Thomas Aquinas

Knowledge of God by Reason and Revelation – A Fitting Relationship

            There are few theologians who, through the corpus of their written work, not only challenged their contemporaries, but who continue to be read and discussed in the generations following their own life.  Even rarer are those theologians who are read, taught, commented on and re-examined in every generation of theologians since they lived.  Thomas Aquinas is one of these rare individuals.  Thomas’ work of course, is even more amazing when you consider that he stopped writing at what many consider the height of his theological career; not even finishing his ‘magnum opus’, the Summa Theologiae.  Regardless of which stream of Christianity informs you as a theologian, or your stance on what Thomas taught, every theologian must interact with what he wrote 800 years ago. 

            As a Protestant in the Evangelical Reformed tradition, I find Thomas’ discussion of the relationship between the knowledge of God that is known by reason alone and the knowledge that comes through faith to be particularly challenging.  It is this discussion that I would like to explore in this essay.  How does Thomas bring these two together in a way that does justice to both without excluding or encapsulating one into the other?  I will primarily focus on the Prima Pars, questions 1, 2, 12 and 13.  Finally, I will briefly look at Thomas’ view of the role of the Incarnation in the knowledge of God as discussed in the Tertia Pars, question 1. 

            When dealing with the topic of the knowledge of God, one of the biggest problems that the theologian encounters is the relationship between human reason and divine revelation in what can and cannot be known about God through reason unaided by revelation.  Theologians have dealt with this relationship in different ways.  Some have pushed back at divine revelation and said that theology is really just a task of the human mind reaching out to know who and what God is like.  Others have pushed back at human reason and said that knowledge of God must be just the task of the divine reaching down and giving the human mind the knowledge.  Thomas, as a student in the church and as learned scholar of philosophy, wants us to hold onto both.  He says that there is truth about God that can be achieved by human reason, but there are limitations.  Aquinas says, “For the truth about God, such as reason can know it, would only be known by a few, and that after a long time, and with the admixture of errors” (ST I.Q1.A1).  There is clearly truth about God that can be known through the created world.  In discussing the demonstratable existence of God, Thomas quotes Romans 1:20, stating that “if the existence of God were demonstrated, this could only be from His effects” (ST I.Q2.A2). 

            What then is the purpose of God giving revelation?  Thomas is clearly not going to diminish the need or value of the revelation of God in the Scriptures.  Thomas reminds us that part of the issue is that sacred doctrine is not of the same “genus” (ST I.Q1.A1.RO2) as philosophical reasoning.  They are related, but not the same.  Both therefore are necessary for the full knowledge of God.  Without revelation, the most important things about God and his work – the doctrine of salvation for one – would not be known, but this knowledge is required for humans to achieve their true end (finem).  So, “it was necessary that, besides the philosophical disciplines investigated by reason, there should be a sacred doctrine by way of revelation” (ST I.Q1.A1).  This necessity should be understood as a concept that Thomas will bring to many of his discussions of necessity, fitingness (ST I.Q1.A1).  It is fitting (pointing to end or purpose) that to accomplish this end, God would give the sacred doctrine through revelation. 

            Perhaps, the opposite is true.  Perhaps we only need the sacred doctrines that come through revelation.  Thomas reminds us that sacred doctrine makes use of philosophical reasoning, “not as though it stood in need of them, but only in order to make its teaching clearer” (ST I.Q1.A5.RO2).  The ‘Queen of Sciences’ does not need philosophy to be known, but in the “lifting up” of the person to know God (ST I.Q12.A5) we as knowers need this use of the lesser sciences.  We as lesser creatures, need these ‘scaffolds’ (a term that is used in educational settings to describe teacher helps in the beginning of the learning process) to move us from material things to sacred doctrines (ST I.Q1.A9).  This is one of the reasons that Scripture sometimes presents sacred doctrine in metaphorical ways.  This is not a diminishment of the full truth of sacred doctrine, but a veiling (a concept introduced by Dionynius) so that all men, not just the few highly intellectual, can know these sacred truths (ST I.Q1.A9).  It is because of our limited capacity that the divine nature is communicated through likenesses, figures, metaphors and analogies.  It is fitting that God should communicate himself, but this communication must be given in a way that we as knowers can comprehend.  As a Protestant, this truth needs to be remembered in our understanding of the doctrine of sola scriptura.  While we must stay deeply committed to Scripture as the foundation of our faith, we must remember that in Scripture God is making a fitting accommodation to us as knowers.  We do not come know Scripture independently of ourselves and our culture.  God spoke through cultures and individuals because without this accommodation, no knowledge would be possible.  Yes sin has noetic effects, but that is also part of the accommodation that God makes.  We are not bound to culture to know – sacred doctrine speaks to us still, even in our modern culture – but God does lift us up to know him through these metaphors, analogies, likenesses and figures. 

            One of the reasons that sacred doctrine makes use of the lesser sciences is to demonstrate its truth.  These demonstrations are not proofs of the sacred doctrines, but are arguments against those who object to the sacred doctrines.  Thomas says, “Hence Sacred Scripture, since it has not science above itself, disputes argumentatively with one who denies it principles…” (ST I.Q1.A8).  The reason, “we can argue with heretics from texts in Holy Scripture, and against those who deny one article of faith we can argue from another” (ST I.Q1.A8).  The use of lesser sciences has a purpose then beyond just our knowing, it has an apologetic or evangelistic purpose. 

            This of course leads to the discussion of the proofs of the existence of God.  There has perhaps been no more contested subject that discusses the relationship between faith and reason than that of the proofs for the existence of God.  Thomas will take up the subject in Article 3 in Question 2, but before he does that, he discusses whether the existence of God is self-evident.  While there are certainly many in the Christian community who would argue that God’s existence is self-evident, Thomas says that in the most important way, God’s existence is not self-evident, because it is not evident to all.  This is “because we do not know the essence of God,” so the existence of God needs to be demonstrated by the things that are known to us, his effects (ST I.Q2.A1).  Following Augustine, Aquinas does acknowledge that there is a sense of the existence of God that is known to everyone, but that is not known absolutely (ST I.Q2.A1.RO1).  This non-absolute knowing is based on human happiness, perhaps an echo left from the nature of man before the fall.  But to fulfill this happiness, man turns to things that will not satisfy – pleasures, riches, etc. 

            Thomas gives his proofs for the existence of God in Article 3 of Question 2, which have come to be known as the Five Ways.  Theologians and philosophers of every generation have been discussing the validity and success of the Five Ways virtually since Thomas penned the Summa. The fourth way (what is today called the Moral Argument) and the fifth way (the Teliological Argument) are particular popular today and are used by apologists very effectively in the discussions regarding the new atheism.  Regardless of whether these Five Ways are actually successful at proving the existence of God or more specifically the God of revelation, we get the picture that Thomas is not going to leave anything out this discussion.  One way is easy to counter-argue, two is better, but the totality of consideration of the Five Ways is something that Thomas wants to leave his readers with the impression of the completeness.  By listing all five, there is little left for consideration.  It is interesting that the area which has occupied most of the thinking of atheism in the 20^th Century – the problem of evil – is only dealt with in single line (ST I.Q2.A3.RO1).  The task of theology to speak to every generation is evident, even in so great a theologian as Thomas.

            Knowing that God exists is not the end of the discussion for Thomas.  He also spends a significant amount of time on the issues of how God is known by us (Q 12) and how we can properly name God (Q 13).  In knowing and naming God, the relationship between nature and grace, faith and reason, is again at the center of Thomas’ thinking.  Since God is known to us through the creation (Romans 1:20), this relationship will be very important in Thomas’ development of these two subjects.  There is much in these two questions that we will not be able to unpack, but by limiting our focus on this relationship, we will be able to get the essence of what Thomas is trying to tell us about knowing and naming God.

            For Thomas, since God is pure act – with no potentiality – God is supremely knowable, even to his very essence (ST I.Q12.A1).  “But what is supremely knowable in itself may not be knowable to a particular intellect, because of the excess of the intelligible object above the intellect” (ST I.Q12.A1).  God is supremely knowable, but we do not know him supremely.  This is a very important concept in the fleshing out of the relationship between nature and grace; between faith and reason.  We know God through the mediation of his effects in creation, but we must remember that does not mean that we know God in the same way that he knows us.  The analogy that he gives is the sun.  The sun is supremely visible (there is no absence of light) but we cannot apprehend it completely because it is too bright.  We know God, but we must remember that God is beyond our ability to know completely.

Perhaps God is so far beyond our ability to know him, that we really do not know him.  Maybe we are looking at a candle thinking it is the sun.  Aquinas says no, we really can – in a limited way – know the essence of God.  His reason is beauty – the attainment of the beauty that comes from the highest function of man – his intellect (ST I.Q12.A1).  Through the beauty of the intellect, the highest beauty must be able to be known – again focusing on the concept of fittingness.  The intellect was made for knowing, what is the most fitting thing to know, the one who created the intellect.  “But if the intellect of the rational creature could not attain to the first cause of things, the natural desire would remain vain (inane)” (ST I.Q12.A1). 

            But we must square this with what we know about mankind.  Rarely does mankind achieve this level of knowledge, by Thomas’ own admission (cf. Q1).  There is a sense in which nature fails us, which is why revelation is necessary.  In articles 4 and 5 of question 12, Thomas explores this relationship between nature and grace.  To attain the knowledge of the essence of God, not only must God come down through accommodation by uniting his essence in grace to the ‘created intellect’ (ST I.Q12.A4), but he also lifts us up by adding a ‘supernatural disposition’ to the intellect (ST I.Q12.A5).  In this supernatural act of God, both in coming down and in raising us up, we are made to be more than we are by nature; we are made ‘deiform’ - like to God (ST I.Q12.A5).  This “light of glory cannot be natural to a creature unless the creature were to have a divine nature; which is impossible” (ST I.Q12.A5.RO3).  This divine light is given by God as an act of supernatural grace, allowing the non-divine creature to know the essence (at least in some way) of the Creator.  In this act of “beatific” illumination (not Thomas’ wording), we are reminded that to be what God intends us to be, we need grace.  We need revelation, for without it, what we are to be, cannot be.  And even with this act of accommodation and lifting us up to know the essence of God in the divine light, we still must recognize that we are limited in what of God’s essence we do know.  “No created intellect can attain to that perfect mode of the knowledge of the divine intellect…” (ST I.Q12.A7).  We still will only know in proportion.  Though not used by Thomas, perhaps we could call to mind the vision of God that Moses had.  Though he only saw the trailing edge of God’s glory because it was too much for Moses to see all of God, it was still enough to require that he be veiled because residual effects.  This knowledge of God that we will receive in the light of glory still does not result in full comprehension, because God will always be more than we can comprehend. 

            In the discussion of naming God, we always struggle with the concept of language and subject/object.  While there is insufficient space to deal entirely with this discussion, if we again focus on the relationship between faith and reason, we will get a good picture of what Thomas is trying to tell us about this important issue.  The main means that Thomas uses to talk about the naming of God is analogy.  He creates this because we have problems with both univocity and equivocity in the naming of God.  God is not good in the same way that we predicate the word in our normal usage – my children were good today for instance.  They are not univocal, because they are not proportional (ST I.Q13.A5).  But neither are they entire equivocal.  I cannot say that there is no relationship between good as I use it and good as it is applied to God; otherwise, there could be nothing that we do know of God (ST I.Q13.A5).  With one sentence, and a short one at that, Thomas gives us the path between the two, “For we can name God only from creatures” (ST I.Q13.A5).  With this one statement, a path between univocity and equivocity is made by the creation of analogies between creature and Creator.  There is a relationship between ‘good’ as it is applied to both God and to creatures.  Thomas calls this the ‘mean’ between what we do/can know and what we do not/cannot know.  It is the way to that we can bridge the natural to arrive at the supernatural.  It is a via of grace, by use of nature. 

            This bridge between is of course best pictured in the Incarnation itself  The supernatural act of accommodation and the supernatural act of lifting up are brought together in God taking on our nature.  In order to lift us up, God came down.  The immortal took on mortality.  Again, Thomas uses the concept of fittingness to describe the incarnation.  “It belongs to the essence of the highest good to communicate itself in the highest manner to the creature, and this is brought about chiefly by” God joining the creaturely nature to Himself (ST. III.Q1.A1).   In the relationship between natural knowledge and revelation, the ultimate act of that allows knowledge of God is the incarnation.  It is the ultimate act of revelation, and it is fitting and beautiful.  A perfection reflection of God himself. 

           

Bibliography

Aquinas, St. Thomas.  The Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Vol. 1.  Ed. By Anton C. Pegis.  Random House, New York.  1945. 

________.  The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas. Second and Revised Edition, 1920. Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Online Edition Copyright © 2008 by Kevin Knight.  http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4001.htm.  [Access 11/2/11].