Revelation Begetting Reason: On the Supernatural Aids Afforded to Christian Philosophy
(This paper is a written version of a talk to be given at the 2025 American Maritain Association conference.) I am sure that all of you gathered here today are familiar with the Christian philosophy debates from the 1920s and 1930s.1 I intend to take the position of Maritain as a starting point, not as the terminal point of a genetic and historical-textual investigation. What I want to do is propose a strong epistemic framework for understanding the way that truths of faith are operative in so-called “Christian Philosophy.” To do so, I will draw on his work, read in light of research that I have done related to the preambles of faith2 and the specific issues in Christian philosophy pertaining to the moral order.3 As we will see (especially in the footnotes), I will draw certain aids from Maritain’s own treatment of facts,4 from Labourdette’s appropriation of this capital point of analysis, from Garrigou-Lagrange’s own robust articulation of all the main lines of Maritain’s thought concerning Christian philosophy, and more remotely from certain matters regarding theological methodology read in light of Ambroise Gardeil’s work on the De locis theologicis, although as critiqued by Labourdette and Gagnebet.5
* * *
We do not find ourselves living in a state of pure nature. Human nature, as it exists in this particular order of things is a human nature nested within the hierarchical ends of grace and the hypostatic union.6 This does not mean that nature lacks its own connatural end. But it does mean that, especially in the case of spiritual beings, although more broadly for the whole creation awaiting its redemption, nothing remains untouched by our primitive calling to divine union, our subsequent fall, and the redemptive arc of history fulfilled in Christ’s Incarnation and vicariously satisfactory offering on the Cross. Ours is a nature that is fallen and redeemed, either virtually or formally.7
Even at the level of natural effects, we find ourselves faced with data that indicate something concerning this state of affairs. The cataclysm of the Fall has left even in our nature certain weaknesses. Our nature and our powers, as principles, are neither destroyed nor formally diminished by sin.8 However, our operations find themselves diminished insofar as our will is turned from our end by sin thereby diminishing our moral characters. Moreover, insofar as we command the exercise of our reason with a moral environment that bears within itself the possibility of falsehood through mendacity and pride (and many other faults too), one could argue that our speculative knowledge is constantly threatened by the darkening effects of sin.9 Finally, too, among the effects of the loss of original justice there is the unruliness of our lower faculties, no longer subject to the higher; we find that the phantasms and appetites are colored by the evils toward which the human person is all too often inclined.10
When it comes to domains that are truly forms of wisdom, dealing with the all-inclusive order of first principles, whether speculative, logical, artistic, or moral, such effects will have significant consequences. The moralist will seek to pretend to live as though human nature need not be ordered to a higher end but can achieve its own end by its own resources, or will strive to scientifically justify the unjust morality of himself and his society.11 The artist will perhaps consider the work of human hands to be an open-ended quest for the trans-humanist desire to ape at creative domination rather than sub-creative artcraft. The logician will perhaps deny aspects of our knowledge which open up to the analogical truths which stand above us, and most certainly, he will pronounce methodological constraints that would have us cognize as though our thought must operate solely within the bounds of mere human reason. Finally, the natural philosopher—and, most especially, the metaphysician—will find it a long, difficult, and error-prone labor to know the quite dematerialized truths that fall to such domains, especially whenever such knowledge has a bearing on one’s self-conception, whether as a spiritual being or as a creature of God.
Hence, it is of the very nature of the various philosophical domains that they at least remain (obedientially) open to data and aid that come from above their own order. Human nature is not enclosed within itself, even in the speculative domain, but rather, is (obedientially) open to the supernatural order, such that we can say in full rigor that human nature, qua nature, will be fulfilled, albeit by superabundance, in the supernatural order.12 This openness is not merely the hypothetical openness that holds for human nature in general, for a possible but non-existent natura pura. It is an openness which exists in an order of things that are truly supernatural. That is, our nature operates in a supernatural state.
For another example of this interaction between natural specification and operative state, one could consider the case of grace. Supernatural grace exists in salvation history in various states. In the good angels prior to the coming of Christ, it is only finalized by Christ who is to come to redeem man; only with its coming will it derive from Him. For man, grace has its own prelapsarian state and various postlapsarian states. After the Fall, it exists under various regimes: the “law of nature,” the Mosaic Law, and the New Law. Only in the last is it fully Christic. And during the time after Christ, where it continues to exist in those who have not yet received the sufficient proclamation of the Gospel, it is now abnormal in its state. In all of these cases, it is the grace of divinization by essence, yet it is subject to particularities in each of these regimes of salvation history.13
The state of philosophy is akin to this. It can exist in various operative states, and it is not the case that it is equally well situated in each of these. It may or may not exist in a regime where the mind and heart are purified by the healing power of grace and the message declared by God. It is only where it is in this regime of grace—which in this age is properly found only in the Church of the New Law, in the Mystical Body of Christ—that human intelligence finds its native state. As Maritain will say near the end of his career, this is “Philosophy considered fully as such” or “philosophy forging ahead,” as distinguished from “philosophy considered simply as such” or “stumbling philosophy.”14
This question of state will involve two different sorts of aids offered to philosophy, such that one can speak of a philosophy which is intrinsically Christian—considered as a nature-state complex.15 Such aids are either objective or subjective. Let us consider first the subjective aids then the more controversial, objective ones.
Subjectively, supernatural faith strengthens the light of reason merely through the efficient-causal interaction between the two habits existing and operating in one in the same agent. For the believer, the universe is corroborated as being a coherent world, fitted for understanding by human common sense and intelligence.16 The believer supernaturally knows and acts as though realism is indeed the case.17
More specifically too, the believer will know with certainty some truths which involve at least some material overlap between the demand of natural and revealed truths. He who believes in the Triune God already implicitly holds that the Creator God exists. The act of faith presupposes, in some way, this rational truth.18 And the believer who is a philosopher will hold his philosophical demonstration all the stronger even while he believes in the supernatural truth.19 The higher order of the supernaturalized intellect and will cannot fail to exercise an effect upon the dynamism of the operation of the lower habitus.20
Thus, even prior to thematic and objective reflection, such subordination cannot fail to influence the exercise of natural reason. In other words, solely because this person already has an intellect and will supernaturally aligned with these truths, this same person will philosophize with an intellectual power that is naturally strengthened in line with these truths.
Similarly, without positing an objective attraction for the supernatural order (as, mutatis mutandis, faith and theology have in relation to mystical experience), this influence of the supernatural order upon the natural order will nonetheless lead to a kind of teleological attraction toward theology in philosophy itself, though respecting the specification of habitus.21 Finally, the subject in whom grace is operative will experience many benefits against the wounds which afflict us due to original sin.22
I find that most Thomist interlocutors are comfortable speaking about such subjective aids. It is when we come to questions of objective aids that some seem discomforted by the idea of something Christian objectively entering into the fabric of philosophical thought. Examples of such objective contributions include the notions of creation, of nature (as perfected by the supernatural order and not only closed in on itself), Self-Subsistent Being, moral fault which would be the natural analogue to sin, the full implications of the subject of metaphysics (being insofar as it is being, is analogically said of the Creator and of created being), universal Providence, the spirituality and immortality of the soul, many moral precepts (e.g., concerning contraception, the unity and indissolubility of matrimony, but many other truths pertaining to the individual, familial, and social moral life).23
All such data is natural, though implied in, or connected to, the revealed deposit (or to other truths taught definitively or not) in some way.24 Such truths, even the most difficult, are perhaps in some way anticipated by philosophical reason, though not in the full light of clarity that is given to them when human reason is elevated by supernatural faith.25
A second group of objective data aided by faith and theology would be those which are corroborated by revelation. Concerning such truths, Maritain avers to the way that the motives of credibility (exposited by theology operating in an apologetic mode, arguing from reason though under the direction of faith26), confirm the validity of reason, thereby seeing “by implication the validity of many certitudes of the rational sphere which relate to discerning the motives of credibility.”27 Thus, the various natural truths concerning God, creation, and the human condition and moral vocation discussed in apologetic Theology would also provide objective aid to philosophical wisdom.
Next, there is the use of reason in relation to supernatural truths, either immediately and formally or discursively by supernatural-theological reasoning. We have already encountered a first category of such truths earlier, when we considered them from the subjective side. Very often, there are natural truths objectively presupposed for knowledge of revealed supernatural truths. Thus, knowledge of the Triune God objectively presupposes knowledge of God the Creator and Source of all that is. Knowledge of our vocation to beatitude objectively pre-supposes a philosophical anthropology that refuses to reduce man to the cramped bounds of materiality and hedonism. Similarly, our knowledge of the Redemptive Incarnation objectively presupposes notions of merit and justice. In short: the superanalogy of faith elevates common sense apprehensions of “First Cause,” the human person, etc. and illuminates them from within, primarily manifesting new supernatural notions and truths while also purifying and, in some way, explicating the common notions materially presupposed by the judgment of faith.28
Also, we can consider the truths that are encountered amid discursive theological reflection, scrutinizing the revealed truths and their virtualities.29 In the service of strictly supernatural questions and mixed questions of faith and reason,30 reason finds that its notions are called into service for new ends, leading to greater precision, or even to new realizations. For example, in the service of theological reflection on the divine indwelling, the philosopher will come to know many new things regarding the reality of intentional being and the intimacy that exists between knower and known.31 He who scrutinizes the instrumentality of Christ’s sacred humanity, scriptural inspiration, and sacramental causality cannot fail to walk away with a much more honed philosophical appreciation for the importance of instrumentality throughout nature and culture.32 And he who is familiar with the paucity of philosophical discussion concerning practical signs—even in the works of someone like John Deely—will realize how much can be gained by engagement in theological disputations over the practical-signitive reality of sacraments.33
As a third example, consider theology’s labor addressing so-called natural questions.34 Theology considers such natural questions precisely in so far as they have some bearing upon or relation to revealed truth. The methods and demonstrations of such truths will not be purely philosophical in character.35 Such labor may well instrumentalize reason for the ends of faith, drawing on the loci of natural reason, philosophical authority, or history purely according to the methods of theology. In that case, the use of reason would be deeply marked by its theological genesis and oversight, even if the topic under discussion is “purely philosophical”. However, concerning such natural matters, theology at times also must allow philosophical reason to reflect according to its own methods, though on behalf of a theological “project.” In this modality, philosophical reflection, functions like a kind of “research worker”—taking its point of departure from a theological context (and thus, often from a starting point that is not connatural to an exact philosophical method) and under the ultimate judgment of theology, which will judge such philosophical conclusions in light of supernatural principles. But, philosophy will gain in so far as it has served in such research, not as an instrument but according to its own methods, overseen by discursive theological wisdom.36
Finally, as an experiential datum, one should recognize the givens of revelation, although recast as understandable by reason alone. We will revisit this point soon, because it will be an important explanatory stage in my closing proposal for understanding certain aspects of the epistemology of “Christian philosophy.” Allow, for now, a parallel example. Although the domain of “aesthetics” is dubious as a first-order division of philosophical speculation37—I would situate it more specifically within the “philosophy of making”38—we can say that aesthetic realities are part of human experience (just as, for example, artcraft or technology more generally is). It would be a cramped Philosophy that would say, “I will foreclose my mind to the non-philosophical truths offered by the experience of artisans and artists.” A sound philosophy will ask: “What is the being of such realities? What are their first principles?” That is, it will scrutinize them under its own particular philosophical light. Another example can be drawn from the contrast between the observational sciences and the philosophy of nature.39
So too for supernatural knowledge. The philosopher is aware of facts that have some connection to natural knowledge, even though those facts radiate with a light that is, in point of fact, above the luminosity of mere reason. And it is not just a question of “facts” floating around in midair as brute data. Rather, he is aware that he has himself spoken internally (and externally) of such realities as objects of supernatural awareness; that is, he has constituted them as objects of experience.40 Perhaps, too, he can we articulate for himself the natural “facts” that are implied in such supernatural facts.41
This brings us, I believe, to the appropriate moment for discussing some summary epistemic observations. Before that, however, we should summarize schematically the types of influence that the supernatural order can exercise over the natural:
Subjectively…
Efficiently by the causality of higher habitus influencing the lower in one and the same agent, both in exercise and in the content of higher habitus
Regarding finality, insofar as the philosophical habitus are situated in a nexus of habitus whose “center” is supernatural
As regards the healing of the subjective effects of original sin
Objectively…
Natural data included explicitly as terms in the data of revelation and other truths taught either definitively or non-definitively by the Church`
The use of reason by discursive supernatural cognition
As instrumentally used by discursive theological reasoning considering supernatural problems
Natural truths corroborated by revelation when theology operates upon purely natural topics (e.g., when the philosopher experiences the theological-rational proofs of the motives of credibility, but many examples could be drawn from throughout the treatises of theology)
As a “research worker,” according to philosophy’s own methods but starting from theology’s recommendation and always under its ultimate judgment
Most generally, as an experiential datum, there are things that can be considered by philosophy, in a way akin to how, for example, mutatis mutandis, the sciences or artistic experience are considered by philosophy
How, then, can such supernatural data, enter the warp and woof of rational discourse? Here, I believe that the important theory of facts offered by Maritain helps us to understand the way that such a change can take place. Facts do not exist as a kind of empirical screen from which we construct or abstract the data of various domains of knowledge, a kind of pre-objectified content, separable from the particular domain of abstraction and discursion under consideration. Rather, facts match the given observational structure of a discourse. Thus, for the natural philosopher and for the empirio-mathematical scientist, the notions of time, change, space, etc. will have a different character, precisely because the abstraction between such domains of knowledge differ.42 The definitions offered in such domains of discourse will bear witness to this difference in abstraction. Similarly, a given physical reality, if part of moral agency, will be definable both as a speculative fact, as well as a practico-moral fact. So too, in the domain of supernatural knowledge, data of infused faith are observed as being immediately known, on the supernatural testimony of God, whereas the facts of theology are known as constituted by an observational outlook that now considers such revealed data as explanatory principles serving in discourse (and other truths as being explained thereby).43
The question before us becomes: how is it that supernatural discourse can provide data regarding natural truths? The easiest cases are those which are natural truths that are either directly revealed themselves or are reached in theology operating on purely natural questions (as, for example, in its apologetic mode, when it considers the nature of man as a propaedeutic for theological anthropology, etc.). In such a case, we can consider, through our various philosophical habitus, this same datum, but articulated as a kind of experiential given: man is spiritual in nature; the First Source is One and Transcendent; etc. Perhaps even theologically articulated faith will provide some suggestion concerning how to prove this: man has the unique capacities of spiritual knowing and loving; all things depend upon the First Source; etc. Our philosophical attitude in response to such claims will be something like, “You don’t say?”, as though receiving a truly probable opinion based upon an authority that has good rational testimony on its behalf, whether that of revelation or the authority of the theologian cited on behalf of this truth.44 The philosopher still has to undertake the task of discovering the appropriate demonstrative term (or terms) for the given conclusion proposed by revelation, as well as the task of ensuring that this demonstration is appropriately situated within the overall scientific structure of the given philosophical discourse to which it belongs. But, theologically articulated revelation provides (as a truly probable opinion) the end to be reached, often with a very lively luminosity, somewhat like when a great teacher encourages a student to take up the task of proving something for himself.45
When it comes to strictly supernatural truths, this process will be more complex. One will need to rearticulate to oneself the particular datum in question, focusing one’s observation upon the natural “resonances” within the supernatural datum. As discussed above, such resonances take several forms. In some cases, natural notions will serve as the objective presuppositions for supernaturally analogized truths, that is, as the natural terms presupposed for the supernatural judgements of faith concerning strictly supernatural objects. At other times, a conclusion will be drawn in light of a “natural” premise that is illuminated in order to serve in theological demonstration.46 In these cases, instrumentalized human reason, elevated for use in theology—either demonstratively or merely with probability based upon human authority considered in view of supernatural demonstration—can be extracted as a datum to be carefully situated regarding its natural principles, properties, and effects.47 Or, at times, with a supernatural task in view, theological reason may nonetheless set philosophy to work in order to sound out a philosophical problem, though somewhat in medias res, with an object presented to it by theology and continually supervised by theology—thus, with philosophical reason scrutinizing, in the manner of a “research worker,” a natural truth in view of ultimate use in theological demonstration.
In each of these cases, a given material object must be extricated from supernatural data, although there will be differences regarding how the observational process will take place. In the case of purely natural truths, wholly communicated to reason, the observation will involve the acceptance of a truth on external authority, though judging that authority at most from the perspective of its rational believability, as providing a conclusion to be sought. In those cases where the natural truth must be extricated from its supernatural containment (whether in revealed data or in theological discourse), one must learn to “philosophically observe” what is at stake in a given datum as a natural presupposition elevated by revelation or theological discourse. But this will only be an observed datum—a strongly attested datum with great probability, sometimes understood alongside suggestions for a potential philosophical resolution, but still only a datum. One will not reason from revelation or theology to “pure reason,” as from principle to conclusion. Rather, the observational process will recast the datum itself and then set the various philosophical disciplines on their way in view of a truly natural datum that originated in a higher order but whose formal character is wholly natural.48 In these ways, reason is truly “begotten of faith,” objectively speaking.
I believe, though, it is appropriate to finish with a kind of exhortation on behalf of the subjective supernatural aids needed for a truly vital philosophical habitus. Catholic philosophical culture should be perhaps more informed by theological science than it is today. This is necessary first of all merely because many works in the Catholic tradition (and also, by way of deterioration, many post-Renaissance works49) are permeated by a vocabulary that can only be understood from within a Christian framework. But, also, just as the observational sciences benefit from a sound superordinate natural philosophy and metaphysics, so too philosophical wisdom progresses more ably when the intellect has been strengthened supernaturally in the discursive labor of theology.
But, more importantly, the “morality of knowledge” also requires a purification of the mind through asceticism and right living (i.e. divinized living), as well as a profound grasping of the truths of faith (i.e. through the mystical life).50 Thus, truly strong philosophical habitus require as a strict condition in this state of fallen and redeemed humanity the practice of the Christian life as Catholics. The effects of the fall and actual sin upon our intellects, phantasms, and appetites will always hamper the achievement of philosophy in statu virtutis, scilicet difficulter mobilis. The healing of grace is necessary and means that philosophical reason can only be what it is meant to be precisely by conforming our lives to the grace of Christ. In other words, philosophy is not separable from a way of life, to be quite exact, from the Way that is the sequela Christi. And we should not be afraid to proclaim and live this fact. If our secular “betters” scoff, let us rejoice like fools for Christ and, however, humbly with unclipped wings fly forth philosophizing in faith, with no fear of the fact that our philosophy is, in important ways, begotten of revelation and supported by the life of grace.
For an introduction to the various lineaments of the Christian philosophy debates, see Gregory Sadler, Reason Fulfilled by Revelation: The 1930s Christian Philosophy Debates in France (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011).↩︎
See Matthew K. Minerd, “Philosophy Born of Faith: The Case of the Praeambula Fidei,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association (2022). Pagination forthcoming.↩︎
See Matthew K. Minerd, “Revisiting Maritain’s Moral Philosophy Adequately Considered” Nova et Vetera (English Edition) 16, no. 2 (Spring, 2018): 489–510.↩︎
On this important theme concerning the nature of facts, see the sources from Maritain and Simon discussed in Michael Torre, “Yves R. Simon, Disciple of Maritain: The Idea of Fact and the Difference Between Science and Philosophy,” in Facts are Stubborn Things: Thomistic Perspectives in the Philosophies of Nature and Science, ed. Matthew K. Minerd (Washington, DC: American Maritain Association / The Catholic University of America Press, 2020), 19–39; Yves R. Simon, “Philosophers and Facts,” in The Great Dialogue of Nature and Space, ed. Gerard J. Delacourt (New York: Magi Books, 1970), 139–162; Jacques Maritain, Degrees of Knowledge, trans. Gerald Phelan et al. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 2002), 60–64; Michel Labourdette, “Theology: Faith Seeking Understanding,” in The Thomistic Response to the Nouvelle Théologie: An Anthology, trans. Matthew K. Minerd and Jon Kirwan (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2023), 89–126 (here, 93–107 and 109–116).↩︎
See Marie-Rosaire Gagnebet, “Un essai sur le problème théologique,” Revue thomiste 39 (1939): 108–145; Labourdette in Charles Journet et Jacques Maritain, Correspondance, vol. 3 (1940–1949) (Fribourg / Paris: Éditions Saint-Augustine / Parole et Silence, 1998), 814–831. A translation of the substance of the latter can be found in footnote 168 of Ambroise Gardeil, “The Notion of a Theological Locus,” To Be a Thomist, https://www.athomist.com/articles/ambroise-gardeil-the-notion-of-a-theological-locus-complete-text#fn168.↩︎
See Billuart, Summa sancti Thomae, De Deo, diss. 9, a. 6, §2 (cited in Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, On Divine Revelation, vol. 1, trans. Matthew K. Minerd [Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2022], 353n57):
↩︎Others, indeed perhaps suitably, do not hold that there is a priority in the divine decrees among the three orders of nature, grace, and the hypostatic union, for they say, just as the artisan does not first intend the roof or the foundation but, rather, first intends a suitable habitation and, for the sake of that intends the whole house made corresponding to that, made up of all of its parts, so too God first willed to manifest His glory ad extra and for this end chose to create this world as an integral whole, with all of its parts and all of its orders, namely, the orders of nature, grace, and the hypostatic union, as a single work most suitably adapted to His end. . . . But the order of nature was disposed so that it may serve the order of grace, and the order of grace so that it may yield to the glory of Christ.
See Jean-Hervé Nicolas, Catholic Dogmatic Theology: A Synthesis, vol. 2 (On the Incarnation and Redemption), trans. Matthew K. Minerd (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2023), 286–294; idem., Catholic Dogmatic Theology: A Synthesis, vol. 3 (On the Church and the Sacraments), trans. Matthew K. Minerd (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2024), 7, 27, 81.↩︎
I say “formally diminished” because, however, the operative diminution is very important to keep in mind. As principles, nature and these powers remain. But, from the substance of the soul (the subjective receiver of grace) all throughout our entire person, sin affects our entire being, for the substance of our soul has been ravaged—even if not corrupted—by the loss of grace. Here, I am broadly following Maritain in the text mentioned in the next note. I believe it is correct to note this fact, for the loss of grace in the substance of the soul will operatively effect the whole of the human person, without entailing absolute depravity. We were not cast back into pure nature by the Fall; we were cast into the state of fallen nature and nature that is redeemed (virtually or actually, in anticipation or by way of derivation). Would that we all recall this fact!↩︎
The ignorance spoken of in ST I-II, q. 85, a. 3, is primarily attributed to prudence and, hence, the intellect insofar is it follows the will in the practico-moral order. And yet, Thomas speaks of the intellect being turned away from the order of the “the true” in general. This matter concerning how to understand the non-volitional effects of the Fall separates the various readers of Thomas, and I’m not looking to settle it here definitively. As a truly probable opinion, I am following the indications concerning the darkening of the intellect discussed by Maritain in several essays in Untrammeled Approaches, trans. Bernard E. Doering (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997).↩︎
One must remember that the phantasms in our memory are the products of our cogitative power’s estimations. Therefore, they are very often colored by the judgments that we make concerning the appetibility or non-appetibility of given realities. This cannot fail to color our cognition, even in the speculative order. How many supposed “objective scientists” have allowed their pride or other ulterior motives to affect the exercise of their knowledge? And, indeed, how many philosophers have steadfastly refused the path of a sound metaphysics, because they feared the implications of the God, whom they would find at the end of this speculative enterprise. Maritain briefly mentions some effects of the Fall on the phantasms in the essays cited in the previous note.↩︎
This is a kind of recapitulation of the angelic fall, in the form of a closed moral philosophy.↩︎
See Maritain, “Beginning with a Reverie,” in Untrammeled Approaches, 14n15: “I know too that human nature will not reach the fullness of its perfection except in those who have been raised up and will see God. . . . I know that it is our nature to aspire toward what is naturally impossible.” Also, “Along Unbeaten Pathways,” in Untrammeled Approaches, 411: “St. Thomas teaches that human nature—I repeat human nature—will come to its perfection only in the world of eternity, in other words once it has arrived at the height of the supernatural.” And ibid.: “And if we consider human nature as such, and only human nature, we have to say that of its very self it envelopes, essentially, a natural aspiration toward something which is infinitely above it and about which it knows nothing (what we do know we know only through faith), a natural aspiration toward a state that it can in absolutely no way attain by its own powers, nor by any conceivable progress in the world of becoming.”↩︎
See Charles Journet, The Meaning of Grace (Princeton, NJ: Scepter Publications, 1996). This theme permeates Journet’s L’église du verbe incarné. Special attention should be given to vol. 4 as regards this topic. Also, Robert Wenderski, “The Incarnation’s Impact on Grace: The Economy of Divine Salvific Action in Human History According to the Thought of Cardinal Charles Journet” (PhD diss., The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, 2020).↩︎
Maritain, “Along Unbeaten Pathways,” 421. Also, see Maritain, An Essay, 17–18:
From this viewpoint of the state, or the conditions of exercise, it is manifest that before philosophy can attain its full, normal development in the mind it will exact of the individual many emendations and purifications, a disciplining not only of the reason but of the heart as well. To philosophize man must put his whole soul into play, in much the same manner that to run he must use his heart and lungs. And here we encounter what in my opinion is the crucial point of the discussion, a point, moreover, at which dissent among Christians and non-Christians becomes unavoidable. One does not have to be a Christian to be convinced that our nature is weak (although the Christian's knowledge that nature is wounded makes him more keenly aware of these matters), or that the mere fact that wisdom is an arduous attainment is enough to account for the very high incidence of error in this area. But the Christian believes that grace changes man's state by elevating his nature to the supernatural plane and by divulging to him things which unaided reason would be unable to grasp. He also believes that if reason is to attain without admixture of error the highest truths that are naturally within its ken it requires assistance, either from within in the form of inner strengthening or from without in the form of an offering of objective data; and he believes that such assistance has in fact become so much an established part of things under the New Law that it has ushered in a new regimen for human intelligence.
And Garrigou-Lagrange, “On the Relationship Between Philosophy and Religion,” 379–80:
↩︎In the same way, while preserving its nature as a science belonging to the natural order, philosophy can exist either in an imperfect state in a pagan philosopher (e.g., in Aristotle) or in a more perfect state in a Christian philosopher (e.g., in St. Thomas), for then, he is perfected by a twofold assistance (namely, objective and subjective as was said above). Christian revelation is indeed the extrinsic norm of philosophy, but under its direction, philosophy becomes intrinsically Christian on account of the aforementioned twofold assistance.
See Maritain, An Essay, 29–30; Garrigou-Lagrange, “On the Relationship Between Philosophy and Religion,” 380: “Christian revelation is indeed the extrinsic norm of philosophy, but under its direction, philosophy becomes intrinsically Christian on account of the aforementioned twofold assistance.”↩︎
See Maritain, An Essay, 25: “Natural reason itself is corroborated by religion. It is religion after all which places us in a coherent universe made up of things and persons with clearly defined nature, a universe where we must elect between yes and no.” Concerning the meaning of “common sense” above, see the first part of Garrigou-Lagrange, Thomistic Common Sense, trans. Matthew K. Minerd (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2021).↩︎
See Jean-Hervé Nicolas, Catholic Dogmatic Theology: A Synthesis, vol. 1 (On the Trinitarian Mystery of God), trans. Matthew K. Minerd (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2021), 18: “From the beginning, our Credo was composed of a series of ontological affirmations, and through the centuries, they have been understood in this way and also have been disputed and defended as though they were such. They indisputably had this ontological scope in Jesus’s own teaching and in that of the apostles, as well as in the consciousness of the first Christians. One does not sacrifice one’s life for a mental fiction.”↩︎
For an exposition of this topic, see my article “Philosophy Born of Faith” cited above.↩︎
See Maritain, Science and Wisdom, 188n2: “Idem sub eodem aspect non est simul scitum et creditum ab eodem. According to the distinction commonly accepted amongst Thomists, such a philosopher knows the existence of God, author of nature, believes in the existence of God, author of Grace. It is this faith in the existence of God, author of grace, which strengthens the philosophical habitus in the believing philosopher. See John of St. Thomas, Cursus theologicus, vol. 7 (Vives), disp. 2, a. 1.” Also, see the discussion and citations in my article “Philosophy Born of Faith” cited above.↩︎
See Maritain, An Essay, 26. See also, Maritain, Science and Wisdom, 86–87 (citing here John of St. Thomas, Cursus theologicus, In ST II-II, q. 1, disp. 2, ad. 1 (Vives ed., vol. 7, 31–33)):
That greater certitude which science possesses through its conjunction with faith is participated from faith itself. Thus, the act of demonstration proceeds essentially from science and draws its scientific certitude in common with other sciences from it. But insofar as it is subjected to faith and corrected and illuminated by it, it proceeds with a higher certitude accidentally communicated to science. For the understanding of this, we must presuppose—according to the teaching of St. Thomas—that a superior power sometimes perfects an inferior one and communicates to it a mode of operation beyond its own proper specific one, as is taught in Prima Secundae, q. 17, ad 1, and more excellently in De Veritate, q. 22, a. 13, ad 13… In the same way, the light of a superior angel strengthens and perfects the intellectual power of an inferior one by proposing to it the object illuminated in a higher manner and, thus, it communicates to it a more perfect mode of understanding than the inferior angel could achieve by its own power alone…
Therefore, philosophy must be carried out within faith, which is a higher light in relation to natural science. For from its conjunction with faith, science performs demonstration with certitude—not only with the certitude proper to itself but also with one that is superadded and participated from faith, just as an inferior angel understands better through the illumination of a superior one than by its own power alone. Nevertheless, this certitude is not participated in science in every respect in which it exists in faith, since science is not capable of obscurity but only of certitude. That certitude is not formally the certitude of faith but is participatively so—without participation in obscurity—just as the light placed in the inferior angel is not formally superior, but participatively so.
And 88n1:
↩︎Cajetan (in In ST I, q. 106, a. 1) and John of St. Thomas (Cursus Theologicus, vol. IV, disp. 25, a. 2) teach that the superior angel illuminates and fortifies the intellect of the inferior angel by the mere proposal of the object. A fortiori, the presentation of the object in a superior light will exert an effect of inferior and vital reinforcement on the operative dynamism itself, particularly when a habitus of the soul is thus aided by a higher habitus. In such cases, a "physical” motion or impression of one upon the other takes place.
Evidently, such motion could not occur between two angels; yet it would be absurd to infer from this that it is equally impossible between the habitus of the same soul. On the contrary, Thomist psychology holds that the powers of the soul move one another: the potentiae vegetativae make use of the vires naturales in a quasi-instrumental fashion; the will moves both the intellect and the sensitive appetite, and so on. Posse unam potentiam, vel habitum unius potentiae aliquam impressionem realem ponere per suam motionem in alia potentia vel habitu, valde commune est inter Thomistas (John of St. Thomas, Cursus Philosophicus: De Anima, q. 12, a. 6). Strictly speaking, it is not the habitus or powers of the soul that operate per se: it is the living subject—subiectum in sua unitate substantiali—that acts and knows through its powers and habitus.
See Maritain, An Essay, 27–28:
In one sense, the advent of Christianity did dethrone philosophic wisdom and raise theological wisdom and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit above it. Once philosophy acknowledges this new arrangement, its condition in the human mind is thoroughly changed. I think that every great philosophy harbors a mystical yearning, which in fact is quite capable of throwing it out of joint. In a Christian regime, philosophy understands that even if it can and ought to sharpen this desire, it is not up to philosophy itself to consummate it. Philosophy, then, is wholly orientated toward a higher wisdom, and thus it is made able to achieve some degree of self-detachment and be relieved of some of its ponderousness.
Within the line of natural formalities, such attraction is at most modally supernatural, quoad finem.↩︎
See Maritain, An Essay, 28.↩︎
All of these examples are drawn from Maritain, An Essay,18–19 and Garrigou-Lagrange, “On the Relationship Between Philosophy and Religion” 275–276 and 394–395.↩︎
See Maritain, An Essay, 19–20. Note that I am here making room for truths that are held, also, by so-called “ecclesiastical faith” (if it is a distinct assent) and non-definitive religious assent. See “A Basic Introduction to ‘Ecclesiastical Faith,’” To Be a Thomist, https://www.athomist.com/articles/a-basic-introduction-to-ecclesiastical-faith.↩︎
Here, Maritain avers to the way that common sense notions are elevated by faith. On this topic, see Matthew K. Minerd, “The Superanalogy of Faith,” Nova et Vetera (English Edition) 23, no. 2 (2024): 589–614. In Maritain himself, see An Essay, 21:
↩︎But let us get back to our discussion of the revealed truths of the natural order and the nescience of the early philosophers relative to the profoundest and loftiest of them. We were in the course of saying that this nescience was less a sheer and total night than a twilight more or less shadowy wherein thought is brought to a standstill or goes astray. In short, the question at issue here is rather concerned—and this is still of paramount factual importance—with differences of clarity that are, to tell the truth, extraordinarily pronounced: what used to dwell in regions of shadow or mirage is brought forth in the full light of day. Concomitantly, with the center of irradiation thus displaced, and with regions which our naturally weak eyes find obscurest now sending forth a most vivid brightness, everything takes on a fresh hue, and every view is transfigured.
Concerning this notion of Apologetics, see Maritain, An Essay, 55–61; Garrigou-Lagrange, On Divine Revelation in 2 vols.; idem., “Apologetics Directed by Faith,” in Philosophizing in Faith, trans. Matthew K. Minerd (Providence, RI: Cluny Media, 2019), 399–420; Ambroise Gardeil, Le crédibilité et l’apologetique, 3rd ed. (Pairs: Lecoffre, 1928).↩︎
Maritain, An Essay, 22.↩︎
For an explanation of this process see Minerd, “Philosophy Born of Faith” and “The Superanalogy of Faith” cited above. Also, see Minerd, “Notes on the Super-Analogy of Faith in Garrigou-Lagrange, Hugon, Journet, and Maritain,” To Be a Thomist, https://www.athomist.com/articles/notes-on-the-super-analogy-of-faith.↩︎
See Maritain, An Essay, 22–23. Concerning the tasks of theology as science and wisdom, see “Wisdom be Attentive: The Noetic Structure of Sapiential Knowledge,” Nova et Vetera (English Edition) 18, no. 4 (Fall 2020): 1103–1146.↩︎
See notes 34 and 43 below.↩︎
See Journet, L’église du verbe incarné, vol. 2 (St. Maurice, Switzerland: Editions Saint-Augustin, 1999), 649–50:
↩︎Henceforth, theologians will no longer be content simply to label as wild exaggeration, as hyperbole without doctrinal content, as pseudo-mystical deviation, the assertion that, for example, God can be known and loved by us “with uncreated knowledge and love.” Without in any way abandoning the metaphysical requirement of separating the creature from the Creator by an ontological and entitative abyss, they should nevertheless remember that it was not in vain that the mystical doctor wrote of the transformed soul, even here below, “Thus the soul loves God with the will and strength of God Himself, united with the very strength of love with which God loves her,” in accord with the words of the Apostle: “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (Rom 5:5, RSV). And again that she “spirates in God the same spiration of love” that the Father and the Son spirate “in her,” namely the Holy Spirit.
Many other problems will thus impose themselves upon the attention of scholastic theologians [and, perhaps too, philosophers]. They will be led, we believe, to make much more use than they have heretofore made of some of St. Thomas’s bold and profound views, concerning, for example, the distinction between entitative and intentional being, either in the order of knowledge or in the order of love. In particular, where St. Thomas affirms that, while the divine essence cannot in the register of entitative being (of esse naturale) actualize any reality in the manner of a form, it can, nonetheless, in the register of intentional being (of esse intelligibile) play the role of a form in relation to the created intelligence of the blessed, these passages are likely to shed a radiant light upon the scholastic theologian’s reflections concerning the unfolding of the mystical life and concerning the problem of the ultimate unifying form of the Church— “that they may be one as we are one”—especially if they are understood, mutatis mutandis, also in relation to the intentional being of love, which secretly comes to visit and fill the shadows of our exile.
See Édouard Hugon, God’s Use of Instrumental Causality: A Philosophical and Theological Treatise, trans. Paul Robinson (Saint Mary’s, KS: Angelus Press, 2024). Also, Charles Journet, “The Mystery of Sacramentality: Christ, the Church, and the Seven Sacraments,” Nova et Vetera (English Edition) 22, no. 2 (2024): 656–657:
↩︎Let us stop for a bit—it is worth the trouble—at this mystery of instrumental causality. It fills the order of nature and culture. It is radiant in the domain of art. Let us imagine Michelangelo drawing a face of the Virgin. His hand is an instrument joined to his person, the pencil is a separated instrument. He only makes strokes, but these strokes are intelligent. The spiritual beauty of the work will appear only at the end, when it is done, produced on the blank piece of paper. But it must be acknowledged that, in a mysterious way, in the state of becoming and flux, it will have successively passed entirely into the pencil, it will have been really, physically, entirely contained in the intelligent movement of the pencil. Is this magic? Then let us say yes to this blessed magic! But it is something more profound than magic. It is, in the domain of art and culture, a particular realization of the law of assumption, of transfiguration, of the spiritualization of the lower by the higher, of matter by spirit.
For the best treatment of this by any Thomist that I know of (outside of John of St. Thomas in vol. 9 of the Vivès Cursus theologicus and, perhaps, Doronzo, though the latter is less unified), see Jacques Maritain, “Sign and Symbol,” in Redeeming the Time, trans. Harry Lorin Binsse (Geoffrey Bles: Centenary Press, 1953), 191–224, 268–76.↩︎
See concerning the division of theological questions, see Gardeil, “The Notion of a Theological Locus,” cited above; also, “The De locis theologicis: Its Nature, History, Aftermath, and Potential Future. An article by Fr. Ambroise Gardeil from the Dictionnaire de théologie catholique,” To Be a Thomist https://www.athomist.com/articles/the-de-locis-theologicis-its-nature-history-aftermath-and-potential-future.↩︎
This is a point of capital importance, for no few Thomists (and other readers of various Christian texts) treat the philosophical reasoning found in theological works as though it is just material that can be plucked out of the heavens. Even “natural” questions in theology are methodologically theological and hence viewed under its light and in connection with revealed truths and the methods that belong to the person who scrutinizes such truths. See Maritain, An Essay, 36–37:
And yet, as in the case of every organic regime, certain drawbacks more or less serious in nature can accidentally (per accidens) spring from the vital solidarity established in a Christian regime among the hierarchically ordered virtues of the intellect. Thus, in the Middle Ages philosophic problems, while being stirred up by theology, often remained posed too exclusively in function of theology. Thomistic philosophy suffered some impairment of a secondary sort in this respect; not as to its innermost worth, to be sure, but as to the autonomy of its organization. One of the causes of misunderstanding which estrange "scholastics" and "moderns" today, I believe, rests on the fact that exactly those very enrichments -- the admirable purity and profundity -- -which this philosophy owes to its enlistment in the service of theology and to its captivation by a superior light, have slowed down its technical elaboration in an autonomous doctrinal body, wherein it would lead a life of its own outside the theological organism and proceed in all its parts and without exception according to the due methods and modes of philosophy. Let me say here that Thomistic philosophy, completely distinct in itself from theology, and dwelling, as it always must, both in its own home and in that theology (where it is better off than in its own), has still many tasks, arrangements, and reclassification of materials to attend to before it can finally take up residence in its own quarters -- without breaking off its vital relations with theology in the process. Even though these quarters cannot boast of the spacious chambers and lofty ceilings of theology’s imposing mansion, it has withal the duty not to neglect them.
Similarly, in Peasant of the Garonne, trans. Michael Cuddihy and Elizabeth Hughes (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1968), 135–136:
Another fault of St. Thomas’ disciples (I am speaking of “disciples” in general—with certain exceptions, of course) lay in not striving to sift out, for its own sake, the philosophy of St. Thomas, by expounding it in its own nature and with its own gait, which by definition have nothing theological about them. (In him, it was present in the most real and deepest manner, but as underlying his theology and enveloped by it.) St. Thomas’ disciples have, to be sure, spoken a good deal about Thomist philosophy, and have taught it, in magisterial commentaries, courses, and textbooks where, more often than not, they were content to pick up, in the theological exposition of St. Thomas, the philosophical substance which can be found there—brought there to the light of theology and enveloped in theology: a substance splendidly rich, but all theologized in the use St. Thomas had made of it. Once one had extracted this substance from the theological exposition of the master, one had only to trace off the formulas, often the very order of exposition, to offer in handsome syllogisms some philosophical thesis or other, nay, “the philosophic doctrine” of the Angel of the Schools.
And Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Order of Things: The Realism of the Princpile of Finality, trans. Matthew K. Minerd (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2020), 234:
The order to follow in psychology, at least in a work of Peripatetic philosophy, is obviously that of the De anima and not that of the theological treatise De homine. Granted, it is easy to write a manual of philosophy by transcribing the parts of the Summa theologiae that are related to being, truth, the sensible world, the soul, God, and moral thought. However, a philosophical treatise should be something more than such a juxtaposition of texts.
And, ibid., 239–240:
↩︎To present this doctrine concerning potency and act in another, a priori manner, as happens in many manuals, is to suggest that it has merely fallen from the sky or that it is only a simple, pseudo-philosophical translation of common language, whose worth still must be established, as has been said by Henri Bergson. In such an undertaking, there is no longer any profundity in analyzing matters. One is content with some quasi-nominal definitions of potency and act, and it is no longer clear how and why potency differs from the simply possible being, from privation, as well as from imperfect act or from the Leibnizian force / virtuality, which is only an impeded form of act. Likewise, one can limit oneself merely to enunciating the relations of potency and act in the axioms proposed as commonly received in the School [i.e., the Thomist school, Suarezian school, etc.] without seeing their true value on which, nevertheless, everything depends. We must admit this fact: this fundamental chapter of metaphysics, i.e., regarding act and potency, remains in a state of great intellectual poverty in many manuals when we compare them to the first two books of Aristotle’s Physics and to the commentary that St. Thomas left us concerning it. The method of discovery has been too neglected in philosophy, a method which is founded on the very nature of our intellect, the very least among created intellects.
Maritain developed this notion of philosophy acting as a “research worker” later in his oeuvre. See Jacques Maritain, On the Grace and Humanity of Jesus, translated by Joseph W. Evans (New York: Herder, 1969), 11–12. Also see the introduction (by Ernst R. Korn / Heinz R. Schmitz) to Untrammeled Approaches.↩︎
See Marie-Dominique Philippe, “Situation de la Philosophie de l’Art dans la Philosophie Aristotélico-Thomiste,” Studia philosophica 13 (1953): 99–112.↩︎
In addition to the relevant works of Maritain (Art and Scholasticism especially, as to this point), see the Marie-Dominique Philippe, L’Activité Artistique: Philosophie du Faire, vols. 1 and 2 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1969).↩︎
On this, see the very clear exposition in Maritain, “The Philosophy of the Organism: Notes on the Function of Nutrition,” trans. Matthew K. Minerd, Nova et Vetera (English Edition) 19, no. 2 (Winter, 2021): 633–651.↩︎
I cannot explain everything in one essay. See the works of Torre, Simon, Maritain, and Labourdette cited above.↩︎
See Maritain, An Essay, 22–23:
↩︎Secondly, even when it keeps on working on its own account, its field of inquiry is thereupon considerably broadened. Philosophy seeks enlightenment about sensible objects from the natural sciences; what is to prevent it from learning of divine things from faith and theology? “The facts of religion or the established dogmas are objects of my experience,” Malebranche declared—once they have been brought to my attention, “I employ my mind in the selfsame manner as the student of Physics.” And hereby he shared in the very movement of Christian thought—this despite the fact that on another level he had made the mistake of lumping together philosophy and theology, and of failing to appreciate that philosophy is powerless to make its abode in a zone of experience which surpasses it. It has often been remarked that unless there had been speculation on the dogmas of the Trinity and the Incarnation, it is exceedingly unlikely that the philosophers would have come to an awareness of the metaphysical problem of the person.
See Maritain, Degrees of Knowledge, 156–164.↩︎
See the essay by Labourdette cited above.↩︎
Concerning the notion of probability presupposed by this comment, see Ambroise Gardeil, “Probable Certainty” and “Topicality,” To Be a Thomist, https://www.athomist.com/s/Gardeil-Probable-Certainty-FULL.pdf. Likewise, I believe that what Maritain says regarding adequate consideration of moral philosophy holds true for all Christian philosophy regarding an important noetic point. See Maritain, Science and Wisdom, 197, “It trusts in theology, and does not bring into exercise its own proper power… That is why the theological truths received by moral philosophy adequately considered present themselves to the non-believing philosopher as superior hypotheses from which one starts to work.” Also, ibid., 196n1:
It is not surprising that the communicated virtue of faith can produce an act of natural and human assent in the mind of the philosopher with regard to theological science, for this communicated virtue reaches its goal through an inference and through a judgment which is not the act of belief but an effect of the act of belief, as John of St. Thomas points out with regard to quite another problem (vol. 7 disp.2 a.1 n.27 and 28) which bears on a subject of the human order (‘the supernatural mysteries enclosed in human life are known by faith, theology is the science of faith, therefore it is reasonable to trust theology on this question’). We should notice moreover that the conclusions of the theologian which proceed from faith, but through the medium of a natural discursus, are not an object of faith but of human science.
And ibid., 195:
↩︎The superior virtue of faith, when communicated to the reason of the philosopher produces in the habitus of practical philosophy—without the collaboration of its own special virtue and thus without exalting this virtue—a general act of assent to and confidence in the truths recognized by theology, which are needed by practical science. I am not speaking here of an act of faith. I am speaking of an act of assent like those by which a science accepts the conclusions or results of another science.
See Garrigou-Lagrange, “On the Relationship Between Philosophy and Religion,” in Philosophizing in Faith, 392–4:
↩︎The demonstrative middle term is indeed not revealed to us; however, its end or terminus is so revealed, and sometimes it is formulated vividly and perfectly. In this divine revelation of the natural truths of religion, we have something more than a mere occasion for philosophical inquiry; indeed, errors to be refuted already are occasions for this labor, as well as, in another manner, the revelation of supernatural truth. However, the revelation of natural truths determines the end of the inquiry and the direction to be taken for laboring philosophically—just as a great philosopher profoundly illuminates the mind of a given disciple when he excellently and vividly formulates for him a conclusion to be proven, leaving his disciple then to undertake the labor of efficaciously proving it.
This is how an objective assistance is given to philosophy, in the sense that revelation objectively proposes many naturally knowable truths concerning God, His providence, the soul, human act, man’s beatitude, and even concerning the physical world. Nay, it already reveals in some manner the subordination of these truths and provides a general indication of the way the human mind may be naturally guided to them, although it does not metaphysically demonstrate them…In this, Divine Revelation is related not only to human reason, but properly speaking, to philosophy itself, as a guiding star for travelers. It reveals from on high where this golden key must be placed and what it is, but it does not determine how it must be metaphysically established according to the ascending via inventionis, nor later what must be deduced from it according to the descending via iudicii. For this, the great labor of the metaphysician is required; however, under the light of this guiding star, this labor is made much easier. In this sense, Leo XIII says, “St. Thomas makes Aristotelian philosophy Christian.”
This objective assistance so considered is what is commonly admitted, at least vaguely [in confuso] by Catholics; it positively reveals to the philosopher the direction to be taken. Even though it provides neither the major premise nor the minor premise of the demonstrative syllogism, it positively reveals the terminus at which it must arrive. Here, then, we can see how this direction notably differs from the way Revelation directs the theologian, who explains revealed truths and deduces theological conclusions, not from naturally known principles, but from principles that are formally revealed as such…
Hence, when the Christian philosopher, as a philosopher, adheres to a given metaphysically demonstrated conclusion, this adherence proceeds from evident principles under the natural light of reason. However, before the Christian philosopher thus arrives at this demonstration, he often receives from on high the best direction for passing from the vague concept to the distinct one (e.g., from the vague notion of the production of all things by God, to the explicit notion of an utterly free production ex nihilo). Neither Plato nor Aristotle arrived at this explicit notion, but Christian philosophers arrive there rather easily, and indeed in a properly philosophical manner, under the direction of Revelation.
Nay, when it is said that Revelation is the negative norm of philosophy it must be noted that revelation prevents an error (e.g., the error of pantheistic emanation proposed by Neoplatonists) only because it first positively gives a good direction for finding the truth (e.g., by announcing the way all things were divinely produced through an utterly free creation ex nihilo).
Whence, the objective assistance which I discussed comes about, as is obvious, through the proposition of a new object, not indeed one that is formal and specifying, but rather, of a material object to be considered philosophically. So too, under the guiding light of revelation, we come to investigate more profoundly, in a metaphysical manner, into the nature of metaphysics’ obiectum formale quod (i.e., being, analogically said of the Creator and of the creature) and likewise come to understand more fully the value of the very light of natural reason coming forth from the Creator.
Concerning the elevation of natural judgments within theological discursion regarding supernatural theological problems, see Gagnebet, “Un essai,” 132–133:
↩︎The natural premise does not function in theological reasoning as a principal cause acting by its own power (vertu). Rather, it enters into such reasoning as an instrument, which must partake in the power (vertu) of the principal cause to contribute to the production of its effect. The principal cause here is the proposition of faith that formally teaches us a certain truth, for example, that Christ is man.
A natural minor premise is used to show in the humanity of Christ, or in any other revealed subject, the raison d'être explaining a certain property ex hypothesi not revealed. According to the excellent explanation offered by John of St. Thomas (In ST I, q. 1, disp. 2, a. 6, no. 16): these two propositions unite to constitute the demonstrative medium. For this, the proposition of faith must formally express the nature of the revealed subject upon which the reasoning is based. The natural proposition must virtually manifest it to us as the raison d'être or the explanatory cause of the properties to be demonstrated. However only reason enlightened by faith, to the exclusion of reason left to its own devices, is capable of uniting these two propositions in order to constitute a medium [of demonstration] It is only under the influence of the divine light that this rational proposition will appear capable of manifesting in a particular revealed concept the subject of such a property, or the proper cause of such an effect.
Indeed, one must remember that even a merely probable authority of philosophy, viewed in accord with the theological locus of “the authority of the philosophers,” has a greater certainty than such probability considered merely on its own terms, abstracting from its use in theological discursion.↩︎
Such truths are not resolved to the science of the blessed, as is the case for theology. Bearing in mind the difference that holds for adequate moral philosophy (which requires certain data precisely for its principles in order to be a science at all) in distinction from speculative disciplines (which require certain data precisely to be a science fully in statu virtutis, scilicet difficulter mobilis), see what Maritain says in Science and Wisdom, 201:
↩︎We may add that in the same way theological truths received as principles by moral philosophy adequately considered can be considered in two different ways. Either in so far as pronounced purely and simply true in themselves and truths theologically known, and then they are formally theological but only materially are the principles of moral philosophy adequately considered. Or else, in so far as truths believed (with human faith) by a science subalternated to theology, and insofar as giving order to the conclusions of which they made the discursus of this science capable. And in this case they are formally principles which complete moral philosophy adequately considered, but they are now only virtually theological. For it is essential for theology to know them, not to believe them, and to illuminate them by the principles of faith, not to illuminate them with the science of an inferior order.
A number of authors have observed how modern thought is deeply penetrated by Christian categories unmoored from their organic connection within a Christian framework. This is well summarized in Maritain, An Essay, 31–32:
↩︎Thus we are led to distinguish between what we may call an organic Christian regime, such as human intelligence knew (not without many a flaw) in the finest hour of medieval civilization, and a dissociated Christian regime, which it experienced during subsequent epochs. In point of fact, Western philosophy has never set itself free of Christianity: wherever Christianity did not have a hand in the construction of modern philosophy it served instead as a stumbling-block. In this context, Nicholas Berdyaev would say that all great modern philosophies (and even, to be sure, that of a Feuerbach) are “Christian” philosophies, philosophies which without Christianity would not be what they are.
For an example attempt at articulating such a morality of knowledge, see Georges Cottier, Humaine raison: Contributions à une éthique du savoir (Paris: Lethielleux / Parole et Silence, 2010). In many ways, as Garrigou-Lagrange once observed, many of the concerns of Maurice Blondel could be classed as belonging to such a morality of knowledge.↩︎
