A Beginner's History of Philosophy, Vol. 1: Ancient and Mediæval Philosophy

by Herbert Ernest Cushman

The Life of Thomas Aquinas (1224–1274).—The Founder of the Dominican Tradition. Thomas belonged to a noble house which was related to the royal family. He studied in the University of Naples, but at the age of nineteen, upon resolving to enter the Dominican order, he was captured and kept a prisoner by his brothers. After two years he made his escape, and, his family having consented to his taking orders, he went to Cologne under the instruction of Albert. He was then sent to Paris, where he obtained his degree in 1257. He was a successful lecturer at Paris until 1261, when he was called by the Pope to teach philosophy in Rome, Bologna, and Pisa. During this period he composed his greatest work, Summa Theologiae. He declined preferment and finally resided at Naples. He always enjoyed the highest consideration of the church authorities.

Thomas, the founder of the “Dominican tradition,” was the first to formulate Christian Aristotelianism and to draw for the church the line between the realms of reason and faith. He did not so much create doctrine as he transformed and assimilated it. The sources from which he drew were many: the Scriptures, the Fathers, Greek philosophy, and the teaching of contemporary Arabians and Jews. If, as some historians maintain, he was not a thinker of the first rank, he at least relieved the church from a delicate situation by means of a conciliatingtheology. Certainly his predecessors and contemporaries stand eclipsed by him. He satisfied the mediæval demand for order and he prevented deterioration in the church doctrine. He did not rise above his age, although he stood at the head of its intellectual movement. He was, on the contrary, the most perfect expression of scholasticism, and he was affectionately regarded as doctor angelicus and again as doctor universalis.

The Central Principle of Thomas’s Doctrine—The Twofold Truth. The life-purpose of Thomas was to bring Christianity into closer relation with civilization and science. He sought to give all departments of knowledge their rights and at the same time to protect the ascendency of religion. This was to him the same as bringing Christianity and Aristotle together, for Aristotle meant to him the entire product of ancient civilization. To the mediæval world of grace he added a world of nature, and, fully dominated by the mediæval love of order, he unfolded so comprehensive a view of life that he included all its problems. He felt that the natural and the revealed must not become a contradiction.

To accomplish this Thomas found in Aristotle his own ideal estimate of things. Looking at Aristotle through his own neo-Platonism, he naturally found in Aristotle more of the inner and religious estimate of nature than the facts will allow. Yet it was evident to Thomas that there was in Aristotle a great interest in nature and a great reserve on ultimate questions. Nature was, according to Aristotle, an essence unfolding in a system of grades. This became the central principle of Aquinas in this form: Nature is a sketch in outlineof the world of grace. Before the eye of the religious mind these two truths should appear: (1) the world of faith and the world of nature are two properly distinct worlds; (2) the world of faith is a continuation of the world of nature. The world of grace and the world of nature are two grades of the whole of existence. Nature is the lower stage of development, and the point of contact between it and the world of grace is the soul of man. Religion and philosophy thus have different spheres, but they are not contradictory. Grace does not destroy, but it perfects nature.Nature is subordinate to grace as man is subordinate to the Christian, the state to the church, the Emperor to the Pope.[63]

The difference between philosophy and theology is not that theology treats of God and divine truths, and philosophy does not. Philosophy discusses divine truths. But the difference lies here, that theology views truths in the light of revelation, while philosophy views them in the light of reason. Yet there are truths that belong to philosophy, truths that belong to theology, and truths that belong to both. The problems of the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the relation of the world to God are theological problems, yet they can also be demonstrated by the reason of philosophy; but the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the temporal creation are beyond the scope of the reason and belong to theology. Philosophy and theology are distinct, yet they are in harmony. Theology supplements philosophy with faith; philosophy supplements theology by(1) establishing preliminary motives, (2) supplying analogies, (3) answering objections. Thomas accepts both propositions which had divided his predecessors: credo ut intelligam and intelligo ut credam.

Above historical revelation there is something even higher, which could be called another realm, were it not more of a hope than a possession of man. Its appearance in the doctrine of Thomas shows the influence of Plato upon him.It is the immediate union of the individual with God in mystic ecstasy.[64] It is the dome of the religious temple that Thomas has built. But Thomas was careful to insist that this heavenly glory could not be gained except through the offices of the church. The individual cannot reach God through his own unaided efforts, but the sacraments of the church form the mysterious background of the religious life.

The Problem of Individuality—The Relation of Particulars and Universals. The all-absorbing question of the Transitional Period, of the relation of particulars and universals, became for Thomas and his successors the problem of individuality. For the schoolman was obliged to define the individual and fix his place in his Aristotelian world, if he was to be successful against the pantheism of the Arabian Aristotelianism. What is the nature and standing of the individual? What constitutes the difference between individuals? The whole theological edifice of Thomas would collapse in mystic unity, the immortality of the soul would be lost and the offices of the church would be nullified, unless Thomas showed the positive nature of the individual.In this connection we must remember that on the whole the Middle Ages had accepted Abelard’s analysis of the problem of the relation of universals and particulars: the universals exist in three ways, ante rem or in God’s mind; post rem or in man’s mind; in re or in nature. To Thomas the universals as abstractions (universalia post rem) in the human mind cannot be individuals, for they have no real existence. To have real existence the universal must exist in re, in the many, as the essence of things; not as abstraction beside the many.

The question of individuality therefore to Thomas concerns properly only objects in re, or objects in the corporeal world.[65] These are objects of Form and Matter. The question is, whether the Form or the matter of corporeal things is the principle of its individuality. Thomas says that matter is this principle,—not indeterminate matter, but matter with quantitative determinations. The difference between earthly individuals is numerical—a difference of time and space relations. The Forms of nature objects change continually according to their material conditions, but these conditions do not change. Nevertheless the quantitative determinations of individuals are not the cause, but the condition, of their existence.

But the question about the status of beings in the spiritual world, “separate Forms,” is a more difficult one for Thomas. This is the problem about God, the angels, and the souls of men. They are evidently not individualized by matter. What is the principle that distinguishes them from one another? They are Forms without matter and they are individualized through themselves, since they have no need of material determinations.Thus God is distinguished from everything else as pure Form or pure actuality. He is the unique individual in whom all differences merge. But so also are the angels actualized through themselves. What is the difference between God and the angels? God is an absolute genus; the angel is a relative genus, i. e. it is the only one of its kind. But what is the condition of the souls of men? Are they all alike or do they have a principle of distinction? Yes, they are distinguishable, for each soul upon separation from its body carries with it a love for its former body, and that distinguishes it from other souls.

The Primacy of the Will or the Intellect. Up to this time there had been no psychological dispute as to which of the faculties was fundamental. Now the question appears in full force. Much of the literature of this period is upon the question of the primacy of the will or the intellect, and it appears to be almost the leading motive of the time. Augustine had placed the will in the foreground of his teaching. His successors had never disputed the subject, but had been engaged in discussing what products of the intellect are real—the particulars or the universals. With the introduction of the intellectualism of Aristotle, there almost immediately arose defenders of Augustine. To them Aristotelianism was too rationalistic. Thomas follows Aristotle unconditionally, and with him stand the German mystics. Intellectualism becomes the central principle of what is known as the “Dominican tradition.” Duns Scotus was a Franciscan monk. He took up arms for the primacy of the will, and this became the central principle of the “Franciscan tradition.” On this point the nominalists were his allies.