Medieval Christian World View of St. Thomas Aquinas

Medieval Christian World-View of St. Thomas Aquinas

M]an is directed to God, as to an end that surpasses the grasp of his reason... Whereas man's whole salvation, which is in God, depends upon the knowledge of this truth. Therefore, in order that the salvation of men might be brought about more fitly and more surely, it was necessary that they should be taught divine truths by divine revelation.

Pt. I, Q. 1, Art. 1]

For St. Thomas Aquinas, the purpose and meaning of human life in all its aspects are ultimately to be found in God and salvation: "Sacred doctrine" is thus the greatest and most important element of philosophy; for Aquinas the highest and truest philosophy is thus Christian philosophy. Sacred doctrine is not just one branch of human science among others, but the most important knowledge available to human beings, for "the purpose of this science, in so far as it is practical, it eternal bliss" [Pt. I, Q. 1, Art. 5]. Sacred doctrine deals, as its object, with something that cannot be directly apprehended or fully known by human knowledge, but only ultimately approached and understood through faith: God Himself. Yet Aquinas is clear that through sacred doctrine humanity can know enough of God and His purposes by understanding the nature of Christian salvation by "treat[ing] of God viewed as the highest cause - not only so far as He can be known through creatures just as philosophers knew Him... But also so far as He is known to Himself alone and revealed to others" [Pt. I, Q. 1, Art. 6].

The world is the creation of God and is centered, for Aquinas, on God, and all human endeavour should ultimately be directed towards a knowledge of God and the divine mystery of human salvation. It is important to emphasize, however, that Aquinas has a clear position on the human intellectual ability to pursue that knowledge. Aquinas argues that human beings are made human by their intellects, and that they have the ability and duty to use their intellects to apprehend the divine. Human beings are not, thus, without standing in Aquinas's world-view, but as the objects of divine will are required to interpret and understand His will through sacred doctrine.

Sacred doctrine is ultimately based upon faith, and without faith there can be no understanding of the divine; but Aquinas argues that faith without intellectual engagement is insufficient:

This doctrine is especially based upon arguments from authority, inasmuch as its principles are obtained by revelation: thus we ought to believe on the authority of those to whom this revelation has been made... But sacred doctrine makes use even of human reason, not, indeed, to prove faith (for thereby the merit of faith would come to an end), but to make clear other things that are put forward in this doctrine. [Pt. I, Q. 1, Art. 8]

The starting points of this intellectual process are authoritative revelations of divine purpose first and most importantly through Scripture, and secondly through the interpretations of the Doctors of the Church, mediated through human faith and reason. For Aquinas faith and reason can work in harmony; there is no necessary tension between them.

God is at the heart of Aquinas's world-view and philosophy, and the role of human reason as well as faith once more comes to the fore in the process by which human beings accept the existence of God (for Aquinas is clear that the existence of God is not self-evident). The essence of God is unknown to us, so must be "demonstrated by things that are more known to us... namely, by effects" [Pt. I, Q. 2, Art. 1]. To reach conclusions on the existence of God by studying the world around us will, Aquinas argues, lead inevitably to a knowledge of God, for the world cannot be explained without recourse to God. Thus once again human reason is in harmony with revelation and faith in bringing human beings to a fuller knowledge of the Godhead and of salvation.

The important role of human intellect in apprehending divine purpose reflects Aquinas's view of the human soul itself. For Aquinas the soul is "called the intellect or the mind" and is "something incorporeal and subsistent" [Pt. I, Q. 75, Art. 2], that is, it does not have a body but it has existence. Aquinas asserts that the soul requires intellectual engagement, the action of "mind," in order to subsist and act upon the physical world, as the evidence of our senses demonstrates that it does: "the soul, which is the first principle of life, is not a body, but the act of a body... there are two kinds of contact; of 'quantity,' and of 'power.' By the former a body can be touched only by a body; by the latter a body can be touched by an incorporeal thing, which moves that body" [Pt. I, Q. 75, Art. 1]. Human nature for Aquinas is thus fundamentally a matter of mind, and thus of reason, for it is only through the actions of mind that the soul acts upon the world; elsewhere Aquinas speaks of "the intellect or the intellectual soul" [Pt. I, Q. 76, Art. 1].

Reason does not operate independently but within a framework of what Aquinas calls "natural law." The relationship between the natural law of humankind and the eternal law of the divine echoes that of human reason and sacred doctrine, the former partaking of the all-encompassing revelation of the latter and engaging with it as the chief means by which it can be apprehended:

the light of natural reason, whereby we discern what is good and what is evil, which is the function of the natural law, is nothing else than an imprint on us of the Divine light. It is therefore evident that the natural law is nothing else than the rational creature's participation of the eternal law. [Pt. II, First Part, Q. 91, Art. 2]