The Newman Rambler

Theological Philosophy and Christian Theology

26 April 2021 ‖ Serge-Thomas Bonino

Serge-Thomas Bonino is the dean of philosophy at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome. From 2011 to 2020 he served as general secretary of the International Theological Commission. Since 2011 he has served as consultant to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). He has been an ordinary member of the Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas since 1999 and has served as its president since 2014. He studied philosophy at the École normale supérieure de Paris (ENS) and joined the Order of Preachers (OP), commonly known as the Dominicans, in 1982 in Toulouse. He completed his PhD in theology in Fribourg, specializing in the thought of Thomas Aquinas, under the direction of Jean-Pierre Torrell. He completed a second PhD in philosophy at the University of Poitiers under the supervision of Pierre Magnard. For nearly 15 years before moving to Rome, he taught at the Catholic University of Toulouse. His publications include Saint Thomas au XXe siècle : Actes du colloque du Centenaire de la "Revue thomiste" (1993), a translation of De la Vérité, Question 2 (2015), discussions such as Je vis dans la foi au Fils de Dieu : Entretiens sur la vie de foi (2000) and Il m'a aimé et s'est livré pour moi : Entretiens sur le Rédempteur en sa Passion (2013), and studies including Brève histoire de la philosophie latine au Moyen Age (2015), Dieu, 'Celui qui est' (2016), Les Anges et les Démons (2007), Etudes thomasiennes (2018) and Saint Thomas d'Aquin lecteur du Cantique des cantiques (2019).

A right understanding of the interaction of nature and grace is the key principle in Christian wisdom in general and the wisdom of St. Thomas in particular. The applications of this principle are numerous and concern a wide range of areas. For example, our view of the relationship between nature and grace determines our understanding of the relationship between human love and charity, between political society and the Church, or between reason and faith, and hence on the epistemological level between philosophy and theology understood as a scientific approach to understanding faith. Within this framework I aim to assess the relationship between philosophical theology (thus the philosophical and essentially metaphysical discussion of God) and the theology of the mystery of God who is both one and a trinity.

Contemporary Thomism, we may say, is torn between two opposing tendencies – or should I say temptations? On the one hand, the heirs of Leo XIII’s Neothomism strongly emphasize the importance of a Thomistic philosophy that is independent of theology. By Leonine Thomism I mean the Thomism set up by Leo XIII that established itself at the end of the nineteenth century and dominated until the middle of the twentieth century. It is a fact that the encyclical Aeterni Patris shows little interest in theology. Its objective is the establishment of a Thomistic Christian philosophy that would provide an alternative to modern philosophical schools of thought that were believed to be largely responsible for dechristianisation. The apostles of Leonine Thomism applied themselves accordingly, and with undeniable success, to the reconstitution of a complete Thomistic philosophy that was independent of theology, and for this they based themselves on elements drawn from the corpus of Thomas’ works and subsequent Thomistic tradition. The aim was to debate with modern thinkers on an equal footing and in outspoken apologetic terms on the basis of the natural reason common to all mankind. The risk they ran was that of unconsciously being drawn into the epistemological territory of the adversary while forgetting the specifically Christian manner of philosophising in the light of the Faith. When it came to discussing God they were satisfied accordingly to juxtapose a philosophical approach and a theological approach.

This temptation, which I call separatist, nowadays seems largely eclipsed by the opposite temptation, namely that of so-called Augustinian Thomism, represented, for example, by the adherents of the Radical Orthodoxy movement, which emphasizes the unquestionably legitimate retheologisation of Thomism, characteristic of recent decades, to the point of denying the opportuneness and even the possibility of Thomist philosophy. Numerous authors, starting with Henri de Lubac, have seen the epistemological autonomy of philosophy as a scheme by modern thinkers to subvert the edifice of authentic Christian wisdom. According to De Lubac, this dangerous movement towards autonomy begins with St. Thomas, although it would not be explicitated until later. Thomist (or Neothomist) insistence on the autonomy of nature is viewed as the wooden horse of Troy that favoured the secularisation of modern thought and culture. If this is true, salvation is to be found in the abandonment of this illusion. We must return to a system of knowledge in which the intellectus fidei absorbs philosophy and in which the only legitimate discussion of God is theological.       

It appears to me that the right balance here, as in the field of Christology, is to be found in union while avoiding confusion. We must reject monophysitism (which absorbs Christ’s humanity into his divinity, nature into grace and philosophy into theology). But we must equally reject Nestorianism, which juxtaposes Christ’s humanity and divinity, nature and grace, philosophy and theology. I shall attempt to justify this standpoint by developing three arguments. In the first place, for St. Thomas there is a coherence and a relative autonomy of the natural order that justify the real possibility of a philosophical theology formally distinct from the reflection of the intellectus fidei on the mystery of God as one and a trinity. In the second place we must hold, against the separatist tendency, that philosophical theology only reaches its full development in its proper order to the extent that the philosopher seeks and nourishes vital contact with the Faith. In the third place we must hold, against the supernaturalist temptation, that the intellectus fidei of the mystery of God as one and a trinity only reaches its full development by assuming in its own light the results of an autonomous philosophical theology.

Philosophical Theology

Historically the existence of philosophical theology, that is philosophical reasoning about God, is unquestionable. The pagan philosophers in ancient times developed a wealth of metaphysical thought about God. Far from rejecting this thought in its entirety, the Fathers of the Church and later saint Thomas Aquinas at the same time recognised the degree of truth in it, emphasised its limitations, and drew on it for their own theological thought.

Philosophical theology is the scientific form taken on by the natural knowledge of God, the possibility of which is attested by sacred scripture and which was even recognised as a dogma by the Church at the Vatican Council. It is the “end” of metaphysics meaning that it is both the final part and the exquisite coronation, as St. Thomas explains it in the famous Prologue to his commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics.

At the time of Aquinas there were two major contradictory interpretations of how to understand “being as being”, the object of “metaphysics” or first science, also known as the divine science. Does it mean being in general (ens commune), that is to say, the so-called property of being which all things have in common? Or the highest kind of being, namely the separated substances in general and God in particular? For the former group, whose view derives from Avicenna, being as being means the being common to all things. Metaphysics is thus ontology in the first place, thus a discussion of being and its properties. For the latter group, whose view derives from Averroes, being as being is to be identified with the highest Being, namely God. In this case metaphysics is essentially theology. And since according to Aristotelian epistemology a science cannot demonstrate the existence of its own object, the view was taken that it was the task of physics to demonstrate the existence of God as Prime Mover and that metaphysics then took over for the study of the nature of God. This meant claiming for philosophy a monopoly of authentic study of God and setting aside as useless and uncertain any discussion of God in himself that claimed to be founded on the direct revelation of God by God himself.

St. Thomas is rather inclined to take the side of Avicenna. He explains that it is the task of a single science, namely metaphysics, to study being as common to all things (ens commune) and separated substances (meaning separated from matter), especially God. However, common being and God do not fall under metaphysics in the same way. The only direct object of metaphysics, the properties, divisions and causes of which the metaphysician seeks to establish, is common being. However, the metaphysical study of common being takes on the form of an analysis or resolutio that discovers its causes or principles, immanent or external. But this resolutio brings out the fact that from various points of view the beings of this world cannot fully account for themselves and that a transcendent cause of their being is required, which in the final analysis is God, subsistent Being itself. God is accordingly not the subject of metaphysics. He is still less a part of its subject, since the divine Being is not a part of ens commune. God is the cause of the subject of metaphysics. It is as such that he enters metaphysics, since the same science studies directly a given object and indirectly the causes of this object. In this sense God is the “end” of metaphysics: the study of ens commune achieves its completion only in the consideration of God as cause or final explanation of the being of things. To the extent that it treats of God in this way, metaphysics can be called a “divine science” or (philosophical) theology. In Thomas’ epistemology philosophical theology therefore constitutes the concluding part of metaphysics, that which deals with God envisaged as ultimate principle and cause of being. This view, in which philosophy does not claim to say the last word about God, leaves plenty of room for another science of God based on God’s own communication about himself:

Theology or the divine science is of two kinds. The one considers divine realities not as subject of the science, but as principle of the subject. This is the theology pursued by the philosophers, also referred to as metaphysics. The other considers divine things in themselves as subject of this science. This is the theology transmitted in sacred scripture. (In Boet. De Trin. q. 5, a. 4).

The need for a philosophical theology open to the Faith

Since grace does not destroy nature, theology as a scientific form of intellectus fidei does not invalidate philosophical theology. On the contrary, it cures it and brings it to its completion in its own philosophical order. According to a principle that Maritain had advanced in the debate about Christian philosophy, it is necessary to “distinguish the nature of philosophy, or what it is in itself, from the condition in which it is found in reality, historically, in the human subject, and which is related to the conditions of its existence and the way it is concretely exercised” (J. Maritain, De la philosophie chrétienne, Paris, 1933, 27). The nature or essence of a thing is an intelligible structure, a determined and invariable type. If one changes the slightest constituent or essential part of it one destroys it. If an apparent human being lacked animal nature or rationality, he might be an angel or a donkey, but certainly not a human being. The same applies for philosophy. If we eliminate the idea of a rational process setting out from obvious premisses drawn from human experience and reaching a certain conclusion by means of demonstration, we are no longer talking about philosophy.  But the essence is an abstraction. There are only concrete human beings who realise the essence of man. This is also the situation in regard to philosophy. Accordingly if one considers not the essence of philosophy, but philosophy as it is practised not by a hypothetical “philosopher in himself,” but by a real existing philosopher, that is to say, a person belonging in heart and soul to a given spiritual culture and tradition, it is obvious that the approach of the philosopher to the Christian faith plays a determining role in the formation of his philosophical thought. As Etienne Gilson writes, “for a philosophy to deserve truly the title of Christian philosophy, the supernatural must descend as a constitutive element, not into its texture, which would be contradictory, but into the work of its constitution” (E. Gilson, L’esprit de la philosophie médiévale, vol. 1, Paris, 1932, 39). Now according to Maritain, Christian faith, without in any way substituting itself for philosophical reasoning as such, exercises a twofold influence on the philosopher. On the one hand, it draws his attention to truths that belong by right to the domain of philosophical rationality, but which a philosophy exercised in a non-Christian atmosphere does not always recognise explicitly and without warping them. To take the classical example of creation, that is to say, the idea that all beings depend radically on a first cause, which called them into existence freely and out of love by the gift of the act of being, this view as such could be demonstrated by reason. It is even the cornerstone and unifying principle of any metaphysics. But historically it was not until biblical revelation became known that this truth fully entered philosophy. The same holds true in the field of ethics in regard to the tenets of natural law.

On the other hand, the faith subjectively comforts the philosopher in his search for the truth. It is true that sin does not destroy the capacities of human intelligence, but it makes it more difficult to exercise them and makes them less reliable.  Searching for the truth is not in the first place a question of intellectual “technique”, but rather a spiritual effort which involves existentially the person as a whole. The grace of Christ, which gradually cures the wounds of sin and rectifies the passions, restores the possibility of a purified exercise of the intellectual life. It does not make a Christian more intelligent than a non-believer, but places him in a better position for seeking and finding the truth. Such purification of the intelligence and the heart plays a decisive role in a field like philosophical theology, which requires a certain spiritual affinity with the reality being studied. Philosophical theology is always threatened by the sin of idolatry understood not as the cult of charms, but as the propensity of sinful man to create a God in his own image and likeness. The history of western thought gives an almost experimental proof in the form of deism, a typical example of a philosophical theology which by shutting itself off to the Faith destroys itself as a philosophy.

From the end of the Middle Ages the epistemological status of philosophical theology changes due to “the drama of the separation of Faith and reason”, as Fides et ratio calls it. Since Christian theology from the end of the thirteenth century saw fit to distance itself from philosophy, the latter set itself up not only as an autonomous discipline (which was a legitimate development), but also as a separate science, even a counter-theology. Philosophical theology then presents itself as “natural” theology to distinguish it from and even to oppose “supernatural” theology. With the coming of the European crisis in the sixteenth century, this natural theology was unexpectedly used for political and cultural purposes. The Reform was fatal for the basis of the unity of Christian society, namely a single supernatural Faith. But since, in order to live together in a more or less peaceful way, a certain doctrinal and moral consensus is required, it was henceforth sought not “above”, namely in the supernatural order of the revealed Faith, but “below”, that is to say in the lowest common denominator of all religious denominations. Natural theology in the theoretical order like natural law in the moral order were then entrusted with the task of ensuring a minimal religious and moral basis independent of individual denominations and even of any reference to Faith at all. The way was now open for deism.

It is noteworthy that as soon as natural theology is withdrawn from the concrete influence of theological life, it turns in on itself. It gradually loses the sense of transcendence and mystery maintained by supernatural Faith, and it drifts imperceptibly but unavoidably towards deism, which substitutes the God of reason closed in on itself for the God of Faith and of reason open to Faith. In fact, the promotors of deism are less interested in God himself than in the conditions for speaking about God. The question of the way in which truth is reached, that is to say, either by the individual reasoning on his own, or by a historical revelation transmitted by a tradition (an impure and suspect phenomenon in the eyes of modern reason) is more decisive than the truth itself. The question of certainty from then on outweighs the question of the truth. As Cardinal Cottier wrote:

The deism of the Enlightenment, which is an expression of modern rationalism, relied on the superiority of the mode of knowing of the natural knowledge of God to reject knowledge of God, infinitely superior, received through Revelation. Thus the claim of the self-sufficiency of the purely natural knowledge of God has prevailed over primary attention to the truth itself. (“La théologie, discipline scientifique”, Nova et vetera 83 (2008), 151-161, p. 153).   

It is better to live in a hovel of which one is the outright owner, so the reasoning goes, rather than lodge in a sumptuous palace with the status of a guest. In any event the God of natural theology as presented by deism is not the God of Catholics nor the God of Protestants. He is the great watchmaker whose function is to guarantee the coherence of scientific systems as well as of the socio-political order.

The structure of knowledge is then reorganised. Theology as understanding of the Faith is marginalised, even expelled from the world of rationality, in favour of a natural theology which first takes over the mortal remains before itself disappearing under the pressure of radical immanentism. One of the dramas of modern Christian thought is to have consented (doubtless unconsciously, but due to an inept apologetic perspective) to this new organisation of knowledge, which nonetheless potentially contained its own death sentence. Not everyone understood immediately that the God of deist natural theology was not a neutral God, that is to say, a true but as yet indeterminate approximation to the God revealed in Christ, but a downright idol who competed with the living God, because through the God of deism human reason in fact adores itself. Pascal came closer to the truth when he observed that “deism [was] almost as remote from Christian religion as atheism, which is completely opposed to it” (B. Pascal, Pensées Brun. no. 556). Indeed, in the intrinsic logic of ideas, and likewise in cultural history, deism represents a transition towards atheism, as Charles Taylor emphasised in his masterly work The Secular Age. 

Now the idea that nature deforms itself when it closes itself to the supernatural is at the heart of Thomas’ analysis of the sin of the angels. It therefore seems illuminating to apply this analysis analogically to cultural history. As is well known, an angel according to Thomas is a creature whose nature is perfect in its order from the moment of its creation. However, it is characteristic of nature, not to be ordered of itself to the supernatural, but to be available to be raised to the supernatural. It follows that the refusal of the supernatural cannot leave nature intact, but injures it. Now the angels, through pride, through love of their own natural excellence, preferred to keep to what they mastered perfectly rather than respond to the divine call to “put out into the deep” (Lk 5,4), that is to say, to let go of their destiny in order to receive from another, from God, the meaning and accomplishment of it through the Faith. There is therefore something devilish in the “naturalism” that promotes an accomplishment of man in pure immanence to the extent that one claims it as a virtue – a kind of modesty – to refuse the invitation of the supernatural. One claims to be man and nothing more, while forgetting that precisely in order to be fully a human being it is necessary to aim higher.

In any event the new structuring of knowledge had a perverse effect on catholic theology itself. People came to accept the separation of philosophy and theology on the basis of a single determining factor: the accessibility or non-accessibility to reason of the object envisaged. Hence the terrible misunderstanding that led to the limitation of theology to the study of the “pure” supernatural and which as a result led to considering the De Deo Uno, that is to say, questions 2-26 of the Prima pars of the Summa Theologiae, not as a treatise on theology, but as a philosophical treatise preliminary to theology, which was believed to start only with the study of the Trinity. If that was the case, the radical criticism by Karl Rahner of the distinction between De Deo Uno and De Deo Trino would be entirely justified. But that is not the position of St. Thomas. It is rather that of Descartes who states in his Dedication to the Meditations: “I have always believed that these two questions, on God and on the soul, are the main ones of those that should be demonstrated by philosophical rather than theological argument” (Oeuvres de Descartes, C. Adam and P. Tannery (ed.), Paris, 1904, vol. 9, p. 4). I fear furthermore that the way in which we still today in ecclesiastical studies divide the course of philosophical theology, given in the Faculty of Philosophy, from the course on the mystery of God, given in the Faculty of theology, which very frequently concentrates exclusively on the question of the Trinity, is a rather suspect inheritance.

The necessity of philosophical theology for the intellectus fidei

If philosophical theology gains through keeping lively contact with the Faith, the intellectus fidei, on the other hand, cannot do without philosophical theology, as the encyclical Fides et ratio recalled strongly. However, many theologians fear to introduce into Christian theology a philosophical pre-understanding of God as pure Act and Ipsum esse subsistens, which would suffocate the power of the Word of God and would make people lose sight of the specific nature of the God of Jesus-Christ.

A full reply to this very widespread objection would be lengthy and go beyond the scope of this paper and I will restrict myself here to two general observations. Firstly, the God of philosophical theology is not the God of deism. It is not another God than the Christian God, but it is this God considered still from afar and as open to further determination. For example, the God of philosophical theology is already a wise and omnipotent God, but Faith teaches us that this wisdom and omnipotence show themselves paradoxically (still within the limits of analogy and not by dialectical opposition) in the folly and the weakness of the Cross.

Secondly, Catholicism has never accepted the dialectical opposition between the theologia crucis and the theology of creation. The God of Jesus-Christ is not a different God from the God who manifests himself in creation as the first cause of being. But nowadays the “gnostic” temptation to separate the God of the Faith in Jesus-Christ from the God of metaphysics seems to be very strong. Under the pretext of avoiding the pitfalls of onto-theology (which reduces God to the function of principle of metaphysical or moral order), the idea is put forward of a “foreign” God, who has no more connection with the reality of being, that is reality tout court. For example, in so-called postmodern theologies of the event, God is no longer part of the metaphysical order, but he shows himself unexpectedly (he makes a sign, ut dicunt) in the event, in that which is unforeseeable and not accessible to any doctrinal or institutional control. Accepting this vision of things amounts to consenting to the victory of modern immanentism, which pushes God to the margins of the real. But on the contrary, to maintain the dialogue between Faith and metaphysics means that the God spoken of by the believer and the theologian is a God who has something to do with being, that is to say, a real God.

But for metaphysics to be this genuine interlocutor of Christian theology, it must remain genuine philosophy. I in no way question that Christian Faith in what is specific to it can promote a deepening of metaphysics in its own order, as is the case with the idea of creation. But in that case the contributions of Faith must be taken up and justified at a properly philosophical level. Thus it is necessary to avoid a theological overdetermination of metaphysics, that is to say, the projection onto the object of metaphysics of specifically theological categories, as is sometimes the case with certain trinitarian ontologies that seek to think all beings on the model of the divine persons as subsistent relations. The risk is that of transforming the interlocutor into a mere mirror.

In conclusion it seems that progress in the knowledge of God, who is the finality of all intellectual life, requires a dialogue between a philosophical theology open to the Faith and an intellectus fidei open to metaphysical reason.

* Translation by DDr John Dudley (KU Leuven).