Research Paper on "Faith and Reason"

Research Paper 6 pages (2122 words) Sources: 4

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Faith and Reason

An Analysis of the Reconciliation of Faith and Reason

My thesis is that Thomas Aquinas reconciled Faith and Reason in a fundamental way -- or, more specifically, in five fundamental ways known as the quinquae viae. This paper will show how Aquinas helped move the relationship of faith and reason beyond the ontological argument of Anselm and into a realm based on Aristotelian logic. Doing so not only removed the question of the existence of God from the supposition of Divine Revelation, but also proved that there is nothing contradictory in the Faith to reason and that the existence of God could in fact be proven by using the intellect after the manner of the ancient Greek philosophers. As Ralph McInerny states, "Thomas, as a Christian believer, is insistent that God can be known to exist on the basis of natural reason…It is possible to come to some knowledge of God from the things he has made, from his effects."

Such is, of course, the essence of the Thomistic argument.

Aquinas set out the preliminary case of his proof system by first insisting that reason was not dependent on faith, but that faith was dependent on reason. Thus, he states that "the existence of God and other like truths about God, which can be known by natural reason, are not articles of faith, but are preambles to the articles; for faith presupposes natural knowledge."

God is the cause, in other words; we, the effect.

Demonstration can be made in two ways: One is through the cause, and is called "a priori," and this is to argue from what is prior absolutely. The other is through the effect, and is called a demonstration "a posteriori"; this is to argue from what is prior relatively only to us. When an effect is better known to us than its cause, from the effect we proceed to the knowledge of the cause. And from every effect the existence of its proper cause can be demonstrated, so long as its effects are better known to us; because since every effect depends upon its cause, if the effect exists, the cause must pre-exist. Hence the existence of God, in so far as it is not self-evident to us, can be demonstrated from those of His effects which are known to us.

In other words, the existence of God could be proven by a demonstration of "a posteriori" -- or, rather, from the examples of His own effects, i.e., the world. But this is not his only method: indeed, Aquinas' style and technique is very diverse -- for not only does he rely heavily on rational argument, but also he supplies numerous examples to illustrate his point. For instance, to explain how the existence of God is proven by the gradation of things, Aquinas gives the example of heat related to fire: some things are hot, some are hotter, and some are hottest. Fire is the cause of all things hot and is itself the hottest. Thus, "the maximum," as Aquinas says, "in any genus is the cause of all in that genus."

If that is true, what is said for fire must also be said for being. Gradations in being must point to a maximum being -- and that maximum being must be what is called God.

The other proofs he offers in his famous quinque viae are: movement (and the unmoved mover); order; first causes; harmony in nature and the governance thereof. The proofs tend to reflect one another, and any cursory glance might suggest that they are merely the same proof restated in a different manner five times. A more contemplative view, however, will allow the reader to so how unique each one is, and the proofs elaborate one upon another in the same way that a tree elaborates upon itself by growing upward and outward. What is unique about the fourth proof, in particular, is that by speaking of the gradation to be found in things, Aquinas is speaking about perfection -- a notion of which man has, but a characteristic that, by definition, can be possessed by God alone. It is this perfection that he pursues through the use of natural reason.

Aquinas is indebted to Aristotle, whose Physics showed to Aquinas the extent to which natural reason could assert the existence of God. "His respect for Aristotle is palpable as he retains the proof of the Physics," says Ralph McInerny in his introduction to Aquinas' selected works.

The proofs are part of a much larger scheme -- and that is to show the reconciliation of faith and reason; or to put it another way -- to show that nothing contained in the teachings of the Catholic faith are contradictory to the light of natural reason. Thus, Aquinas relies on the discourses of pagan philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle: nothing better diffuses anti-clerical sentiment than a reliance on the teachings of pagans. Aquinas, in this manner, defends the Church by pleading the philosophical cases of its non-members.

In our own time, there is a gulf between faith and reason. Part of the blame for this gulf must fall on the shoulders of our forefathers, revolutionaries like Thomas Paine, whose quote, "These are the times that try men's souls," is still popular; but whose anti-Christian sentiment, which came out of the Age of Enlightenment, is remembered only by atheists, who hoist him up as one of their own, and by students of history, who see a deep relationship between Paine's religious views and America's own spiritual drift from the traditional teachings provided by the Church and doctors like Aquinas. Rationalism, in a word, displaced religion. Part of Paine's detestation for Christian religion was an emotional response to the ugliness of Calvinism and other Protestant tenants embraced in America. Part of it was that he simply had no use for the faith as understood by Aquinas. Aquinas had ceased to be integral to university studies, once humanism replaced scholasticism. Aquinas had been the scholastic. Enlightenment thinkers like Locke and Voltaire were the new ones.

What does Aquinas present for us today? In a sense, he presents a challenge. The mere fact of God's existence is nothing; the Deists of the Enlightenment allowed for as much. What Aquinas demands is that one go further. How does God's existence relate to the Divinity of Christ? How does Christ lead to the Church? For Aquinas, faith was not superstition. Faith was a gift, yes; but it was based on reason. Faith was a response to truths revealed by God Himself, for instance, the truth of the Trinity. Showing how that faith was not contrary to reason -- how, in fact, it was based on reason, is Aquinas' goal in his works.

By taking nature as his example, Aquinas points out God's fingerprint, so to speak, in the world. When Aquinas speaks of gradation in things, his eye is encompassing not only the earth and the heavens, not only God and man; but all of life -- and directing man to the order prescribed by God and meant to be executed by the Catholic Church.

William Desmond, in Stanley Rosen's The Examined Life, cannot speak of Aquinas without launching into what Kant has to say about it -- as though to be so blatantly absolute -- so critically certain -- so wonderfully convinced -- were a sin against reason. ("Kant claims that all we have here is an analysis of a concept!"

Tsk tsk, he might be saying.) Yet Desmond, who must allow Kant his two cents, won't let him have the final word. The reason? Simply this: Kant is cold. Aquinas is hot. He explains it thus:

What can we say about Aquinas the theorist? His theories might seem as thin as the arguments of forensic lawyers, when we have no sense of the living concern at stake, and this last has to do with secret loves. Pascal suggests something like this: when we are reflecting on the arguments, we might be intellectually engaged, but a few minutes later they are out of mind and we forget them. But this is also to forget the love that remains secret in the arguments.

Secret love is what is at the heart of Aquinas. It is what is at the heart of Aquinas' religion. In fact, life, according to Aquinas, according to Augustine, according to Aristotle, makes no sense without it. Most prosaically stated: God is love. Aquinas' theology is the study of love. Kant tried too hard to rationalize it -- and in the end couldn't. Kant was left cold because he had no faith in the God Aquinas attempted to explain. For Aquinas, reason led one to love -- to the perfection of love, which is God. Aquinas made no attempt to rationalize God -- who is the perfection of reason -- but reason did move Aquinas to adhere to His laws, to profess His Being, to announce His love. Kant wanted to… READ MORE

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