Thomas Aquinas and the Role of Reason: An Epistemology of Faith
by Kevin L. Hester
Epistemology is the philosophical study of how truth claims are justified. It answers the question how we know what is true. Since God is revealed to us as “truth,”[1] it must then have bearing upon our faith. But what is the nature of faith? Is faith only faith when there is no evidence? If faith depends upon evidence, is it still faith?
The relationship between faith and reason is a foundational theological and apologetic question. It is not surprising then that many Protestant evangelicals, like myself, cut their epistemological teeth on the writings of Francis Schaeffer.[2] His analysis of philosophical trends and their impact on western civilization gave evangelicals an intellectual lens through which to measure the cultural refraction of the gospel. In many respects Schaeffer was a modern-day prophet. Nevertheless, his overarching presuppositionalism and the sweeping metanarrative of a non-specialist has done much to cloud the modern evangelical mind on important philosophical and theological distinctions in the relationship between faith and reason.
Schaeffer’s Problem
Stated simply, Schaeffer misunderstands Thomas Aquinas.[3] Schaeffer asserts that Thomas separates nature and grace and in this distinction we have the beginning of the aggrandizement of the individual (Thomas’s Aristotelianism) that will bear fruit in the humanism of the Renaissance and concomitant abdication of the metaphysical world. For Schaeffer, Thomas’s work is the beginning of the end of metaphysics. With him the world above (faith) is no longer attainable from the world below (reason).
Though Thomas distinguishes between reason and faith, he never separates them. He believes in a unity of knowledge distinguished only by source and epistemological theory. Thomas never juxtaposes faith and reason as Schaeffer leads us to believe. Rather, he sees the two working together in an epistemological circle of justification. But to understand Thomas, we must first understand the philosophical and theological development of his world.[4]
Early Theological Epistemology
Two different approaches to faith and reason can be found in the ancient world. The Jewish tradition saw truth as hokhmah, God’s wisdom bound up in the nature of God Godself. Truth was found through this wisdom: defined as a recognition of God and a desire for right living. Such a response is demonstrated in the Preacher’s statement “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man” (Eccl. 12:13) Around the same time, Greek philosophers were arguing that truth was most appropriately found in understanding the nature of the world. They believed that observation and logical deduction would lead to the discovery of truth.[5]
Some of the Church’s earliest theologians such as Jerome and Augustine wed these two understandings. They began with the assertion that God was truth and this truth had been made known in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Yet through their training in classical Greek thought they realized that truth could also be found in other ways. They admitted that even the pagans had understood some aspects of the truth through observation and reason. Augustine argued that no matter how it was discovered, all truth was God’s truth.[6]
Thomas and Truth
Following in their footsteps Thomas Aquinas argued for two books of truth. The book of nature was a body of truth that could be glimpsed through observation and reason. The book of revelation, which he viewed as higher and more authoritative, contained truth available only through God’s special revelation.[7] Such a division laid the groundwork for the Medieval understanding of theology as the pinnacle[8] of all the arts and the surest means of discovering truth.[9]
Thomas, in his inculturation of the gospel and theology against the challenge of an Islamic theory of double truth,[10] would employ Aristotelianism and apply it both to science and theology. Thomas used the Aristotelian principle of analogy to define God as a substance with properties. Thus, God had attributes which had been revealed and could be explored through reason. The epistemological nature of his approach is best seen in the relationship between faith and reason.
Faith is knowledge gained through revelation. Reason is knowledge gained through contemplation of sense experience. Thomas agrees with Augustine that all truth is God’s truth and does not believe that the two avenues of truth can ever conflict. He does argue that we can obtain truth through reason. However, there are limitations to this truth. Reason alone is not in itself a sufficient guide for humanity. Reason can lead the individual to God, but it cannot teach us things about God. This is the realm of revelation and faith.
The Role of Faith
Thomas distinguishes between the kinds of truth that are knowable by reason (scientia) from higher truths (he calls them mysteries) knowable only through revelation. He does not oppose faith and reason. Even though they are distinct, they are both valid avenues to the truth. Finally, faith’s job is to keep reason from falling into error.
Likewise, reason should be applied to the mysteries that are revealed in revelation. Reason serves faith in three ways: (1) Reason prepares the minds of humanity to receive the faith by proving the truths that faith presupposes; (2) it explains and develops the truths of faith and presents them in scientific form; (3) finally, reason defends the truths revealed by God in Scripture.
Truth is unified in its subject of the one true God. Whether we get to some aspect of the one truth through faith or sense experience, both “books” are compatible and complementary. For Thomas, faith is an epistemological term with religious implications. Faith is therefore distinguished only by the means of knowledge. It isn’t an action; rather, it is a category of knowing.[11]
Perhaps Schaeffer can’t be blamed for his misreading of Thomas. He was, after all, reading his own pastoral definition of faith (with all its Protestant and Evangelical baggage) into Thomas’s work. But in the end, it seems that Schaeffer and Thomas are saying something very much the same: Reason will reinforce faith. Faith without reason is superstition and therein lies the problem. Faith’s evidential nature is seen in the metaphysical and revealed world upon which it touches. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb.11:1). For Thomas, faith looks back in confident belief to revelation and looks forward in hope to the beatific vision that awaits. Faith leads to knowledge and reason informs faith. This epistemological truth brings Thomas’s intellectual content of faith together with Schaeffer’s touchstone of the metaphysical, fideistic context of reason. Faith and reason have never been adversaries; neither should Schaeffer and Thomas.
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About the Author: Kevin L. Hester is the Chairman of the Department of Theological Studies and professor of Theology and Church History at Welch College in Nashville, Tennessee where he teaches courses in church history, theology, philosophy, and New Testament. He holds the M.Div. from Covenant Theological Seminary (1997) and the Ph.D. from Saint Louis University (2002). Dr. Hester’s primary area of research is in late classical and early medieval theology where his interests lie in issues of biblical exegesis, Christology, and theological anthropology. He is the author of Free Will Baptists & the Priesthood of All Believers (The Historical Commission: National Association of Free Will Baptists, 2010); and, Eschatology and Pain in St. Gregory the Great: The Christological Synthesis of Gregory’s Morals on the Book of Iob (Paternoster, 2007). He resides in Spring Hill with Leslie Hampton Hester, his wife of 23 years, and his four sons, Spencer, Seth, Justin, and Jackson. When he isn’t teaching, reading, or researching, he enjoys running with his wife, playing disc golf, and coaching Little League baseball.
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[1] Jesus describes Himself as “the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6). Likewise He references the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Truth (Jn. 14:17; 16:13). 2 Chronicles is instructive in demonstrating the relationship between God and truth. Azariah the prophet instructs Asa and says to him, “For many years Israel has been without the true God, without a teaching priest, and without law.” Notice the connection between God as the true God, and doctrine (intellectual content) about God manifested in worship (see also Jn. 4:24) and moral living.
[2] See especially How Should We Then Live, L’Abri 50th Anniversary Edition. (Wheaton: Crossway Publishers, 2005).
[3] I am far from the first person to make this claim. For just two examples see R.C. Sproul, “The Christian and Science (Part 2)”, http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/christian-and-science-part-2/, accessed November 24, 2015; his The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World, (Wheaton: Crossway Publishers, 2009), 5; and Steven Dunn, “Where Francis Schaeffer God Aquinas Wrong”, https://philosophicaugustine.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/francis-schaeffer-and-thomas-aquinas-secular-autonomy/, accessed November 24, 2015.
[4] For an excellent description of the debate in theology over the relationship between faith and reason, see the article by James Swindal, “Faith and Reason,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://www.iep.utm.edu/faith-re/, accessed November 24, 2015.
[5] This observation is largely drawn from the work of Aristotle. Unfortunately a full and nuanced discussion of various philosophical schools such as Platonism and Atomism cannot be recounted here owing to space constraints. I have focused on Aristotle because of his influence on Medieval Christianity through the work of Thomas Aquinas. Nevertheless, each philosophical school, like Judaism, had a strong ethical component and was very interested in the ramifications of the understanding of truth for behavior.
[6] Augustine, On Christian Doctrine XL.60-61. Augustine refers to Christians learning truth from non-Christian sources as “spoiling the Egyptians.”
[7] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Book 1, Question 1, Article 1.
[8] For such an understanding see Bonaventure, The Reduction of all Arts to Theology.
[9] Such an understanding continued through the Protestant reformers and can be found in the writings of Luther and Calvin among others. Schaeffer’s true bogeyman can be found with the rise of the Enlightenment. With the rise of empiricism and the birth of science things began to change. The two books of Thomas were radically divided into truth that could be discovered through observation (science) and beliefs available through revelation (theology). More and more observation came to be seen as the only means of sure truth. This movement was aided by the thought of the philosophers David Hume and Immanuel Kant. Kant, as a skeptic, argued that from an epistemological standpoint metaphysical beliefs could be subjectively adequate but could not be objectively determined.
[10] See Sproul, The Consequence of Ideas, 68. Sproul points out that the Islamic theory of the day separated epistemology into the realm of science and faith and thus embraced often contradictory “truths”. It is striking that Thomas was actually working to rebut what is essentially the same error Schaeffer charges him with.
[11] Particularly helpful on this point is Alister McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 238-41.
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