the Apologetics of Aquinas

10th, defending Faith

The Apologetic of Aquinas

We have been looking at the concepts of Natural Theology (NT) as it relates to general revelation. As I mentioned earlier that though it is taught by Paul in Romans 1 and explained in depth by Aurelius Augustine in the 3rd and 4th century it is mostly recognized for it’s development by Thomas Aquinas. R. C. Sproul says the Protestants have had an allergy to NT because it was seen as somehow too Roman Catholic. But he sees this as a bias on their part and not a problem in the least. NT has suffered in modern times, also, as it relates to Secular philosophy. Francis Schaffer, a splendid thinker, had a differing understanding of Aquinas. Schaffer made the case often that it was Aquinas that separated nature and grace. So let’s explain this idea of grace as it relates to nature. Aquinas thought that there is no barrier but union in grace and nature though a distinction.

What problem was Thomas Aquinas trying to solve?

To answer this we have to go back and get the historical circumstances in which he labored as a Christian apologist. He was writing at a time when the greatest threat to Christianity was the onslaught of Islam. Muslim philosophy was being advanced at this time in history. These philosophers were promoting ‘integral Aristotelianism.’ A synthesis between Muslim philosophy and Aristotle. Merging the best of Aristotle with Islam. One of the central thesis they tried to establish was the ‘Double Truth Theory.’ What Aquinas was wrestling with in his time is similar to our time. The definition being, Something could at the same time be true in philosophy but false in religion. Or true in religion but false in philosophy. Or true in science but false in theology. And so on.

If I can take that idea and transfer it to our own day it would be like this.

1. We have many people in this day that believe in ‘macro-evolution’ theory of how life came to be here. The human race and the universe has come to pass through the gratuitous collision of atoms and that man has come up and emerged from the sludge and slime as the result of a cosmic accident with no definitive or no ultimate purpose in view. While also being destined to annihilation. So the origin of humanity is in meaninglessness and the destiny in meaningless.

2. But we are of the stance that it came to be by an omniscient self-existent being. That God, through His wisdom and power, intentionally created human beings in His own image for and eternal purpose. This destiny and purpose in these two opposing views, I think, could not be more farther apart in their approach to human significance.

Now today, if we adopted the ‘Double Truth Theory’ (DTT) it would look like this: A Christian on Sunday would say I believe in the Divine Creation of all that exists. On Tuesday and the other days I believe I am a cosmic accident. A highly developed germ with no designer but chance. I believe both of them equally. The DTT as characterized by Muslim thinkers was thought to validate both believes could be held at the same time. To both affirm and deny conclusions about universal truths. And from which ever perspective you are coming from, at a particular time of the week, they are true, both at the same time. This is the meaning of DTT. Absolute opposites can be held as true at the same time. Antithetical and irreconcilable concepts are both true but it is how you have perspective at the time; either scientifically or religiously.

It is against this developing theory of ‘pure relativism’ that was threatening Christianity and science in his day that the Aquinas developed his apologetic of natural theology. In order to refute the DTT onslaught. What he did in order to address this problem was to distinguish between nature and grace and between reason and faith between religion and science. It is one thing to distinguish between them but it is another thing to separate them.

One of the most important things he tells his seminary students they will ever learn in theology is; the distinction between a distinction and a separation. If I distinguish between your body and your soul I have brought no harm to you. If I separate your body from your soul I have killed you. If that is clear, then Aquinas said you must distinguish between nature and grace. And what he meant is this; there are certain things that we can learn from nature that we can’t learn from grace. What is meant is there are certain truths that we discover from study of this earth, an inquiry into mechanisms of science, that we can learn things by examining the physical things around us that we will never read in the books God says are His words to us. We will never read and find a thing about the circulatory system of the human body or molecular biology. We only find these truths by studying the reality of nature. The results of these multiple independent studies results in knowledge we will never find in the Bible. But at the same time there are things that we learn from grace and scripture that we can’t learn in a laboratory. God’s determination about the state of the human condition comes from God’s revelation in the text and the truth of it is one’s ability to understand it correctly. Aquinas has distinguished between different arenas of knowing truth.

There is a 3rd category; which is called the ‘Articulus Mixtus.’ Or in plain English the ‘Mixed articles.’ They refer to those truths that can be known or learned, either from the Bible or from the study of nature. Chief among those articles that can be known, from either nature of scripture, is the existence of God. In other words, you don’t have to read the Bible to know that God exists. Why would he say that? Because he was already a proponent of NT. He was saying that the Bible, itself, was telling us that there is another way to know that God in fact exists.

What happens when you turn to the very first page of the Bible you find; In the beginning God…
There is assumed a God in the first sense. There is no need to prove the presupposition that God is other than the worker of the next set of events. Some say that statement in itself is the ‘death blow’ to apologetics. There is no need to argue for God’s existence because the Word God says it is already know by nature. The Bible, doesn’t defend the notion that God exists. It assumes it at the start of everything. To try and explain the necessary proof would be like ‘brining coals to Newcastle.’ Creation has proved His case conclusively through nature. The person who comes to the Bible to find more revelation as to who God is has to come to this source already determining that nature has already proved this God. They have already received the general revelation of God that He gives in nature. God doesn’t have to prove Himself twice as it were.

So Aquinas and Augustine are saying that God’s existence is proved both by nature and by grace. These two spheres of influence, both science and religion, are not separated and opposed to one another but are actually in agreement. Following Augustine, Aquinas said that all truth is God’s truth. All truth meets at the top. If something is true in science it must also be true in theology. If it is true in theology it must be true in science.

If God reveals Himself, both, in nature and scripture and the principle textbook for the theologian is the Bible and the principle textbook for the physicist or biologist or astronomer is nature, and God has both these spheres as His means of revelation, and God is the God of Truth, then, in an ideal world there would never be conflict. But history has shown that there are seemingly every decade a controversy between science and the text of scripture. Between the reason of what is known and faith in what is hidden but the same source being the Creator.

But we don’t live in an ideal world. This is the point that Aquinas was making. We have theologians in one corner reading and deciphering the text but making mistakes in understanding what the scripture says. In the 16th century virtually everyone believed that we were in a geocentric universe. That the earth was the center of the solar system. Not just the Pope or the cardinals and bishops in Rome but it was a point of faith for Martin Luther and John Calvin who saw Copernicus as an agent of the Devil to undermine the integrity of the sacred. What Copernicus did was not only prove that the Ptolemaic system was wrong but he also proved conclusively that the Church’s understanding of astronomy was wrong. Here is a clear case where the scientific community in the process of ascertaining the truth of nature found the Church wrong and corrected the Church. They didn’t correct the Bible but the Churches understanding of what the Bible was saying. The conclusion is that theologians can be wrong when they study the scripture. On the other hand when scientists speak and say that ’things can come out of nothing’ then scientists would have to be held up as using bad science. They are talking nonsense.

Aquinas was saying these two spheres are not separate. In our time there is, again, the desire to separate the two. It’s said that you can believe in your religious customs in your private cupboard and sing your hymns and pray, to find emotional satisfaction, but don’t call it science. Don’t call it truth and knowledge. Intelligent people don’t acquiesce to that sort of thing.

Aquinas explained that to be rational you will be driven to the conclusions in nature of the compelling knowledge that there is an existent God. Only a fool would not use this knowledge other wise. To say there is no God. Both science and biblical text, together, proclaim the same truth. They support one another and are united. Distinguished but not to be separated. So Francis Schaffer did Aquinas a disservice when he said that Aquinas separated the two. The culture stresses the need to separate the two but don’t leave that at the door of Aquinas. He was trying to show the harmony between reason and faith -- science and religion -- nature and grace. The affirmation being; “All truth is God’s truth and all truth meets at the top.”

Augustine made a challenge to his students that they should learn as much as they can learn about as many things that they could study because wherever they found truth they were finding God’s truth. They were discovering the truth of God.