St. Augustine of Africa
Maria
Archibald
HNRS Humanities 214
Critical Essay #1
10/18/12
HNRS Humanities 214
Critical Essay #1
10/18/12
Saint Augustine of Hippo and Saint Thomas
Aquinas: Conflicting Worldviews
Saint Augustine of Hippo and Saint
Thomas Aquinas were two important medieval Church fathers. While both were
equally influential in the development of early Christian philosophy, their
writings reflect fundamentally different worldviews. While Augustine rejects
all things material (this statement is somewhat oversimplified although for the
purposes of your essay it may not deserve clarification) and
asserts that ties to the mortal world only serve to defy God and distract our
focus from the divine, Aquinas embraces the material, arguing that an
understanding of this world is essential in order to understand the
divine. (Superb summary! Do you remember this passage? "Arguing against those who said that
natural philosophy was contrary to the Christian faith, (Aquinas) writes in his
treatise "Faith, Reason and Theology that "even though the natural
light of the human mind is inadequate to make known what is revealed by faith,
nevertheless what is divinely taught to us by faith cannot be contrary to what
we are endowed with by nature. One or the other would have to be false, and
since we have both of them from God, he would be the cause of our error, which
is impossible." "Aladdin's Lamp: How Greek Science Came to Europe
Through the Islamic World" by John Freely - http://www.amazon.com/Aladdins-Lamp-Science-Through-Islamic/dp/0307277836/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327882581&sr=8-1) Not only
do their writings allow us to comprehend (understand?) the
differences between the two as individuals, but their contrasting worldviews
also reflect the beliefs and concerns of the societies in which they lived.
Analysis of their teachings thus provides enormous insight into the cultural
shift that occurred between the 4th and 13th
centuries. In comparing Augustine’s unequivocal emphasis on the spiritual (I
would place “the spiritual” in quotation marks because it is increasingly that
the interface between “the spiritual” and “the material” is extraordinarily
complex and subtle. Do you know this great line by Chesterton? “The work of heaven alone is material; the making of a material
world. The work of hell is entirely spiritual.” Gilbert Keith Chesterton) to (I
think “contrasted to” and “compared with” sound better)
Aquinas’s concessions (??? What do you mean by these concessions? approval?
validation?) regarding scientific validity, the reader is able to track
society’s progression: (I’d end the previous sentence with a period instead of a colon.
The colon is technically okay but in this instance the sentence is already very
long.) Between the 4th and 13th
centuries, the blindly religious, easily indoctrinated contemporaries of
Augustine had begun to give way to a more inquisitive, freethinking body of
scholars. (Don’t change the word “blindly” but do keep in mind that these
mostly simple Christians lived such tight, mutually dependent, communitarian
lives that they “felt” many truths without needing “formal explanations.”)
Augustine, who lived from 354 to 430 CE, is especially famous for
two particular pieces (“Works” is better than “pieces” here. A “piece” is typically
small - like an “article.”) (Sayre 262). Confessions,
which is considered the first Western autobiography, tells the story of his
conversion from a troubled youth into a devout Christian (Sayre 262), and The
City of God, which explains the reasons for the fall of Rome, attempts to
assert Christian beliefs by analyzing historical events from a theological
standpoint (Sayre 263).
Thomas Aquinas, who lived from 1225-1274, belonged to a branch of
theology called scholasticism. Scholasticism originated in an effort to address
the apparent conflict between religion and reason. Aquinas’s Summa
Theologica does just this by attempting to prove the existence of God through
scientific “evidence.” This acknowledgement of the importance of concrete
studies such as logic and reason, which contrast sharply with Augustine’s
strictly spiritual conception of faith, represent the central difference
between the worldviews of Thomas Aquinas and Saint Augustine. (Late
in life - of course, he only lived to 49 - Aquinas had a mystical experience
while celebrating mass. He immediately stopped work on his Summa, saying,
“Compared to what I have now experienced, everything I have written is as so
much straw.” I believe he does not say this to disdain what he had written but
to indicate the unfathomable majesty and mystery of the integral Whole”... from
which, btw, the word “holiness” derives.)
Shortly after becoming the (no need for “the”) Bishop of
Hippo, Augustine began work on his Confessions, an autobiography that
tells the story of his conversion. In his Confessions, Augustine repents
for (“of” not “for”) his prior lavish lifestyle,
and renounces his youthful attachment to the physical. “I longed to be
satisfied with worldly things, and I dared to grow wild in succession of
various and shadowy loves,” he writes (Sayre 262). These passions, he says,
“obscured and overcast my heart.” To the eye of a modern reader, Augustine’s
“passions” seem no more severe than those of any pubescent youth. But
Augustine’s language is proof that he does not consider his behavior to
be a natural and acceptable part of growing up. In fact, he goes so far as to
credit his desires with plunging him into a “gulf of infamy” (Sayre 262). This
utter detestation for youthful passion is evidence of Augustine’s dualistic
view of the universe. In Augustine’s view, all (I think it’s fair to say
here “all out-of-wedlock” although you may know more about Augustine than I do)
sexual
desire is “unholy” and “unchaste,” and therefore has no place in our lives.
Even the slightest longing for physical pleasure is represented as an
unforgivable commission of evil. Any acknowledgement of sexuality represents
the human inability to resist temptation, and thus enables the physical to
prevail at the expense of the spiritual. In other words, the material
world and the heavenly world cannot coexist. In order to achieve an
understanding of the divine, one must entirely reject all ties to the
worldly. (You probably came across Augustine’s famous utterance from the
period when he was undergoing conversion: “Lord, make me chaste. But not yet.”)
This dualism is also reflected in another passage of Augustine’s Confessions.
In Book II, Augustine discusses an incident in which he steals pears from his
neighbor’s pear tree. “We carried off a huge load of pears, not to eat
ourselves, but to dump out to the hogs” (Sayre 281), he writes. Augustine is
seemingly horrified by his actions, appalled that he would engage in “evil”
behavior simply because the commission of this evil brought him satisfaction
and enjoyment. “Such was my heart, O God, such was my heart—which thou didst
pity even in that bottomless pit,” he says. He continues, calling his deed
“foul” and referring to himself as a “depraved soul.” Once again, Augustine
takes a fairly inconsequential event, and represents it as a despicable evil.
This confirms Augustine’s black-and-white outlook on the universe. In his view,
all things exist in pairs of polar opposites. He was a sinner and now he is
saved. There is only good versus evil, light versus dark, and material versus
spiritual. There is no middle ground, no combining of the good and bad, and
none of these states are compatible with one another. (Although
it is not the purview of your essay, the Manichean temptation has always
shadowed Christianity as a powerful but deadly “heresy.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichee)
In The City of God, Augustine develops this idea further
still. This work attempts (Perhaps you could merge your opening sentence by eliminating
the period and then saying, “attempting to use religion) to use
religion as an explanation for the fall of Rome, which was previously the most
powerful empire in the world (Sayre 263). In his writings, Augustine criticizes
the pride exhibited by Roman emperors and blames paganism for contributing to
the destruction of the city (Sayre 263). (I think it’s pretty
clear that pagan excess did contribute to the destruction of the city. I would
welcome further conversation on this point.) He also argues, however,
that Rome never stood a chance for success, simply because it was a man-made
city. In Augustine’s perspective, humanity is synonymous with corruption, and
therefore anything created by humanity is destined to fail (Sayre 263).
Augustine argues that instead of focusing on the doomed “City of Man,” people
should give their attention to the “City of God.” “The two cities were created
by two kinds of love: the earthly city by a love of self even to the point of
contempt for God, the heavenly city by a love of God carried even to the point
of contempt for self,” he writes (Sayre 263). In other words, the material
world and the spiritual world exist at odds with one another. It is impossible
to worship one without rejecting the other. Therefore, the only salvation for
humankind, and the only thing that could have prevented the fall of Rome, is a
complete renunciation of the City of Man and all material things that accompany
it. (Since Augustine only knew Rome in its corrupt state, I cut his
reactionary view as rather understandable. Not correct, but perhaps inevitable.
We are all products of our time. America’s most eminent “living prophet,”
Wendell Berry, has this to say: “There is also the Territory of
historical self-righteousness: if we had lived south of Ohio in 1830, we
would not have owned slaves; if wehad lived on the frontier, we
would have killed no Indians, violated no treaties, stolen no land. The
probability is overwhelming that if we had belonged to the generation we
deplore, we too would have behaved deplorably. The probability is
overwhelming that we belong to a generation that will be found by its
successors to have behaved deplorably. Not to know that is, again, to be
in error and to neglect essential work, and some of this work, as before, is
work of the imagination. How can we imagine our situation or our
history if we think we are superior to it?” http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/04/wendell-berry-american-prophet.html) In
acknowledging the City of Man, one lends oneself to inevitable corruption.
“They became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened
[and] they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for
image,” he writes (Sayre 263). Total devotion to the City of God and total
rejection of the City of Man is therefore of utmost importance. (What
a remarkable phrase: “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for image.” If
you read the full versions of the First Commandment - it appears twice in the
Old Testament - you will see an insistence on “the material reality of God’s
world” which is so belittled by “images” that represent that REALITY that
Judaism prescribed all “pictorial” images because they would delude people --
as television imagery does -- into thinking that the image deserves more
attention and esteem than the underlying reality from which all images - in one
way or another - arise.)
Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican monk from Italy, began to study
theology at the age of twenty (Sayre 416). Though he lived years (why
don’t you say “eight centuries”) after the death of Saint
Augustine, he was faced with many of the same theological questions, primarily
“how do humans gain an understanding of the divine?” While Aquinas was no less devout
than Augustine, his faith manifested itself in a much different way. As
evidenced in his Summa Theologica, Aquinas’s outlook on spirituality and
the human condition contrast sharply with the beliefs of Augustine. (you
could say “Augustinian beliefs.”)
The purpose of Aquinas’s Summa Theologica was to reconcile
religion and logic. Students during this time period were beginning to see (detect?)
a
disconnect between reason and scripture, so Aquinas took it upon himself to
prove that the two things are compatible (Sayre 417). In one passage of the Summa
Theologica, Aquinas attempts to prove the existence of God through the use
of logic and evidence.
The Summa Theologica addresses the doubts of two of
Aquinas’s students. One student’s skepticism stems from his observations of
evil. “If…God existed, there would be no evil in the world,” he says.
“Therefore, God does not exist.” (“From Summa Theologiae” 109). The
second student draws his skepticism from his belief that everything in the
world can be accounted for by scientific principles. “For all natural things
can be reduced to one principle, which is nature; and all voluntary things can
be reduced to one principle, which is human reason, or will,” he writes.
“Therefore, there is no need to suppose God’s existence.” This skepticism
reflects key cultural differences between the societies in which Augustine and
Aquinas lived. During Augustine’s time the church was all-powerful. (I
think the church was just as powerful, if not more so, by Aquinas’ time. I don’t
feel strongly that you change what you’ve written but want to point out what I take to be
a discrepancy.) Church and state were closely linked through the Nicene Creed,
which enumerated the beliefs of Christianity and enabled the emperor to enforce
church doctrine throughout the land (Sayre 255). This partnership rendered it
unthinkable for a person to contest the validity of religion. Aquinas’s
writings reveal that this blind acceptance of faith had begun to disappear by
the 13th century. The scientific and intellectual advances that took place
during Aquinas’s time were clearly beginning to cast a shadow of doubt over the
once dominant church. (I believe doubt is a proper component of faith and see the
universities as church-founded institutions which were, in part - and perhaps
unconsciously - responding to the growing impulse in Christendom to call things
into question in order to use doubt to advance knowledge. I just read that the
very first university was founded by an Islamic woman, in Morocco in the
800’s.) Universities were on the rise and an unprecedented level of
academic freedom developed (Sayre 414). Curriculums (The plural of “curriculum”
is “curricula”) that once emphasized grammar and the bible now embraced logic,
disputation, and pagan philosophy (Sayre 416). (As you probably know,
Aquinas was linchpin to the introduction of pagan learning - particularly that
of Aristotle - into Europe.) Encouraged to question everything, students
began to point out the inconsistencies and contradictions of religion. In order
to preserve the authority of the church and keep the Catholic faith intact,
Aquinas felt pressing need to show that science and reason can coexist.
In his argument, Aquinas reasserts the existence of God through
five basic principles. The first principal is motion. Aquinas argues that
all things have two states: a state of potentiality and a state of actuality
(“From Summa Theologiae” 109). (This distinction between
“potential” and “actual” is HUGE... clearly not the topic of this discussion
but I would love to engage it anon. The distinction underlies much of my novel,
Tusil Saasil’s theo-philosophical backdrop.) Motion, he says, is the
movement of something from its state of potentiality to its state of actuality
(“From Summa Theologiae” 109). Wood, for example, which has the potential
to be hot, only undergoes motion when it is moved by something actually
hot, such as fire (“From Summa Theologiae” 109). All things must be
moved by something else. Here, Aquinas relates his argument to God. He points
out a flaw in the science behind this explanation, saying, “This cannot go on
to infinity, because then there would be no first mover” (“From Summa
Theologiae” 109). According to Aquinas, the only possible cause of original
motion is God (Sayre 417). While science and reason ought to be valued for
their central role in our lives, God is ultimately responsible for all things, including
science and reason themselves. (One of Zeno’s many paradoxes relates, after a
fashion, to this question of prime mover, which I suppose we could say, implies
- at the “other end” - a “target.” The paradox says that no projectile can ever
reach its destination since every moving object first traverses have the
distance to its target, then half the remaining distance, then half the
remaining distance, etcetera ad infinitum, thus never reaching its target.)
The second principal is the nature of efficient cause. Aquinas
argues that everything in existence was caused to exist by something else
(“From Summa Theologiae” 110). “There is no cause known (neither is it,
indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of
itself,” he writes (“From Summa Theologiae” 110). Once again, science
fails to fully explain the nature of causation. If all things are caused to
occur by an outside force, then how did the first efficient cause come
into existence? The origin of causation must, therefore, be God (Sayre 417). (The
nature of God in this regard can be referred to as “self-subsistent.” Clearly
the phrase does not resolve the logical conundrum although I think it points
the way to those truths that the human mind - and human logic - are simply not
big enough to comprehend.)
Aquinas next points to the principles of possibility and
necessity. Here, he elaborates upon his previous explanation of efficient
cause. He argues that all things have the possibility to either exist or not
exist. Therefore, there must have been a time when nothing existed (“From Summa
Theologiae” 110). He points to the flaw in this explanation, however,
saying, “if at one time nothing was in existence, it would have been impossible
for anything to have begun to exist; and thus even now nothing would be in
existence—which is absurd” (“From Summa Theologiae” 100). He thus
asserts that there must be some being that exists of its own accord, without
having been given its necessity by another. This being can only be defined as
God.
Aquinas refers to the fourth principal as “the gradation of
things.” The gradation of things is apparent by the fact that some beings are
“more and some less good, true, noble, and the like” (“From Summa Theologiae”
110). These levels can only be determined, however, through comparison to that
which is most good or most true or most noble (“From Summa
Theologiae” 110). “Therefore,” he writes, “there must also…something which
is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other
perfection; and this we call God (“From Summa Theologiae” 111).
In conclusion, Aquinas draws attention to the governance of the
world. In making his argument, he points to the tendency of creatures to
work towards a goal. “An orderedness of actions to (perhaps
“toward” is better) an end is observed in all bodies obeying natural laws,” he says.
“They truly tend to a goal and do not merely hit it by accident” (Sayre 417).
Something, Aquinas argues, must be driving these creatures towards their goal.
For “whatever lacks knowledge cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed
by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence” (“From Summa
Theologiae” 111). The only reasonable explanation is God. (Natural
Law is, I think, a very powerful argument. I have also come to believe that the
intrinsic goals of Natural Law are, over time, subject to change. I don’t say
this to invite intellectual sloppiness but to say that when goals are reached,
new goals come into play. For example, the command in Genesis to “multiply and
fill the earth” can justify the primacy of procreation in human sexuality, but
once humankind has reached “God’s goal” and filled the earth, then it seems
that the so-called “unitive” function of human sexuality becomes more important
than the procreative - or at least leaving every act of intercourse open to the
possibility of procreation. Rick Santorum is a classic “old school” adherent of
Natural Law.)
Through rational, step-by-step analysis such as this, Aquinas
attempts to prove the existence of God. This is where his differences with Augustine
become clear. Rather than saying that man must reject attachment to this
world in order to reach God, Aquinas argues that, by fully understanding
the workings of this world, one can attain an understanding of God. While
Augustine believes that the physical world is a gateway to corruption and a
roadblock in the path to salvation, Aquinas seems to think that God manifests
himself through all worldly things and can be most easily found within
the world of man.
(A couple of things by way of postscript... The Catholic Church --- in her collective wisdom (and I believe she has got this right) --- has long taught that God is both transcendent AND immanent: that God is both beyond the material world (“God the Father”) while simultaneously being the innermost Being of the material world (“God the Son”). One of my keenest insights - which may have been triggered by someone else although I can find no other web reference - is this: “Only when we appreciate what we see will more be revealed.” We humans enveloped in The Mystery of The Transcendent and The Immanent, are embarked on an eternal process of revelation, but only when we appreciate what we see (in significant part, through minute scientific study) will more be revealed. And so it goes. Aunt Janet likes the phrase of a priest friend which I can only paraphrase: “(Whether we appreciate it or not,) we are in heaven now and will continue to grow into ever new dimensions of heaven beyond the curtain of what we call death.” Speaking of which... Newsweek’s recent cover story, written by a Harvard neurosurgeon is called, “Heaven is Real” - http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/10/heaven-is-real-harvard-neurosurgeons.html
San Tomasso d'Aquino
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