Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T17:23:27.042Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

St Thomas Aquinas on the “Scientific” Nature of Theology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Geoffrey Turner
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Reflecting on the practice of theology to say what theology is and the kind of knowledge it might lead to is one of the most difficult things about doing theology. St Thomas Aquinas famously did this in the first question of the Summa Theologiae. It is a brief statement that is the culmination of a line of development from the time theology was taken up by the cathedral schools in the twelfth century. It is brilliantly conceived and, in some respects, wrong.

The development of theology into something like its modem sense as a rational procedure and an academic discipline owes a huge debt to Peter Abailard (1079-1142). Of course, Christian theology had been practised for a thousand years before Abailard and, in a quite different sense, can be traced back to pre-Socratic Greek poets. But it was Abailard who introduced the use of dialectic (or what we would now call logic) so that truth in sacra doctrina was to be established by rational procedures and not simply by appealing to traditional authorities. It also took theology teaching beyond being little more than a literary analysis of scripture (as it had been with Anselm of Laon, for example) to being once more a speculation about the nature of God, but a speculation no longer limited to the opinions of the Church Fathers, opinions which Abailard had shown in Sic et Non were sometimes contradictory.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 78 , Issue 921 , November 1997 , pp. 464 - 476
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Evans, G. R., Old Arts and New Theology, Oxford 1980, p. 31.Google Scholar

2 Paré, G., Brunet, A. and Tremblay, P., La Renaissance du XIIe Siècle: Les Écoles et ĽEnseignement, Paris 1933, p. 296.Google Scholar

3 William of Auxerre, Summa Aurea, Book 3, De baptismo, referred to by Chenu, M. D., La Théologie comme Science au Treizieme Siècle, Paris 1943, p. 36.Google Scholar

4 Thomas, Aquinas St, Summa Theoiogiae, la. 1,7 & 8.Google Scholar

5 Alexander of Hales, Summa Theoiogiae, Introduction, article 1 quoted by Chenu, M. D., op. cit., p. 40.Google Scholar

6 Chenu, M. D., op. cit., p. 50ff.Google Scholar

7 Dated variously as an early work (1256) by Glorieux, and Gilby, (1257–8), a fairly early work (1258–9) by Weisheipl and a very mature work (1269–72) by Grabmann.Google Scholar

8 Aristotle, , Nicomachean Ethics, VI, 3‐8.1139b15‐1142a30.Google Scholar

9 Gilby, T., “Theology as Science”, Appendix 6 in St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theoiogiae, Vol 1 Christian Theology (la.l), Blackfriars Edition, London 1964, p.68fGoogle Scholar. This passage is a presentation of St Thomas's discussion in the Summa la2ae. 57 rather than Aristotle's Ethics.

10 Aristotle, , Posterior Analytics, 1, 2.71b16–72b4.Google Scholar

11 Chenu, M. D., op. cit., p. 57; and see Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, 1, 2.72a14–20 and 1, 13.78b35–39.Google Scholar

12 Summa Theoiogiae, la. 1, 2 and on music see James, J., The Music of the Spheres, London 1995.Google Scholar

13 In Boethius de Trinitate, q.2, art.2, ad5. Etiam in scientiis humanitus traditis sunt quaedam principia in quibusdam earum quae non sunt omnibus nota, sed oportet ea supponere a superioribus scientiis; sicut in scientiis subalternatis supponuntur et creduntur aliqua a superioribus scientiis subaltemantibus, et hujusmodi non sunt per se nota nisi superioribus scientiis.

14 Summa Theoiogiae, 2a2ae. 5, 3.

15 This was by no means a commonplace view. St Thomas held this view (la. 1, 7) against Peter Lombard who said that “reality and its symbols” was the object of theology; Hugh of St Victor who said that it is “the works of restoration”; Robert of Melun, Gilbert of Poitiers, Robert Grosseteste and Robert Kilwardby who said it is “the whole Christ”. see Weisheipl, J., The Meaning of ‘Sacra Doctrina’ in Sum. Theol. 1 q.1, The Thomist, 38, 1934, p. 75.Google Scholar

16 Chenu, M. D., op. cit., p. 90.Google Scholar

17 See the end of the paragraph referred to in note 13. Et hoc modo se habent articuli fidei, qui sunt principia hujus scientiae, ad cognitionem divinam, quia ea quae sunt per se nota in scientia quam Deus habet in seipso, supponuntur in scientia nostra, et creditor ei nobis hoc indicanti per suos nuntios, sicut medicus credit physico quatuor esse elementa.

18 Summa Theologiae, la. 1, 2.

19 In Boethium de Trinitate, q.2, art. 13.

20 Chenu, M. D., op. cit., p. 99f.Google Scholar

21 Summa Theologiae, la. 1,5.

22 Veritatis Splendor, London 1993, p. 165. The Instruction of the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian by Cardinal Ratzinger of 24 May 1990 makes it clear that he thinks theologians are no part of the magisterium.

23 Veritatis Splendor, CTS London 1993, p. 163.Google Scholar

24 Bonhoeffer, D., Letters and Papers from Prison, London 1971, pp. 280 & 286, 30 April and 5 May 1944.Google Scholar

25 see Schmitt, F.S., “Die wissenschaftliche Methode bei Anselm von Canterbury und Thomas von Aquin”, Annalecta Anselmiana, 4.2, 1975, p. 35.Google Scholar

26 Pannenberg, W., Theology and the Philosophy of Science, London 1976, p. 230.Google Scholar

27 Habermas, J., Knowledge and Human Interests, London 1972.Google Scholar

28 Ebeling, G., “Theologie”, in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3rd edition, Tübingen 1961, vol 6, col 763.Google Scholar

29 Ernst, C., Multiple Echo, London 1979, p. 83.Google Scholar