"Augustine" le Sandro Botticelli (1480)
Feallsanachd mar ancilla theologiae ann an sgolàstachas Agaistìneach.
_________________________
Philosophy as ancilla theologiae in Augustinian scholasticism.
In the orthodox patristic period philosophical thought reached its highest point in AURELIUS AUGUSTINUS, who left his stamp upon Christian philosophy until the 13th century, and who even since then has exerted an important influence.
However, no one was yet able to express the central motive of the Christian religion in the transcendental ground-Idea of philosophy without the interference of the Greek form-matter motive. Besides, the relation between philosophy and dogmatic theology was not clarified, because the inner point of contact between the religious ground-motive and philosophic thought had not yet been accounted for.
The Christian character of philosophy was sought in its subservient attitude toward dogmatic theology (1). Philosophy was to be the "ancilla theologiae". All philosophic questions were to be handled in a theological framework. Philosophy was denied an independent right to exist.
This denial is included in AUGUSTINE'S famous statement: "Deum et animam scire volo. Nihilne plus? Nihil omnino." AUGUSTINE'S denial of the autonomy of philosophy with respect to the divine light of revelation is in this way robbed of its critical significance. For philosophic thought itself was not intrinsically reformed by the Biblical ground-motive of the Christian religion, but in its theoretical vision of temporal reality it remained orientated to Greek philosophy (especially toward the Neo-Platonists and the Stoics). AUGUSTINE did not clearly see the religious character of the ground-motive of Greek philosophy, and therefore started on the path of scholastic accommodation of Greek thought to the doctrine of the Christian church.
The scholastic character of AUGUSTINE'S cosmonomic Idea.
Even in the Augustinian cosmonomic Idea (the lex aeterna with its expression in the lex naturalis) we encounter the neo-Platonic conception of the descending progression of degrees of reality accommodated to the Idea of the divine Sovereignty of the Creator (2). This latter, however, was again joined with the neo-Platonic logos-theory, after this theory had been accommodated to the dogma of the divine Trinity. In this way theology itself was encumbered with Greek philosophy. Even Genesis 1:1 was interpreted by AUGUSTINE in the cadre of the Greek form-matter motive!
In spite of all this, however, the integral and radical character of the central ground-motive of the Christian religion remained foremost in the theological conceptions of the great church-father. This motive found expression in the strong emphasis which he laid upon the absolute creative Sovereignty of God, and in his rejection of any position which would attribute original power to evil. The central motive of Christian religion is also in evidence in AUGUSTINE'S acceptance of the radical character of the fall and in his rejection of the autonomy of theoretical thought, because of the insight that the Word of God is the only firm ground of truth. However, this insight was only won from the central religious standpoint. It could, as we observed above, not yet lead to an inner reformation of philosophical thought for lack of a critical insight into the inner point of contact between religion and theoretical thinking.
AUGUSTINE'S increasing reserve with respect to Greek philosophy is also to be explained in terms of his growing understanding of the radical character of the Christian religion. At the very least, the great Church-father regarded Greek philosophy as a natural foundation for a "super-natural revealed knowledge". In his conception of world-history, developed in his famous work De Civitate Dei, an undeniably original Christian line of thought is followed. The central theme: the conflict between the civitas Dei and the civitas terrena, is entirely dominated by the Biblical ground-motive.
The radical antithesis between the Christian religion and the ancient heathen world is openly and sharply laid bare, so that there is not the slightest suggestion of a religious synthetic point of view.
However, here too, the Christian ground-motive could not yet find expression in a genuine philosophy of history. To be sure, AUGUSTINE was the first to break radically with Greek Idea of time, and to pave the way for an authentic Idea of historical development. But the periods of this development were not conceived in an intrinsically historical sense: rather they were construed from sacred history in a speculative theological way!
The entrance of the dialectical ground-motive of nature and grace in Christian scholasticism.
The situation became quite different when the dialectical ground-motive of nature and grace made its entry into Christian scholasticism. This occurred in the period of the Aristotelian Renaissance, in which, after a bitter struggle, the Augustinian-Platonic school was pushed out of the dominating position that it had hitherto enjoyed. Roman Catholicism now strove consciously to effect a religious synthesis between the Greek view of nature (especially the Aristotelian) and the doctrines of the Christian faith.
This synthetic standpoint found its most powerful philosophical and theological expression in the system of THOMAS AQUINAS. The two foundational tenets of this system were the positing of the autonomy of natural reason in the entire sphere of natural knowledge, and the thesis that nature is the understructure of super-natural grace.
THOMAS took over the Augustinian pronouncement that philosophy is the ancilla theologiae. However, he gave it an entirely different meaning. For he considered that philosophy belonged to the sphere ruled by the natural light of reason, and ascribed to it independence of revealed theology. This would have been a gain for Christian philosophy, if THOMAS had not withdrawn "natural thought" from the central ground-motive of the Christian religion. The latter was now replaced by the form-matter-motive in its Aristotelian conception, but not without an accommodation of this pagan religious motive to the ecclesiastical doctrine of creation.
In this scholastic way of accommodation, required by the Roman-Catholic ground-motive of nature and grace, the form-matter motive lost its original religious sense. But at the same time the Biblical creation-motive was deprived of its original integral and radical character.
Creation as a natural truth in THOMAS' theologia naturalis.
Creation is proclaimed to be a natural truth, which can be seen and proven by theoretical thought independent of all divine revelation. And we have seen in the Prolegomena, that the five ways of this proof pre-supposed the axioms of the Aristotelian metaphysics, and especially the Aristotelian idea of God as "pure Form" opposed to the principle of "matter".
This signified, ultimately, the elimination of creation in its Biblical sense as the religious motive of theoretical thought.
The elimination of the integral and radical meaning of the Biblical motive of creation in THOMAS' metaphysics.
The Greek form-matter motive in all its different conceptions excludes in principle the Idea of creation in its Biblical sense. The sum total of Greek wisdom concerning the Origin of the cosmos is: "ex nihilo nihil fit" (from nothing nothing can originate). At the utmost, Greek metaphysical theology could arrive at the Idea of a divine demiurg, who gives form to an original matter as the supreme architect and artist. Therefore, the scholastic accommodation of the Aristotelian concept of God to the Church-doctrine of creation could never lead to a real reconciliation with the Biblical ground-motive. The unmoved Mover of Aristotelian metaphysics, who, as the absolute theoretical nous, only has himself as the object of his thought in blessed self-contemplation, is the radical opposite of the living God Who revealed Himself as Creator. THOMAS may teach that God has brought forth natural things according both to their form and matter, but the principle of matter as the principle of metaphysical and religious imperfection cannot find its origin in a pure form — God.
Nor could the Aristotelian conception of human nature be reconciled to the Biblical conception concerning the creation of man in the image of God. According to THOMAS, human nature is a composition of a material body and a rational soul as a substantial form, which, in contradistinction to ARISTOTLE'S conception, is conceived of as an immortal substance. This scholastic view has no room for the Biblical conception of the radical religious unity of human existence. Instead of this unity a natural and a supra natural aspect is distinguished in the creation of man. The supra-natural side was the original gift of grace, which as a donum superadditum was ascribed to the rational nature.
The elimination of the radical meaning of the fall and redemption. The neo-Platonic Augustinian trend in THOMAS' natural theology.
In accordance with this conception of creation, the view of the fall was also deprived of its radical meaning. Sin merely caused the loss of the supernatural gift of grace, and did not lead to a corruption of human nature. The latter was simply injured by its loss of the donum superadditum.
Redemption in Christ Jesus can no longer have a relation to the very religious root of the temporal cosmos, but it can only bring nature to its supra-natural perfection.
In his natural theology THOMAS connected the Aristotelian Idea of God with the neo-Platonic-Augustinian Idea of creation. Just as he took over the Augustinian doctrine of the logos with its eternal Ideas, so he strongly developed the metaphysical theory, with respect to the analogical concept of Being (analogia entis), in the direction of negative theology. All this only led to new antinomies, because this trend of thought came into conflict with the foundations of Aristotelian metaphysics (3).
____________________________________
(1) This conception of philosophy as "ancilla theologiae" is not Christian in origin, but is derived from ARISTOTLE'S Met. B. 990 b 15 where the Greek thinker proclaimed metaphysical theology (as the science of the end of all things and of the supreme good) to be the queen of the sciences. The other sciences are thus "the slaves of theology and may not contradict it". This Aristotelian conception is now simply taken over and applied to the relationship between Christian theology and philosophy.
(2) Cf. De civitate Dei, x11, 3: "Naturas essentiarum :gradibus ordinavit" and his neo-Platonic theory of the "esse" and "minus esse". Cf. also his neo-Platonic theory of the different levels of the mystical elevation of the soul to God.
(3) See my treatise in Philosophia Reformata (vol. 8, 9, 10), "De idee der individualiteits-structuur en het Thomistisch substantiebegrip", ("The idea of the structure of individuality and the Thomistic substance-concept").
___________________________________
(Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol I, pp 177-181)
