metaphysics and restore it to its place in the higher learning, we may be able to establish rational order in the modern world as well as in the universi­ ties." 18 By pursuing truth for its own sake in the light of metaphysics, Mr. Hutchins added, "we shall be able to make a university a true center of learn­ ing; we shall be able to make it the home of creative thought." 19

21

Dewey's reaction to The Higher Learning in America was prompt, vigorous, and to the point.20 After all, in Dewey's eyes what Hutchins had done was nothing less than to attack the notion and ideal of education that had been associated with Dewey's own name for some forty years when The Higher Learning appeared in 1936. As Dewey saw it, the essence of Hutchins' position was "his conception of the nature of intellectuality or rationality." This conception, in turn, had two characteristics, namely, the "belief in the existence of fixed and eternal authoritative principles as truths that are not to be questioned," and the effort to withdraw the university from the turmoil of contemporary life as proved by the constant divorce set up by Hutchins "between intellect and practice, and be­ tween intellect and 'experience.' " 21 Dewey, there­ fore, attacked the position of Hutchins on two counts; namely, its authoritarianism and what Dewey called its "monastic seclusion." Any scheme, said Dewey in a sentence that was at once a riposte and a confession, that is "based on the existence of ultimate first principles, with their dependent hierarchy of subsidiary principles, does not escape authoritarianism by calling the principles 'truths.' " Basically, Mr. Hutchins' idea was "akin to the dis­ trust of freedom and the consequent appeal to some fixed authority that is now overrunning the world." According to Dewey, whenever fixed and

22

eternal first truths are asserted, there is implied the necessity "for some human authority to decide, in this world of conflict, just what these truths are and how they shall be taught." lVIr. Hutchins "con­ veniently ignored" this problem of human author­ ity. No doubt, Dewey conceded, much could be said "for selecting Aristotle and St. Thomas as competent promulgators of first truths. But it took the authority of a powerful ecclesiastic organization to secure their widespread recognition." Others, however, might prefer Hegel, l\!Iarx, Mussolini, or Hitler "as seers of first truths." Dewey's point was clear. As far as he could see, his opponent had "completely evaded the problem of who is to determine the set of truths 'that constitute the hierarchy." 22 Nor could Dewey see his critic's insistence on formal discipline. To what extent, he asked, could institutions of higher learning become "centers of creative thought, if in their management it is as­ sumed that fundamental truths and the hierarchy of truth are already known?" Dewey did not see how a student could become a student, much less a student capable of independent creative thought, by merely learning pre-existing truths. Moreover, and more seriously still, Hutchins was completely neglecting the natural sciences in his educational program, and this neglect was difficult to under­ stand "save on the score of a feeling, perhaps sub-

23

conscious, that their recognition is so hostile to the whole scheme of prescribed antecedent first truths that it would be fatal to the educational plan he proposes to give them an important place." This conclusion had for Dewey an important corollary. Since, as he had more than once written, the rise of the natural sciences eliminated the old logic to which Mr. Hutchins was appealing, there was a radical opposition between being modern with Dewey and returning to the past with Hutchins. In Dewey's own words: Considering, however, that their rise [that of the natural sciences] has always created a revolution in the old logic, and that they now afford the best existing patterns of controlled inquiry in search for truth, there will be others besides myself who will conclude that President Hutchins' policy of reform by withdrawal from eve rything that smacks of modernity and con­ temporaneousness is not after all the road to the kind of intellectuality that will remedy the evils he so vividly depicts. 23

As for Plato, Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, Dewey pointed out that, just as they did not with­ draw from their world and its problems and con­ fusions, so we should not practice monastic seclu­ sion in order to cure the chaos of our world. Since, indeed, we live under different historical and social conditions, it was nothing less than astounding to Dewey "that anyone should suppose that a return to the conception and methods of these writers

24

would do for the present situation what they did for the Greek and medieval eras." On the contrary, "higher learning can become intellectually vital only by coming to that close grip with our con­ temporary science and contemporary social affairs which Plato, Aristotle and St. Thomas exemplify in their respective · ways." 24 :r-..1r. Hutchins' rejoinder to this criticism is in­ teresting at this date only so far as it helps to take note of the unresolved issue between himself and Dewey. He had, he said, no intention of disparaging science or withdrawing from the world. If he looked to Plato, Aristotle, and St. Thomas, he also looked to a dozen other writers as well. Moreover, he re­ pudiated the charge of authoritarianism by denying that he had ever spoken of principles or truths as "fixed" and "eternal"; he had nowhere asserted that principles were not to be questioned and he was not defending any specific theological or metaphys­ ical system.2 5 Dewey was not slow to see that by this rejoinder his opponent was really retreating from his brave position. Dewey himself was very serious about metaphysics, and about Plato, Aris­ totle, and St. Thomas. That is, he was very serious about rejecting them. What, after all, did Recon­ struction in Philosophy, The Quest for Certainty, and Experience and Nature mean if not such a re­ jection? Unless Mr. Hutchins was equally serious about metaphysics, as well as about Plato, Aristotle,

25

and St. Thomas, what was all the fuss and fury about? In Dewey's eyes, the importance of The Higher Learning in America lay not only in its shrewd and vigorous exposition of the confusion reigning in American education, but also in the basic issue that it raised. This issue was "the in­ herent nature of knowledge and intelligence in relation to the locus of authority in matters intel­ lectual." Dewey understood Hutchins to hold that there was in man a power called the reason or the intellect "which is capable of grasping first and ultimate truths that are the measure and criterion of all inferior forms of knowledge, namely, those which have to do with empirical matters, in which knowledge of both the physical world and practical affairs is included." Dewey further understood his adversary "to hold that only on the basis of a hierarchical order determined on the basis of these truths could order be brought out of present dis­ order." In the presence of this position, Dewey could only take a determined and serious stand. For him, Hutchins held that "reason in independ­ ence from experience and the method of the natural sciences is given superior status and the latter are given subordinate rank." On the other hand, Dewey himself had for a long time been preaching an edu­ cational doctrine characterized by "the primary place of experience and experimental methods and the integral connection with practice in determina-

26

tion with knowledge and the auxiliary role of what is termed reason and intellect in the classic tradition." 26 Dewey was right. In spite of some areas of mis­ understanding between himself and Hutchins, he was right in insisting on the issue between them. His opponent could not hedge on such words as "fixed" and "eternal," or his distinctive historical connection with the doctrines of Plato, Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. Mr. Hutchins' intellec­ tualist position really argued for "a hierarchy in the order of truths and the subordination of phys­ ical and social knowledge to first truths which are attained and guaranteed by a method which is unlike and superior to the methods of the natural and social sciences." For, "unless these first and highest truths are themselves fixed and eternal, however temporal may be the processes by which we come into possession of them, common logic indicates that they cannot perform the authorita­ tive regulative function ascribed to them. For otherwise they are of the same experimental and hyp othetical order as that which they are supposed to control." 21 Dewey was not only right but also, on the whole, reasonably fair. If, as an experimentalist, he had an extremely distorted view of intellectualism, being unable to see any association of the intellect with experience except in terms of his own em-

27

pmc1sm or any freedom of the intellect from ex­ perience except in the form of a radical separation, he yet saw in intellectualism his chief enemy and in St. Thomas his chief opponent. Regardless of any misunderstanding, this was the lasting issue be­ tween himself and Hutchins; he was of the opinion that in the name of physical science he had killed metaphysics or at least that he had joined many other modern thinkers in attending its funeral; and he faced this vast issue seriously only to find that Hutchins did not. In short, he failed to see in the author of The Higher Learning a resolute apprecia­ tion of the deep conflict between them and a firm and unambiguous commitment to the defense of intellectualism against experimentalism.

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II TO\VARD AN OPEN INTELLECTUALISM If the debate between Dewey and Hutchins has remained without issue since the mid-thirties, it was not for want of protagonists. Professor Sidney Hook has defended experimentalism as essential to the development of a free mind, he has attacked the Thomism of Jacques Maritain as an unfit philosophy for a democratic society, and he has characterized metaphysics as a science without meaning. 28 :i\fr. Mortimer Adler, on the other hand, has seen more danger to America in the positivism of its educators than in the power of foreign dic­ tators, and he has attacked the followers of Dewey as equating freedom with skepticism and democ­ racy with intellectual indifference. 2 9 Nevertheless, it must be recognized that, what­ ever might have been the outcome of the debate between experimentalism and intellectualism, the emergence of science as an intellectual phenome­ non of great power since the beginning of Wodd

29

War II has gone far to neutralize the idea that science and pragmatism in education go hand in hand. For as atomic energy grew from an intellec­ tual intuition in the mind of Einstein at the be­ ginning of the twentieth century to an explosive reality over Hiroshima in August of 1945, it brought with it not only a new age of science but also a new age in our appreciation of human intelligence. Today, in the debate between experimentalism and intellectualism in American education, science stands on the side of intelligence; not indeed be­ cause it does not believe in experimentalism, but because it is opposed to the anti-intellectualism of progressive education, to its consequent substitu­ tion of social adjustment for intellectual disci­ pline, and to the transformation of the school from a center devoted primarily to intellectual instruc­ tion to a social service agency.30 We are thus living at a time when, by seeing both science and intelligence in a light that no longer commits education to the crassest posi­ tivism, we are beginning a new chapter in our ap­ preciation of the precise nature of the intellectual aims of education. The receding of the positivist tide in science, education, and philosophy can make it possible for us to avoid the battered cliche that philosophy is nothing more than antiquated science. 3 1 This change in intellectual atmosphere, by freeing science from the antimetaphysical virus

30

of the so-called Vienna School, can help to free the scientific method from serving as an ultimate weapon against intellectualism in philosophy and education. Considerable light, moreover, is being thrown on the nature of scientific investigation by a growing body of literature on the subject; 32 and scientists themselves are explaining what the scientific method is in their work and how it functions.33 Again, whereas the pattern of modern scientific thinking was first formed in astronomy and physics, some recent scientists have been say­ ing that this pattern contains a view of the nature of scientific data and scientific verification that can­ not be applied in the study of plants and animals or in the domain of the social sciences. 3 4 To be sure, the ideal of reducing nature to a few simple laws is an understandable and even necessary under­ taking of the human mind. Nevertheless, the biologist and the social scientist are pointing out that they are dealing with scientific data that no purely physical and quantitative methods of in­ vestigation can adequately consider or interpret. One should not press these developrnents un­ duly. There may be no more than a psychological difference between using experimentalism as a mask of intellectual skepticism and limiting the intellect to the scientific method as employed in the labora­ tory. If instrumentalism repudiates the intellect as a matter of principle, there are scientists who

31

repudiate the intellect as a matter of fact: without intending to be skeptics, they yet limit the in­ tellect to that range of knowledge and certainty which the physical sciences can guarantee. Such scientists35 are far from being skeptics, but they do not easily remember that, in the depth of its nature, the intellect is more ultimately the power enabling men to seek truth beyond the domain of the physical sciences than it is a means for achieving mastery of physical nature. The labora­ tory method of the scientist limits him to opinions that are mortal in their substance and narrow in their range. The intellect, however, has ways of knowing and thinking that are untouched by the laboratory. The role of the Catholic philosopher appears at this point. He can contribute to the liberation of the human intellect from scientism from the view that "science" and "laboratory sci­ ence" are equivalents and, therefore, that "scien­ tific method" is always patterned on the procedures of the laboratory sciences. Where long-standing habits and prejudices have rendered metaphysics a meaningless science in the modern world, the Cath­ olic philosopher must try to show that the "is" so naturally pronounced by the human intellect means "exists" before it means "equals." In short, against experimentalism and the occupational haz­ ards of the scientist, he must show the full open­ ness of the intellect on reality.

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III THE PROBLEl\1 OF "CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY" Catholic thinkers have both watched and taken part in the educational debates of the past two decades. They have expressed, if not pleasure, at least satisfaction whenever they were told that Catholic education had healthy principles and needed only to carry them out. Yet it remains that non-Catholic educators have understood our edu­ cational philosophy rather badly; 36 so much so, that it may be useful to ask whether we may not bear some responsibility in this matter. Have we stated our philosophy of education with an adequate fidelity to all its dimensions? Are we, however un­ willingly, responsible for the widespread notion that Catholic philosophy - and therefore Catholic education - is authoritarian in form and structure, dogmatic in spirit and expression, and hence with­ out intellectual freedom? Why do our contem­ poraries so often think that the intellect in a Cath­ olic philosopher is not free, and that Catholic

33

education is an inflexible program of studies cal­ culated to insure orthodoxy at the price of freedom? In point of fact, there are historical reasons for thinking that we have not always been equal to the task of understanding and appreciating our com­ plex philosophical patrimony. It has not proved easy for us to see that the thirteenth century, from which we have derived so many of our doctrines, developed them to answer its own problems and not to meet our own. Worse still, we have not al­ ways known how to express for our world the in­ tellectual message that thirteenth-century theolo­ gians form ulated for their own with doctrinal tools whose precision we have yet to master. Let us concentrate these reflections within the question that has arisen as a result of the development of medieval studies during the past half century. This question concerns the nature of what historians have variously called "scholastic philosophy," "me­ dieval scholasticism," or "the philosophy of the schoolmen." And since the most outstanding among the schoolmen was, on the admission of friend and foe alike, St. Thomas Aquinas, in its basic outlines the present question has to do with the ideal of philosophy such as it was formulated by St. Thomas himself. I can perhaps best crystal­ lize the historical and doctrinal dimensions of the present question by referring to a recent paper by Etienne Gilson entitled "\Vhat is Christian Phi-

34

losophy?" which summarizes the eminent author's reflections on the general nature of medieval phi­ losophy, on Thomism itself as a philosophy, and on the widely debated question whether there is a philosophy that, as philosophy, can be called Christian.3 7 Gilson's views on the nature of Christian phi­ losophy go back to 1930 and are embodied in two books belonging to that period. These are: The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy and Christianity and Philosophy. Since about 1930, in fact, a con­ troversy has been developing on the notion of Christian philosophy, and Gilson's name has be­ come connected with both the historical and the doctrinal phase of the controversy. In its historical phase the controversy bears on what Gilson has called the tendency of historians of medieval thought during the past hundred years "to imagine the middle ages as peopled by philosophers rather than theologians." 3 8 But, the more historians have studied St. Bonaventure, St. Albert, St. Thomas, Duns Scotus, and Ockham ( not to mention the perplexing personality of St. Anselm ) , the more they have found, not philosophers, but theologians: the philosophies of these men were contained in their theologies. Hence Gilson's conclusion on this point : "The research in medieval thought, which began by being concerned with the philosophies of the middle ages, is tending more and more to

35

restore these philosophies within the theologies which contain them." In the same way, the notion of a common medieval scholastic synthesis has been giving ground to the view that medieval theolo­ gians were highly individualistic in their philoso­ phies, including their interpretations of the text of Aristotle. What is more, speaking as a his­ torian who has produced major and even decisive studies on all the great theologians of the Middle Ages, Gilson has drawn the following conclusion for his fellow historians to ponder: "The lesson of experience is that the more the historian separates philosophy from theology in medieval doctrines, the more scholastic philosophy tends to shrivel into a general technique that becomes increasingly poorer in originality and, in the end, identifies it­ self with the philosophy of Aristotle as seen by Avicenna or Averroes." 3 9 Reflecting on this state of affairs, Gilson as a historian went on to formulate a lesson that has been associated with his name in a distinctive way. The more we make an effort to see the various me­ dieval philosophies within the theologies in which they were born, the more we see their originality; which is to say that medieval philosophies were at their creative best while serving their theologies. In other words, "all the decisive steps of progress made by Western philosophy in the middle ages were made in relation to points of doctrine in

36

which the intellectus fidei" - that is, the work of the theologian as such - "in some way evoked phil­ osophical originality." 40 Admittedly, this is a hard saying for modern scholastic philosophers. As philosophers, scholastics wish to be modern, engaged in modern problems, and in contact with modem knowledge. Yet they also wish to be scholastic and to build a modern scholastic philosophy which, to take an eminent example, by looking back to a St. Thomas Aquinas for its principles, would be a genuine philosophy for today built according to the mind and principles of St. Thomas himself. At this juncture in the modern scholastic effort, Gilson has been a rather severe observer of his contemporaries. As he sees it, modern scholasticism is suffering from a Car­ tesian disease, the disease of separating and erecting into a detached philosophical edifice those phil­ osophical doctrines that St. Thomas Aquinas had formulated and used in his theology. For some two hundred years after the death of Descartes, this scholastic philosophy, whose ties with sacred doc­ trine Gilson has described ironically as a "purely negative pact of non-aggression" 41 was a most un­ productive philosophical phenomenon, despite standing in the modern world both as a genuine philosophy and as a philosophy that was in accord with the teaching of the Christian revelation. From this critical point of view, the position of

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scholastic philosophy is, as a philosophy, a historical anomaly. As a philosophy that claims to owe its existence to the sole and unaided light of the hu­ man reason, and that defends its separation from theology as the mark and guarantee of its rational­ ity, modern scholastic philosophy seems to be an exile from the only two recognizable historical dwellings it can inhabit as a pure philosophy. I ts appeal to Aristotle might suggest that scho­ lastic philosophy is somehow to be identified with pre-Christian Greek philosophy and especially with the philosophy of Aristotle himself. There are many who would agree with this identification. But we know enough about the historical Aristotle to recognize that he was not the author of scho­ lasticism. Not only did medieval theologians use Aristotle, they also bent him to their own purposes at the very moment of apparently following him. The Aristotle who is the Philosophus in the writ­ ings of a St. Thomas Aquinas, a St. Albert, or a Duns Scotus very often spoke the philosophical creations of these theologians. Only the Averroists followed the Aristotle of antiquity in any literal way, and even they had not ·a little trouble in this effort. In any case, when modern scholastics have tended to equate scholasticism with Aristotelianism they have attributed to Aristotle doctrines that he never held; worse still, they have failed to recognize and to appreciate their own true origins. Such,

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briefly, is the first consequence of Gilson's critique of modern scholasticism as a pure philosophy. On the other hand, it is no more than fair to say that modern philosophers from Descartes to Kant, or from the German idealists to Bergson and Whitehead, have not been seriously occupied with scholasticism as a philosophy. Bertrand Russell, for example, that tormented and tormenting gadfly of the twentieth century, put his finger on the point at issue when he wrote of St. Thomas that his "appeal to reason is, in a sense, insincere, since the conclusion to be reached is fixed in advance." "There is," he added, "little of the true philosophic spirit in Aquinas. He does not, like the Platonic Socrates, set out to follow wherever the argument may lead. He is not engaged in an inquiry, the re­ sult of which it is impossible to know in advance. Before he begins to philosophize, he already knows the truth; it is declared in the Catholic faith. . . . The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading. " 4 2 The question to consider in these words is not the evident pleasure their author takes in writing them. Whatever else they do, they state an issue. How can Thomism pretend to be a philosophy, a free inquiry, when ( as Russell sees it ) it is com­ mitted in advance to truths it accepts by faith? If he is a believer, how can the Thomist today pre-

39

tend to being a philosopher? If this last question is intended as rhetorical by more than one con­ temporary philosopher and educator, yet for the modem Thomist it carries a twofold significance. He is being told that, since he is a believer, he cannot have a legitimate philosophy. On this basis, only those who are unbelievers can be philosophers since only they can pretend to live by the sole light of reason and to deny that there is any hu­ manly acquirable truth beyond time and history. But this is not the full measure of the modern Thomist's difficulty. For though he may keep his philosophy out of the reach of his theology, and though in philosophy he may seek to conduct him­ self as a pure philosopher, yet his "pure" philosophy does agree with his Christian theology, just as this same philosophy, despite its purity, does not seem to have any serious appeal for the unbelieving philosopher. We are now at an impasse. It is several centuries too late for what is called Thomistic philosophy to be identified with pre-Christian Aristotelianism. Moreover, after over three hundred years of trying to be a pure philosophy in the modem world, Thomism is frequently labeled an authoritarian philosophy that is unsuited to the culture of a democratic society. And if the examples of Etienne Gilson and Jacques �/[aritain are to be used as showing that modern Thomism is a creative philo-

40

sophical force, then we must admit that philosoph­ ical Thomism waited a long time before flowering into a renaissance. But what is more damaging to the cause of a philosophical Thomism is that these two men have been, each in his own way, religious philosophers whose creativeness has been acknowl-· edged and respected by their contemporaries in its very Christian commitments. In short, we cannot avoid the conclusion that modern Thomism, con­ sidered as a pure philosophy, is not showing the intellectual vigor and the philosophical strength manifested by St. Thomas himself when, in his theological writings, he developed his classical and revolutionary philosophical ideas in the service of the word of God. Here, precisely, is the impasse. Being neither Greek nor unbelieving, why does not modern Thomism - and, more generally, modern scholasticism - return to the world of the Chris­ tian revelation under whose light it was born? Why does it not recognize that, having been born in the mind of a medieval theologian, it is a Christian philosophy? \Vhy, at the very least, does it not face the lasting mystery sealed in its nature as a phi­ losophy, namely, that it is both a genuine philoso­ phy and a child of the Christian revelation? It is at this point that we meet the controversy on Christian philosophy, whose focal point has been the position taken by Gilson. For "Christian philosophy" is a notion in which, as the French

41

Dominican M.-D. Chenu has recently well said, the adjective seems to destroy the noun. 43 At least it seems to do so for those who think that philoso­ phy is the work of pure reason, without any positive influence from revelation. Against such an attitude Gilson has not tired of quoting the words of Pope Leo XIII in his Encyclical Aeterni Patris: Those, therefore, who to the study of philosophy unite obedience to the Christian faith, are philosophizing in the best possible way; for the splendor of the divine truths, received into the mind, helps the understanding, and not only detracts in nowise from its dignity, but adds greatly to its nobility, keenness, and stability. 44

We can easily agree that philosophy so described is Christian in the sense that only Christian be­ lievers would find it acceptable. But this was not exactly Leo's point. What he had in mind was a much more radical idea, the idea that the light of divine truth helps the human intellect to philoso­ phize in a better way, and does this without in the least coloring or compromising the specific nature of philosophy. Understood as Leo intended it, the adjective in "Christian philosophy," far from de­ stroying the noun, would appear to str�ngthen and improve it. What may be called the standard scholastic way of interpreting this conclusion seems, at first glance, to avoid any complications. This way consists in dis­ tinguishing between the world of faith and the

42

world of reason in such a manner that the one is held to contain only truths that man is called upon to believe whereas the other contains only truths that he can demonstrate by his own intellectual power. Thus understood, faith and reason are re­ lated to one another as belief and knowledge, so that by nature philosophy lies outside the domain of belief, since by nature it belongs entirely within the competence of reason. Seen in this light, the philosophy of a Christian believer has the right to be called a philosophy because it is the work of his unaided reason acting under its own power; if his faith affects his philosophy it is to keep it from error rather than to exercise any internal in­ fluence on i!.) Such a philosophy can claim to be Christian in the sense that it is in harmony with ( that is, not in disagreement with ) revealed teach­ ing; but it can also claim to be philosophy pure and simple since it is the work of reason guided by its own natural light. From this position it is no more than a step to the conclusion that philoso­ phy qua philosophy cannot be modified by the adjective "Christian" since it can be only some­ thing rational. Now if this conclusion is true, we seem to have come full circle. For if, by its very nature, philosophy belongs within the world of reason, to call it Christian involves a confusion be­ tween reason and faith. In that case, is not the problem of Christian philosophy raised by Gilson

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a false problem, since everyone agrees that for philosophy to be philosophy it must be rational in nature? The very persuasiveness of this question explains why it is almost inevitable to think that the ad­ jective "Christian" does, after all, somehow con­ tradict and violate the rationality contained within the noun "philosophy." Indeed there is such an obvious truth in this attitude that, once stated, it seems to exclude every interference with the right of philosophy to be natural in its principles and rational in its procedures and conclusions. For how can any part of philosophy not be a rational work if it is only thereby that it can be philosophical? Did not St. Thomas himself say that "philosophy is founded on the natural light of reason?" 45 It can­ not, therefore, be as a denial of this entirely obvious fact of the rationality of philosophy that the notion of "Christian philosophy" is to be defended; so that if the notion has any point at all, it cannot consist ( or, assuredly, it should not consist ) in denying the necessary autonomy of philosophical thought and knowledge. Nor, let us immediately add, can its point be to thwart the ambition of modem Thomists to be, in today's world, worthy students and teachers of the philosophy of St. Thomas in all its intellectual vigor. Far from serving as an answer to the problem at stake, however, this rather common attitude among

44

present-day Thomists in fact contains an ambiguity if not a confusion. Rational though it may be within itself, Thomism is a philosophy espoused by Christian believers, and mainly by Catholics. They think it to be a genuine philosophy, rational, free, and autonomous. Those who are unbelievers, on the other hand, simply cannot understand how a believer who is committed to a divine revelation is able, under that commitment, to be a philosopher; and among unbelievers ( need I insist? ) some are convinced that the philosophy of a believer, being integra11y related to a dogmatic theology, must itself share in the authoritarian taint of that the­ ology. As between believers and unbelievers, this situation is a source of confusion that no easy formula can dispel. Thomists can dream that their philosophy is, as philosophy, a11 reason and no faith. In that case they have to account for the fact that the philosophy of unbelievers, which is likewise a11 reason and no faith, is so noticeably not in harmony with the teaching of revelation; just as they have to accept the further fact that unbelieving philoso­ phers are perfectly aware of this difference between themselves and Thomists. I would be less than sincere if I did not insist on the importance of this conclusion. How is it that there is so little community between the philoso­ phy of the believer and that of the unbeliever if both are based on reason without faith? The

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Thomist who meditates on this question must return to St. Thomas for light on the nature of philosophy and on the conditions of its existence; nor can he forget that St. Thomas wrote an apology for Christianity directed at the philosophers, namely, the Summa Contra Gentiles, which crystal­ lizes in a distinctive way the point of view of the Christian believer in the presence of truth, in­ cluding philosophical truth. To consider this point is to face not only the rationality of philosophy within the world of the Christian faith but also the extraordinary paradox of that philosophy.

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IV REVELATION, TRUTH, AND THE INTELLECT St. Thomas has himself eharaeterized the Summa Contra Gentiles as a work in whieh it was his in­ tention to make known the truth that the Catholie faith professes. 4 6 This is the body of truth about Himself that God made known to man in the Inearnation, ineluding those highest human truths that, without a revelation, men would have eome to know only infrequently, late in life, and not without error. 4 7 In other words, the divine revela­ tion, to the study of whieh St. Thomas proposed to dedieate his life, eontains a twofold truth about God, namely, a body of the highest philosophieal truths, humanly knowable and demonstrable and yet proposed to all men for belief, and a body of truths that are above the power of man's intelleet to grasp or to verify and that are yet appropriately proposed to men for belief. Let us here foeus our attention on the entirely

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extraordinary fact that revelation includes within itself not only truths that are beyond the grasp of the human intellect but also truths about God and man ( e.g., the existence and oneness of God, creation, providence, the destiny of man) that the ancient philosophers had dealt with in the highest parts of philosophy, namely, metaphysics and ethics. TI1e motive for the inclusion of such truths in revelation was as clear to St. Thomas as it was to his predecessors: all men have a personal need of these truths for the direction of their lives; with­ out a divine revelation men are at the mercy of human error, slowness, and stupidity, not to men­ tion the many disagreements of the philosophers. What is remarkable in this situation, moreover, is a fact that is at least as stubborn as the stubborn­ ness of some philosophers in not recognizing it: the divine revelation overlaps philosophy in those problems that have to do with God and the nature and destiny of man. To the Christian thinker, seeking to understand the ways of the intellect within faith, the existence of a zone of philosoph­ ical truths touched by the message of salvation is a mystery that must engage his deepest attention. Assuredly God has posed quite a problem for the professors of theology as well as for the professors of philosophy. If the theologian could say that he deals solely with truths that are above the com­ petence of man's intellect to understand, then he

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would be able to distinguish between theology and philosophy by locating exclusively within philoso­ phy all those truths that are demonstrable by the light of the human intellect. But rational demon­ strability cannot distinguish between theology and philosophy in a world in which certain naturally knowable truths are so necessary to man that God did not leave it to man to reach them by himself. Such is the world of the Christian revelation; such is the world in which St. Thomas was a theologian. In this same world, the role of the theologian including the scientific theologian who knows how to introduce the structure and the method of ra­ tional exposition into the human expression of the revealed word of God - is not to be some sort of super-philosopher philosophizing on reality from the point of view of God; it is ( for St. Thomas, at least) nothing less than to embody in his human words the voice of the living God and thus to teach among men as a divine instrument. The theologian is not man thinking in a human way about God, even about what God has revealed; he is, through the vehicle of his human words, the embodiment of revelation, since his rational techniques are the human means by which the faith that is in him is seeking to give to itself human articulation in order to draw men unto itself. 48 Philosophy was the human science that St. Thomas used as a theologian. It was the intellectual

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instrument that he put at the service of his faith. It was, to be sure, an instrument and not a slave, introducing within the Christian faith an authentic order of rationality, as well as a rational understand­ ing of the world, indeed of all being. Yet it remains that St. Thomas, while insisting on developing philosophy with a due respect for its nature and its ultimate principles, used it as the human vehicle of his living Christian faith; he did not develop it as a human science for its own sake. He was a theologian, not a philosopher. And since there seem to be different ways of interpreting this last point, it may be useful to add a corollary. St. Thomas was the sort of theologian in whom a philosopher had dedi�ated himself to the light of faith. His was a phil�sophy assumed within faith for the purpose of faith. If we can recognize today the basic principles of St. Thomas' philosophy, it is because they are there, genuinely at work within his theology and recognizable as parts of his doc­ trinal signature. But, in the end, when all the ex­ planations have been made, we must say that Thomistic philosophy, which we can see at work in the writings of St. Thomas the theologian, is a philosophy in the service of the revealed word of God. There are thus two complementary aspects to I philosophy as we find it in the theology of St. Thomas. On the one hand, as a theologian, he used

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philosophy, he did not establish it; he assumed that it was established by the philosophers, sinee this was their function, and he used it by taking it from them. Indeed, it is astonishing to see how many and divergent philosophical arguments he was eon­ tent, as a theologian, simply to eite from the phi­ losophers. But this is another story, whose only relevant point at the moment is that, in the pres­ enee of the philosophers and their differenees, St. Thomas often chose to retain his full liberty as a theologian. If, as often happened, he also ereated the philosophy he used in his theology, he did so for that theology and as its instrument. As he used it, this philosophy had the functioning order and character suitable to its role and its state. This is to say no more than that in intention St. Thomas was not a philosopher. In such a situation, as I have said, it has seemed to some Thomists that they can solve a great many problems by separating the philosophy of St. Thomas from his theology. This separation would free Thomistic philosophy from the authority of theology by insisting that philosophy is intrinsically the work of the human intellect functioning under its own light, whereas theology is divine in its origin and its authority. This solution would also solve many tactical problems. A philosophy that is sep­ arated from theology by its very intelleetual founda­ tions would be less likely to be accused of being

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authoritarian. It would be philosophy and nothing but philosophy, and it would stand on these foun­ dations. Moreover, it would appeal to those unbe­ lieving members of a faithless generation who can accept metaphysics, and even the metaphysics of a Christian theologian, if they ean have it without his theology. Finally, a philosophy separated from theology would seem to enroll the Thomist in the company of other philosophers who, presumably, speak the language of the intellect and the intellect alone. But this, I am afraid, is an illusion, and the way back from illusions is, admittedly, rarely easy to take. St. Thomas himself never taught that philoso­ phy had to purcha�e its specificity or rational autonomy by separating itself from faith. This is so little the case, and his natural outlook as a Chris­ tian apologist is so markedly different from such an outlook, that I beg to emphasize the point in some detail. The Christian believer, as St. Thomas sees him, is living in a world of faith because God is directing him to an end that is infinitely higher than anything man can experience in this life. For this reason it was fitting that man should learn to tum his gaze toward eternity and to give an etemal­ izing direction to his life. Nor was this a foolish occupation, or an act of irrationality: that Chris­ tianity, though preaching austerity, should yet have spread over the face of the earth by the force of its

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message was to St. Thomas a sign of its divine origin and inspiration.4 9 But we must go farther. Not only is it not foolish for the intellect to believe in truths above itself, it is also a fact that the truths it can know by dem­ onstration can never be opposed to the truths of faith. The principles that guide the demonstrations of the intellect are part of the equipment with which God has endowed the nature of man. God is the author of these principles by being the author of the human nature that He made capable of knowing them. In short, the principles that direct our knowledge and our thinking originate in the same divine wisdom from which revelation has come. In the name of the unity of truth in God, therefore, we must hold that revelation can never contradict our natural knowledge or contain any proposition that is contrary to man's natural knowl­ edge. By the same token, and in the name of the same unity of truth in God, we must likewise hold that there can be no demonstrative refutations of the truths of faith. In a word, toward the divine revelation, as St. Thomas sees it, the attitude of the intellect is twofold. Truths that are above the intellect, and that the intellect therefore holds by faith, can never be demonstrated but they can never be demonstratively refuted. This means that, in principle, all supposed refutations of supernatural truths are answerable. With regard to the truths

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about God that the intellect can hold by demon­ stration, the situation is perfectly clear-cut: being able to reach such truths by demonstration, the intellect is in principle capable of maintaining its full autonomy in their presence by its own light.50 This conclusion insures the complete freedom of the intellect within faith. The believing intellect believes above itself, never against itself. It is open to evidence, indeed it is open in the face of ev­ idence not yet discovered, since it can neither refute mysteries nor demonstrate errors. Within the world of mystery in which it lives by faith, the intellect can know, by an evidence that it is com­ petent to grasp, that the world of mystery is also a world of truth, h? wever much it be beyond its grasp. More than this, not only is the intellect at home within revelation, but in a deep sense revela­ tion promotes the intellect's rationality. Resting on the authority of divine truth, revelation is a con­ stant exhortation to the human intellect to be open toward all truth. No evidence of truth will ever be repudiated or opposed by the light of divine truth. That men do not always see as clearly as this principle requires is a fact. vVe are all quite capable of misusing our intellects, whether we be philoso­ phers or theologians. This is a fact, and even a massive fact, but it is no more than a fact. The question at issue is one of principle. Originating in God, revelation of its very nature stands before men

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as a message of truth from a God who is truth to His intellectual creatures who can know truth at least in part. Above the intellect in its source, reve­ lation invites the human intellect not only to be­ lieve in a truth above itself but also, within that be­ lief, to foster its own light with fidelity and with freedom. The believing intellect, moreover, needs this in­ terior freedom in order to protect revelation as well as itself. Divine truth is a precious gift to men, and they must cherish it and serve it well. This is not easy. They can serve revelation badly by de­ fending it badly or by reasoning badly in its name. When men set out to demonstrate what is above demonstration, they demean revelation by forget­ ting that it rests on divine authority and not on human argumentation, just as they demean revela­ tion by using in its service inadequate philosophical arguments. There is, therefore, a sort of pull and impulse working within the believing intellect seeking to promote and purify its life, to make it more steadfastly rational, and this to the end that it may be as worthy as it can be of the light that has descended upon it. Such was the deep faith of St. Thomas the theologian concerning man the believer and the life of man's intellect within his belief. But this con­ viction was more than a doctrine; it was a principle that St. Thomas himself followed in his own atti-

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tude toward philosophy and in his enormous per­ sistence to do justice to it and to its inherent rights. There are several Thomistic philosophical notions that owe their existence to his desire as a theologian not to fail in his defense of what is rationally demonstrable in the domain of Christian truths. St. Thomas saw in this problem of the de­ fense of what is philosophically demonstrable a clear instance of the principle that to do full justice to philosophy within its own limits was the only possible way both to save philosophical truth in itself and to serve, with the greatest fidelity, the transcendence and purity of revelation. 51 We can now begin to see the point of St. Thomas' apologetic in the Summa Contra Gentiles. Consider, in fact, what St. Thomas did in this work. He used the human intellect as an instrument in the exposition of Christian truths. In itself, this was scarcely a new phenomenon in the thirteenth century, just as it was not an unchallenged one. What was new consisted in two points : the char­ acter of the instrument as understood by St. Thomas and the motive he had in using it. \1/e are now in the presence of the complex issue that de­ fines in its very complexity the Thomistic ideal of philosophy and its natural place within Christian­ ity. Aristotelian philosophy, as everyone knows, was St. Thomas' rational tool in the Summa Contra Gentiles. He learned Aristotelianism at least in part

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from the same Spanish l\1oors to whom this work was directed as an apologetic for Christianity. Now St. Thomas' apologetic purpose did not consist in showing that a Christian could prove the same philosophical notions that any Aristotelian could; still less did it aim to suggest that the Moors were deficient in Aristotelianism. On the contrary, St. Thomas wanted to show that Christianity could embrace every truth demonstrated by philosophy, and that the very philosophy proposed by the Moors themselves out of the pages of Aristotle existed in a purer state of rationality within Chris­ tianity. St. Thomas' Christian apologetic theme, therefore, was not at all to prove that a Christian could use his intellect just as much as a philosopher could, even if the philosopher's name was Averroes; it was to show that the Christian revelation, in saving man, saved and perfected the work of his intellect, and it did this by adding to the intellect's understanding, penetration, and truth. And this is the paradox. Far from replacing philosophy, the Christian revelation has enabled it to realize its nature more adequately and to discover its goals with greater fullness and sureness. The paradox proposed by St. Thomas is thus a twofold one. The Christian revelation has helped the philosopher to add insights and truths to the world of philosophy, to purify and extend older truths, and in this way to save and complete in

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them the core of truth that they always contained. But there is more. The Christian revelation has helped philosophy by opening within it a personal and even concrete sense of the historical order in which, like man himself, it can perceive the full dimensions of his world, the religious and spiritual texture of time and history, and the true vocation of the philosopher within the realm of human existence. I shall not here insist on St. Thomas' own crea­ tive transformation of Greek and Arabian philo­ sophical ideas. His metaphysics of being and exist­ ence, his disengagement of the notion of act from the notion of form, his separation of the idea of creation from the id�a of duration, his sure exposi­ tion of the internal' unity of man as incarnated intellectual creature - these are examples of ideas that are philosophical in nature, that were created by St. Thomas under religious inspiration, and that have as such no philosophical sources in history prior to him. In the case of St. Thomas himself, "Christian philosophy" is a reality of imposing di­ mensions. It designates not merely the philosophy of a Christian theologian but also the philosophy which, while remaining properly itself in the con­ duct of its internal life, has yet received from its Christian climate experiences and perceptions that have strengthened and deepened its understanding and that have led to the establishment of ideas

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that are religious in ongm and philosophical in nature. When we distinguish, therefore, between the philosophy of St. Thomas and its theological set­ ting in his writings, it cannot be to argue that we should separate it from that setting in order to safeguard its autonomy or improve its rationality. Respecting the rationality of philosophy and its appeal to evidence, its faith in truth and the unity of truth, its conviction that human demonstration always leads toward truth and even toward divine truth - all this, it seems to me, is St. Thomas' in­ vitation to philosophy to be true as the sole condi­ tion of being itself; it is, no less, an invitation to us to recognize that, in being true, philosophy is for this very reason truly Christian; and it is, even more, an invitation to recognize that, in being Christian, philosophy has become more fully itself in the purity of its nature. Hence, under the pres­ sure of St. Thomas' profound respect for the ra­ tional character of philosophy in its nature, and his even profounder conviction of the purer rationality of philosophy under a Christian climate, we are driven toward the notion of Christian philosophy as the genuine Thomistic ideal of philosophy and the permanent point of equilibrium in our own ap­ preciation of that philosophy in the modern world. Once more, let me state the Thomistic ideal in terms of what it is not. It is not an ideal of a

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philosophy that maintains its rational autonomy by being neutral ( and, still less, by being closed ) toward the world of revelation. St. Thomas holds that, if the human intellect opens itself to the teaching of faith, philosophy cannot become any­ thing else but a rational edifice. The authority of divine truth will never unsay the truths of philoso­ phy, just as these truths will never undo the tran­ scendent truths of faith. This is St. Thomas' con­ stant position. For him, whatever else the Christian revelation teaches, it teaches the unity and the divinity of truth, and he in turn accepts and follows that teaching to the letter. At any time, the calling of philosophy is to discover and say the truth the whole truth - a� seen by man's intellect. In a Christian world, philosophy has realized that calling more fully. That is why Aristotle taught so many medieval theologians how to use their intellects, and why St. Thomas himself, having learned from Aristotle the nature of rational thinking, unhesitat­ ingly used it in the service of revelation and intro­ duced a rational and scientific view of nature into traditional patristic thought. Henceforth, St. Thomas the theologian was to teach the natural freedom of philosophy in the Christian world - its freedom to become itself as the best way of ful­ filling both its own nature and the aims of the Christian revelation. This is a remarkable doctrine, rendered all the

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more astonishing because its implications have been so rarely recognized. Indeed, we have only to ask how St. Thomas' doctrine is at all possible in order to realize how far we must go with him in search of the answer. St. Thomas wants philosophy to be truly itself, and the more it is itself the more Chris­ tian it is. For St. Thomas, philosophy becomes Christian for the very same reason that it is philoso­ phy - it is an intellectual and human work. In short, and without any reservation, philosophy is at home in Christianity by as much as it is true. But how is it that, by simply being itself in the purity of its nature, philosophy is thus Christian? And how is it that this highest expression of the human intellect finds in revelation such a natural fulfill­ ment? To these questions there can be but one answer. The world of nature is for St. Thomas a world of truth in its own right, but a world of truth writ­ ten by a creating God in the very substance and movements of creatures. The human intellect is a nature and a creature, or, rather, a creaturely na­ ture, whose every step of progress toward truth is a work of nature as well as a work of God. Under the guidance of the creative divine government, the intellect's conquest of truth must be freely intel­ lectual in order to be a genuine conquest, that is to say, a faithful use and fulfillment of the nature with which God has endowed the intellect; under

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the same divine guidance, the intellect's advance toward truth can be, however obscurely, nothing more and nothing less than an advance toward God, the author of nature and the source of truth. To be itself is for the intellect to come from God; to become itself in the knowledge of truth, according to the constitution of its nature, is for the intellect to direct itself toward the truth that is God. The internal orientation of the intellect toward God is, for St. Thomas at least, no simple accom­ modation of the natural to the supernatural or of the intellect to revelation. The intellect has only to be faithful to what is natural in the world and in itself in order to be open, at one and the same time, to its internal freedom and to its historical destiny. The more the intellect is true to itself, the nearer it is to the world of the Christian revelation. I realize that, since the time of Descartes, the modern world has been accustomed to ways of thinking that render St. Thomas' attitude toward the intellect almost impossible to understand. Descartes, himself a Catholic, so distinguished be­ tween the order of thought and the world of faith that the mind as such could only think, and belief was as such an act of the will. 52 Of the many ways in which Descartes is at the origin - or, at least, near the origin - of modern rationalism, one is noteworthy for our purposes. The Cartesian world of mind, which thinks so much and knows so little,

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is not only distinguished from faith but also sepa­ rated from it; the light of man's intellect is totally sufficient for man to think and explain the whole domain of the natural - sufficient and also closed, since faith begins where mind ends. There is no point in probing this far-reaching Cartesian notion any further, or in insisting that when reason and nature are separated from the world of the Christian faith, even if this is done in order to keep each in its proper place, both reason and nature ( and therefore philosophy) are thereby closed within themselves. You may argue, of course, that unless you take this step, that is ( to speak in modem terms) unless you refuse to man goals that are beyond his natural means to reach, you place him in a position wherein he has no means at the disposal of his nature by which to test or to realize any end beyond nature or time. But this argument is simply a witness to the point I wish to make, namely, that modem naturalism, like Cartesian rationalism, proceeds on the prem­ ise that human nature and its rational ends are a closed circuit, and hence that so is their philosophy. 5 3 The present discussion would be quite pointless if the repudiation of the supernatural were all that distinguished modern naturalism from the position of St. Thomas. That St. Thomas believed in a supernatural revelation is not the point at

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issue. The point is evidently St. Thomas' notion of the natural, and especially the natural as found in man. As an intellectual creature, man has the constitution to pursue truth step by step and, in this pursuit, to discover the unity and origin of all truth in God. The Christian revelation fulfills what God began in creating an intellectual being such as man. The natural world of the intellect and the world of revelation are thus one world of truth one, not by addition or confusion, but by the origin and fulfillment of man as an intellectual creature in God. In such a world, the constitutional orienta­ tion of man's intellect to revelation is no more than the expression of its very creaturehood and its destiny. If this is true, how can the Christian who is a philosopher n�t recognize that his every in­ tellectual step toward the truth, taken in the full advance of his intellect, carries him for that very reason more and more intimately within the world of his faith, and toward its center? How can he not see that the metaphysics of reality that his intellect builds from the study of creatures is part of the history of creation and a preamble to its destiny?

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V CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY AND CATHOLIC EDUCATION What is ultimately at stake in St. Thomas' concep­ tion of the internal direction of the natural to the supernatural, and of philosophy to revelation, is the Christian view of the unity of knowledge, truth, and reality. The supposition of St. Thomas or of any other theologian in writing a summa was that, under the light of revelation, he was presenting the whole known universe as one in its source, in its nature, in its history, and its destiny. For St. Thomas the theologian, as it has been said, we are living in "one world." 54 This, it seems to me, is a pennanent Christian ideal, but one that each age can possess as its own only by right of its own intellectual effort. Believing that, in saving man, Christ is saving the work of his intellect, the Chris­ tian is unalterably committed to a free and open intellectualism in the name of his faith. However, let us reflect on the enormous significance of what

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we are here saymg m the name of St. Thomas Aquinas. The light of faith extends to the whole world of knowledge and truth in which man's intellect lives. Every authentic expression of the intellect is never outside or against the world or the light of faith. A true intellect, following the natural bent of its essential constitution, is taking its first steps toward - and within - the truths revealed by God. What, then, is nature but a divine pedagogy, and what is an intellectual nature but a divine pedagogy alive with words that can reply to the Word of God? This is the belief that guided St. Thomas as a Christian theologian; this is the belief that an­ imated his unhesitating effort to learn from philoso­ phy what it had to teach in its own way, and to add the rational fruits of human speculation to the body of Christian truth. Admittedly, this is not an easy ideal to follow, and only the rare disciple of St. Thomas dis­ tinguishes philosophy from theology in the way that his master has done. I ncluding, in addition to mysteries, truths that are perfectly demonstrable, indeed the very same demonstrable truths that phi­ losophy includes, theology is the wisdom of the saving truths of revelation. Whatever theology contains under its light and purpose becomes thereby, to use a memorable analogy, the wine of sacred teaching itself.55 If, then, perfectly demon-

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strable truths can become part of the wine of theology, how can rational demonstrability dis­ tinguish the order of philosophy from that of theology? True enough, the same St. Thomas who has said that, as nature is a preamble to grace, philoso­ phy is a preamble to sacred doctrine, has also said in the very same place that "sacred doctrine is founded on the light of faith" whereas "philosophy is founded on the natural light of reason." 56 But this is an invitation to philosophy to recognize the intellectual light that makes it to be philosophy; it is not an invitation to purchase its rationality by an act of separation from revealed truth. For if it be the case that philosophy, though a fully ra­ tional discipline in its nature and definition, has nevertheless needed the aid of revealed truth in order to be fully or adequately rational in the con­ duct of its life, how can the philosopher who is a Christian not be at odds with himself in defending the ideal of a separated philosophy? For the anom­ aly of the situation is not that such a philosopher is defending the right of philosophy to be rational. That right is not at stake. On the contrary, what Gilson has contested is the intellectual health of modern scholastic philosophy ever since the time when, in agreement with Descartes' bracketing of his Christian faith in the Discourse on Method, it was established as a body of ideas separated from

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revelation but in miraculous agreement "with the conclusions of Catholic theology." 57 What was the result? What happened to this neo-scholastic philosophy dur­ ing the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries is a matter of historical record. The purely negative pact of non-aggression, which was its only tie with Sacred Doctrine, was not enough to prevent this school phi­ losophy from absorbing strong doses of Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Condillac, Victor Cousin, even Kant. In the thirteenth century, while philosophy was still part and parcel of theological speculation, the theolo­ gians had been the acknowledged leaders in the philo­ sophical world; from the seventeenth century and on­ ward, neo-scholasticism did little else than to contract temporary alliances with any form of philosophical thought that could be reconciled with the teachings of Revelation.58

In other words, the separation of philosophy from theology in the name of the defense of its rationality has created a modern scholastic philoso­ phy that allowed itself to forget its own metaphys­ ical mooring and to be blown by the changing winds of philosophical doctrine from rationalism to the crudest empiricism. When Gilson compared this scholastic philoso­ phy with the philosophy that was a part of theology in the Middle Ages he found all the paradoxes that he has made famous as a historian and a philoso­ pher. Seeing as a historian the benefits derived by philosophy from living under the light of revela-

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tion in the thirteenth century, Gilson could not understand those who wished to separate philoso­ phy from the influence of revelation in the name of rationality. He could only reply that "rationality stood on the side of revelation much more than that of philosophy" ! 59 At the First Scholastic Con­ gress held in Rome in 19 50, Gilson said : Our task today is to recapture the true spirit of medieval metaphysics, to grasp once more the genuine and profound meaning of its principles. I should add that scholasticism, covered over by more than five cen­ turies of dust, is now experiencing its greatest evil the ignorance of its own nature. To restore it to itself, let us listen to the counsel of history: scholastic phi­ losophy must return to theology! 00

Will it be argued that Gilson was thereby for­ getting the distinction between theology and phi­ losophy? His answer: Nor am I forgetting the formal distinction of objects, so dear to the dialecticians, between theology and phi­ losophy . I am not speaking of philosophy in general, but of that kind of philosophy which we call "scho­ lastic.'' I readily agree that, without paying attention to theology, it is possible to be a philosopher, but not a scholastic philosopher. The hackneyed objection that to philosophize as a theologian is not to philosophize at all forgets that a formal distinction of objects is not a real separation in the order of exercise. 61

This rejoinder rests on Gilson's view that scho­ lasticism as a philosophy differs from all the others by the way it philosophizes, not by its essence:

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The philosophy we call scholastic is not distin­ guished from other philosophies by its essence; it is rather distinguished from them as the best way of philosophizing.'62

The effect of this way of philosophizing can be seen in the effect of theology on metaphysics. In the Middle Ages, theology liberated metaphysics from the physics of Aristotle; in the seventeenth century, Descartes separated metaphysics from the­ ology and then made it the servant of his physics; today, "the only real defenders of metaphysics as an autonomous science are found to be the scho­ lastic theologians."63 The challenge facing the modern Thomist and, more generally, the modern scholastic philoso­ pher - is thus a twofold one. He must first learn a lesson, a difficult one to be sure since it seems to separate him from the company of those philoso­ phers who are modern because, in their intention at least, their philosophy is the work of pure reason. What is that lesson? It consists in recognizing that between identifying philosophy with its theological state as the price of making it Christian and sep­ arating it from the influence of theology in order to keep it rational there is another alternative. It is one that enables him to open philosophy to the influence of revelation and to the guidance of the­ ology without forcing upon him the role of the professional theologian.

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As a Christian philosopher, the Thomist cannot identify philosophy with its role in theology be­ cause "it is essential to theology to have religious perception and scientific conceptualization," and precisely, "the daring of the second is bearable only in the fervor of the former."64 On the other hand, the Thomist cannot separate philosophy from the world of Christian teaching, if only because such a separation has been the source of its sterility in the modem world. \Vhat then? If, as philosopher, the Thomist is not a theologian and should not be a rationalist, what can he be? He can be a Christian philosopher, that is to say, a Christian in philoso­ phy. He can speak, within the world of faith, in terms of the relations of nature to grace, rather than in terms of the relations of grace to nature. He can be a person who, participating in the world of the Christian religion and its mission, but addressing himself to all men, has the willingness to speak in the name of human intelligence and to verify in his words the mystery of his Christian faith: the mys­ tery that the divine revelation, in transforming man's intellect, has brought it nearer to its au­ thentic nature as an intellect.65 It is not difficult to see that by such an attitude a Christian philosopher can easily bar himself from the public market place of those philosophers for whom the human intellect, seen in the rationality that gives it its distinctively human character, is

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an ultimate forum of truth ultimately examined. But how can the Christian philosopher hope or wish to escape from this dilemma? How can a believing intellect, living by its own assent in a world of · mystery, pretend to be the intellect of a naturalist or a rationalist? And if it cannot, then the Christian who is a philosopher must finally consent to take the step to which his faith is a constant invitation, namely, to become a Christian philosopher. This is surely his vocation. He must prove his fidelity to an intellect that is living both by its own light and the light of faith; he must prove, in deed and in act, that such an intellect verifies within its proper life the spirit and char­ acter of Christian philosophy so challengingly de­ scribed by Pope Leo XIII in 1 879. Today is an appropriate occasion to remember Leo's message. Those Christians who have chosen to work in philosophy need to earn the title of philosopher by dint of creating a philosophical edifice whose intellectual openness is visible to all and whose Christian faith is just as visibly a crown. Today, I say, when the human intellect is begin­ ning to receive once more some measure of ap­ preciation in American education, Catholic philoso­ phers have the responsibility to prove, not by debate or controversy, not by theologism or ra­ tionalism, but by a genuine intellectual creative­ ness, that their pilgrimage to the heavenly Jerusa-

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lem includes the building of a human Athens on earth. No doubt, our contemporaries may not be able to understand, or understand easily, how a religion guided by the authority of divine truth can inspire within its children a philosophy that is worthy of free men - open to the demands of intelligence and to all its hunger for truth. But at least the reality will be there for all to observe. It will be there in a particularly visible way if such a philoso­ phy were to animate Catholic education with greater urgency than it has to date in American society. We have produced bifurcated Catholics in our schools, partly religious and partly secular in their formation, as well as truncated Catholics, wholly religious in their formation but cut off from a supposed alien world of knowledge beyond the frontiers of faith. Let us undertake to produce an integral Christian man - a man who is wholly religious in the dedication of his humanity, includ­ ing the humanity of his intellect; and who is also, within this dedication, wholly open to the world of knowledge, of thought and of truth. Only this ideal of the Christian man is faithful to the mission of Christianity to touch the whole world with its fire. Only this ideal enables the believing Christian to live in a world that is neither bifurcated nor truncated, but one and whole in its truth. Only this ideal permits him to be whole as a Christian

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and as a man and to be joined to what is human in all men even when they do not see that they are joined to him. How else as a man can he bring his faith to his brothers? How else as a philosopher can he make the wonder and beauty of that faith visible to them? 66

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NOTES 1 . Pope Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris, No. 9, in The Speaks to tl1e Modern \V orld, edited by E. Gilson ( Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1 9 58, p. 3 8 ) . Church

2 . See the whole French text of the address in L'Osser­ vatore Romano ( September 22-23, 1 9 58, p. 1 ) . 3 . R. M. Hutchins, The Higher Learning in America ( New Haven : Yale University Press, 1 9 3 6 ) , p. 12; H. D . Gideonse, The Higher Learning in a Democracy ( New York: Farrar and Reinhart, 1 9 3 7 ) , p. 30; W. A. Brown, The Case for Theology in the University ( Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1 9 38 ) , pp. 89-90. 4. John Dewey, "Rationality in Education" ( The So­ Frontier, III, 2 1 [December, 1 9 3 6] , pp. 71-7 3 ) ; "President Hutchins' Proposals to Remake Higher Educa­ tion" ( ibid. , III, 22 [January, 1 9 3 7] , pp. 1 0 3-104 ) . After these two articles there followed a rejoinder by Mr. Hutchins and a reply by Mr. Dewey - R. M. Hutchins, "Grammar, Rhetoric, and Mr. Dewey" ( ibid., III, 2 3 [February, 19 3 7] , pp. 1 37-1 39 ) ; John Dewey, "The Higher Learning in America" ( ibid., III, 24 [March, 1 9 3 7] , pp. 1 67-1 69 ) . cial

5.

The

Higher Learning in America, pp. 4 3-44.

6. Ibid., pp. 52- 5 3 . 7 . Ibid., pp. 59, 61, 62. 8. Ibid., p. 6 3 . For the Aristotelian doctrine of the intellectual virtues Mr. Hutchins refers to St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 57, aa. 2-4.

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9. Ibid., p. 1 6 . 1 0. Ibid., p. 67. 1 1 . Ibid., pp. 77-8 1 . 1 2. Ibid., pp. 84, 8 5, 9 1 . 1 3 . Ibid., p . 9 5 . 14. Ibid. 1 5. Ibid., p. 96. 1 6. Ibid., p. 97. 17. Ibid., pp. 97-98. 1 8. Ibid., pp. 99, 1 0 5. 19. Ibid., p. 1 1 9. 20. See, above, note 4, for the pertinent bibliography. 2 1 . John Dewey, "President Hutchins' Proposals . . . ," pp. 1 0 3-1 04. 22. Ibid., p. 1 04. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid. 2 5. R. M . Hutchins, "Grammar, Rhetoric, and Mr. Dewey," p. 1 3 8. - Cf. The Higher Learning in America, pp. 90, 1 0 5. 26. John Dewey, "The Higher Leaming in America,"

p. 1 67.

27. Ibid., pp. 1 68-1 69. 28. See, among many titles by Sidney Hook, The Metaphysics of Pragmatism ( Chicago : The Open Court Publishing Co., 1 927 ) ; John Dewey ( New York : John Day Company, 1 9 39 ) ; and especially Education for Modern Man ( New York : The Dial Press, 1 946 ) . In re­ viewing True Humanism, Mr. Hook thought it necessary

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to direct some rather intemperate language against Mr. Maritain's political views; more to the point, he set out to demolish the author of True Humanism by showing that Mr. Maritain held truths incapable of experimental veri­ fication: see Sidney Hook, Reason, Social Myths and Democracy ( New York : The Humanities Press, 1 940 [reprinted, 1 9 5 0] , pp. 79-1 04 ) . This critique is, evidently, as good as its method. For Mr. Hook's naturalism see in particular two papers: "Nature and the Human Spirit" ( in Freedom and Reason, edited by S . \V. Baron, E . Nagel, and K. S . Pinson, Glen­ coe, Ill. : The Free Press, 1 9 5 1 , pp. 1 42-1 56 ) ; "Natural­ ism and First Principles" ( in American Philosophers at Work, edited by S . Hook, New York : Criterion Books, 1 9 56, pp. 2 3 6-2 58 ) . - On Mr. Hook and the supposed meaninglessness of metaphysics, see "The Quest for 'Being' " ( in Proceedings of the XIth International Con­ gress of Philosophy, Amsterdam: North-Holland Publish­ ing Company, 1 9 5 3, Vol. XIV, pp. 1 7-2 5 ) . 29. Among the many papers devoted by Mortimer Adler to education, see "The Crisis in Contemporary Education" (in The Social Frontier, V, 42 [February, 1 9 39] , pp. 1 40-1 4 5 ) ; "Education in Contemporary Amer­ ica" ( in Better Schools, II, 6 [March-April, 1 940] , pp. 7 6-80 ) ; "God and the Professors" ( in Science, Philosophy and Religion, A Symposium, New Yark : The Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion, 1941, pp. 1 20-1 38 ) ; "The Chicago School" ( in Harper's Magazine, 1 8 3, 1 096 [September, 1 94 1 ] , pp. 377- 3 8 8 ) ; "In Defense of the Philosophy of Education" ( in Forty-First Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Bloomington, Ill. : The Public School Publishing Co., 1 942, Chapter V, pp. 1 97-249 ) . On Mr. Adler and Catholic education, see his "The Or­ der of Learning" ( in The Moraga Quarterly [Autumn, 1 941 ] pp. 3-2 5 ) and the remarkable reply of Gerard Smith, S .J., "Mr. Adler and the Order of Leaming" ( N. C.E.A. Bulletin, XXXI �, 1 [Aug� st, 1 942] ! pp. 1 401 62; reprinted in The Jesmt Educat10nal Review, VI, 4

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[March, 1 944] , pp. 205-2 2 1 ). See also Mortimer Adler, "Controversy in the Life and Teaching of Philosopho/" ( in Proceedings of the American Catholic Pbilosophical As­ sociation , XXX, 1 9 56, pp. 1 6-3 5 ) . The exchange of views on the nature of "intelligence" between Jacques Maritain and Percy Bridgman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Mid-Century Con­ vocation ( March 3 1 -April 2, 1 949 ) should be read in this connection.See Mid-Century, The Social Implications of Scientific Progress ( edited by John E . Burchard, Cam­ bridge, Mass.: The Technology Press of M.I.T., 1 9 50, pp. 2 1 8-2 5 1 , especially pp. 24 3 [Maritain] , 244-24 5 [Bridgman] , and 247-2 50 ) . Limiting both the intellect and its concepts to the point of view that he has made well known as operationalism, Professor Bridgman could not understand Maritain's belief in the existence of "differ­ ent orders of experience" ( p.244 ).This failure in under­ standing is, however, at best ambiguous. Ultimately, it is not an expression of disagreement, but an absence of communication; and while it may not help to say that Professor Bridgman was uselessly disagreeing with what he did not know, to insist on the point may emphasize the enormous problem of communication that a Thomist faces in the contemporary world. 30. See Joel H. Hildebrand, "Intelligence Is Important" ( Chemical and Engineering News, October 1 7, 1 9 5 5, pp. 441 4-44 1 6 ) ; also, but from a more practical point of view, Charles A. Thomas, "Science as a Profession and Its Ap­ peal to Youth" ( ibid., pp. 44 1 7-4420 ) . On the importance of science in the modern world, and especially in modern education, see also J. Bronowski, "The Educated Man in 1 984" ( The Advancement of Sci­ ence, XII, 47 [December, 1 9 5 5] , pp. 30 1-306 ) ; Gerald Holton, "Science in General Education" ( Basic College Quarterly, Michigan State University, III, 1 [Fall, 1 9 57] , pp. 1 6-2 1 ) ; and the symposium "Education in an Age of Science" ( Daedalus, Winter, 1 9 59 ) . The recent attacks on progressive education continue. See, for example, Albert Lynd, Quackery in tbe Public

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Schools ( Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1 9 5 3 ) ; Arthur Bestor, Educational \Vasteland ( Urbana: The University of Illinois Press, 1 9 5 3 ) ; Hilda Neatby, So Little for the Mind ( Toronto: Clarke, Irwin & Company Limited, 1 9 5 3 ) ; Irving Adler, \Vhat \Ve \Vant of Our Schools ( New York: The John Day Company, 1 9 57 ) ; Kermit Lansner ( ed. ) , Second-Rate Brains ( Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1 9 58 ) ; Hyman G. Rickover, Education and Freedom ( New York: E. P.Dutton & Co., Inc., 1 9 59 ).- On what may properly be called the re­ examination of the intellectual purposes of education by American teachers and administrators, see Huston Smith (editor ) , The Purposes of Higher Education ( New York: Harper & Brothers, 1 9 5 5 ) ; James B.Conant, The Citadel of Learning ( New Haven : Yale University Press, 1 9 56 ) ; Joel H. Hildebrand, Science in the Making ( New York: Columbia University Press, 1 9 57 ) ; William C. DeVane, The American University in the Twentieth Century ( Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, 1 9 59 ).

The discussion on the low state of American education has been particularly severe in the fields of history and science. Undoubtedly the severest comments have been directed at the weakness in the teaching and the pro� grams of high school science.See Critical Years Ahead in Science Teaching ( Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1 9 5 3 ) ; The Pursuit of Excellence: Education and the Future of America. Special Studies Report V, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund ( Garden City, N. Y.: Double­ day & Company, Inc., 1 9 58 ) ; James B. Conant, The American High School Today ( New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1 9 59 ) ; Mortimer Smith, A Citizen's Manual for Public Schools ( Washington, D.C.: Council for Basic Education, 1 9 59 ). 3 1. In The Rise of Scientific Philosophy ( Berkeley and Los Angeles : University of California Press, 1 9 5 1 ) , the late Hans Reichenbach permitted himself the pleasure of disposing of metaphysics in a few lines by means of the crudest positivism. In the same vein : Philipp Frank, Be­ tween Physics and Philosophy ( Cambridge, Mass.: Har-

79

vard University Press, 1 94 1 ) ; also Rudolf Carnap, La science et la metaphysique devant J'analyse logique du Jangage ( Paris : Hermann & Cle, 1 9 34 ) ; The Logical Syntax of Language ( London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1 9 3 7 [reprinted, 1 9 5 1 ] , especially Parts I and V ) . On the Vienna Circle in general: J. J oergensen, The De­ velopment of Logical Empiricism ( International Encyclo� pedia of Unified Science, II, 9. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 19 51 ) . - For a critical summary of the development of positivism in terms of its antimetaphysical difficulties, see John A. Dinneen, S.J., "The Course of Logical Positivism" ( The Modem Schoolman, XXIV, 1 [November, 19 56] , pp. 1-2 1 ) . - For recent critical com­ ments on logical positivism, see the symposium The Revolution in Philosophy, edited by Gilbert Ryle ( Lon­ don : Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 19 56 ) , particularly the essay by G. J. Warnock, "Analysis and Imagination," pp. 1 1 11 26; by the same author, English Philosophy Since 1 900 ( London: Oxford University Press, 19 58 ) ; James K. Feibleman, Inside the Great Mirror ( The Hague: Mar­ tinus Nijhoff, 19 58 ) ; and the Aquinas Lecture of Professor Henry Margenau, Thomas and the Physics of 1 958: A Confrontation ( Milwaukee : Marquette University Press, 19 58 ) . 3 2 . For example: ( a ) Historical background : Herbert Butterfield, The Origins of Modern Science, 1 300-1 800 ( London : G. Bell and Sons Ltd., 1 9 50 ) ; A. R. Hall, The Scientific Revolution, 1 500-1 800: The Formation of the Modern Scientific Attitude ( London: Longmans, Green and Company, 19 54; reprinted, Boston : The Beacon Press, 19 56 ) ; Scientific Thought in the Twentieth Cen­ tury, edited by A. E . Heath ( London : \Vatts & Co., 19 5 1 ) ; J. Bronowski, The Common Sense of Science ( Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 19 5 3 ) ; Alexandre Koyre, From the Closed \Vorld to the Infinite Universe ( Baltimore, Md. : The Johns Hopkins University Press, 19 57 ) ; Philip P. Wiener and Aaron Noland, Roots of Scientific Thought, A Cultural Perspective ( New York: Basic Books, 1 9 57 ) . ( b ) The scientific method : W. I . B. Beveridge, The Art of Scientific Investigation ( second

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edition, London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1 9 5 3 ) ; R. B. Braithwaite, Scientific Explanation ( Cambridge, England: The University Press, 1 9 5 5 ) ; R. Taton, Reason and Chance in Scientific Discovery ( New York : The Philo­ sophical Library, 1 9 5 7 ) ; John Rowland, Mysteries of Sci­ ence ( New York: The Philosophical Library, 1 9 57 ) ; Emile Simard, La n ature et la portee de la methode scientifique ( Quebec: Les Presses Universitaires Laval, 1 9 56 ) . The work of Braithwaite, though addicted to an exaggerated empiricism, is a most useful book. 3 3 . Thus, in Science in the Making, pp. 1 0-26, Pro­ fessor Joel H. Hildebrand has given a vivid example of the scientific method at work in the hands of a laboratory scientist. Because of its purpose and clarity, a noteworthy book on science and the scientific method is that of Gerald Holton, Introduction to Concepts and Theories in Physical Science ( Cambridge, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1 9 52 ) . 34. See especially two books by the English botanist Agnes Arber, The Natural Philosophy of Plant Form and The Mind and the Eye, published in England at the Cambridge University Press in 1 9 50 and 1 9 54. The no­ tions of form, structure, and function play an important part in these works. - In the domain of the social sciences see the often violent work of P. Sorokin, Fads and Foibles in Modern Sociology ( Chicago : Henry Regnery Company, 1 9 56 ) , chapters 3, 7, 8, 1 1 . 3 5. See the paper of Gerald Holton ( cited, above, note 30 ) . 3 6. Because of its remarkable frankness an interesting illustration on this point is the paper by James H. Nichols, "Religion and Education in a Free Society" ( in Religion in America, edited by James Cogley, New York : Meridian Books, 1 9 58, pp. 1 48-1 67, especially its concluding reflec­ tions on Roman Catholics, pp. 1 62-1 67 ) . 3 7. Etienne Gilson, "What is Christian Philosophy?" ( in A Gilson Reader, edited by A. C. Pegis, Garden City,

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N. Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1 9 57, pp. 1 77-1 9 1 ) . - A more elaborate exposition can now be found in Ele­ ments of Christian Philosophy by the same author ( Gar­ den City, N . Y. : The Catholic Textbook Division, Double­ day & Company, Inc., 1960 ) . 3 8. E. Gilson, "Historical Research and the Future of Scholasticism" ( in A Gilson Reader, p. 1 56) . 39. Ibid., pp. 1 59-1 60, 1 6 1 . 40. Ibid., p. 1 62. 4 1 . Ibid., p . 1 8 5 . 4 2 . Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy ( New York: Simon and Schuster, 1945 ) , p. 463. 4 3 . M.-D. Chenu, O.P., La theologie est-elle une sci­ ence? ( Paris: Librairie Artheme Fayard, 1 9 57 ) , p. 26. For a moving introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas by the same author, see St. Thomas d'Aquin et la theologie ( in Maitres spirituels, Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1 9 59 ) . 44. Pope Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris, No. 9, in The Church Speaks to the Modern World, edited by E . Gilson, ( Garden City, N . Y. : Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1 9 54, p. 3 8 ) . - For some reflections on the background and significance of this encyclical, see Louis Foucher, La philosophie catholique en France au XIXe siecle avant la renaissance thomiste et dans son rapport avec elle ( 1 860-1 880 ) ( Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1 9 5 5 ) , pp. 265-268. 4 5 . St. Thomas, Expositio Super Librum Boethii De Trinitate, q. 2, a. 3; ed. Bruno Decker ( Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1 9 5 5 ) , p. 94. 46. While this point scarcely needs proving, the fact that the Summa Contra Gentiles has been considered by some to be a work of philosophy suggests serious uncer­ tainty on what St. Thomas meant by theology. In St. Thomas' intention, as I have tried to point out elsewhere, the Summa Contra Gentiles is without a single doubt a

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theological work: see St. Thomas Aquinas, On the Truth of the Catholic Faith ( Summa Contra Gentiles) , Book One: God, tr. A. C. Pegis ( Garden City, N. Y.: Hanover House, 1 9 5 5 ) , pp. 1 9-50; "Creation and Beatitude in the Summa Contra Gentiles of St. Thomas Aquinas" (Pro­ ceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Associa­ tion, XXIX, 1 9 5 5, pp. 52-62 ) . As a result of the pains­ taking work of Professor Gilson, we are today beginning to see, across Cajetan, the true nature of the theology of St. Thomas. See Etienne Gilson, "Note sur le Revelabile selon Cajetan" ( Mediaeval Studies, XV, 1 9 5 3 ,. pp. 1 99-206) ; The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas ( translated by L. K. Shook, C.S.B., New York: Random House, 1 9 56 ) , pp. 7-1 5; Elements of Christian Philosophy, pp. 1 1-42. 47. St. Thomas, Summa Contra Gentiles, I, c. 4; Summa Theologiae, I, q. 1, a. l; also Expositio Super Librum Boethii De Trinitate, q. 3, a. l ; De Veritate,. q. 1 4, a. 1 0. 48. For St. Thomas' justification of the use of philoso­ phy in the service of sacred teaching, as well as the conditions of such a use, see Expositio Super Librum Boethii De Trinitate, q. 2, a. 3 ( translated in A. C. Pegis, St. Thomas Aquinas, On the Truth of the Catholic Faith, Book One, pp. 24-26 ) . As historians have pointed out, the consequences of this use of philosophy were revolutionary. With St. Thomas, the human sciences, and philosophy chief among them, became servants of theology, not in the old Augus­ tinian and symbolic sense, but rather servants whose best service ( to use the happy expression of Father Congar ) consisted in their own free exercise. With St. Thomas,. as Father Congar well says, philosophy adds to faith a truly rational view of the world. See Y. Congar, O.P.,. "Theologie" ( Dictionnaire de theologie catholique, XV,. 1 , 1 9 56, coll. 3 4 1 -502 ) , coll. 3 87-389. On the Tnomistic notion of theology, in addition to the article of Father Congar ( lac. cit., coll. 3 78 ff. ) , see A.

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Gardeil, O.P., Le donne revele et la theologie ( Paris: Librairie V. Lecoffre 1 9 1 0 ) ; M.-D. Chenu, O.P., "Position de la theologie" ( Revue des sciences philosophiques et theologiques, XXIV, 1 9 3 5, pp. 2 3 2-2 57) ; La theologie comme science au XIII6 siecle ( 2nd edition, n.d., Pro manuscripto) ; Ch. Joumet, Introduction a 1a theologie ( Paris: Desclee de Brouwer et C1e ., 1 94 7 ) . 49. Summa Contra Gentiles, I, c. 6. 50. Summa Contra Gentiles, I, cc. 3-5, 7-8. - See also Summa Theologiae, I, q. 1 , a. 8, with the replies to the objections ( a classic text for the relations of authority, truth, and evidence ) . 5 1 . A comparatively new witness on this point is the text of Boetius of Sweden on the eternity of the world. See Geza Saj6, Un Traite recemment decouvert de Boece de Dacie De Mundi Aeternitate ( Budapest: Akademiai Kiad6, 1 9 54 ) . The thirteenth-century debate on the rela­ tions between the Christian doctrine of creation in time and the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity of time and motion was both fruitless and dangerous. It was a debate on duration and not on creation, except that the idea of creation suffered the consequences. By proving too much against the Averroists, who thought they knew the mean­ ing of demonstration, the theologians were doing exactly what St. Thomas feared and opposed. They were dem­ onstrating a temporal creation by means of arguments that the philosophical defenders of the eternity of the world had considered and answered. What was the re sult? "TI1erefore such arguments redound rather to the ridicule of faith than to its strengthening, whenever any one sets out to prove the newness of the world [i.e., crea­ tion in time) by relying on them [such arguments) against the philosophers" ( St. Thomas, In II Sent., d. 1 , q. 1, a. 5) . For a step-by-step analysis of the meaning of creation in St. Thomas, see Summa Contra Gentiles, II, cc. 6-22. - For the growth of the notion, see De Potentia, III, 5; 1 7; Summa Theologiae, I, q. 44, a. 2; De Substantiis

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Separatis, c. 7. - On the source of St. Thomas' doctrine, see his own early statement in In II Sent., d. 1 , q. 1 , a. 2; also Summa Tbeologiae, I, q. 46, obj . 2 and ad 2. 52. On the problem of faith in Descartes, see Henri Gouhier, La pensee religieuse de Descartes ( Paris: Librairie P hilosophique J. Vrin, 1924 ) , pp. 201-2 1 6. 5 3 . By way of example, see Sidney Hook, "Naturalism and the Human Spirit" ( reference in note 28, above) . 54. Y.Congar, "Theologie," coll. 47 5-476. See, above, note 48. 5 5. St. Thomas, Expositio Super Librurn Boetbii De Trinitate, q. 2, a. 3, ad 5; ed.B. Decker, p. 96. 56. St. Thomas, op. cit., q. 2, a. 3; ed. cit., p. 94. - See Summa Tbeologiae, I, q. 1 , a. 8, ad 2 . 57. E . Gilson, "What Is Christian Philosophy?" ( in A Gilson Reader, pp. 1 84-1 8 5 ) . See note 3 7, above. For Descartes, see note 52. 58. Ibid., p. 18 5. 59. Ibid., p. 1 78 . 6 0 . E . Gilson, "Historical Research and the Future of Scholasticism" ( in A Gilson Reader, p. 1 6 5 ) . 6 1 . Ibid. 62. Ibid., pp.1 6 5-1 66. 6 3 . Ibid., p. 1 63 . 64. M.-D. Chenu, O.P., "Position de la Theologie," p. 2 39. See note 48. 6 5. I hope to return to this point in a later discussion. For the present, I wish to insist on Christian philosophy as a tertium quid in relation to theology and "pure" philosophy. Those who have defended the notion of a separated philosophy in order to maintain the autonomy

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of philosophy in the presence of theology, and have con­ sequently argued against the possibility of a Christian philosophy, are supposing that Christian philosophy and philosophy as used by the theologian for theological pur­ poses are one and the same thing. But such is not the case. True enough, the philosophy in St. Thomas' Summa Theologiae is both recognizable philosophy and also phi­ losophy used by a theologian in pursuit of his work. But what is not properly a part of the nature of philosophy in the Summa is the theological state and purpose that St. Thomas has there given to philosophy. As a theological instrument, philosophy is not philosophy but theology, and in this sense the philosophy in the Summa is theology by reason of its state. Only, this state is not part of philosophy according to its nature, not even Christian philosophy. It is no service to Thomism to make the theological purpose for which St. Thomas used philosophy into a part of philosophy as he understood it according to its nature. 66. From this point of view, the discussion stirred up by Monsignor Ellis' celebrated address "American Cath­ olics and the Intellectual Life" since its publication in the fall of 1 9 5 5 may have been worth the publicity given to Catholic failings in education at the college and grad­ uate school levels. I say "may have been" because enough conflicting attitudes, currents and crosscurrents, have come to the fore from Catholics in different walks of life to give educators serious food for thought. It is certainly more than possible that Monsignor Ellis did not distinguish as explicitly as was desirable between "intellectualism" and "scholarship." Not all intellectuals are scholars and not all scholars are intellectuals ( not, in­ deed, unless the term "scholar" is used generally to mean any person who takes some pains to be moderately careful in his judgments and who is genuinely interested in the role and value of human intelligence within the cultural framework of society ) . Intellectualism is a matter of culture, whereas scholarship is a matter of training based on research, disciplined judgment and imaginative under-

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standing. While Monsignor Ellis is perfectly capable of speaking for himself, I venture to say for him that he would not deny such a distinction. His point rather was that American Catholicism is still too near its immigrant origins to have developed a serious intellectual culture or to have promoted within that culture one of the products of a genuine intellectualism, scholarship. See Monsignor Ellis' own account of the historical facts in his American Catholicism ( Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1 9 56 ) , Chapters III-IV, pp. 82-1 59, 1 68-1 80. The point that emerges with disturbing clarity in the many discussions of Monsignor Ellis' printed address is that intellectualism seems to have become an emotional slogan rather than an issue to be examined on its merits. In a much more serious vein, however, Catholic theolo­ gians have been proclaiming the need for Catholic in­ tellectuals and they have been quoting the justly famous statements of Bishop Spaulding on the necessity of a Catholic "zeal for intel!ectual excellence" and of Bishop Ireland on the necessary presence of Catholics "in the foreground of intellectual movements of all kinds." The only question is whether we are fostering in our schools the intellectualism that is native to the Catholic theology of the human person. I am not here concerned with the problem that occupied Professor John Lukacs in his at­ tack on the confusion between "intellectuals" and "schol­ ars." I agree in thinking that a relatively learned person, who does not wish to become something much more difficult, namely, a scholar, can with comparative ease pose as an "intellectual" before the American public. I further agree that this sort of intellectual, who finds it easy to comment learnedly on profound questions as soon as he receives his Ph.D. degree, does not represent an ideal of the Western Christian tradition. I agree, too, that "an improvement not of the positions but of the aspirations of 'intellectuals' may be necessary" and that only such spiritual qualities as courage and humility, love and dedication, will build a true Catholic intellectualism ( John A. Lukacs, "Intellectuals, Catholics and the In­ tellectual Life," pp. 52-5 3 ) .

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Yet there is something more to be said, as Monsignor Ellis pointed out with reference to moral and religious education. If the inculcation of moral and spiritual forma­ tion in our students "is one of the principal reasons for having Catholic schools in any circumstances," never­ theless, this "goal should never be permitted to over­ shadow the fact that the school, at whatever level one may consider it, must maintain a strong emphasis on the culti­ vation of the intellectual virtues" ( "American Catholics and the Intellectual Life," p. 3 7 8 ) . This issue goes very far. The Catholic college cannot even hope to educate students in whom faith is in living communication with the intellectual training they receive especially in the physical, biological, and social sciences unless it has the ability and the ambition to foster in them an integral Christian intellectualism; for only in this way can the mind of the student be open with perception and under­ standing to the whole modern world of knowledge and in turn open that world - in himself, at least - to the trans­ forming light of his Christian faith. - On the role of the school in the Christian education, see the remarkable paper of William Bless, S.J., "Role of the School in the Religious Formation of Youth" Lumen Vitae, English Edition, XII, 1 [January-March, 1 9 57] , pp. 99-1 1 2. Among recent discussions on intellectualism in Catholic education the following titles are no more than a sampling of opinions: 1 . John Tracy Ellis, "American Catholics and the Intel­ lectual Life" ( Thought, XXX, 1 1 8 [Autumn, 1 9 5 5] , pp. 3 5 1-388; reprinted, among other places, by The Heritage Foundation, Inc., 1 9 56, with a Prefatory Note by the Most Reverend John J. ,�/right, Bishop of Pittsburgh ) . For the early reactions to the pub­ lished paper, see Msgr. Ellis' own account in the N.C.E.A. Bulletin, LIII, 1 [August, 19 56] ' pp. 1 0 51 1 2. 2. Most Reverend John J. Wright, "The Vocation of the Catholic Intellectual" ( Catholic Mind, LIV, 1 1 1 9 [March, 19 56] , pp. 1 2 1-128 ) .

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3 . Gustave \Veigel, S.J., "Enriching the Intellectual Life of the Catholic College" ( N.C.E.A. Bulletin, LI i, 4 [ May, 19 56] , pp. 7-2 1 ) . 4. Most Reverend Walter P. Kellenberg, "Needed ­ Catholic Intellectuals" ( Catholic Mind, LV, 1 1 3 3 [September-October, 1 9 57] , pp. 4 26-4 3 3 ) . 5 . John A. Lukacs, "Intellectuals, Catholics, and the Intellectual Life" (Modern Age, II, 1 [Winter, 19 5719 58] , pp. 40-54 ) . 6. Robert I . Gannon, S.J., "Enough Breastbeating" ( Ca tholic Mind, LVI, 38 [July-August, 1 9 58] , pp. 3 1 3-3 1 9 ) . 7 . Gustave Weigel, S.J . , "Catholic Intellectualism" ( Catholic Mind, LVI, 1 1 3 6 [March-April, 19 58], pp. 1 0 1-1 14 ) . Though not concerned directly with the debate on in­ tellectualism, the following titles are also very important: 8 . Etienne Gilson, L'Ecole a 1a croisee des chemins ( Montreal: College Jean-de-Brebeuf, 1 9 54 ) . 9. Edward J. Drummond, S.J., The Pursuit of Truth to Make Men Free ( M ilwaukee : Marquette University Press, 19 5 5 ) . 1 0. John Courtney Murray, "The Christian Idea of Edu­ cation" (in The Christian Idea of Education, edited by Edmund Fuller, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1 9 57 ) , pp. 1 52-1 63; discussion, pp . 1 64-1 72. 1 1 . Jacques Maritain, "On Some Typical Aspects of Christian Education" (in Edmund Fuller, op. cit., pp. 1 7 3-1 98; discussion, pp. 199-2 1 2 ) .

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