INSTITUTE OF THE INCARNATE WORD PHILIPPINES

FORMATION HOUSE FOR SEMINARIANS IN THE

FAR EAST ASIAN PROVINCE

AN INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY

Teaching Handout For Beginners in Philosophy

Compiled by:

SEM. JIMMY CABELTE SALONOY

Instructor 1

1
_____________________________________________________________________________

PART I: MAN AND PHILOSOPHY

CHAPTER ONE: MAN AND THE NATURE AND PURPOSE OF PHILOSOPHY

1. Mans Capacity for Knowledge and His Search for the Truth

Man is a rational creature. He is a being endowed with reason, thus, knowing is

connatural to him. Aristotle once said that all men by nature desire to know1. He cogently
describes mans capacity for knowledge and affirms the fact that man is a knower by nature.
Man is the only creature in the physical universe who can know himself, can turn around and
observe his own thoughts as it were in a mirror2.
As man becomes aware of his own existence and the world around him, he begins to wander. He
then questions the why of things. A conversation with an inquisitive child proves that fact.
Every answer that one gives always begs the question why?.

Man seeks to know the truth of himself and of things around him. Thus, the fundamental
questions that concern his own nature, origin, purpose, meaning and destination are inevitably
sought; Who am I? What am I here for? Where do I come from? Where am I going? How will I
get there? His very experience of the realities around him also leads him to ask further questions
like: What is being? Why there is evil? etc. This innate hunger for truth forms the discipline of
philosophy, which is expressed in every culture and civilization since time immemorial.

These are the questions which we find in the sacred writings of Israel, as
also in the Veda and the Avesta; we find them in the writings of Confucius
and Lao-Tze, and in the preaching of Tirthankara and Buddha; they
appear in the poetry of Homer and in the tragedies of Euripides and
Sophocles, as they do in the philosophical writings of Plato and Aristotle.
They are questions, which have their common source in the quest for
meaning, which has always compelled the human heart. In fact, the answer
given to these questions decides the direction, which people seek to give to
their lives3.

1 Aristotle. Ta Meta Ta Pisika, 1.
2 Fulton Sheen. Lift Up Your Heart, 69.
3 John Paul II. Fides et Ratio,
http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-
ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio.html. , (14 September 1998) p. 2.

2
 Men and women have at their disposal an array of resources for generating greater
knowledge of truth so that their lives may be ever more human. Among these is philosophy,
which is directly concerned with asking the question of life's meaning and sketching an answer
to it. Philosophy emerges, then, as one of noblest of human tasks. According to its Greek
etymology, the term philosophy means love of wisdom. Born and nurtured when the human
being first asked questions about the reason for things and their purpose, philosophy shows in
different modes and forms that the desire for truth is part of human nature itself. It is an innate
property of human reason to ask why things are as they are, even though the answers, which
gradually emerge are set within a horizon, which reveals how the different human cultures are
complementary.
Why does man need to know the truth about himself?

Socrates once advised us to venture into the quest of knowing ourselves as he said,
Know Thyself. Only he who knows the truth about an airplane is free to fly it. In the same
sense, only the person who knows the truth about himself can live his life well. It is meaning that
makes life happy and worth living. Socrates told us once again, an unexamined life is not worth
living.

2. Why man seeks for the truth?

It is undeniable that since time immemorial, man tirelessly searched for meaning. The
hunger for the truth is connatural to him. As food satiates his stomach and nourishes his health,
truth satiates his intellect and makes him fulfill his rational nature. St. John Paul II affirms mans
infinite desire for the truth. He says, the desire for knowledge is so great and it works in such a
way that the human heart despite its experience of insurmountable limitations, yearns for the
infinite riches, which lie beyond knowing that there is to be found a satisfying answer to every
question yet unanswered.4 He further contends, for within the visible creation, man is the only
creature who is not only capable of knowing but who knows that he knows and is therefore
interested of the real truth of what he perceives.5

3. Philosophy: history, etymology and definition of the term

The word for philosopher was wise man. Plato who lived in 5th century, explains in one
of his Dialogues how the term philosophy came into existence. He attributes it to Pythagoras,
another philosopher and he said that we can investigate wisdom, we can try to acquire wisdom,
but of course we can never achieve the complete wisdom or the totality of knowledge6. Greek
thinkers call themselves wise men, and that out of humility, Pythagoras wanted to call himself
simply a lover of wisdom or philosopher7. This is how the term philosophy originates.

St. Thomas explains the meaning of the word philosophy at the beginning of one of his
major works: the Summa Contra Gentiles. He explains in the first chapter of this book that

4 Fides et Ratio no. 17
5 Ibid, no.25.
6 Joseph M. de Torre, Christian Philosophy, 39.
7 Mariano Artigas, Introduction to Philosophy, 3.

3
philosophy is the common ground for all mankind, so that through philosophy we can show the
gentiles that our faith is the true faith by showing its reasonableness. He then goes on to say that
philosophy means almost the same as wisdom. Philo and sophia are two Greek words which
means the love of wisdom.

We refer to the term philosophy we refer to the search of a profound knowledge about
reality that is a knowledge that goes beyond spontaneous knowledge attained by the arts, and
particular as well as technical sciences.8 It is the search of unaided reason for answers to the
ultimate questions of reality; this comprises exclusively that sort of knowledge which reason as
such can gain by itself, without the guidance of revelation.9

4. The material object and formal object of philosophy

The material object refers to the subject matter with which it deals since it is the sum total
of what is studied. The material object of philosophy then is all things (reality), which makes it a
universal science. Unlike particular sciences, which study on some specific aspects of reality
leaving aside all the rest, philosophy studies all aspects of reality since one can seek their
ultimate and most profound causes.

The formal object is just an aspect of the material object. Thus the formal object of
philosophy then, is the study of reality through its ultimate causes, that is by seeking the
deepest explanations regarding the existence and nature of beings.

5. How philosophy begins and ends?

Philosophy begins with wonder. Once man becomes aware of the things around him, he
then begins to question. He starts to wonder the why, how and what of things. Wonder is the
feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.10 For, it is owing to their wonder
that men both now begin and at the first began to philosophize.11 Such sense of wonder impels
men not just to take things for granted but to look for their causes and explanation. An honest
search for knowledge eventually ends up in the sense of mystery. Man comes to realize that he
cannot fully grasp the totality of reality itself. The answers to his questions will lead to further
enigmas and puzzles. Socrates himself affirms this fact as he realizes that the more we know, the
more we find out how little we know. In his honest search for truth, man learns to acknowledge
the limitation of the power of his reason. Paradoxically, his finite capacity for knowledge seems
to contradict his infinite longing for the truth. Socrates further contends that philosophy is like
the son of the god of plenty and the goddess of want: at once richest (the greatest aspiration of
man), and poorest in his inability to reach the heights. But man can always be a lover of
wisdom. 12 Thomas Aquinas acknowledges the sense of mystery before his death when he

8 Ibid, 4.
9 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, The Nature and Mission of Theology, 16.

10 Plato, Theaetetus , 155 .

11 Aristotle, Metaphysics, I,2.
12 Joseph M. De Torre, Christian Philosophy, 40.

4
exclaimed that he could not write anymore. It was said that he was able to have the vision of God
himself making him realize that all he had written seems straw compare to what he had seen.

6. What is the goal of philosophizing?

A crucial stage of intellectual formation is the study of philosophy, which leads to a

deeper understanding and interpretation of the person, and of the persons freedom
and relationship with the world and with God.13

We should bear in mind that the object of our philosophizing is to know the truth of things14
not to impose our truth on things. This aim leads us to arrive the certainty of truth15. A
certainty of truth is necessary and is given only by a sound philosophy, founded on the objective
reality of things.16

Benedict XVI argues that there are two essential tasks of a philosopher especially for us
Christians. The first essential task is to search for God. Second, the attitude of a true
philosopher is to live according to the Logos and in its company.17

7. Why we study philosophy?

One of the earliest answers to these questions can be traced back to Pythagoras, who held
that philosophy seeks knowledge simply for its own sake, apart from any question of gain or
usefulness. He compared the community of man to great crowds who used and come from all
parts of Greece to celebrate Olympic games. Some men come to compete for prizes and honors.
But others come simply as onlookers to see and enjoy the spectacle, seeking neither applause nor
profit. This is the role of the philosopher in the community of men. And as at games it is most
befitting a free man to be a spectator, seeking nothing for himself, so in life contemplation and
understanding far surpassed all other ambitions18. Philosophy concerns more on the purpose of
why man lives. Plato says that only philosophers are truly happy because they contemplate for
the truth. The truth perfects man and makes him more human.

Philosophy concerns how man sees the reality. His perception to the reality conditions his
actions, since man lives as he believes. His pattern of thinking greatly affects the quality of his
life. In this way, philosophy shapes mans worldview. Hence the orderly study of philosophy is
most recommendable, so as to attain a correct and well-founded view of reality19. Marcus
Aurelius once says, the happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts. St. Paul

13 PDV, 52.
14 St. Thomas Aquinas
15 IVE Constitutions no. 220
16 Ibid.

17 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, The Nature and Mission of Theology, 14.

18 Cicero, Tusculan Disputationes, v,3.
19 Artemio Artigas, Philosophy, An Introduction, 11.

5
himself encourages us to direct our thoughts to whatever is holy, decent, pleasing and perfect (cf.
Philippians 4:8).

CHAPTER TWO: PHILOSOPHY AND OTHER DISCIPLINES

1. Philosophy and Common Sense

As we found to be the case with the term philosophy itself, we can assign a broad
general meaning and a strict technical meaning to the expression common sense. In its wide
popular meaning, common sense is simply the conglomeration of generally held opinions and
beliefs, more or less well-founded, more or less mixed up with error and prejudice, which makes
up the voice of the community-----what everybody knows20. For the Romans, it means the
vulgar opinion of mankind and for St. Thomas it was a technical expression for the unifying
sense. For certain modern philosophers, it has meant a kind of instinct or special feeling for the
truth.21

Common sense refers to the spontaneous activity of the intellect, the way in which it
operates of its own native vigor before it has been given any special training. It implies mans
native capacity to know the most fundamental aspects of reality, in particular, the existence of
things (including my own existence), the first principles of being (the principle of identity, non-
contradiction and excluded middle), and secondary principles, which flow immediately from the
self-evident principles (the principles of sufficient reason, causality, etc.).

One of the points that links philosophy and common sense is that they both use these
principles. They differ however in the way they use them. Common sense uses them
unconsciously, unreflectively, and uncritically. They can be obscured or deformed for common
sense by faulty education, by cultural prejudices, by deceptive sense imagery. Philosophy on the
contrary uses these principles critically, consciously, and scientifically. It can get at things
demonstratively, through their causes. It can therefore defend and communicate its knowledge.
Philosophy therefore as contrasted to common sense is scientific knowledge; knowledge that is
through causes22.

The second point that links philosophy and common sense is that they take all reality for
their province-common sense blindly, in a kind of instinctive response of the individual to the
totality of experience; philosophy consciously, in the endeavor to give the aspect of the reality its
due. This claim philosophy to know the whole of reality does not mean that philosopher makes
pretense of knowing everything-the human intellect cannot exhaust the mystery of the smallest
being in the universe, let alone everything. It remains true nevertheless that all things are subject
matter of philosophy, in the sense that philosopher takes as his angle of vision or point of view

20 Daniel J. Sullivan, An Introduction to Philosophy, 261.
21 Ibid., 262.
22 Ibid, 263.

6
the highest principles, the ultimate causes of all reality. Along with common sense, then,
philosophy seeks the comprehensive, all-inclusive view of reality; it is the knowledge of all
things.23

Philosophy is close to common sense because it shares the universality of common sense
and a common insight into the fundamental structure of reality. we might even say that
philosophy grows out of common sense, and common sense taken in its strict meaning is a kind
of foreshadowing, a dim silhouette, of philosophy proper. Any philosophy therefore, that strays
very far from common sense is suspect. If it goes so far as to contradict the basic certitudes of
common sense, then it is guilty of denying reality itself, and on this point, common sense can
pass judgment on it.24

2. Philosophy as Wisdom

2.1 Wisdom in Human Existence

Wisdom enables him to discover the meaning of life and to act in an upright way.
Ignorance, in contrast, is the source of disorder and errors in behavior, which prevent him from
attaining happiness.
One can attain true wisdom without studying philosophy. Spontaneous metaphysics of ordinary
knowledge suffices to make a person grasps the basic truths that govern human conduct.
Nevertheless, one needs a systematic study these truths to attain wisdom in all its extension and
depth. The term wise man is usually applied to a person who has a certain and well-founded
knowledge of the deepest truths, which enables him to guide and influence other people.
We can define wisdom in general terms as certain knowledge of the deepest cause of
everything25.

Commenting on Aristotles thought about this matter, St. Thomas Aquinas says: The
tern wisdom is applied to the most certain among the arts; knowing the first causes in a particular
type of arts, they serve as a guide for all the rest within a specific category, just as the architect
guides manual workers. In the same manner we regard some people as wisest among all that is
not only with regard to some type of beings but also with regard to all. Just as the wise man in
some kind of arts possesses the greatest certainty, wisdom in general (sapientia simpliciter) is
most certain among the sciences, since it reaches the first principles of beings.

Thus wisdom has a judging and guiding role with regard to other forms of knowledge,
since perfect judgment about something can be obtained only by taking into account its ultimate
causes26.

23 Ibid,
24 All the passages from Philosophy and Common Sense are taken from Daniel Sullivan, An Introduction to

Philosophy (Perennial Principles of Classical Realist Tradition).

25 cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, In Metaphysics. I,2.
26 Artigas, Artemio, Introduction to Philosophy, 14.

7
 Though the term wise man is usually applied to a person who has distinguished himself
in some particular specialty, it is applied in the proper sense to a person who has certain
knowledge of the most general causes of everything. It may happen that ordinary persons may be
wiser (in the strict sense) than a scientist who tackles issues outside his field of specialty with his
usual erudition, but in a superficial way.

2.2. Types of Wisdom

In the natural level, the most perfect wisdom is attained through metaphysics. This is so
because metaphysics studies the deepest causes of reality, insofar as they can be known by
natural reason (with respect to all creation, the most profound cause is God; within a more
restricted scope, the human soul, which is spiritual). Metaphysics provides the foundation for a
proper perspective in particular sciences and for the adequate interpretation of their findings; it is
also the basis of natural ethics. Although metaphysics does not go into a detailed analysis of all
the sciences, it passes judgment on the ultimate value of the specific knowledge they attain. Thus
it makes the ordering of different types of knowledge and acts towards their true end possible.

Particular knowledge attained in the sciences always presupposes some philosophical

foundation, which metaphysics studies in a systematic manner. This does not imply that the
scientists have to wait for the final judgment of philosophers regarding matters of their respective
competence. Nevertheless, they want to reveal expressly the metaphysics contained in their
assumptions or findings, they should proceed with metaphysical precision.

In a general way, wisdom studies all things in the light of their ultimate causes. Above all
it considers them in relation to God, who is the origin and end of all creatures. In this way, it
allows us to carry out the task of passing judgment on them and of ordering them with regard to
their ultimate end, which is God.

If we consider ultimate causes in a relative way, with respect to different aspects of

reality, we can speak of wisdom concerning each one of these varied aspects of reality; with
respect to moral philosophy, which studies free human acts; and with respect to the arts, which
deal with the order that man establishes in the artificial tings he makes. The term wisdom is
also applied to prudence, which is the application of morals to particular sciences.

2.3. Wisdom and Science

Wisdom is also science, since science is the knowledge of truths attained by means of
demonstration, starting from some principles.

To understand this better, consider that most of us know through experience that not
everyone who is knowledgeable is wise. Some people have a great deal of learning, but very
little wisdom. Clearly there is a difference between knowledge and wisdom. What exactly is the
difference between the two?

Let us begin with knowledge of the scientific kind, since most of us are more familiar
with it; for even kids can possess it. The word "science" comes from the Latin verb scire, which

8
means "to know". Science, therefore, is about possessing a certain kind of knowledge. Some
people are under the impression that science is about knowing facts. But science is much more
than that; for everyone knows certain basic facts, such as "leaves are green", or "the sky is blue",
or that "people get cancer", etc, and that doesn't make them scientists. A person has science,
however, when he knows the reason for the fact, such as why leaves are green, or the reason for
cancer, etc. Science is about reasoned facts. In other words, one has science when one knows the
cause of the fact.

Now that which manifests a desire to possess "science" is the act of questioning. The
word question comes from the Latin querere, which means to quest, to journey, or to search. To
question is to go out on a quest in search of something, namely the cause of a fact, or the reason
for it. That is why science is fundamentally a knowledge of things through their proper causes.

Wisdom is a kind of science, and so it too is knowledge of things through causes. But,
more precisely, wisdom is knowledge of the highest causes. It is the intellectual virtue by which
a person judges in light of the highest or first causes. That is why we sometimes find wisdom in
older people, for they have had the years of experience to "see the larger picture", so to speak.
They have encountered many kinds of people throughout their lives, they have been deceived
before, lied to, have been pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised by things they weren't aware of,
they've made mistakes, have had time to reflect upon their mistakes and the mistakes of their
friends, associates, and family, and they have come to learn how to distinguish the genuine friend
from the false friend, they know something about what marriage really is as opposed to what
they thought it was when they first married, they understand what love really is and what it is
not, they understand that they knew very little when they thought they knew a lot, and so they
know something about human limitations, which they didn't quite appreciate when they were
younger. And so they understand something about human nature and human frailty, and they are
able to give us advice on whom we ought to be careful of, whom we can trust, what to expect in
the future, etc.
Such people are wise as a result of experience, honest reflection, and the ability to
reason. Not everyone over 50 is wise, because not everyone over 50 is honest, reflective, or
rational. And one has no need of a microscope in order to be wise. But one cannot do biology,
for example, without a microscope. And so philosophy, which is the love of wisdom, does not
require technology. The reason is that philosophy is the pursuit of first or ultimate causes; it is
the study of the ultimate nature of things. Empiriological science, unlike philosophy, seeks the
proximate causes of things, not their ultimate causes.

A few simple examples may help to clarify these points. Consider the growth of living
things. The biologist would like to know why things grow, that is, the cause of growth. Why do
cells multiply? How does cell division work? When he understands the cause of cell division, he
can be said to possess science. But if he claims to know the cause of cell division, he must be
able to demonstrate it. He can only do so definitively through empirical means (i.e., some sort of
experiment, or via the use of something that enhances the sense of sight, such as a microscope).

But sometimes people ask questions about causes of a different sort. Cells that are not
alive would not divide, and if they divide, they are alive. So, what is it that makes the cell living
in the first place? That question bears upon a first cause. Moreover, a cell is not living unless it

9
first exists. Thus, what is the cause of its very existence? That question too bears upon a first or
ultimate cause. Now every part of the living cell is alive, which is why we are not going to find
the cause of its life within some part of the cell. One cannot say, for instance, that the cause of its
life is the DNA, for the DNA is alive in so far as it is a part of the living cell. One only has to ask
what it is that causes the DNA to be living DNA? If it is a part of the cell, the cause will be the
same as the cause of the whole cell's life. Furthermore, existence is not a part of the cell; for the
whole cell exists. The cause of the cell's existence is not going to be something that you will be
able to see under a microscope. In other words, first causes cannot be investigated via the senses.
And so we have no choice but to reason our way to first or ultimate causes.

Metaphysics is both science and wisdom at the same time. There is no conflict in these
two aspects since metaphysics is precisely wisdom by being the science which studies ultimate
causes in the natural order.

St. Thomas Aquinas states that the science called wisdom is that which deals with first
causes and first principles27, he also asserts that wisdom is not just any other science; rather it is
the science of the most noble and divine realities, thus the head of all the sciences28. Indeed
wisdom is a science insofar as it shares what is common to all sciences, that is arriving at the
conclusions by demonstration, starting from some principles. But it has something proper to it
alone, which puts it above the other sciences, since it passes judgment on all things, not only
with regard to conclusions, but with regard to the first principles. Hence, it is a virtue (an
intellectual one) more perfect than science29.

2.4. Wisdom and Ignorance

If wisdom is of paramount importance in directing human existence towards its purpose

or end, ignorance, in turn is the cause of varied obstacles that hinder this task. Thus ignorance
inflicts serious harm on individuals. Wisdom alone is not enough to make a person morally good;
nevertheless, it greatly facilitates the attainment of moral uprightness and the happiness that
comes with it.

Socrates is said to have equated virtue with knowledge. The period of Enlightenment
highlighted this relation of identity, affirming that science would suffice to make a person good.
Knowledge and moral virtue exert a mutual influence, since moral uprightness demands
prudence and prudence requires moral virtues. Knowledge itself does not suffice to make a
person morally good and happy; but ignorance regarding what is good makes upright living and
happiness difficult to attain. The study of particular sciences does not necessarily interfere with
the subjects moral dispositions, at least in matters which are not relates to ones personal
commitment, such as mathematical proofs, or demonstrations in the mathematical physics, or
many sociological or historical issues. But when particular sciences tackle issues that have
repercussions on attitudes towards life, the objectivity of the science concerned will also depend
on ones subjective dispositions. Thus, a person may exhibit an ignorance clothed in scientific

27 In Metaphysics., I, 1 (35).
28 In Ethic., VI, 6 (1184).
29 S.Th., I-II, q.57.a.2, ad1.

10
garb, and may take a stand that coincides with his personal preferences, in disregard of objective
considerations. This kind of pseudo-scientific ignorance is a serious hindrance in the quest for
objective view of reality and for true theoretical and moral wisdom.

For instance, an individual who accepts the historical laws Marxism upholds will tend to
interpret many historical events in the light of class struggle and the conflict of economic
interests although there may no facts supporting such interpretations, or even if the available data
may show the contrary. Something similar happens when a materialist studies psychology. He
will have the tendency to view human behavior in as determinist, in an arbitrary and anti-
scientific manner. One can easily see that in these and other similar cases, true wisdom gives rise
to an independent and objective attitude, and helps people discover the errors of various forms of
pseudo-scientific reductionism.

When a person comes face to face with wisdom, he finds himself confronted with truths
that have a deep bearing on his existence. Thus ignorance and error on these matters are closely
linked with moral uprightness of the subject. Knowledge concerning the deepest cause demands
an upright will that sincerely seek what is good without allowing itself to be carried away by
arbitrary preferences. Hence, the exercise of human freedom plays an important role in the
growth of sapiential knowledge, which deals with the ultimate causes and fulfills a judging and
ordering role with regard to other forms of knowledge.

Speaking about doctrine, St. Thomas Aquinas says to be efficacious, it must find a soul
possessing good morals, disposed to welcome the good joyfully and detests what is evil. The soil
must be well tilled in order to make the seed bear fruit. But a person who lives according to his
passions does not hear with good dispositions the words of the person who corrects him.
Obviously since freedom plays a main role in these matters, a persons dispositions may not
necessarily be constant; there is always room for change. But it is clear that the determining
factors in matters that fall within the term wisdom are not merely theoretical ones, no matter
how important they maybe.30

2.5 Wisdom as Knowledge of Ultimate Causes

We can describe as the knowledge of things by their ultimate causes, as we have said. From
the word wisdom comes Wiseman, sage or savant: a scholar, an educated or learned man. A
savant is a person who has profound knowledge of reality, who knows the ultimate truths and
can give advice and guidance. Sometimes, he is replace by the fortune-teller, which is sign of an
impoverished culture.

What is the characteristic of wisdom? That it is concerned with the highest and most
ultimate causes, and that is why it leads to God. If we start looking for causes, eventually come
to God, the first and ultimate causes of everything. According to depth of these causes, we
Christians can distinguish to level of wisdom: the lower one is, that of reason alone, is Natural
wisdom; and the higher one, that of reason illumined by faith, is Supernatural wisdom.

30Artigas, Mariano, Introduction to Philosophy, 18-19.

11
 St. Thomas says that the greatest wisdom is what he calls sacred doctrine: the doctrine
revealed by God to man and all the implications which man can withdraw from that doctrine.
This doctrine includes therefore both (i) what can be known about God through creatures, and
(ii) what only He knows but communicates to creatures through divine revelation. It includes (i)
revelation known through faith, and (ii) theology.

Example of truth or revelation: Though art the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Example
of a truth of theology: There is only one God in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit:
here, there is already an elaboration of theology, although since it has been defined by Church, it
is also a truth of revelation, i.e. implicit in revelation.

Let us recall the revelation is received by man through faith, and faith is a gift from God:
hence the absolute dependence on God in order to acquire supernatural wisdom. Then, in
addition to the gift of faith, man receives also as perfection of the gift of faith, the gift of
wisdom, one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. So, through this gift of wisdom man
understands the meaning of what he believes much better. Supernatural wisdom, then, is not just
the gift of wisdom from the Holy Spirit, but The wisdom acquired by man through faith,
theology and gift of wisdom of the Holy Spirit.

Now, we must remember that the gift of wisdom of the Holy Spirit is a gift of love because
the Holy Spirit is precisely the love of God. Therefore what matter is not to be a brilliant
thinker, but to love God very much (First Commandment). The depth of supernatural wisdom
depends on the intensity of loving God.

And then on a lower level we have a natural theology. What is wisdom on the natural level?
What we call metaphysics. And what is metaphysics? The study of the ultimate and most
universal causes through natural reason, and it reaches up to God and the spiritual beings. We
can say that the relationship between the two wisdoms is the same as between reason and faith,
philosophy and theology.

2.6. A wise man orders everything in relation of God.

St. Thomas says that it is proper to the sage, to the philosopher, to order all things in relation
to, and in the light of the ultimate cause, which is God. Order means arranging things in relation
to an end or design, relating means to ends, and it is proper to the mind to do this. So, this is what
the wise man does. When everything in our life is in its place, all related to one ultimate end,
everything related to God, and then everything is in order. On the other hand, the failure of man
to relate himself to God is what is called sin: the greatest of all disorders. And the work of
wisdom consists in putting things back in their place relating them all to God.

Wisdom considers ultimate causes, and above all the last end. We must remember that there
are four causes to account for the being or becoming of anything that comes to be. The present of
intelligence is revealed by those four questions, which announce the emergence of intelligence in
a person:

12
What is this?
What is it for?
What is it made of?
Who made it? (Who brought it into being?)

The first one is called the formal causes: it points to the essence of the thing, what thing is.
The second in the final Cause: the end for which it is made, the end or purpose. The third is
material cause. And the fourth is material cause. And the fourth is efficient cause: agent, maker,
producer. So, these are four: (i) essence or nature, (ii) purpose, (iii) stuff, and (iv) maker. And
these for question also indicate that this is field of metaphysics, that is, the study of being,
because the four of them point at being: what is the being of this? What is it? What is it for?
What is it made of? What brought it into being? This is metaphysics the field of the four causes
pointing to the being of things and it is also the approach of common sense.

Now, wisdom considers ultimate causes and above all the last end, the ultimate final causes
of everything that is or comes to be: it judges and orders all things in the most perfect way, that
is, related to the last end.

St. Thomas says also that taking into account the type of order, there are different types of
wisdom: there are as many types of wisdom as ways of relating things to an end. Accordingly, he
mentions four types of wisdom:
Metaphysics and science (what he calls speculative sciences) consider the order which exists in
reality-- the reality we perceive through our senses, and which man has not made, but only
found. The sciences look at reality and parcel it out among themselves. Each of them looks at in
one aspect of it: physics, chemistry, biology, etc. And metaphysics studies all these realities in
relation to the last end.

The second type is moral philosophy: the study of free action of man relation to the last
end, or how man ought to behave in relation to his last end.
The study of human reason makes in its own operations of acquiring knowledge and organizing
it: this is logic. This is most difficult study, since we have to make greatest effort of reflection: to
look at our own thinking. While in metaphysics and the sciences we look at reality directly, in
moral philosophy we have to make an effort of reflection to look at our own behavior, and in
logic even more so, as we look at our own thinking.
Lastly, we have the practical sciences, also called arts, the type of knowledge, which is
directly concern with making things. Art in Greek is techne, hence technique or technology. It is
also wisdom in so far as things are related to ends, made for some purpose.

This shows also that the mind has two functions: (a) reception, and (b) action. On the
other hand, it gathers information and knowledge, and on the other, it others things to practice.
But for practical action, knowledge is required. In order to acquire any technique or art, one has
to study. This means that speculative or wisdom the reception of knowledge is higher and more
important than practical wisdom, and prior to it.
Speculative comes from a Latin verb, which means mirroring (specullari, speculum): what the
mind that is mirror reality. But then, it also act in reality, it makes things, and that is practiced,

13
which comes from the Greek for action of making: praxis. On the other hand the Greek for
reception, looking at, is theorein; hence, theory and practice31.

2.7. Wisdom as science

Wisdom is also science, in fact it is the head of the body of sciences. It directs and judges
the other sciences, because the other sciences take for granted what metaphysics studies, namely
the fundamental truths about reality: What is being? What are the first principles of being and
reason? Any science, like physics or chemistry, takes for granted that a thing cannot be itself and
another in the same sense. What metaphysics does is precisely to look at this principle (called
the priniciple of non-contradiction). What is to be? What is to be itself? And to be another?
These are the questions asked by metaphysics (wisdom), and that is why its position is like the
head in relation to the body of all the sciences.

Metaphysics, however, is also a science, because it studies the cause of things, and this is
what science is, as we have seen: accurate knowledge through the causes. But it goes beyond all
the other sciences, since it is not satisfied wih knowing immediate or proximate causes, as other
sciences do, but looks for ultimate causes: this is what makes it wisdom (in the natural order).

3. Philosophy and the other Sciences

St. Thomas explains the difference between philosophy and the other sciences by saying
that the degrees or types of science can be classified according to the various degrees elevation
above matter. It is very important to understand this point well.

Matter is the word we use to designate the world we perceive through our senses, the
sensible world or corporeal world (world of bodies). Now, the first characteristic of this sensible
world is that it is in continuous change. But science (episteme in Greek) is precisely a stable
knowledge, a knowledge that does not change. It is our understanding of things that changes, but
we aim at permanent knowledge, true, and valid always and everywhere. A scientific proposition
maybe expanded, modified, enriched or discarded, but to be scientific at any stage it has to be
stable and permanent, without stability, there is no accuracy, no necessity, no science, but since
matter is ground of change, in order to reach real scientific knowledge of reality we have to rise
above matter, so to speak.

This is what sciences do. First, they rise little above matter (which is always changing) in
order to discover general and stable patterns and laws in material bodies. This is the level of
sciences of nature. Nature in general means the sensible world. It comes from the Latin natura,
which means, what is born, what comes to be, anything that moves from being something to
being something else, from non-being to being. In Greek, the word for nature is physis, hence the
term physics and physical. The object of these physical or natural sciences is, therefore all
bodies or corporeal beings, i.e. those in whose definition sensible matter enters (men, animals,

31 See Joseph M. De Torre, Christian Philosophy (from Wisdom as knowledge of Ultimate Causes to
Philosophy and other Sciences).

14
plants and inanimate bodies, whether solid, liquid or gaseous). This is the first degree of
elevation above matter. Here we no longer consider this or that sensible being, but sensible being
as such, i.e. abstracted from its individual and changing conditions: in its common (universal)
and permanent reality. These sciences are difficult because of the effort of abstraction or rising
above matter.

Then there is a second degree or level of elevation above matter, wherein we study beings
which although cannot exist without matter can be thought of or conceived without matter, with
a complete abstraction from matter. Sensible matter does not enter in their definition since they
can be conceived without it. These are abstract quantities or dimensions, whether continuous
(linear, surfaces, solids) or discrete (numbers). Quantity cannot exist alone, without matter, but it
can be conceived without matter, the science of abstract quantities is called mathematics, and its
greater difficulty lies in that it requires a greater effort of abstraction or elevation above matter,
but this makes it also more certain and accurate, and thus very useful for the physical sciences,
which, on the other hand, are more immersed in reality.

Lastly, we come to the third and highest level of elevation above matter, wherein we
consider beings which can both exist without matter and be conceived without matter. At this
level, we do not look at sensible being as such, or quantity as such, but at being as such. And to
be does not imply any matter at all or any change, to walk, to fall, to eat, to write, to cry or any
other such act does, but not to be or the act of being. To be is wider than any act we can think
of. To focus in being requires, therefore, the highest degree of elevation above, or separation
from matter. This separation is not a flight from, but a much more pervasive penetration into
reality, into reality as such, beyond all the differences of changes and quantities. It is the level of
meta-physics or trans-physics (meta- or trans- means beyond). At this level, all realities can be
looked at, both (i) those which exist and are conceived without matter, such as God and spiritual
beings, and (ii) those which may or may not exist without matter, such as substances and
accidents. Let us now take a first look at this highest of all sciences (wisdom) on the natural
level.

CHAPTER TWO: PHILOSOPHY AS A SCIENCE

1. The Scientific Nature of Philosophy

Philosophy is a science, and it is a science in an eminent way, that is, it is more sublime
than other sciences, as we ourselves can conclude after considering the two principal meanings
of the term science.

First, in so far as science is certain knowledge through causes, philosophy can be truly
considered as a science. Besides, since it studies the deepest causes of reality, it is the first and
most eminent among all the sciences; the other sciences deal only with the more immediate or
proximate causes of reality.

Second, in so far as science is knowledge attained by way of demonstration, starting from

some principles, philosophy is truly a science since it attains knowledge in the same manner.

15
One has to note, moreover, that philosophy also studies the first or most basic principles of all
knowledge, which other sciences do not do. Hence, philosophy is truly a science, but it should be
considered not simply as one more among the other sciences, but as a science superior to all the
rest.

The diversity of opinions in philosophy seems to be an obstacle to the acceptance of philosophy

as a science. In fact, some philosophers tried to construct a philosophical system that would do
away with that pluralism and achieve a general agreement on account of the method used.

Thus, Descartes assumed as a model for philosophy the clarity and precision of
mathematics, and he wanted to deduce all knowledge from indubitable evidence.32 Kants model
was his own interpretation of Newtons physics, whose precision he regarded as a definitive
achievement; he concluded that the universality of knowledge comes form the necessary use of
some categories of thought common to all men.33 Other more recent attempts are those of
Husserl, whose phenomenological method exerted a great influence on 20th century philosophy34,
and of the neo-positivists of the Vienna Circle, who reduced all philosophy to the logical analysis
of language35

These approaches can only achieve a fictitious clarity, for they arbitrarily reduce
philosophical issues to some partial aspects36

True precision can only be attained by employing correct reasoning, starting from
experience, and avoiding all forms of unilateral reductionism. The lack of general agreement
should not be traced to philosophy itself, but to the shortcomings of those who do not study
issues with the required rigor or precision, and who try to explain reality by reducing it to some
of its partial aspects, and also to the difficulty entailed in the study of profound philosophical
issues.

2. Unity and Multiplicity in Philosophy

Philosophy is really a science composed of different sciences. In spite of this fact, we can
still speak of a philosophical science, since the different parts of philosophy are closely linked
and are characterized by the same perspective. The nucleus of philosophy is metaphysics, which
studies the basic aspects of reality (its being) and its ultimate causes. The metaphysical
perspective, applied in the study if beings found in nature, gives rise to the philosophy of
inanimate nature, the philosophy of corporeal beings, and the philosophy of man.

32 Cf. E. GILSON, La unidad de la experiencia filosofica, Rialp, Madrid, 1973, pp 147-176; C. CARDONA, Rene

Descartes: Discurso del metodo, Emesa, Madrid, 1978

33 Cf. R. VERNEAUX, Immanuel Kant: Critica de la razon pura, Emesa, Madrid, 1978
34 Cf. J.S. PEREIRA DE FREITAS, E> Husserl: La filosofia como ciencia rigurosa, Emesa, Madrid, 1979
35 Cf. M. ARTIGAS, Karl Popper: Busqueda sin termino, Emesa, Madrid, 1979, pp 87- 105. (Popper is not a neo-

positivist.)
36 For a suitable historical and thematic discussion of this topic, see E. GILSON, El ser y los filosofos, EUNSA,

Pamplona, 1979.

16
 Thus, when we speak of philosophy (in singular), we should not forget that the term
denotes several disciplines having the same basic perspective, which is metaphysical, that is, the
study of reality in the light of ultimate causes. That is why the differences between philosophy
and particular sciences are based mainly on the metaphysical perspective used by philosophy.
Even though not all philosophy is, strictly speaking, metaphysics, any philosophical study must
always be characterized by a metaphysical perspective.

Any specific aspect of reality can be the object of philosophical study, hence,
philosophy of nature, philosophy of man, philosophy of law, and so on, are branches of
philosophy even though these may be given other names. But a specific discipline cannot
rightfully be considered as a philosophical study simply because it has raised some general issues
about a specific matter; it must have the proper perspective, that is, it must gear its study towards
the being of the reality it tackles, and seek its ultimate causes.

3. Philosophy and Particular Sciences

The differences between philosophy and particular sciences are due mainly to a particular
point: philosophy studies reality in its deepest or most radical aspect, and seeks its ultimate
causes, while particular sciences study specific aspects of reality, and seek more immediate or
proximate causes. The proper scope of particular sciences (whether they are natural sciences like
physics and biology, or human sciences like sociology or history) is limited to some particular
aspects of reality; for instance, they can be physical properties or human behavior. Particular
sciences study these aspects, seeking causes, which do not go beyond that level for example, they
may try to find out how some physical properties affect other properties, or how some forms of
human behavior influence others. In contrast philosophy studies all reality, and tries to discover
the ultimate explanation of its very being.

In its search for the ultimate causes of reality, philosophy reaches the realm of spiritual
realities and it studies them as such. The knowledge of God, the knowledge of the human soul,
and the knowledge of the moral law are matters that properly and exclusively belong to
philosophy. Besides, philosophy deals with all aspects of reality in the light of ultimate
explanations, which are strictly metaphysical.

Scientism claims that the method employed by experimental sciences is the only valid
one in order to know reality. This position is self-contradictory, since what it affirms cannot be
proven through the use of the scientific method.

Compared with the optimistic scientism of the 18th and 19th centuries, which considered
science as the solution to all human problems, contemporary scientism is usually pessimistic, it
acknowledges the limits of science, and even exaggerates them, extending them to all fields of
human knowledge, and asserts that we can never affirm any truth with certainty. This, for
instance is the case in the positions adopted by K.R. Popper and M. Bunge.

There is also a scientism that affects human sciences. For example, there is a
historicism that seeks the ultimate explanation of reality in historical factors governed by

17
necessary laws. Hence, its adherents arbitrarily deny the existence of other relevant factors, and,
at least theoretically, of human freedom.37

4. The Philosophical Foundation of Particular Sciences

Particular sciences study reality using their respective methods and perspectives, which
are not philosophical. But they are founded on metaphysics, in varying degrees. Indeed, they
implicitly rely on certain notions regarding the reality they seek to study, and explicitly reflecting
on these ideas is a philosophical task. For instance, physics starts from some general notions and
principles regarding bodies, space and time, as well as physical causality, which are studied by
philosophy.

Hence, it is possible for a particular science to build upon an erroneous metaphysical

foundation. Such was the case of mechanistic physics, built upon a false doctrine stating that all
the properties of matter can be reduced to quantitative aspects. Similar to it is the case of a
sociology that acknowledges the existence of necessary laws in social behavior, and the case of
behavioristic psychology. In spite of this, one can find correct statements, experiences and
descriptions within such erroneous particular sciences; nevertheless, they will also contain false
statements, and transmit false images of the aspects of reality that they study.

Mechanism perceives reality as a mechanical machine, where everything can be

explained by the movement of material parts. This explanation of reality, which already finds
serious scientific and philosophical difficulties with respect to material bodies, at times attempts
to include man, in all his being, into its study. Obviously, some aspects of reality can be
explained partially through mechanical models, and these in turn may be used to defend a
doctrine espousing total mechanism, which is not acceptable.38

Marxism reduces human phenomena to economic factors and the necessary laws of
history. Hence, the partial truths it may contain are placed within a clearly erroneous context,
which does not acknowledge any spiritual dimension that characterizes man essentially.39

Behaviorism presupposes that everything in man can be reduced to material factors,

alleging that other factors (such as conscience, spirit and freedom) cannot be subjected to the
methods used by experimental sciences.40

37 For an analysis of some scientistic doctrines, see J.A. Riestra, Condorcet: Esbozo de un cuadro historico de los

progresos del espiritu humano, op. cit.; J. J. SANGUINETI Augusto Comte: Curso de filosofia positive, Emesa,
Madrid, 1977; M. ARTIGAS, Karl Popper: Busqueda sin termino, op. cit.
38 Cf. S.L. JAKI, Brain, Mind and Computers, Gateway, South Bend (Indiana), 1978. This work offers an

interesting scientific discussion of mechanism as an explanation of human knowledge.

39 Cf. F. OCARIZ, El Marxismo, Palabra, Madrid, 1975. This work offers comprehensive view of this topic.
40 An excellent presentation of modern psychology can be found in J.L. PINILLOS, Introduccion a la Psycologia

Contemporanea, CSIC, Madrid, 1962. In this work, the author shows the need to study psychology from the
standpoint of man in his totality.

18
 These three positions are examples of reductionist doctrines, since they reduce the reality
they study to some aspects, and ignore the rest. They can attract minds because of their false
clarity, attained by arbitrarily simplifying objective data. In so far as they are usually presented
as scientific conclusions, they are pseudo-scientific doctrines, in which some partial scientific
truths are mixed with false statements. Since their errors are usually presented with partial truths
as forming just one single doctrine, it is difficult to isolate the partial truths from the errors they
contain.

The more sublime the object of a particular science is, the closer its link with philosophy
will be. Since biology studies living beings, it has more metaphysical implications than
chemistry. The sciences that deal directly with man (like psychology, sociology and history) will
necessarily make use of philosophical knowledge, and the truth of their conclusions will depend
greatly in their use of a correct metaphysical foundation.

For instance evolutionist theories in biology cannot rightfully deny the divine creation of
the universe, since they should limit their study only to the possible origin of some being from
some other pre-existing beings. Neither can they lawfully deny the spirituality of the human soul,
which, unlike material realities, cannot be the object of scientific experimentation. If one tries to
defend materialism though biology, he will be guilt of a false and scientifically unjustified
extrapolation.41

The tendency to use particular sciences and positive sciences as interchangeable

terms, due to the influence of positivism, leads to a great confusion. Actually, there is no such
things as a positive science, if by that term we want to refer to a kind if knowledge that has no
relation at all with metaphysics; it would then simply be a mere pragmatic instrument without
any use for knowing reality which is the primary objective of the sciences. The positivist view is
historically false and it cannot be applied in practice. The moment a science studies aspects of
reality and all sciences do so it must necessarily rely on a metaphysical base. When this is
denied, the sciences actually get built on implicit metaphysical foundation, with the constant
danger of having unjustified philosophical views being passed off as scientifically proven facts.

5. Autonomy of the Sciences

Particular sciences do not carry out metaphysical study. They make use of metaphysical
bases without adopting the perspective proper to philosophy, these sciences have their own
autonomy: their relations with philosophy do not prevent them from having their own methods of
obtaining and judging their own conclusions. With respect to them, philosophy has a guiding role
of a higher order, which does not interfere with their autonomy.

Philosophy judges and guides the rest of the sciences, because it has the function of
judging first the principles of all human knowledge and the value of scientific methods. Hence,

41 Cf. for example, P. JORDAN, Creacion y misterio, EUNSA, Pamplona, 1978

19
its task includes determining the porper object of every science and classifying the sciences
according to a hierarchy, taking into account their specific nature.

This does not affect in any way the autonomy of the sciences. Philosophy dies not
interfere with them in their own respective fields, since its guiding role is exercised from a
higher lever. For instance, philosophy does not provide the means to judge the truth of a physical
or biological law, but it can issue a warning that some statements made in the name of physics or
biology are actually unjustified extrapolations which lie outside the scope of their respective
methods.

The conclusions of particular science are not deduced from philosophy, as Descartes in
some way tried to do. Nor are they totally independent from philosophy, as the positivists
affirmed. These conclusions are obtained through the methods proper to every science, but the
judgment on the validity of these methods requires philosophical considerations.42

From ancient times until the 18th century, philosophy was considered the sum total of all
knowledge, including the particular sciences. In many cases, the relative autonomy of the
particular sciences was not respected, In contrast, 19th century positivism reduced the task of
philosophy to a mere reflection of the findings of the positive sciences. A correct view of this
matter has to take into account the different perspectives of philosophy and the particular
sciences, and at the same time, their relationship, as previously explained.

In ancient times and in the Middle Ages, the scientific-experimental sciences were
grouped, together with the philosophical sciences, into natural philosophy. Even Newtons
principal work, a treatise on physics in the modern sense published in 1687, was titled
Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.

The progress of experimental sciences since the 17th century, achieved without a precise
understanding of their methods, provoked a reversal of attitudes: for some, experimental science
seemed to be the only valid knowledge about nature, and the cope of philosophy was limited to
methodological reflections or to the study of scientific conclusions geared towards arriving at a
synthesis. Alongside these positivist attitudes, bannered especially by Auguste Comte, opposite
exaggerated positions existed, which tried to relegate the sciences to a secondary role, far below
what their true advances dictated. Among these was the stand taken by the idealists. In general,
the relations between the sciences and philosophy until the 20th century have been characterized
by numerous irritants from either side, leading to misunderstanding and confusion.

42 Cf. J. MARITAIN, Introduccion general a la filosofia, Club de lectores, Buenos Aires, 1945, pp89-100. Maritain

rightly concludes that to advance in the sciences, one does not have to be a philosopher, and that, when
scientists devote themselves to their sciences, they need not ask for advice from philosophy or strive to e
philosophers. But he also points out that without philosophy, the scientist will not be able to take
cognizance of the place or the scope of his field of specialization within the over-all framework of human
knowledge, nor will he be able to know adequately the foundations of his own science. Maritain also says
that whenever philosophy does not adequately exercise its guiding role. We find ourselves faced with lethal
chaos and a general decline of the intellect. (Ibid., p 93).

20
 Major revolutionary discoveries in the sciences in the 20th century have contributed to a
better understanding of the nature of the experimental method. Nevertheless, the widespread
influence of positivist prejudices and the inadequacy of some of the more popular philosophical
systems of the rationalist, existentialist, or materialist bent have given rise to considerable
imbalances and uncertainties. On one hand, philosophy of science had progressed greatly, and
has posted substantial achievements in some aspects, above all methodological matters; on the
other hand, there is still a great scarcity of adequately profound and rigorous philosophical
approaches with regard to these matters.43

6. The Method of Philosophy

6.1. The Continuity with Ordinary Knowledge

Philosophy carries out its endeavor in continuity with ordinary human knowledge. It
makes use of the same means: it begins from sense experience, through which it obtains abstract
universal knowledge with the use of the intellect. It advances in knowledge by making use of
inferences whose significance is ultimately determined by sensible or intellectual evidence.
There is no faculty or power of knowing that gives rise to a type of knowledge that is distinctly
philosophical.

But this does not mean that philosophy should uncritically accept all opinions usually attributed
to common sense. These opinions can contain some error; philosophical reflection should thus
be applied to the study of their basis and validity.

Just as there is no infallible instinct for common sense, there is no intuition proper to
philosophy. In both instances, we use our intellect and we reason by means of it, relying on
knowledge supplied by the senses. There are no special faculties of human nature for certain
types of knowledge. Every human knowledge is attained through our senses and our intellect.

Hence it is not correct to say that philosophy is a task exclusively meant for people who
posses some special capacity for knowing. Philosophy makes use in a systematic way all the
means available to human knowledge.
These statements make us see the relationship affecting ordinary knowledge the science and
philosophy. In these three cases, the worth of knowledge is measured by the same standard the
correct use of sense knowledge and intellectual reasoning, according to the rules studied in logic.

Ordinary knowledge is based on common experience, which is accessible to everyone. It

includes all matters; theoretical as well as practical that affects human existence. That it also
tackles issues that philosophy studies in a systematic manner.

43 For a clear and rigorous treatment of this issue from a methodological standpoint, cf. E. SIMARD,

Naturaleza y alcance del metodo cientifico, Gredos, Nadrid, 1961, and J.J. SANGUINETTI, Logica, EUNSA,
Pampliona, 1982 (cuarta parte: El conocimiento cientifico). For an extensive historical and critical analysis,
accompanied by abundant references, see S.L. JAKI, The Road of Science and the Ways of God, University of
Chicago Press, Chicago, 1978.

21
 Particular sciences study in a greater details some specific aspect of reality, making used of
experimentation and diverse logical processes (such as the hypothetical-deductive method) in an
orderly and systematic manner. In doing so, they obtain conclusions that are beyond the reach of
ordinary knowledge.
Philosophy studies reality by seeking its ultimate cause. For this, it base itself on ordinary and
scientific knowledge, examining the decree of certainty that they attain in each particular case.
Besides, in its in references, it makes used the power of reason, in accordance with the rules of
logic valid for all types of human knowledge.
Philosophy studies reality by seeking its ultimate causes. For this, it bases itself on ordinary and
scientific knowledge, examining the degree of certainty that they attain in each particular case.
Besides, in its inferences, it makes use of the power of reason, in accordance with the rules of
logic valid for all types of human knowledge44.

44 (The Method of Philosophy) everything is taken from Mariano Artigas, An Introduction to Philosophy.

22
 PART II: DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY

CHAPTER ONE: METAPHYSICS

1. WHAT METAPHYSICS IS

Metaphysics is philosophy, understood in its strictest meaning, since it studies reality,

seeking its ultimate causes in an absolute sense. It seeks the most intimate aspect of every reality,
that is its being; it studies the causes, that in the final analysis account for the being and the
diverse manners of being of things.
The term metaphysics in Greek means beyond physics is used to denote what Aristotle
called first philosophy. While drawing up a list of Aristotles around year 70 A.D., Andronicus
of Rhodes named some of his books metaphysics, since they came after physics. The name,
however, perfectly fits this field of study: since it seeks the ultimate cause of the being of things,
it has to rise above what is material and sensible and reach out to spiritual realities.
Metaphysics studies all reality, since everything real has being. It is not limited to some types of
beings, unlike other branches of philosophy and the particular sciences. Thus, the material object
of metaphysics is all reality. Only something that would have no being that would lie outside the
scope of metaphysics; obviously, that would be nothing.
Since metaphysics studies reality from the point of view of its being, the formal object of
metaphysics is being of reality, that is the being of things.
The term being, (ens in Latin) denotes everything that is. It is something that has
habet, an act of being (esse), and has a specific manner of being. Strictly speaking, God is not
a being, since He is not limited to any particular or finite manner of being. Metaphysics studies
God as the First Cause of act of being of all things.
As we describe what metaphysics is, two different aspects will come to the fore. One is
metaphysical perspective, which is common to all philosophical disciplines; the other is the
subject matter proper to metaphysics, which only metaphysics studies.
The metaphysical perspective consists in the study of reality in the light of its ultimate
causes. This perspective can be applied to all reality: all beings, material as well as immaterial,
can be the object of metaphysical study. The sciences, which share this perspective, are
philosophical disciplines, while those, which adopt a more partial perspective, limited to
immediate causes, are particular sciences.
Every science that is truly philosophical seeks the being of its object, and therefore has a
direct relation to metaphysics, which studies being in all its aspects.

23
 For instance, philosophy of nature studies the being of bodies, and discovers in them a
composition of act and potency which metaphysics studies in a general way, since this
composition exists not only in corporeal beings, but also in spiritual substances.
The subject matter proper to metaphysics includes realities that do not depend on matter
for their being, either because they are spiritual-such as God, or the human soul-or because they
are aspects of reality that can be found in material as well spiritual beings-such as substance and
accidents, act and potency, and causality. When we speak of metaphysics as a philosophical
discipline distinct from other philosophical fields of study, we specifically refer to the study of
these matters.

The study of human soul as a spiritual being pertains to metaphysics, but it is included in
philosophy of nature in so far as the soul is form of the body.

Aspects of reality that are found both in material and spiritual beings are studied from a
specific point of view by philosophy of nature, and then in a general way and in depth by
metaphysics. Philosophy of natures studies them in so far as they are found in material beings.

2. METAPHYSICS AND THE UNITY OF PHILOSOPHY

Metaphysics is the nucleus of philosophy. It gives unity to philosophy. The other

branches of philosophy study their subject matter from the point of view or perspective of
metaphysics, which Aristotle rightly called First Philosophy. Thus, the division of philosophy
does not give rise to merely juxtaposed philosophical disciplines related to one another only
externally.

This does not mean that the rest of the philosophical disciplines are a mere application of
metaphysics in the study of specific types of beings. Metaphysics, in its study in the being of
things in a general way, discovers law of being which are universally valid for all reality (the
so-called first principles), obtains conclusions applicable to all beings (although they apply to
them in varying ways and degrees), studies in a direct manner the spiritual beings which bear a
reference to being in all its aspects, due to their intellect and will, and ultimate reaches, God as
the First Cause of the beings of all things. The order philosophical disciplines coincide with
metaphysics in their search for ultimate cause of reality. However, they limit their study to some
type of being, for instance, bodies, as well as living things. Thus, they do not arrive at the
universal conclusions reached by metaphysics. Neither they do tackle strictly metaphysical
topics, even though they provide the foundation for many metaphysical considerations and
discover general laws applied to the scope of beings that they study.

24
3. METAPHYSICS, THE SCIENCE OF BEING AS SUCH

Particular sciences study different sectors of reality (such in the case of geology,
astronomy, botany, and other sciences), or certain aspects common to various sectors (such in the
case of mathematics, physics, and other related sciences). In contrast, metaphysics seeks the
ultimate and most radical component of reality. The most fundamental characteristic of all things
is the fact that they are, since without the perfection of being, they would not anything at all.
Now, what does being mean? What makes things to be? What the principal manners or ways
of being? These are some of the questions that, in one way or another, all philosophers have
asked through the centuries. They constitute the object of metaphysics.

Parmenides is considered the first philosopher who raised directly metaphysical

questions, although he failed to give adequate answers to them. He observed that every change
implies a passage from non-being to being, and that entails a problem: How can being arise from
non-being?

Plato left behind metaphysical considerations, but it was his disciple, Aristotle, who
passed on to posterity a systematic and substantially valid study of the nature of metaphysics,
substance accidents, essence, act and potency, causes, and other metaphysical topics.

Aristotles fourteen books of First Philosophy are still required reference material in
metaphysics. St. Thomas Aquinas assimilated his idea in a superior synthesis, in the life of the
doctrine of the act of being (esse or actus essendi). According to this doctrine, the essence or
basic manner of being, limits the act of being of each thing. This act of being is received from
the Being that subsist by itself (God). Thus, the act of being, the ultimate component of every
thing, becomes the central point of metaphysics, since it is the principle that allows us to
understand all things in terms of their structure, their perfection, their activity, and their
finiteness and dependence on God as the First Cause of their being45.

The human beings cannot remain satisfied with an evermore detailed and complete
description of reality by the particular sciences, because they leave inevitable questions
unanswered. Why does the universe exist? What is it meaning and purpose? Is there a First
Cause? All these questions revolve around the nucleus, which is the being of things. For this
reason, metaphysics can be defined as the science, which studies not just any type of beings but
rather the being, as such, of all things.

Hence, metaphysics is the most universal science, since all reality is its object of study.
For everything is real in so far as it is, that is, in so far as it has being. Above all,
metaphysics is the most fundamental science, since it considers the most basic or most radical

45 Cf. T. ALVIRA, L. CLAVELL, AND T. MELENDO, Metafisica, EUNSA, Pamplona, 1982, pp. 116-117.

25
perfection-being itself. In comparison to it, all other perfections are nothing else but particular
ways or manners of being.

For instance, the essence is the fundamental mode or manner of being of a thing (of a
man, or a plant, or iron). Any accident (like size, color, or being in a place) is a non-essential
mode of being. A thing has some specific actual perfections (such and such a thing is in act) and
it may also have other perfection in potency (it may become, that is, come to be what presently it
is not). That is why St. Thomas Aquinas affirms that the act of being is the most perfect of all,
since it play the roe in act with respect to all things. Indeed, a thing possesses a certain actuality
only in so far as it is. Hence, being is the actuality of all things and of all forms46.

If the term being (ens) is used to refer to everything that is, metaphysics is the
science of being as being, or of being as such. In contrast, particular sciences deal only with
some specific type of beings. Besides, they study their objects not in the light of their being, but
in so far as they possess some specific ways of being.

4. PARTS OF METAPHYSICS

Summing up what has been previously explained, we can say that metaphysics studies
reality in its deepest aspect, that is by looking at its being closely. This study leads to the
knowledge of the properties of being as such, the basic modes of being, the structure of limited
beings, the First Cause of being, and the relations of being with the powers of knowing or
possessing it.
In practice, the different aspects mentioned are usually the topics of various disciplines, which
are like parts of metaphysics.
a.) General Metaphysics. It deals with being as being and the modes and structure of being
of things.
For instance, metaphysics studies the basic aspects of the being of things, that is, the act of
being and the essence; the general modes of being, that is the substance and the
accidents; the composition of act and potency found in all limited beings; the structure of
corporeal substances, composed of matter and form; causality, that is, the influence exerted
by some things on the being of other things.
As we have earlier seen, some of these topics are studied in a particular way in philosophy of
nature, and then in a general way in metaphysics. Thus, a complete view of problems can only be
obtained by putting together both approaches that is by studying them in the light of
metaphysics. This is a consequence of the nature of philosophical knowledge, which considers
reality in a global manner-it studies its real being in an absolute manner, not only in its partial
aspects. That is why metaphysics is intertwined with the other branches of philosophy, which are
mutually dependent disciplines.

46ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, S.Th. I, q.4, a.1, ad 3.

26
 Metaphysics also studies being insofar as it relates to knowledge (truth), to the will
(goodness), and to the aesthetic sense (beauty).

Truth and goodness, together with unity and being something (aliquid), are properties of
being as such, and are therefore found in everything. By virtue of the being that everything has, it
is something; it has an internal unity; it is called true insofar as it can be the object of
knowledge; it has a certain specific perfections that make it desirable, hence good; and it is
beautiful insofar as considering it is pleasurable.

These perfections are called transcendental properties of being, precisely to indicate that they
are found in everything (though in different degrees, according to each things perfection). They
are thus distinguished from those perfections that are found only in such specific types of beings.
The name indicates that they transcend the specific ways of being, since they extend to all
beings.
These properties are found in God in an imminent way, since God is his own Being. God is
the Truth and the source of all created truth. He is Goodness itself, and is the cause of all
participated good. His Being is supremely One, since in him there is no composition whatsoever.

b.) Natural Theology. This branch of philosophy studies God as Subsistent being and First
cause of all things.

Starting from the being of limited beings, we arrive at the knowledge of God, the infinite
fullness of being, and the First Cause of the being of creatures.

Human reason can get to know Gods existence and his attributes (like infinity and
omnipotence), and acknowledge him as the ultimate purpose or end of man. This knowledge,
which can be attained by anyone, is rigorously examined by metaphysics. Starting from the being
of things as it is grasped through experience, the human reaches God as the being that subsist
itself, and the cause of the being of things. Hence, metaphysics is also called theology or study
of God. It is natural theology and thus different from supernatural theology which starts
from supernatural divine revelation.

c.) Gnoseology. It is a reflexive study of the scope of metaphysical knowledge itself and its
relation to being.
Thus, gnoseology studies how being arises in knowledge, focusing its attention on truth: it
evaluates sense and intellectual knowledge, the different degrees of certainty, and other matters.
For this, it has to rely on philosophical psychology, which deals with the knowing process.

27
 In a way, gnoseology passes judgment of the validity of metaphysics, since it examines the
foundation of knowledge. Actually, metaphysics itself, as the primary and universal science,
passes judgment on its own foundations. That is why gnoseology is a part of metaphysics, not a
science distinct and previous to it. It cannot be otherwise, since metaphysics is the most basic
science and without it, all philosophy would lack the necessary foundation.

Since Descartes time, problems of gnoseology have hugged the limelight in modern
philosophy. This turn of events is usually accompanied by an erroneous attitude. Some
philosophers-Descartes in some way, Kant in a rather explicit manner, and many after them-
viewed the critique of knowledge as a study that has to be carried out before going to any
philosophical inquiry. But since that the study requires metaphysical considerations, leaving the
latter aside inevitably leads to distorting metaphysics or ruling out its possibility47.

Thomistic authors of our time have also been greatly preoccupied with these gnoseological
problems. Some of them think that the so-called critical problem (a term derived from the
critique of knowledge) is a solid feature of modern philosophy, and they have been trying to
make the metaphysics of being compatible with Cartesian or Kantian approaches 48 . This
endeavor has proven to be extremely problematic, since from the start, those philosophical
approaches are characterized by a perspective that is hardly compatible with the metaphysics of
being.

CHAPTER TWO: PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE

1. WHAT PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE IS

When we speak of philosophy of nature, the term nature can take on two meanings:

a) First, the term may refer to nature itself, that is, the sum of total corporeal beings. In this
sense, philosophy of nature is the philosophical study of corporeal or material beings.

b) Second, the term may refer to natural beings, as distinct from artificial ones. A natural
being is that which possesses an internal principle of its being and activity, while an artificial
being is one which is man-made structure, produced through the use of natural beings.

47 See C. CADORNA, Metafisica de la opcion intellectual, op., cit.
48 One of the most influential attempts was launched by J. MARECHAL (cf. El punto de partida de la Metafisica,
Gredos, Madrid, 1957), who tried to make Kantian principles compatible with the metaphysics of being.

28
 The human beings, as corporeal being, is an object of study of philosophy of nature,
notwithstanding the fact that the spiritual soul is an object of study of metaphysics and
philosophical psychology.

Other living beings are also the object of study of philosophy of nature, since they are also
corporeal beings. Nevertheless, because of their particular characteristics, they are oftentimes
study in philosophical psychology.

For the sake of order and clarity, the following criterion will be applied in this study: the
term philosophy of nature will refer to the study of material beings-hence, to inanimate beings,
and also to living beings, taking into account those aspects they have in common with inanimate
matter. In the next chapter, we shall take up the philosophy of living beings, which includes of
the study of the particular characteristics of living beings, and of human being.

The material object of philosophy of nature is the sum total of material natural beings.
These begins are also studied by the experimental sciences, but in the light of their proximate or
immediate causes, such as the laws that govern the movement or reaction of bodies, and the
chemical structure of material substances. Using a metaphysical perspective, philosophy of
nature studies their being, seeking their deepest causes. Thus, the formal object of philosophy of
nature is the being of corporeal things.

Following Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas affirmed that the object of philosophy of nature is
the changeable being. Indeed, the natural corporeal being is characterized by its capacity for
change: matter is always in potency to acquire new forms.

Philosophy of nature studies material beings from a metaphysical perspective. For

example, it looks into the composition of material substances with regard to their being, that is,
their structure in different ontological levels, such as matter and form, substance and accidents,
and essence and act of being; it studies the accident that affect them, such as quantity, and
corporeal qualities; it seeks their deepest cause, and thus prepares the metaphysical ascent to
God. Hence, it differs from metaphysics because it limits itself to the study of material reality.

2. PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE AND COSMIC VIEW

One might think that philosophy of nature, with the help of the experimental sciences,
seeks to come out with models of reality, such as theories about the structure of matter and the
universe, physical properties, and the like. Nevertheless, it is more correct to say that this task
properly belongs to the experimental sciences.

29
 These types of studies require taking into account not only the results obtained from
science, but also the knowledge of methodology needed in order to interpret these results
properly. Philosophy of nature does not directly intervene in these matters; however, it is
extremely useful in detecting erroneous interpretations and in fitting scientific results within a
proper context.

For instance, if one seeks to know what the basic particles of physics are, philosophy
will allow him to realized that what is substantial does not necessarily have to be imaginable; it
will also provide him the adequate concepts of substance and accidents, which are needed in
order to come up with a reasonable answer. What is really important is to have a correct
interpretation of the results and methods of atomic physics.

At times, philosophy helps in the elaboration of scientific hypotheses and in the correct
interpretation of the results obtained by the experimental sciences. But it would be an error to
reduce philosophy of nature to these heuristic and methodological functions, since its principal
and direct objective is the metaphysical study of the characteristics of natural beings. In many
cases, this objective can be achieve with sufficient certainty by having recourse to ordinary
experience alone; however, in some more specialized questions, the results obtained by the
experimental sciences must be taken into account, and the degree of certainty attained will
depend on the validity of such findings.

3. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE

In philosophy of nature, we can find three kinds of considerations, according to the degree
of certainty that can be attained.

a) First, there are certain philosophical conclusions, based on certain knowledge supplied
by ordinary experience or by the experimental sciences.

This is the case, for instance, of hylemorphism, which affirms that every material substance
is essentially composed of prime matter-a potential substratum capable of being actualized in
various ways-and substantial form-the actual element that determines the mode of being of the
substance. Other examples are many statements about the nature and properties of the accidents
of the corporeal substance, such as quantity and quality.

b) Second, there are hypothetical considerations, based on less certain findings of science,
they depend partly on the level of scientific knowledge during a specific period of time; hence,
they need to be revised once new findings become available.

30
 These considerations are oftentimes lumped together with some certain conclusions. Thus,
it is important to realize that their lack of permanent validity does not necessarily affect other
aspects of the philosophy of a necessarily affect other aspects of the philosophy of a specific
author. For instance, in the works of Aristotle of St, Thomas Aquinas, one finds some notions
dependent on theories about the world, which are now pass. Nevertheless, that does not in any
way invalidate their principal doctrines, based on certain data supplied by experience, or on
findings that science has later confirmed with even greater certainty.

c) There are also hypothesis about nature that can serve as guide for scientific inquiry. In
some cases, they may latter on be confirmed by science, and frequently prove to be useful for its
progress.

For example, the philosophical atomism of the ancient philosophers was a false doctrine,
which presupposed indivisible atoms and accepted mechanism. Nevertheless, it was helpful in
the nineteenth century in the formulation of the early atomic theories in chemistry, which in turn
to be greatly modified.

This auxiliary function in the service in the service of science is of little importance to
philosophy of nature itself.

Obviously, those considerations belonging to the first category are the most important for
philosophy of nature, even though it must also devote some attention to more hypothetical
matters, delimiting in each case its degree of certainty.

4. PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE AND THE EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCES

We have previously examined the relationship between philosophy and the particular
sciences. We shall now limit ourselves to some specific observations regarding philosophy of
nature.

a) In general, the experimental sciences need philosophy of nature so as not to reduce all
reality to those aspects that they perceive according to their method. Philosophy of nature
enables one to fit the results obtained by these sciences in context of the most profound
philosophical knowledge, thus avoiding the danger of various forms of reductionism.

Given the prestige enjoyed by science and the extensive coverage of the mass media,
reductionist doctrines, presented as scientific conclusions, or at least, as findings enjoying the
trustworthiness of the scientific method, reach a vast audience nowadays. This fact highlights the

31
importance of fitting scientific knowledge within a global context, for which philosophical
considerations are directly needed.

b) No matter how much the experimental sciences, using their own method, extend their
field of investigation, they cannot truly supplant philosophy of nature. Philosophy requires a
perspective different from that of the sciences.

Hence, it would be erroneous to deny the existence of realities studied by philosophy of

nature, alleging that such realities do not appear in experimental science.

For instance, the significance of the concept of substance is sometimes downplayed

nowadays, because the concept allegedly does not have any place at all in physics or chemistry.
Nevertheless, we have to say that these sciences necessarily presuppose the notion of substance
or an accident. Now, the experimental science, due to its proper perspective, does not carry out
an explicit study of these notions; this study is proper to philosophy of nature.

c) In order to use scientific knowledge correctly, one needs an ethical foundation, which
cannot be derived from the experimental-scientific method, but from metaphysics, which relies
on philosophy of nature. Without this foundation, scientific knowledge can be used against the
real welfare of man. The experimental sciences provide us with knowledge and enable us to
produce instruments, but the ethical question regarding the purposes for which these should be
used falls beyond their scope.

The problems in these fields are getting to be more and more serious. One simply has to
think about atomic energy and forms of genetic manipulation, for instance, to realize the fact.
These problems require a proper perspective of science and of man, based in turn on philosophy
of nature. Science must be placed in the service of man, and used in accordance with ethical
norms.

CHAPTER THREE: THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIVING BEINGS

1. THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIVING BEINGS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHY

In the world of natural beings, those beings endowed with life occupy a prominent place.
They are characterized by a distinctive power of self-motion: by their very nature, they can
assimilate external substances and transform them into their own substance; they experience
growth in various ways while maintaining their individual unity; they possess a diversified

32
capacity of self-regulation; and by their reproductive power, they give rise to other individuals of
the same species.

Because of these characteristics, as well as the fact that among living beings one can find
man in his rational and corporeal nature, the philosophy of living beings has always been a
specific object of study since ancient times.

The study of life in its varying degrees-vegetative, sensitive and rational-and of the soul as
the substantial form of living beings, gives rise to questions that require particular attention.

We can cite as examples, among many others, the following topics: the objective purpose
or end, which appears with special clarity in living beings, although it can already be perceived
even in inanimate nature1; the sense knowledge of animals, which are frequently used to promote
ideologies that distort scientific data and conclusions2.

As we have already seen, even though the philosophy of living beings forms part of the
philosophy of nature, it is highly preferable to make it the object of study of a specific discipline.

Hence, we will limit ourselves to saying that the observations and affirmations we have
considered in the section on philosophy of nature also apply to the philosophy of living beings.
The distinctive characteristic of the philosophy of living beings stems from the fact that living
beings comprise its material object.

Thus, it has usually been called psychology (or treatise on the soul as principle of life).
There is nothing wrong in the continued use of that term. The term philosophical psychology is
oftentimes used in order to distinguish it from experimental psychology. Psychology is also
used many times to designate the study of man, which is also called philosophical anthropology.

Obviously, the conclusions reached by the philosophy of inanimate nature will also be
applied to living beings, taking into account the particular characteristics derived from their
special condition.

2. THE METAPHYSICAL STUDY OF MAN

1 Cf. ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, In Phys., II, 13 (259).
2 This happens in the case of materialist ideologies which have nothing to do with true science, as well as in
socio-biology of aristocratic and racist tendencies.

33
 Aside form those characteristics common to inanimate bodies, as well as those common to
living beings endowed with vegetative and sense life, man also possesses the traits of a rational
being, enabling him to rise beyond the level of purely corporeal beings.

The philosophy of man studies the strictly human operations of man, that is, act of
intellectual knowledge and free will. Through them, it demonstrates that the human soul is
spiritual, since it is the root of operations that transcends the scope and possibilities of matter.

The human soul is the substantial form of man, who in turn is a single substance in which
the spiritual material constitute a single being (nevertheless, since the human soul is spiritual, it
subsist even after death; besides, it has to be created directly by God). Hence, the study of man
requires taking to account what is proper to corporeal beings and to lower living beings.

Thus, the object of the philosophy of man is partly common to the philosophy of nature,
and partly common to metaphysics. It understandably provides a great deal of indispensible
knowledge for the study of ethics. Besides, it serves as basis to natural theology, since what we
are able to know about God through reason is necessarily dependent on our knowledge of the
human spirit-through analogy, we can know some characteristics of the divine Being which is
purely spiritual.

3. THE STUDY OF MAN AND PARTUCULAR SCIENCES

The experimental sciences study man in his material dimension, as a corporeal being. Even
though they cannot properly focus their attention on the human soul, as a consequence of their
methodology, they nonetheless provide significant facts that are extremely useful in obtaining a
deeper knowledge of some aspects of human activities.

For instance, recent advances in neurobiology are important in order to understand the
process involved in understanding, in human emotions, and in the field of human behavior.
Although the brain is not properly speaking the organ of the mind or of the will-which are
spiritual powers-it is one of the physiological bases of their operations.

Advances in human biology at times give rise to reductionist views with extrapolate
scientific findings beyond the real of possibility, and which ignore facts that lead to acknowledge
the spirituality of the human soul.

There have been many attempts to reduce man to something purely material. They
originated in ancient times, but they now want to find an ally in the sciences.

34
 A seemingly more acceptable but still contradictory position is that taken by proponents of
emergent evolution. Advocates of this doctrine state that there are aspects in man that cannot be
explained by materialism. But since they deny the existence of the spirit, or at least want to
maintain a scientific neutrality with regard of the human soul, they affirm that is strictly human
has emerged from mater in the course of evolution. But this emergence is merely a name
used to designate some impossible change.

There have also been attempts to explain the nature of human intelligence through analogy
with artificial minds allegedly capable of performing some activities just as well as, or even
better than, any man. But again, we have to point out that what is proper to man cannot be reduce
to artifact. To grasp this point, it would be enough for us to realize that mans link with truth and
evidence, for instance, implies a capacity that goes beyond what is purely material.

The human science study man under different aspects through sociological, psychological,
or historical methods, which have their own validity and significance. But in order to have right
orientation, they need rarely a philosophy of man. They must have a correct metaphysical
foundation.

For instance, sociology and history have to accept, as a basic fact, the existence of human
freedom, which is studied by the philosophy of man. Otherwise, false conclusions will be
presented as scientific ones, since there are no really determinist sociological or historical laws.

Non-philosophical psychology must rely, too, on the metaphysical view of man. Of course,
this does not mean that its conclusions will simply be derived from philosophy. Similarly,
sociology needs a metaphysical foundation, and it has to rely on ethics (which, in turn,, is based
on metaphysics) so as to not to reduce human behavior to external factors which cannot account
for objective ethical norms.

The human sciences have particular characteristics that differentiate the from the
experimental sciences of nature, since in their object of study (man), freedom is found. Although
they can employ, in part, the experimental method (with respect to the more material aspects of
human behavior), they have to rely on the philosophy of man. When the sciences are presented
as ideologically neutral, people can be deceitfully led into accepting, as something scientific,
an implicit philosophy whose validity has not yet been clearly proven.

CHAPTER FOUR: ETHICS

1. ETHICS, A PRACTICAL SCIENCE

35
 We have so far considered the branches of theoretical or speculative philosophy, which
seeks to know reality as such. In contrast, ethics is a practical science, since it studies how
human acts are directed towards mans purpose or end. It does not stop in contemplation of truth,
but applies that learning to human acts, providing the necessary knowledge so that man may act
in a morally upright way.

Ethics is a practical science, but not in the technical sense. Rather, it is a practical
science because it deals with human acts in so far as they are voluntary, and because it is part of
philosophy, which studies the ultimate explanation of the ends and means concerning human
existence.

Directing voluntary actions towards their end pertains to moral philosophy. The ordering
task carried out by reason with reference to external things produced through human reason,
pertains to mechanical arts. Hence, the study of human acts in so far as they are ordered among
themselves and towards the end is an activity proper to moral philosophy.

Ethics is the most important practical science, since it studies the last end of man, which
ensures his happiness, as well as the means to attain it.

Indeed, we hear people say that philosophy has no practical use. We should not forget,
however, that when things are considered in a comprehensive way, ethics appears as the most
useful rational knowledge for man, since it leads him towards his ultimate end, whose
possessions constitutes his happiness.

2. THE OBJECT OF STUDY OF ETHICS

Ethics studies human acts from a moral perspective, that is in so far as they are morally
good or bad. This is known by taking into account the last end of man: whatever leads him to his
real end is good, and whatever deviates him from the end is bad. The study of the last end of
man, which is God, and of the morality of the human acts, is proper to ethics. Hence, it studies
the natural moral law, its application through the conscience, the factors that exert their influence
on the morality of human acts, the moral habits (virtues and vices), and the application of general
moral principles to specific problems, as well as to specific questions derived from mans social
nature.
Human acts comprise the material object of ethics. These are voluntary acts, which
proceed from the free will. Since they depend on man and do not arise in a necessary manner,
they entail moral responsibility.

36
 The relation of human acts to mans last end is the formal object of ethics. Hence, ethics is
based on metaphysics; the latter studies God as First Cause and Ultimate End of all creation, and
particularly, of man.
Moral philosophy or ethics deals with human acts which proceed from
mans will according to the dictates of reason. Acts performed by an individual,
which are not subject to his will and reason, are not called strictly human acts but
rather natural acts. This is the case of the acts of the vegetative soul, which do not
fall within the scope of moral philosophy. As the object of study of the
philosophy of nature is change, or the changeable being, analogously, the object
of study of moral philosophy is the human act directed towards its end, or man in
so far as he acts willfully in view of an end.

3. PARTS OF ETHICS

Although ethics is one single science, for practical purposes, it is usually divided into two
parts.
a) One part is general ethics, which studies the basic principles regarding the morality of
human acts. It deals with the last end of man, the moral law, conscience, sin, and virtues
Hence, with regard to the last end, general ethics proves that it can only be
God, both in the objective sense (as that end whose possession one has to seek)
and in the subjective one (mans happiness). It establishes that the morality of
human acts refers to their conformity with the ultimate end, and that it is
determined by taking into account their object, their end, and their circumstances.
It considers the moral law as the objective norm of morality, and studies the kinds
of moral laws and their characteristics, such as the objective and universal nature
of the natural moral law. It analyzes the nature of conscience, its binding
character and the principles that must govern an upright moral conduct. It studies
the nature of moral habits (virtues and vices) and their relation with morality.
b) The second part is social ethics. It applies the preciously mentioned principles to the
life of man as member of society.
Among the various topics its studies are: the common good of society; the
relation between individuals and society; the role of social authority; the binding
character and morality of civil laws; the principle of subsidiarity, which obliges
authorities to respect and foster what individuals and intermediate groups are
capable of doing, and intervene in matters where its direct activity is required; the
nature, role and fundamental rights of the family as the basic cell of society; the
ends of purposes of marriage and the obstacles that hinder their fulfillment.

37
4. ETHICS AND METAPHYSICS

Ethics finds its foundation in metaphysics. In order to determine the conformity of human
acts to mans end, one has to consider basic truths about God, creation, the spiritual nature of
man and his freedom, and these are topics studied by metaphysics. Without this necessary
foundation, one cannot get to know the moral order that ought to be observed, and ethics would
be emptied of any real content.
Ethics begin its scientific study by acquiring a valid notion of the good, and this requires
a directly metaphysical perspective. If one does not perceive the good as an objective aspect of
reality, he will inevitably turn to subjective motives, which can never vouch for the objective
moral order that can and should be observed.
There have been modern attempts to construct ethical system on
inadequate foundations. Kant, for instance, tried to do so, In his work, Critique for
Pure Reason, he denied the possibility of knowing God through human reason,
and his Critique of Practical Reason, he drew up a moral system based on dictates
of conscience without any objective basis. Max Scheler affirmed the objective
reality of values and the spirituality of human person, but he places these valid
aspects within an inadequate metaphysical framework. Marxism rejected the
metaphysical foundation necessary to make ethics meaningful.
These and other varied attempts to elaborate an ethical system without
God may at times contain some partial truths. However, they will necessarily lack
an adequate foundation, for they cannot account for the genuine meaning of
human life.

Ethics has close links with psychology (understood as philosophy of man), which in turn,
as we have previously seen, pertains in some way to metaphysics.

Ethics is a science distinct from psychology. Although psychology also studies human
acts, it nonetheless considers them as such, specifying their nature and characteristics. Ethics, on
the other hand, considers them in the light of their morality, which is a different perspective. Of
course, in its study of numerous topics, ethics will make use of the knowledge supplied by
psychology as a starting point. From there, it will move on to questions of morality.

For instance, ethics has to rely on the studies of the philosophy of man
about the spirituality of the human soul, intellectual and sense knowledge, the will
and human freedom.

38
CHAPTER FIVE: LOGIC

1. WHAT LOGIC IS
Man gets to know reality in a partial, step-by-step manner. He proceeds from what is
sensible to what is intelligible, from some aspects of reality to others by way of reasoning. His
knowledge does not encompass reality all at once and in a complete way.
Reasoning would not be necessary if we had a perfect, once-and-for-all
knowledge of reality. However, the limits of our knowledge demand the use of
reasoning, so that with the use of our mind and starting from some previously
acquired knowledge, we can attain further knowledge.
Hence, through induction, we obtain universal knowledge by considering
some particular cases. For instance, from the repeated experience of seeing bodies
fall towards the ground, we induce that this is common to al bodies. Through
deduction we proceed from universal knowledge to individual cases. For
instances, if we know that all bodies tend to fall, we deduce that when we throw a
specific body upward, it will fall to the ground.
Logic studies the laws that apply to different types of reasoning, that is,
the conditions that must be met to make them valid.

Logic studies our mental processes, to make sure that they are correct and that they lead
to the truth. Logic is distinct from psychology. Psychology studies the acts of human reasons in
themselves, as characteristics of man, and seeks to define their nature. It considers human acts as
part of reality. In contrast, logic deals with intellectual processes in so far as they relate some
knowledge with others, or with the reality they signify.

For instance, psychology studies the nature of the intellect and its
operations: its immateriality, its capacity to know, and so on. Logic deals with the
products of intellectual activity, such as concepts, propositions, syllogisms, and
specifies the conditions that must be met so that they can be correctly used.
Obviously, logic relies on the knowledge supplied by psychology as well
as by gnoseology, regarding the nature of knowledge and of truth. However, it
adopts its own perspective, focusing its study on the conditions that must be met
for a valid reasoning process.

There is spontaneous logic which every human being possesses in varying degrees of
mastery, through which an individual reasons out correctly. But if we want to make sure that our

39
processes of knowing are correct, we need to study the science of logic or scientific logic, and
examine explicitly and systematically the norms of validity applicable to intellectual knowledge.

2. LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS

Logic deals with beings of reason, which exist only in the mind. Specifically, it studies
the relations the mind establishes among different products or contents of intellectual knowledge.

If we say, for example that Peter is tall, we refer to Peter as an

individual to whom we attribute a real property (being tall). But if we say that
Peter is the subject of the preposition, Peter is tall, we consider Peter as a
noun with a specific function in that proposition, that is, as its subject. Peter and
tall can be considered as directly referring to reality, and also as terms of
propositions about reality. In the second case, Peter, tall and the relations
between them, exist only in the mind, that is, they are beings of reason and not
real beings. The same thing applies to propositions (which expresses
judgments) and syllogisms (which relate some propositions with others).
Propositions and syllogisms have no existence outside them mind.

If we take the preceding observations into account, we will realize that logic is different
from metaphysics. The latter always deals with real beings that exist outside the knower; at the
same time, it is distinct from all the other sciences that deal with real beings. Nevertheless, logic
has its foundation in metaphysics, for the relations that mind establishes among the products of
intellectual knowledge ought to reflect the order existing in reality; otherwise, the mental
processes will be incorrect and will not lead to the truth. Logic is not an absolutely autonomous
science. It cannot be totally isolated from metaphysics.

Some authors refuse to acknowledge the link between logic and

metaphysics. E. Nagel, for instance, affirms that the choice of logical principles
should not be based on an alleged greater inherent necessity of a particular system
over others, but on the relatively greater aptitude on of them has to fill the role of
an instrument when one wants to obtain some systematization of knowledge.

In the final analysis, his reasoning can be summarized as follows: I know

no other method that will make the necessary and a priori character of logical
principles compatible with the demands of a consistent experimentalism
concerned about all existential issues.

Obviously, one can devise different logical rules and systems and in fact,
this is being done for there is a wide variety of possibilities that can exist in the

40
 human mind. However, the basic principles of logic are not arbitrary. In so far as
knowledge is directed to reality, it is subject to metaphysical laws. Thus, for
instance, logic must abide by the principle of non-contradiction, which states that
something cannot be and not be at the same time and in the same respect;
otherwise, one falls into an absurd or meaningless chatter, as what happens with
Marxist-leaning philosophies based on the reality of contradiction.

The necessary character of logical laws proceeds from the necessary

character of metaphysical laws, and not from the a priori nature of the former.
Experience will never be able to contradict true logical laws, since these conform
with the necessary laws of reality.

3. LOGIC AND HUMAN EXPERIENCE

Logic is applicable to all human knowledge, whether ordinary or scientific. The study of
logic is part of philosophy. Although logic does not study reality directly, it seeks to know the
conditions for valid knowledge; hence, it is an instrument that in a general way affects all
rational knowledge of reality.
Logic is philosophical because the very acts of reason, whose laws the
science seeks to establish, constitute its object of study. Hence, logic has a
directing role with regard to all other types of knowledge, and shows how the
mind has to proceed in an orderly and error-free manner. It has a universal scope,
just like metaphysics. Just as metaphysics deals with everything that is real, so
too, logic deals with everything in so far as it can be the object of rational inquiry.
In so far as it deals only with beings of reason, logic can be more
fittingly considered as an introductory and necessary science with respect to
philosophy and the other sciences (rather than a philosophical science itself).

Nevertheless, it is quite difficult to obtain all knowledge by explicitly observing the rules
of logic. It may not always be possible and recommendable, besides, to maintain this procedure.
In practice, in the case of both ordinary and scientific knowledge, we direct our attention first
towards reality, and only afterwards, at a later moment, do we turn to logical structures,
especially when we discover some errors or entertain some doubts.
Logical systematization is a means, not an end in itself. Creating artificial
languages: which explicitly show a strictly logical rigor gives rise to important
observations. Nevertheless, it will spawn tremendous complications when applied
to ordinary language, whether scientific or philosophical.

41
 There have been attempts in the past to limit the role of philosophy exclusively or
principally to the study of logic. A relatively recent one is the so-called neo-positivism also
known as logical empiricism 0 of the Vienna Circle. Proponents of this error state that the sole
objective philosophy can have is to establish logical clarity in the meaning of language. Among
the many shortcomings of this doctrine is its self-contradictory position, since its principal thesis
about the role of philosophy does not arise from the logical analysis of language.

4. PARTS OF LOGIC

Logic studies concepts, propositions and syllogisms.

The object of study of logic is human knowledge in so far as it represents reality. We can
distinguish three basic operations in our process of knowing: 1) simple apprehension, which is
the first and most basic operation of the mind; its end result is the concept, such as the concept
man, or dog; 2) the operation of judging, through which we put concepts together its end
result is called judgment or proposition, such as Man laughs.; 3) the operation called
reasoning by which the mind combines several judgments or propositions in order to arrive at a
previously unknown judgment; its end result is called syllogism, such as He who breathes is
alive; Peter breathes; therefore he is alive. Hence, there are three general parts of logic: logic of
concepts, logic of judgment or of the proposition and logic of reasoning or of the syllogism.
There is another part usually considered as the fourth part of logic. It is called epistemology or
the philosophy of science, which deals with the process of knowing on the scientific level; it
focuses on methodology, principles of the sciences, the branches of scientific knowledge, and
other related themes.

The philosophy of science, also frequently called methodology in so far

as it is a logical study of scientific methods and their scope, is a part of logic, even
though it is closely related to gnoseology or the metaphysical study of knowledge.
(Logic also reflects on knowledge.) Without a metaphysical foundation, it is
impossible to determine the nature of scientific knowledge and of knowledge in
general.

Another traditional division of logic is made by distinguishing between material logic

and formal logic. Material logic is the study of the main philosophical problems taken up in
logic, such as the problem of the universals, of abstraction, and of induction. It is philosophical
logic, properly speaking. Formal logic, in contrast, studies the operations of the mind from the
point of view of correct thinking, leaving out their content and their philosophical foundations. It
can study, for instance, the theory of syllogism. It is principally applied to the logic of reason or
of the syllogism. Modern symbolic logic is a type of formal logic.

42
CHAPTER SIX: HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

1. PHILOSOPHICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF HISTROY OF PHILOSOPHY

Histories of particular sciences usually occupy a place of least importance in the study of
these respective fields of knowledge. This is true, above all, in the experimental sciences, which
focus their attention on scientific results obtained. In the human sciences, the historical view of
the problems and solutions is of greater interest, since many doctrines and viewpoints are better
understood in the light of historical circumstances. The same thing is true, but to much greater
extent, in the field of philosophy.

The history of philosophy cannot be reduced to a mere grouping of facts regarding

philosophers and their statements. In order to grasp the thought of a philosopher, one should take
into consideration how he brings up and resolves philosophical issues, and this is already
philosophical task. Besides, when one strives a historical view of different philosophical systems
and philosophical solutions to problems raised, he will necessarily work at a philosophical level.
Hence, history of philosophy is a part of philosophy.

The search for truth becomes a complex task when one confronts issues in depth, which
is the case in philosophy. That is why the study and discussion of viewpoints presented by other
philosophers in the past is a characteristic common to the most profound philosophers. It is a
guarantee, too, of great proximity to the truth.

Aristotle for instance, employed this method in trying to resolve philosophical issues, and
he would lament the lack of adequate treatment on some matters on the part of early
philosophers. St. Thomas Aquinas showed a striking example of love for truth, regardless of who
said it; thus he studied all kinds of opinions and tried to make use of them as much as possible.
History of philosophy is significant mainly because it facilitates our access to the truth; it
informs us about what others in the past have said regarding issues similar to contemporary ones
we now have to confront. The originality of some people seem to seek even if they may have to
resort to arbitrary simplifications, goes against a sincere quest for truth.

Nevertheless, there is a danger of exaggerating the importance of historical factors. This

can happen when one denies the possibility. This can happen when one denies the possibility of
finding permanent solutions to philosophical problems and the study of different philosophical
views that have been advanced throughout the history. We need to state clearly that metaphysical
knowledge attains perennial truths concerning God, man and nature, even though they may have
been grasped within a specific historical setting and are capable of receiving further enrichment,
through the study of some new facets.

43
 One of the greatest threats in our time is relativism, a philosophical doctrine, which
rejects the perennial significance of any human knowledge. Some people show their adherence
tot his doctrine at times by saying that even the doctrines considered as most certain in history
have finally been shown to be partial or erroneous. By alleging that philosophers affirmations
and philosophical doctrines contained some errors, they mistakenly do away with all certainty.
They adopt a supposedly objective stand, vainly seeking a basis of certainty, so that they could
keep on referring to objectivity and truth.

2. THE STUDY OF HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

For a profound philosophical knowledge, they study of the great philosophers, who have
raised particularly profound issues, is of great importance. This should not simply be a quest for
erudite learning, or a purely historical knowledge; rather, it should be a help in order to attain
knowledge of truth. This study must be accompanied by a critical evaluation. Otherwise, one will
not be able to distinguish the valid contributions from the errors committed, and he will hardly
get away from skepticism as he considers the wide variety of views and solutions concerning
specific philosophical problems. It should therefore be a study that allows one to grasp and
evaluate the various ways philosophical issues have been drawn up, and the divergent ways of
resolving them, proposed throughout history.

Obviously, a philosophers doctrine will depend in part on the conditions

prevailing during his time. Philosophical issues are raised within a specific
context subject to change.
However, philosophers are not mere products of their own time.

They somehow transcend their respective historical eras, and they exert a
real influence on the development of human thought and therefore on the march
of history. Hence, familiarity with the more influential philosophers in the past is
always of current relevance. These are no necessary laws of history and the turn
of history greatly depends on the ideas of the most outstanding thinkers.

The study of history allows us to realize that different philosophical doctrines revolve
around some basic questions. Besides, the proposed solutions to such problems can ultimately be
reduced in turn to various basic lines of thought that have drawn up all throughout history, and
which are closely linked with all the possible attitudes before crucial problems of human
existence. We can also frequently trace the origin of some philosophical positions to reactions
against the excesses of opposed doctrines. All these enable us to counteract the perplexity that

44
may confront us as we survey the great variety of doctrines in the history of philosophy, and to
avoid relativist and skeptical conclusions.

In gnoseology, for instance, we find extreme positions of empiricist and

rationalist bent, which emphasize the significance of sense knowledge and
intellectual knowledge, respectively. We also find realist positions which make
the role of the senses and of the intellect compatible, and skeptical doctrines
which cast doubts on the validity of knowledge and even reject it outrightly.

Something similar happens in metaphysics, with the proliferation of

materialist, idealist and dualist doctrines; in ethics, with pragmatism,
subjectivism, and objectivism (the latter acknowledges the existence of
objective ethical values); and in natural theology, with atheism, pantheism,
theism and agnosticism.

Besides, these tendencies are usually interrelated. For instance, a specific

doctrine can frequently contain elements o f empiricism, materialism,
pragamatism, and atheism. Furthermore, a doctrinal tendency is frequently
portrayed as a reaction against or the further perfection of another.

3. PROGRESS IN PHILOSOPHY

The foregoing considerations allow us to finally give a reply to a question: Can there be
real progress in philosophy?
We cannot speak of progress in philosophy in the same way we acknowledge advances in
the sciences or technical studies that facilitate human dominion over nature. Progress in
philosophy does not depend on the appearance of new doctrines, but on achieving greater
proximity to the truth. This can happen in any historical period.

Philosophy will always confront new problems and data that did not
appear in the past. It will simply have to study them and take them into account.
With respect to basic issues, however, it could happen that the most valid
approach up to the present had been drawn up long ago, perhaps even centuries
ago, even though it may need updating in some minor details.

The study of the ancient Greek thinkers, for instance, has always been
greatly significant, for they were the ones who raised many of the important
philosophical issues, and came up with the main possible solutions.

45
 Progress in philosophy is neither linear nor cumulative. There have been
advances, retrogressions and highly remarkable solutions that have not been
surpassed up to the present.

Scientific and technical progress may not necessarily be accompanied by

philosophical progress. At times, some people may use scientific and technical
advances as a convenient excuse in order to cast aside or reject the most profound
philosophical approaches, alleging that these advances have essentially altered the
basic issues and their solutions.

4. PRINCIPAL PERIODS IN THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

The study of history of philosophy is usually divided into four main periods:

A) Ancient philosophy, which covers the period starting from the early Greek philosophers,
and extending up to the Middle Ages. The ancient Greek thinks posed the main questions
in philosophy and also drew up the answers to them. These answers would later appear
and re-appear in many variant forms. Plato and Aristotle were the towering figures of this
period.
Aristotle worked out a remarkable synthesis of the questions studied by
his predecessors, such as the pre-Socratics, the sophists, Socrates, and Plato. He
systemized answers, which, in great part, enjoy perennial significance.
Undoubtedly, part of his works has been made obsolete by later scientific
discoveries. Nevertheless, even in those aspects, and especially in the strictly
philosophical ones, his works contain the seed completely formed and
endowed with unlimited possibilities of all human wisdom. We can say that up
to Aristotle, philosophy was in stage of embryonic formation. But once formed, it
would henceforth be capable of indefinite future development.
B) Medieval philosophy, which includes all the centuries of the Middle Ages. Outstanding
contributions were made during this period by the Arab philosophers and, above all, by
Christian scholasticism, which closely linked philosophy with theology. Its culminating
achievement lies in the doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas, who gathered together in an
original synthesis the main contributions of classical philosophy and harmoniously
integrated them into Christian theology.

At times, the Middle Ages is considered as an obscure period, in which

human thought was veiled by a shroud of barren pedantry. Modern
historiography, however, gives us a very different picture of this period. There is
no truth in the allegation that medieval philosophy is a n episode that ends in
itself, and that one can commit it to oblivion as he traces the history of ideas. The

46
 Middle Ages gave rise to philosophical and scientific ideas that some people are
using in order to suppress that period itself. The medieval age was the first to
employ a philosophy free from all authority, even human authority. Thus, that tale
about a renaissance of thought after centuries of slumber, darkness and error, has
to relegate to the realms of legends. Modern philosophy did not have to wage war
in order to acquire the rights of reason against the Middle Ages. The truth is that
the Middle Ages won them for modern philosophy.

Indeed, medieval philosophy found one of its main inspirations in the

Christian faith. This did not prove to be an obstacle, but rather a stimulus to
reason. As things turned out, it appeared that the Jewish-Christian revelation
truly became a religious source of philosophical progress. The Latin Middle Ages
was the witness par excellence of this historical development. Some people may
dismiss this affirmation outright for being apologetic in nature. But if it is true, the
fact that it can serve apologetic ends does not hinder it from being true, with each
individual retaining the freedom to use it as he pleases.

C) Modern philosophy, which began with Descartes. Descartes was responsible for the sharp
turn in philosophy that would exert a decisive influence on all philosophers after him. He
was undoubtedly the father of modern philosophy. From his attempt to base all
knowledge on subjective evidence, and to develop it into a system, the rationalism
and empiricism of the 17th and 18th centuries would arise. The unanswered questions that
both systems of thought raised led to the Kantian approach, which in turn would strongly
influence the further development of philosophical thought.

Kantian philosophy gave rise to idealism, which found its strongest

advocate in Hegel. Hegelian philosophy, with added materialist ingredients,
would in turn give rise to the philosophy of Marx.

J.P. Sartre significantly affirmed that three historical moments in

philosophy are naturally interlinked, and delimit the necessary horizon of
culture: 1) Descartes-Locke, 2)Kant-Hegel, and 3)Marx. Here we are
undoubtedly dealing with doctrines that condition and in many ways, negatively
subsequent philosophical thinking.

Although it is possible to acknowledge the positive significance some

partial aspects of these doctrines may have, it will hardly be an exaggeration to
say that on the whole, they contain serious errors and eventually give rise to even
greater deviations.

47
 The positivism of A. Comte represents a line of thought which, though
imbued with posts-Cartesian influence, concentrates especially on social reform,
based on allegedly scientific considerations. This scientific politics of the
utopian variety also throbs in Marxist philosophy, but it has been elaborated along
different lines. In more recent times, many related tendencies would simply be
varied forms of positivism and Marxism. They will prove prevalent not only in
the arena of contemporary philosophical thought, but also in political circles,
spawning many negative consequences.

D) Contemporary or 20th century philosophy, which features many influential thinkers, as in

any other historical period, and some especially well-known lines of thought, such as:

-Marxist doctrine, divided into orthodox and heterodox positions, applied to political
reality;
-Analytic philosophy, prevalent in the Anglo-Saxon world, and focusing on linguistic
analysis;
-Philosophy of science, frequently linked with analytic philosophy and usually
conditioned by scientistic and positivist tendencies;
-Phenomenology, as expounded by E. Husserl and his disciples;
-Existentialism, in variant forms, such as those of of Heidegger, Sartre and Jaspers;
-Metaphysics of being, especially along Thomistic lines, viewed from varied perspectives
and expounded by many authors.

Our time can be characterized by a certain functionalism. Hardly any importance

is given to theoretical systems, great stress us laid on solving problems of daily existence,
and scientific and technical advances are tremendously admired. These attitudes are
widely reflected in contemporary philosophical thought. They provide some explanation
for the widespread influence of Marxist doctrines, whose popularity lies not in their
theoretical side but in their practical efficacy, and in the pseudo-religious ideas they offer
to shed some meaning on life, and of analytic philosophy, which is more academic in
nature and is frequently linked with a skeptical and pragmatic view of human existence.

But with the increasingly urgent need to find more profound answers to vital
questions, there is also a presently strong current of interest in the study of the classical
philosophers, especially of Aristotle, and a renewal of metaphysical thought, cultivated
by what has been called perennial philosophy. Finding its most profound expression in
the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, it seeks to defend the permanent and definitive
validity of basic metaphysical doctrines.

48
 PART III. MODERN PHILOSOPHERS AND ERRONEOUS PHILOSOPHIES

CHAPTER ONE: THE PILLARS OF UNBELIEF

Source: Dr. Peter Kreeft, Featured Writings: http://www.peterkreeft.com/featured-writing.htm

A. Niccolo Machiavelli
B. Sigmund Freud
C. Karl Marx
D. Jean-Paul Sartre
E. Friedrich Nietzsche
F. Immanuel Kant

We need to talk about "enemies" of the faith because the life of faith is a real war. So say
all the prophets, Apostles, martyrs and our Lord Himself.
Yet, we try to avoid talking about enemies. Why?
Partly because of our fear of confusing spiritual with material enemies; of hating the
sinner along with the sin; of forgetting that "our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the
principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits
in the heavens" (Eph. 6:12).
But that fear is more unfounded today than ever in the past. No age has been more
suspicious of militarism, more terrified of the horrors of physical war, than ours. And no age has
been more prone to confuse the sin with the sinner, not by hating the sinner along with the sin

49
but by loving the sin along with the sinner. We often use "compassion" as an equivalent for
moral relativism.
We're also soft. We don't like to fight because fighting means suffering and sacrifice.
War may not quite be hell, but it's damned uncomfortable. And anyway, we're not sure there's
anything worth fighting for. Perhaps we lack courage because we lack a reason for courage.
This is how we think as moderns, but not as Catholics. As Catholics we know life is
spiritual warfare and that there are spiritual enemies. Once we admit that, the next step follows
inevitably. It is essential in warfare to know your enemy. Otherwise, his spies pass by
undetected. So this series is devoted to knowing our spiritual enemies in the struggle for the
modern heart. We'll discuss six modern thinkers who've had an enormous impact on our
everyday life. They have also done great harm to the Christian mind.
Their names: Machiavelli, the inventor of "the new morality"; Kant, the subjectivizer of
Truth; Nietzsche, the self-proclaimed "Anti-Christ"; Freud, the founder of the "sexual
revolution"; Marx, the false Moses for the masses; and Sartre, the apostle of absurdity.

A. Niccolo Machiavelli
______________________________________________________________

Niccolo Machiavelli (1496-1527) was the founder of modern political and social
philosophy, and seldom in the history of thought has there been a more total revolution.
Machiavelli knew how radical he was. He compared his work to Columbus' as the discoverer of
a new world, and to Moses' as the leader of a new chosen people who would exit the slavery of
moral ideas into a new promised land of power and practicality.
Machiavelli's revolution can be summarized in six points. For all previous social thinkers,
the goal of political life was virtue. A good society was conceived as one in which people are
good. There was no "double standard" between individual and social goodness-until Machiavelli.
With him, politics became no longer the art of the good but the art of the possible. His influence
on this point was enormous. All major social and political philosophers (Hobbes, Locke,
Rousseau, Mill, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Dewey) subsequently rejected the goal of virtue,
just as Machiavelli lowered the standard and nearly everyone began to salute the newly masted
flag.
Machiavelli's argument was that traditional morals were like the stars; beautiful but too distant to
cast any useful light on our earthly path. We need instead man-made lanterns; in other words,
attainable goals. We must take our bearings from the earth, not from the heavens; from what men
and societies actually do, not from what they ought to do.
The essence of Machiavelli's revolution was to judge the ideal by the actual rather than
the actual by the ideal. An ideal is good for him, only if it is practical; thus, Machiavelli is the
father of pragmatism. Not only does "the end justify the means"-any means that work-but the
means even justify the end, in the sense that an end is worth pursuing only if there are practical
means to attain it. In other words, the new summum bonum, or greatest good is success.
(Machiavelli sounds like not only the first pragmatist but the first American pragmatist!)

50
 Machiavelli didn't just lower the moral standards; he abolished them. More than a
pragmatist, he was an anti-moralist. The only relevance he saw morality having to success was to
stand in its way. He taught that it was necessary for a successful prince "to learn how not to be
good" (The Prince, ch. 15), how to break promises, to lie and cheat and steal (ch. 18).
Because of such shameless views, some of Machiavelli's contemporaries saw "The
Prince" as a book literally inspired by the devil. But modern scholars usually see it as drawn
from science. They defend Machiavelli by claiming that he did not deny morality, but simply
wrote a book about another subject, about what is rather than about what ought to be. They even
praise him for his lack of hypocrisy, implying that moralism equals hypocrisy.
This is the common, modern misunderstanding of hypocrisy as not practicing what you
preach. In that sense all men are hypocrites unless they stop preaching. Matthew Arnold defined
hypocrisy as "the tribute vice pays to virtue." Machiavelli was the first to refuse to pay even that
tribute. He overcame hypocrisy not by raising practice to the level of preaching but of lowering
preaching to the level of practice, by conforming the ideal to the real rather than the real to the
ideal.
In fact, he really preaches: "Poppa, don't preach!"-like the recent rock song. Can you
imagine Moses saying, "Poppa, don't preach!" to God on Mount Sinai? Or Mary to the angel? Or
Christ in Gethsemane, instead of "Father, not my will but thine be done"? If you can, you are
imagining hell, because our hope of heaven depends on those people having said to God, "Poppa,
do preach!"
Actually, we have misdefined "hypocrisy." Hypocrisy is not the failure to practice what
you preach but the failure to believe it. Hypocrisy is propaganda.
By this definition Machiavelli was almost the inventor of hypocrisy, for he was almost the
inventor of propaganda. He was the first philosopher who hoped to convert the whole world
through propaganda.
He saw his life as a spiritual warfare against the Church and its propaganda. He believed
that every religion was a piece of propaganda whose influence lasted between 1,666 and 3,000
years. And he thought Christianity would end long before the world did, probably around the
year 1666, destroyed either by barbarian invasions from the East (what is now Russia) or by a
softening and weakening of the Christian West from within, or both. His allies were all
lukewarm Christians who loved their earthly fatherland more than heaven, Caesar more than
Christ, social success more than virtue. To them he addressed his propaganda. Total candor
about his ends would have been unworkable, and confessed atheism fatal, so he was careful to
avoid explicit heresy. But his was the destruction of "the Catholic fake" and his means was
aggressive secularist propaganda. (One might argue, perhaps peevishly, that he was the father of
the modern media establishment.)
He discovered that two tools were needed to command men's behavior and thus to control
human history: the pen and the sword, propaganda and arms. Thus both minds and bodies could
be dominated, and domination was his goal. He saw all of human life and history as determined
by only two forces: virtu (force) and fortuna (chance). The simple formula for success was the
maximization of virtu and the minimization of fortuna. He ends "The Prince" with this shocking
image: "Fortune is a woman, and if she is to be submissive it is necessary to beat and coerce
her"(ch. 25). In other words, the secret of success is a kind of rape.
For the goal of control, arms are needed as well as propaganda, and Machiavelli is a
hawk. He believed that "you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are
good arms, good laws inevitably follow" (ch. 12). In other words justice "comes out of a barrel

51
of a gun," to adapt Mao Tse-tung's phrase. Machiavelli believed that "all armed prophets have
conquered and unarmed prophets have come to grief" (ch. 6). Moses, then, must have used arms,
which the Bible failed to report; Jesus, the supreme unarmed prophet, came to grief; He was
crucified and not resurrected. But His message conquered the world through propaganda,
through intellectual arms. This was the war Machiavelli set out to fight.
Social relativism also emerged from Machiavelli's philosophy. He recognized no laws
above those of different societies and since these laws and societies originated in force rather
than morality, the consequence is that morality is based on immorality. The argument went like
this: Morality can only come from society, since there is no God and no God-given universal
natural moral law. But every society originated in some revolution or violence. Roman society,
e.g., the origin of Roman law, itself originated with Romulus' murder of his brother Remus. All
human history begins with Cain's murder of Abel. Therefore, the foundation of law is
lawlessness. The foundation of morality is immorality.
The argument is only as strong as its first premise, which-like all sociological relativism,
including that which dominates the minds of writers and readers of nearly all sociology
textbooks today-is really implicit atheism.
Machiavelli criticized Christian and classical ideals of charity by a similar argument. He asked:
How do you get the goods you give away? By selfish competition. All goods are gotten at
another's expense: If my slice of the pie is so much more, others' must be that much less. Thus
unselfishness depends on selfishness.
The argument presupposes materialism, for spiritual goods do not diminish when shared or given
away, and do not deprive another when I acquire them. The more money I get, the less you have
and the more I give away, the less I have. But love, truth, friendship and wisdom increase rather
than decrease when shared. The materialist simply does not see this, or care about it.
Machiavelli believed we are all inherently selfish. There was for him no such thing as an
innate conscience or moral instinct. So the only way to make men behave morally was by force,
in fact totalitarian force, to compel them to act contrary to their nature. The origins of modern
totalitarianism also go back to Machiavelli.
If a man is inherently selfish, then only fear and not love can effectively move him. Thus
Machiavelli wrote, "It is far better to be feared than loved...[for] men worry less about doing an
injury to one who makes himself loved than to one who makes himself feared. The bond of love
is one which men, wretched creatures that they are, break when it is to their advantage to do so,
but fear is strengthened by a dread of punishment which is always effective" (ch. 17).
The most amazing thing about this brutal philosophy is that it won the modern mind,
though only by watering down or covering up its darker aspects. Machiavelli's successors toned
down his attack on morality and religion, but they did not return to the idea of a personal God or
objective and absolute morality as the foundation of society. Machiavelli's narrowing down came
to appear as a widening out. He simply lopped off the top story of the building of life; no God,
only man; no soul, only body; no spirit, only matter; no ought, only is. Yet this squashed
building appeared (through propaganda) as a Tower of Babel, this confinement appeared as a
liberation from the "confinements" of traditional morality, like taking your belt out a notch.
Satan is not fairy tale; he is a brilliant strategist and psychologist and he is utterly real.
Machiavelli's line of argument is one of Satan's most successful lies to this day. Whenever we
are tempted, he is using this lie to make evil appear as good and desirable; to make his slavery
appear as freedom and "the glorious freedom of the sons of God" appear as slavery. The "Father

52
of Lies" loves to tell not little lies but The Big Lie, to turn the truth upside down. And he gets
away with it-unless we blow the cover of the Enemy's spies.

B. Sigmund Freud

He was the Columbus of the psyche. No psychologist alive escapes his influence.
Yet, along with flashes of genius, we find the most bizarre ideas in his writingse.g.,
that mothers cuddle their babies only as a substitute for their desire to have sexual intercourse
with them.
Sigmund Freud's most influential teaching is his sexual reductionism. As an atheist,
Freud reduces God to a dream of man. As a materialist, he reduces man to his body, the human
body to animal desire, desire to sexual desire and sexual desire to genital sex. All are
oversimplifications.
Freud was a scientist, and in some ways a great one. But he succumbed to an
occupational hazard: the desire to reduce the complex to the controllable. He wanted to make
psychology into a science, even an exact science. But this it can never be because its object, man,
is not only an object but also a subject, an "I."
At the basis of our century's "sexual revolution" is a demand for satisfaction and a confusion
between needs and wants. All normal human beings have sexual wants or desires. But it's simply
not true, as Freud constantly assumes, that these are needs or rights; that no one can be expected
to live without gratifying them; or to suppress them is psychologically unhealthy.
This confusion between needs and wants stems from the denial of objective values and an
objective natural moral law. No one has caused more havoc in this crucial area than Freud,
especially regarding sexual morality. The modern attack on marriage and the family, for which
Freud set the stage, has done more damage than any war or political revolution. For where else
do we all learn the most important lesson in lifeunselfish loveexcept in stable families who
preach it by practicing it?
Yet, with all his faults, Freud still towers above the psychologies that replaced him in
popular culture. Despite his materialism, he explores some of the deeper mysteries of the soul.
He had a real sense of tragedy, suffering and unhappiness. Honest atheists are usually unhappy;
dishonest atheists happy. Freud was an honest atheist.
And his honesty made him a good scientist. He believed that the mere act of raising up
some repression or fear from the hidden darkness of the unconscious into the light of reason
would free us from its power over us. It was the faith that truth is more powerful than illusion,
light than darkness. Unfortunately, Freud classified all religion as mankind's most fundamental
illusion and materialistic scientism as his only light.
We should distinguish sharply among three different dimensions in Freud. First, as an
inventor of the practical, therapeutic technique of psychoanalysis, he's a genius and every
psychologist is in his debt. Just as it's possible for a Christian philosopher like Augustine or
Aquinas to use the categories of non-Christian philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, it's possible
for a Christian psychiatrist to use the techniques of Freud without subscribing to his religious
views.
Second, Freud as a theoretical psychologist is like Columbus, mapping out new
continents but also making some serious mistakes. Some of these are excusable, as Columbus'
were, by the newness of the territory. But others are simply prejudices, such as the reduction of

53
all guilt to pathological feeling and failure to see that faith in God could ever have anything to do
with love.
Third, Freud as a philosopher and religious thinker is strictly an amateur and little more
than an adolescent. Let's explore these points one by one.
Freud's greatest work is certainly "The Interpretation of Dreams." Investigating dreams as a
printout of the subconscious seems obvious today. But it was utterly new to Freud's
contemporaries. His mistake was not to overemphasize the subconscious forces that move us, but
to underemphasize their depth and complexity, as an explorer of a new continent might mistake
it for simply a large island.
Freud discovered that hysterical patients who seemed to have no rational cause for their
disorders were helped by what he called "the talking cure," using "free association" and paying
attention to "Freudian slips" as clues from the subconscious. In a word, the thing worked despite
the inadequacies of the theory behind it.
On the level of psychological theory, Freud divided the psyche into the id, the ego and
the super ego. This seems at first to be quite similar to the traditional and commonsensical
division into appetites, will and intellect (and conscience) that began with Plato. But there are
crucial differences.
First, Freud's "super-ego" is not the intellect or conscience, but the unfree, passive
reflection in the individual's psyche of society's restrictions on his desires"thou shalt nots."
What we take to be our own insight into real good and evil is only a mirror of man-made social
laws, according to Freud.
Second, the "ego" is not free will but a mere facade. Freud denied the existence of free
will, he was a determinist and saw man as a complex animal-machine.
Finally, the "id" ("it") is the only real self, according to Freud, and it's comprised simply
of animal desires. It is impersonal; thus the name "it." Freud thus is denying the existence of a
real personality, individual I-ness. Just as he denied God ("I Am"), he denies God's image, the
human "I."
Freud's philosophical ideas are most candidly expressed in his two most famous anti-
religious books, "Moses and Monotheism" and "The Future of an Illusion." Like Marx, he
dismissed all religion as infantile without seriously examining its claims and arguments. But he
did come up with a detailed explanation of the supposed origin of this "illusion." It has basically
four parts: ignorance, fear, fantasy and guilt.
As ignorance, religion is a pre-scientific guess at how nature works: If there is thunder,
there must be a Thunderer, a Zeus. As fear, religion is our invention of a heavenly substitute for
the earthly father when he dies, gets old, goes away or sends his children out of the secure home
into the frightening world of responsibility. As fantasy, God is the product of wish-fulfillment
that there's an all-powerful providential force behind the terrifyingly impersonal appearances of
life. And as guilt, God is the ensurer of moral behavior.
Freud's explanation of the origin of guilt is one of the weakest parts of his theory. It
amounts to the story that once, long ago, a son killed his father, the head of a great tribe. That
primal murder has haunted the human race's subconscious memory ever since. But this is no
explanation at all; Why did the first murderer feel guilt?
Freud's most philosophical book was his last, "Civilization and its Discontents." In it he raised
the great question of the summum bonumthe greatest good, the meaning of life and human
happiness. He concluded as Ecclesiastes did, that it is unattainable. "Vanity of vanities, all is

54
vanity," he says in effect. Instead, he promised to move us through successful psychotherapy,
"from unmanageable unhappiness to manageable unhappiness."
One reason for his pessimism was his belief that there's a contradiction inherent in the
human condition; this is the point of his title, "Civilization and its Discontents." On the one hand,
we are animals seeking pleasure, motivated only by "the pleasure principle." On the other hand,
we need the order of civilization to save us from the pain of chaos. But the restrictions of
civilization curtail our desires. So the very thing we invented as a means to our happiness
becomes our obstacle.
Toward the end of his life, Freud's thought became even darker and more mysterious as he
discovered thanatos, the death wish. The pleasure principle leads us in two opposite directions:
eros and thanatos. Eros leads us forward, into life, love, the future and hope. Thanatos leads us
back to the womb, where alone we had no pain.
We resent life and our mothers for birthing us into pain. This mother-hate parallels the
famous "Oedipus complex" or subconscious desire to murder our father and marry our mother
which is a perfect explanation of Freud's own atheism, resenting Father God and marrying
Mother Earthiness.
As Freud was dying, Hitler was coming to power. Freud prophetically saw the power of
the death wish in the modern world and was unsure which of these two "heavenly forces," as he
called them, would win out. He died an atheist but almost a mystic. He had enough of the pagan
in him to offer some profound insights, usually mixed up with outrageous blind spots. He calls to
mind C.S. Lewis' description of pagan mythology: "gleams of celestial strength and beauty
falling on a jungle of filth and imbecility."
What raises Freud far above Marx and secular humanism is his insight into the demon in
man, the tragic dimension of life and our need for salvation. Unfortunately, he saw the Judaism
he rejected and the Christianity he scorned as fairy tales, too good to be true. His tragic sense
was rooted in his separation between the true and the good, "the reality principle" and happiness.
Only God can join them at their summit.

C. Karl Marx

Among the many opponents of the Christian faith, Marxism is certainly not the most
important, imposing or impressive philosophy in history.
But it has, until recently, clearly been the most influential. A comparison of 1917, 1947 and 1987
world maps will show how inexorably this system of thought flowed so as to inundate one-third
of the world in just two generations-a feat rivaled only twice in history, by early Christianity and
early Islam.
Ten years ago, every political and military conflict in the world, from Central America to
the Middle East, turned on the axis of communism vs. anti-communism.
Even fascism became popular in Europe, and is still a force to be reckoned with in Latin
America, largely because of its opposition to "the specter of communism," as Marx calls it in the
first sentence of his "Communist Manifesto."
The "Manifesto" was one of the key moments in history. Published in 1848, "the year of
revolutions" throughout Europe, it is, like the Bible, essentially a philosophy of history, past and

55
future. All past history is reduced to class struggle between oppressor and oppressed, master and
slave, whether king vs. people, priest vs. parishioner, guild- master vs. apprentice, or even
husband vs. wife and parent vs. child.
This is a view of history even more cynical than Machiavelli's. Love is totally denied or
ignored; competition and exploitation are the universal rule.
Now, however, this can change, according to Marx, because now, for the first time in history, we
have not many classes but only two-the bourgeoisie (the "haves," owners of the means of
production) and the proletariat (the "have-nots," non-owners of the means of production).
The latter must sell themselves and their labor to the owners until the communist
revolution, which will "eliminate" (euphemism for "murder") the bourgeoisie and thus abolish
classes and class conflict forever, establishing a millennium of peace and equality. After being
utterly cynical about the past, Marx becomes utterly naive about the future.
What made Marx what he was? What are the sources of this creed? Marx deliberately
turned 180 degrees around from the (1) supernaturalism and (2) distinctiveness of his Jewish
heritage to embrace (1)atheism and (2) communism. Yet Marxism retains all the major structural
and emotional factors of biblical religion in a secularized form. Marx, like Moses, is the prophet
who leads the new Chosen People, the proletariat, out of the slavery of capitalism into the
Promised Land of communism across the Red Sea of bloody worldwide revolution and through
the wilderness of temporary, dedicated suffering for the party, the new priesthood.
The revolution is the new "Day of Yahweh," the Day of Judgment; party spokesmen are
the new prophets; and political purges within the party to maintain ideological purity are the new
divine judgments on the waywardness of the Chosen and their leaders. The messianic tone of
communism makes it structurally and emotionally more like a religion than any other political
system except fascism.
Just as Marx took over the forms and the spirit of his religious heritage, but not the
content, he did the same with his Hegelian philosophical heritage, transforming Hegel's
philosophy of "dialectical idealism" into "dialectical materialism!" "Marx stood Hegel on his
head," the saying goes. Marx inherited seven radical ideas from Hegel:
Monism: the idea that everything is one and that common sense's distinction between
matter and spirit is illusory. For Hegel, matter was only a form of spirit; for Marx, spirit was only
a form of matter.
Pantheism: the notion that the distinction between Creator and creature, the distinctively
Jewish idea, is false. For Hegel, the world is made into an aspect of God (Hegel was a pantheist);
for Marx, God is reduced to the world (Marx was an atheist).
Historicism: the idea that everything changes, even truth; that there is nothing above history to
judge it; and that therefore what is true in one era becomes false in another, or vice versa. In
other words, Time is God.
Dialectic: the idea that history moves only by conflicts between opposing forces, a
"thesis" vs. an "antithesis" evolving a "higher synthesis." This applies to classes, nations,
institutions and ideas. The dialectic waltz plays on in history's ballroom until the kingdom of
God finally comes-which Hegel virtually identified with the Prussian state. Marx
internationalized it to the worldwide communist state.
Necessitarianism, or fatalism: the idea that the dialectic and its outcome are inevitable
and necessary, not free. Marxism is a sort of Calvinistic predestination without a divine
Predestinator.

56
 Statism: the idea that since there is no eternal, trans-historical truth or law, the state is
supreme and uncriticizable. Marx again internationalized Hegel's nationalism here. Militarism:
the idea that since there is no universal natural or eternal law above states to judge and resolve
differences between them, war is inevitable and necessary as long as there are states.
Like many other anti-religious thinkers since the French Revolution, Marx adopted the
secularism, atheism and humanism of l8th century "Enlightenment," along with its rationalism
and its faith in science as potentially omniscient and technology as potentially omnipotent. Here
again the forms, feel and function of biblical religion are transferred to another god and another
faith. For rationalism is a faith, not a proof. The faith that human reason can know everything
that is real cannot be proved by human reason; and the belief that everything that is real can be
proved by the scientific method cannot itself be proved by the scientific method.
A third influence, on Marx, in addition to Hegelianism and Enlightenment rationalism,
was economic reductionism: the reduction of all issues to economic issues. If Marx were reading
this analysis now, he would say that the real cause of these ideas of mine was not my mind's
power to know the truth, but the capitalistic economic structures of the society that "produced"
me. Marx believed that within man thought was totally determined by matter; that man was
totally determined by society; and that society was totally determined by economics. This stands
on its head the traditional view that mind rules body, man rules his societies, and society rules its
economics.
Finally, Marx adopted the idea of the collective ownership of property and the means of
producing it from previous "utopian socialist" thinkers. Marx says, "The theory of communism
may be summed up in the single phrase: abolition of private property." In fact, the only societies
in history that have ever successfully practiced communism are monasteries, kibbutzes, tribes
and families (which Marx also wanted to abolish). All communist governments (such as that of
the U.S.S.R.) have transferred ownership to the state, not to the people. Marx's faith that the state
would "wither away" of its own accord once it had eliminated capitalism and put communism in
its place has proved to be astonishingly naive. Once power is seized, only wisdom and sanctity
relinquish it.
The deepest appeal of communism, especially in Third World countries, has been not the
will to communalism but "the will to power," as Nietzsche called it. Nietzsche saw more deeply
into the heart of communism than Marx did.
How does Marx deal with the obvious objections to communism: that it abolishes privacy and
private property, individuality, freedom, motivation to work, education, marriage, family,
culture, nations, religion and philosophy? He does not deny that communism abolishes these
things, but says that capitalism has already done so. For example, he argues that "the bourgeois
sees in his wife a mere instrument of production." On the most sensitive and important issues,
family and religion, he offers rhetoric rather than logic; for example: "The bourgeois clap-trap
about the family and education, about the hallowed correlation between parent and child,
becomes all the more disgusting...." And here is his "answer" to religious and philosophical
objections: "The charges against communism made from a religious, a philosophical and,
generally, from an ideological standpoint are not deserving of serious examination."
The simplest refutation of Marxism is that its materialism simply contradicts itself. If
ideas are nothing but products of material and economic forces, like cars or shoes, then
communist ideas are only that too. If all our ideas are determined not by insight into truth but by
the necessary movements of matter if we just can't help the way our tongues happen to wag-then

57
the thoughts of Marx are no more true than the thoughts of Moses. To attack the grounds of
thought is to attack one's own attack.
But Marx sees this, and admits it. He reinterprets words as weapons, not as truths. The functions
of the words of the "Manifesto" (and, ultimately, even of the much longer, more pseudo-
scientific "Capital") is not to prove what is true but to encourage the revolution. "Philosophers
have only interpreted the world; the thing to do is to change it." Marx is basically a pragmatist.
But even on this pragmatic level there is a self-contradiction. The "Manifesto" ends with
this famous appeal: "The communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly
declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social
conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communistic revolution. The proletarians have
nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!"
But this appeal is self defeating, for Marx denies free will. Everything is fated; the revolution is
"inevitable" whether I choose to join it or not. You cannot appeal to free choice and at the same
time deny it.
There are strong practical objections to communism as well as these two philosophical
objections. For one thing, its predictions simply have not worked. The revolution did not happen
when and where Marxism predicted. Capitalism did not disappear, nor did the state, the family or
religion. And communism has not produced contentment and equality anywhere it has gained
power.
All Marx has been able to do is to play Moses and lead fools backward into the slavery of
Egypt (worldliness). The real Liberator is waiting in the wings for the jester who now "struts and
frets his hour upon the stage" to lead his fellow "fools to dusty death" the one topic Marxist
philosophers refuse to face.

D. Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre may be the most famous atheist of the 20th century. As such, he
qualifies for anyone's short list of "pillars of unbelief."
Yet he may have done more to drive fence-sitters toward the faith than most Christian apologists.
For Sartre has made atheism such a demanding, almost unendurable, experience that few can
bear it.
Comfortable atheists who read him become uncomfortable atheists, and uncomfortable
atheism is a giant step closer to God. In his own words, "Existentialism is nothing else than an
attempt to draw all the consequences of a coherent atheistic position." For this we should be
grateful to him.
He called his philosophy "existentialism" because of the thesis that "existence precedes essence."
What this means concretely is that "man is nothing else than what he makes of himself." Since
there is no God to design man, man has no blueprint, no essence. His essence or nature comes
not from God as Creator but from his own free choice.
There's profound insight here, though it is immediately subverted. The insight is the fact
that man by his free choices determines who he will be. God indeed creates what all men are. But
the individual fashions his own unique individuality. God makes our what but we make our who.
God gives us the dignity of being present at our own creation, or co-creation; He associates us
with Himself in the task of co-creating our selves. He creates only the objective raw material,

58
through heredity and environment. I shape it into the final form of myself through my free
choices.
Unfortunately, Sartre contends that this disproves God, for if there were a God, man
would be reduced to a mere artifact of God, and thus would not be free. He constantly argues that
human freedom and dignity require atheism. His attitude is like that of a cowboy in a Western,
saying to God as to an enemy cowboy: "This town ain't big enough for both you and me. One of
us has to leave."
Thus Sartre's legitimate concern with human freedom and his insight into how it makes persons
fundamentally different from mere things lead him to atheism because (1) he confuses freedom
with independence, and because (2) the only God he can conceive of is one who would take
away human freedom rather than creating and maintaining ita sort of cosmic fascist.
Furthermore, (3) Sartre makes the adolescent mistake of equating freedom with rebellion. He
says freedom is only "the freedom to say no."
But this is not the only freedom. There's also the freedom to say yes. Sartre thinks we
compromise our freedom when we say yes, when we choose to affirm the values we've been
taught by our parents, our society, or our Church. So what Sartre means by freedom is very close
to what the beatniks of the `50s and the hippies of the `60s called "doing your own thing," and
what the Me generation of the `70s called "looking out for No. 1."
Another concept Sartre takes seriously but misuses is the idea of responsibility. He thinks
that belief in God would necessarily compromise human responsibility, for we would then blame
God rather than ourselves for what we are. But that's simply not so. My heavenly Father, like my
earthly father, is not responsible for my choices or the character I shape by means of those
choices; I am. And the fact of my responsibility no more disproves the existence of my heavenly
Father than it disproves the existence of my earthly father.
Sartre has a keen awareness of evil and human perversity. He says, "We have learned to
take Evil seriously...Evil is not an appearance...Knowing its causes does not dispel it. Evil cannot
be redeemed."
Yet he also says that since there is no God and since we therefore create our own values
and laws, there really is no evil: "To choose to be this or that is to affirm at the same time the
value of what we choose, because we can never choose evil." So Sartre gives both too much
reality to evil ("Evil cannot be redeemed") and too little ("We can never choose evil").
Sartre's atheism does not merely say that God doesn't exist, but that God is impossible.
He at least pays some homage to the biblical notion of God as "I Am" by calling it the most self-
contradictory idea ever imagined, "the impossible synthesis" of being-for-itself (subjective
personality, the "I") with being-in-itself (objective eternal perfection, the "Am").
God means the perfect person, and this is for Sartre a contradiction of terms. Perfect
things or ideas, like Justice or Truth, are possible; and imperfect persons, like Zeus or Apollo, are
possible. But the perfect person is impossible. Zeus is possible but not real. God is unique among
gods: not only unreal but impossible.
Since God is impossible and since God is love, love is impossible. The most shocking thing in
Sartre is probably his denial of the possibility of genuine, altruistic love. In place of God, most
atheists substitute human love as the thing they believe in. But Sartre argues that this is
impossible. Why?
Because if there is no God, each individual is God. But there can be only one God, one
absolute. Thus, all interpersonal relationships are fundamentally relationships of rivalry. Here,

59
Sartre echoes Machiavelli. Each of us necessarily plays God to others; each of us, as the author
of the play of his own life, necessarily reduces others to characters in his drama.
There is a little word which ordinary people think denotes something real and which
lovers think denotes something magical. Sartre thinks it denotes something impossible and
illusory. It is the word "we." There can be no "we-subject," no community, no self-forgetful love
if each of us is always trying to be God, the one single unique I-subject.
Sartre's most famous play, "No Exit," puts three dead people in a room and watches them
make hell for each other simply by playing God to each othernot in the sense of exerting
external power over each other but simply by knowing each other as objects. The shocking
lesson of the play is that "hell is other people."
It takes a profound mind to say something as profoundly false as that. In truth, hell is precisely
the absence of other people, human and divine. Hell is total loneliness. Heaven is other people,
because heaven is where God is, and God is Trinity. God is love, God is "other persons."
Sartre's tough-minded honesty makes him almost attractive, despite his repellant
conclusions like the meaninglessness of life, the arbitrariness of values and the impossibility of
love. But his honesty, however deep it may have lodged in his character, was made trivial and
meaningless because of this denial of God and thus of objective Truth. If there is no divine mind,
there is no truth except the truth each of us makes of himself. So if there's nothing for me to be
honest about except me, what meaning does honesty have?
Yet we cannot help rendering a mixed verdict on Sartre, and being gratified by his very
repulsivenessfor it flows from his consistency. He shows us the true face of atheism: absurdity
(that's the abstract word), and nausea (that's the concrete image he uses, and the title of his first
and greatest novel).
"Nausea" is the story of a man who, after arduous searching, finds the terrible truth that
life has no meaning, that it's simply nauseating excess, like vomit or excrement. (Sartre
deliberately tends toward obscene images because he feels life itself is obscene.)
We cannot help agreeing with William Barrett when he says that "to those who are ready
to use this [nausea] as an excuse for tossing out the whole Sartrian philosophy, we may point out
that it is better to encounter one's existence in disgust than never to encounter it at all."
In other words, Sartre's importance is like that of Ecclesiastes: He asks the greatest of all
questions, courageously and unswervingly, and we can admire him for that. Unfortunately, he
also gives the worst possible answer to it, as Ecclesiastes did: "Vanity of vanity, all is vanity."
We can only pity him for that, and with him the many other atheists who are clear-headed
enough to see as he did that "without God all things are permissible"but nothing has meaning.

E. Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche called himself "the Anti-Christ," and wrote a book by that title. He
argued for atheism as follows: "I will now disprove the existence of all gods. If there were gods,
how could I bear not to be a god? Consequently, there are no gods."
He scorned reason as well as faith, often deliberately contradicted himself, said that "a
sneer is infinitely more noble that a syllogism" and appealed to passion, rhetoric and even
deliberate hatred rather than reason.
He saw love as "the greatest danger" and morality as mankind's worst weakness. He died insane,
in an asylum, of syphilis-signing his last letters "the Crucified One." He was adored by the Nazis
as their semi-official philosopher.

60
Yet he is admired as profound and wise by many of the greatest minds of our century. How can
this be?
There are three schools of thought about Nietzsche. Most popular among academics is the
school of the "gentle Nietzscheans," who claim that Nietzsche was, in effect, a sheep in wolf's
clothing; that his attacks should not be taken literally and that he was really an ally, not an
enemy, of the Western institutions and values which he denounced.
These scholars resemble theologians who interpret sayings of Jesus like: "no one can
come to the Father but through me" as meaning "all religions are equally valid," and "he who
marries a divorced woman commits adultery" as meaning "let your divorces be creative and
reasonable."
Second, there are the "awful, awful" Nietzscheans. They at least pay Nietzsche the compliment
of taking him seriously. They are typified by the footnote in an old Catholic textbook on modern
philosophy, which said only that Nietzsche existed, was an atheist and died insane-a fate which
may well await anyone who looks too long into his books.
A third school of thought sees Nietzsche as a wolf indeed and not a sheep, but as a very
important thinker because he shows to modern Western civilization its own dark heart and
future. It's easy to scapegoat and point fingers at "blacksheep" like Nietzsche and Hitler, but is
there not a "Hitler in ourselves" (to quote Max Picard's title)? Did not Nietzsche let the cat out of
the bag? The demonic cat that was hidden in the respectable bag of secular humanism? Once
"God is dead," so is man, morality, love, freedom, hope, democracy, the soul and ultimately,
sanity. No one shows this more vividly than Nietzsche. He may have been responsible (quite
unintentionally) for many conversions.
Nietzsche's main themes can be summarized by the titles of his main books. Each is, in a
different way, an attack on faith. The center of Nietzsche's philosophy is always the same: He is
as centered on Christ as Augustine was, only he centered on Christ as his enemy.
Nietzsche's first book, "The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music," single-handedly
revolutionized the accepted view of the ancient Greeks as all "sweetness and light," reason and
order. For Nietzsche, the tragic poets were the great Greeks, and the philosophers, starting with
Socrates, were the small ones, pale and passionless. All the Western world had followed Socrates
and his rationalism and moralism, and had denied the other, darker side of man, the tragic side.
Nietzsche instead exalted tragedy, chaos, disorder and irrationality, symbolized by the
god Dionysus, god of growth and drunken orgies. He claimed that Socrates had turned the world
instead to the worship of Apollo, god of the sun, light, order and reason. But the fate of
Nietzsche's god Dionysus was soon to overtake Nietzsche himself; as Dionysus was literally torn
apart by the Titans, supernatural monsters of the underworld, Nietzsche's mind was to be cracked
asunder by his own inner Titans.
"The Use and Abuse of History" continued the Dionysian-vs.-Apollonian theme. The
"abuse of history" is (according to Nietzsche) theory, science, objective truth. The right use of
history is to enhance "life." Life and truth, fire and light, Dionysus and Apollo, will and intellect,
are set in opposition. We see Nietzsche being torn apart here, for these are the two parts of the
self.
"Ecce Homo" was pseudo-autobiographical shameless egotism. Though he was only a
stretcher-bearer in the war, Nietzsche calls himself a "swaggering old artillery man" adored by
all the ladies. In fact, he was a lonely old man who could not stand the sight of blood, an
emotional dwarf prancing like Napoleon. What's most terrifying is that he willingly embraces his

61
falsehood and fantasy. It is consistent with his philosophy or preferring "whatever is life-
enhancing" to truth. "Why not live a lie?" He asks.
"The Genealogy of Morals" claimed that morality was an invention of the weak
(especially the Jews, and then the Christians) to weaken the strong. The sheep convinced the
wolf to act like a sheep. This is unnatural, argues Nietzsche, and seeing morality's unnatural
origin in resentment at inferiority will free us from its power over us.
"Beyond Good and Evil" is Nietzsche's alternative morality, or "new morality." "Master
morality" is totally different from "slave morality," he says. Whatever a master commands
becomes good from the mere fact that the master commands it. The weak sheep have a morality
of obedience and conformity. Masters have a natural right to do whatever they please, for since
there is no God, everything is permissible.
"The Twilight of the Idols" explores the consequences of "the death of God." (Of course
God never really lives, but faith in Him did. Now that is dead, says Nietzsche.) With God dies all
objective truths (for there is no mind over ours) and objective values, laws and morality (for
there is no will over ours). Soul, free will, immortality, reason, order, love-all these are "idols,"
little gods that are dying now that the Big God has died.
What will replace God? The same being who will replace man; the Superman.
Nietzsche's masterpiece, "Thus Spake Zarathustra," celebrates this new god.
Nietzsche called "Zarathustra" the new Bible, and told the world to "throw away all other books;
you have my "Zarathustra." It is intoxicating rhetoric, and it has captivated adolescents for
generations. It was written in only a few days, in a frenzy, perhaps of literally demon-inspired
"automatic writing." No book ever written contains more Jungian archetypes, like a fireworks
display of images from the unconscious.
Its essential message is the condemnation of present-day man as a weakling and the
announcement of the next species, the Superman, who lives by "master morality" instead of
"slave morality." God is dead, long live the new god!
But in "The Eternal Return" Nietzsche discovers that all gods die, even the Superman. He
believed that all history necessarily moved in a cycle, endlessly repeating all past events-"There
is nothing new under the Sun." Nietzsche deduced this disappearing conclusion from the two
premises of (1) a finite amount of matter and (2) an infinite amount of time (since there is no
creator and no creation); thus every possible combination of elementary particles, every possible
world, occur an infinite number of times, given infinite time. All, even the Superman, will return
again to dust, and evolve worms, apes, man and Superman again and again.
Instead of despairing, as Ecclesiastes did, at this hopeless new history, Nietzsche seized the
opportunity to celebrate history's irrationality and the triumph of "life" over logic. The supreme
virtue was the will's courage to affirm this meaningless life, beyond reason, for no reason.
But in Nietzsche's last work, "The Will to Power," the lack of an end or goal appears as
demonic, and mirrors the demonic character of the modern mind. Without a God, a heaven, truth,
or an absolute Goodness to aim at, the meaning of life becomes simply "the will to power."
Power becomes its own end, not a means. Life is like a bubble, empty within and without; but its
meaning is self-affirmation, egotism, blowing up your bubble, expanding the meaningless self
into the meaningless void. "Just will," is Nietzsche's advice. It does not matter what you will or
why.
We are now in a position to see why Nietzsche is such a crucially important thinker, not despite
but because of his insanity. No one in history, except possibly the Marquis de Sade, has ever so
clearly, candidly and consistently formulated the complete alternative to Christianity.

62
 Pre-Christian (i.e., pagan) societies and philosophies were like virgins. Post-Christian
(i.e., modern) societies and philosophies are like divorcees. Nietzsche is no pagan pre-Christian,
but the essential, modern post-Christian and anti-Christian. He rightly saw Christ as his chief
enemy and rival. The spirit of Anti-Christ has never received such complete formulation.
Nietzsche was not only the favorite philosopher of Nazi Germany, he is the favorite philosopher
of hell.
We can thank Satan's own foolishness in "blowing his cover" in this man. Like Nazism,
Nietzsche may scare the hell out of us and help save our civilization or even our souls by turning
us away in terror before it's too late.

F. Immanuel Kant

Few philosophers in history have been so unreadable and dry as Immanuel Kant. Yet few
have had a more devastating impact on human thought. Kant's devoted servant, Lampe, is said
to have faithfully read each thing his master published, but when Kant published his most
important work, "The Critique of Pure Reason," Lampe began but did not finish it because, he
said, if he were to finish it, it would have to be in a mental hospital. Many students since then
have echoed his sentiments.
Yet this abstract professor, writing in abstract style about abstract questions, is, I believe, the
primary source of the idea that today imperils faith (and thus souls) more than any other; the idea
that truth is subjective.
The simple citizens of his native Konigsberg, Germany, where he lived and wrote in the
latter half of the 18th century, understood this better than professional scholars, for they
nicknamed Kant "The Destroyer" and named their dogs after him.
He was a good-tempered, sweet and pious man, so punctual that his neighbors set their clocks by
his daily walk. The basic intention of his philosophy was noble: to restore human dignity amidst
a skeptical world worshiping science.
This intent becomes clear through a single anecdote. Kant was attending a lecture by a
materialistic astronomer on the topic of man's place in the universe. The astronomer concluded
his lecture with: "So you see that astronomically speaking, man is utterly insignificant." Kant
replied: "Professor, you forgot the most important thing, man is the astronomer."
Kant, more than any other thinker, gave impetus to the typically modern turn from the
objective to the subjective. This may sound fine until we realize that it meant for him the
redefinition of truth itself as subjective. And the consequences of this idea have been
catastrophic.
If we ever engage in conversation about our faith with unbelievers, we know from
experience that the most common obstacle to faith today is not any honest intellectual difficulty,
like the problem of evil or the dogma of the trinity, but the assumption that religion cannot
possibly concern facts and objective truth at all; that any attempt to convince another person that
your faith is trueobjectively true, true for everyoneis unthinkable arrogance.
The business of religion, according to this mindset, is practice and not theory; values, not
facts; something subjective and private, not objective and public. Dogma is an "extra," and a bad
extra at that, for dogma fosters dogmatism. Religion, in short, equals ethics. And since Christian
ethics is very similar to the ethics of most other major religions, it doesn't matter whether you are
a Christian or not; all that matters is whether you are a "good person." (The people who believe

63
this also usually believe that just about everyone except Adolf Hitler and Charles Manson is a
"good person.")
Kant is largely responsible for this way of thinking. He helped bury the medieval
synthesis of faith and reason. He described his philosophy as "clearing away the pretensions of
reason to make room for faith"as if faith and reason were enemies and not allies. In Kant,
Luther's divorce between faith and reason becomes finalized.
Kant thought religion could never be a matter of reason, evidence or argument, or even a
matter of knowledge, but a matter of feeling, motive and attitude. This assumption has deeply
influenced the minds of most religious educators (e.g., catechism writers and theology
departments) today, who have turned their attention away from the plain "bare bones" of faith,
the objective facts narrated in Scripture and summarized in the Apostles' creed. They have
divorced the faith from reason and married it to pop psychology, because they have bought into
Kant's philosophy.
"Two things fill me with wonder," Kant confessed: "the starry sky above and the moral law
within." What a man wonders about fills his heart and directs his thought. Note that Kant
wonders about only two things: not God, not Christ, not Creation, Incarnation, Resurrection and
Judgment, but "the starry sky above and the moral law within." "The starry sky above" is the
physical universe as known by modern science. Kant relegates everything else to subjectivity.
The moral law is not "without" but "within," not objective but subjective, not a Natural Law of
objective rights and wrongs that comes from God but a man-made law by which we decide to
bind ourselves. (But if we bind ourselves, are we really bound?) Morality is a matter of
subjective intention only. It has no content except the Golden Rule (Kant's "categorical
imperative").
If the moral law came from God rather than from man, Kant argues, then man would not
be free in the sense of being autonomous. This is true, Kant then proceeds to argue that man must
be autonomous, therefore the moral law does not come from God but from man. The Church
argues from the same premise that the moral law does in fact come from God, therefore man is
not autonomous. He is free to choose to obey or disobey the moral law, but he is not free to
create the law itself.
Though Kant thought of himself as a Christian, he explicitly denied that we could know
that there really exists (1) God, (2) free will, and (3) immorality. He said we must live as if these
three ideas were true because if we believe them we will take morality seriously, and if we don't
we will not. It is this justification of belief by purely practical reasons that is a terrible mistake.
Kant believes in God not because it is true but because it is helpful. Why not believe in Santa
Claus then? If I were God, I would favor an honest atheist over a dishonest theist, and Kant is to
my mind a dishonest theist, because there is only one honest reason for believing anything:
because it is true.
Those who try to sell the Christian faith in the Kantian sense, as a "value system" rather
than as the truth, have been failing for generations. With so many competing "value systems" on
the market, why should anyone prefer the Christian variation to simpler ones with less
theological baggage, and easier ones with less inconvenient moral demands?
Kant gave up the battle, in effect, by retreating from the battlefield of fact. He believed
the great myth of the 18th-century "Enlightenment" (ironic name!): that Newtonian science was
here to stay and that Christianity, to survive, had to find a new place in the new mental landscape
sketched by the new science. The only place left was subjectivity.

64
 That meant ignoring or interpreting as myth the supernatural and miraculous claims of
traditional Christianity. Kant's strategy was essentially the same as that of Rudolf Bultmann, the
father of "demythologizing" and the man who may be responsible for more Catholic college
students losing their faith than anyone else. Many theology professors follow his theories of
criticism which reduce biblical claims of eyewitness description of miracles to mere myth,
"values" and "pious interpretations."
Bultmann said this about the supposed conflict between faith and science: "The scientific
world picture is here to stay and will assert its right against any theology, however imposing, that
conflicts with it." Ironically, that very "scientific world picture" of Newtonian physics Kant and
Bultmann accepted as absolute and unchangeable has today been almost universally rejected by
scientists themselves!
Kant's basic question was: How can we know truth? Early in his life he accepted the
answer of Rationalism, that we know truth by the intellect, not the senses, and that the intellect
possesses its own "innate ideas." Then he read the Empiricist David Hume, who, Kant said,
"woke me from my dogmatic slumber." Like other Empiricists, Hume believed that we could
know truth only through the senses and that we had no "innate ideas." But Hume's premises led
him to the conclusion of Skepticism, the denial that we can ever know the truth at all with any
certainty. Kant saw both the "dogmatism" of Rationalism and the skepticism of Empiricism as
unacceptable, and sought a third way.

There was such a third theory available, ever since Aristotle. It was the common sense
philosophy of Realism. According to Realism, we can know truth through both the intellect and
the senses if only they worked properly and in tandem, like two blades of a scissors. Instead of
returning to traditional Realism, Kant invented a wholly new theory of knowledge, usually called
Idealism. He called it his "Copernican revolution in philosophy." The simplest term for it is
Subjectivism. It amounts to redefining truth itself as subjective, not objective.

All previous philosophers had assumed that truth was objective. That's simply what we
common-sensically mean by "truth": knowing what really is, conforming the mind to objective
reality. Some philosophers (the Rationalists) thought we could attain this goal through reason
alone. The early Empiricists (like Locke) thought we could attain it through sensation. The later
skeptical Empiricist Hume thought we could not attain it at all with any certainty. Kant denied
the assumption common to all three competing philosophies, namely that we should attain it, that
truth means conformity to objective reality. Kant's "Copernican revolution" redefines truth itself
as reality conforming to ideas. "Hitherto it has been assumed that all our knowledge must
conform to objects...more progress may be made if we assume the contrary hypothesis that the
objects of thought must conform to our knowledge."

Kant claimed that all our knowledge is subjective. Well, is that knowledge subjective? If
it is, then the knowledge of that fact is also subjective, et cetera, and we are reduced to an infinite
hall of mirrors. Kant's philosophy is a perfect philosophy for hell. Perhaps the damned
collectively believe they aren't really in hell, it's all just in their mind. And perhaps it is; perhaps
that's what hell is.

65
CHAPTER TWO: THE SPIRIT OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY

Erroneous Philosophical Systems Contradictory to the Catholic Faith

Source: Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, God and Intelligence

We now pass to state our fundamental criticism of the whole spirit of contemporary
philosophy on this subject in the light of the age-long traditional principles.
Our basic principles are extracted from the doctrines of Aristotle and St. Thomas
principles whose sole claim to be accepted are their accord with common sense, and not their
authority.
In the tenth book of Aristotles Metaphysics and in the First Question of De Veritate we
find the principles upon which the spirit of modern thought will be judged.
The principles are: -
1. The Divine Intellect is a measure, not a thing measured.
2. Natural things are both a measure and a thing measured.
3. The human intellect is a thing measured, not a measure.

1. The term measure is a term strictly applicable to quantity; here it is applied in an

analogical sense. God is the measure of all things in that He has ordered all tings
in measure and number and weight. The measure is the substance whose end
determined by its constitutive principles. The number is the species. To add or
subtract from a number is to change it; to add or subtract a substantial element
from a species is to destroy it, e.g. to add animality to mineral life. The weight is
inclination and love. Love is to rational beings what the law of gravitation is to
bodies. Matter is dawn to the center of the earth; reason is drawn to its source
God. Amor meus pondus meum, in the words of St. Augustine.

Yet, God in turn is measured by no one. He is the First Cause and Uncaused,
and thus, having never received His existence from another, He has not been
measured by another. He has set the bounds to all created being, yet no one has set
bounds to His Being.

2. Natural things are both a measure and a thing measured They are first of all a
measure; for they determine our knowledge. The object, which I see determines my
knowledge of that object.
Though natural things enjoy a reflected likeness of God they measure us
proximately, as God measures us absolutely. They, however, bear the stamp of their
imperfection, for they too are measured. God has made them; set limits to them,
and given them their measure of existence.

66
 3. The human intellect is a thing measured, not a measure. It is measured first of all
by God, who has given it its first principles of the speculative and the practical
order. It is also measured by things. The intellect does not give truth and goodness
to things; it discovers them in things. Only in the case of artificial things can man
be said to be a measure, and to this extent He reflects the Creator Who made him.
The architect is the measure of the house, which he builds; the sculptor is the
measure of the statue, which he chisels; in a greater way, God is the Cause and
Measure of all things. So far as natural things are concerned and this is our
present interest man is not a measure, he is a thing measured.

These three principles are at the basis of common-sense philosophy and their proof, as
we have shown, is ultimately reducible to the principle of contradiction. Not only philosophy
but even religion itself reposes on these principles, for they determine the relations of God and
man. To change them is to change the whole fabric of our thought and to substitute a series of
relations, which pervert the real order of things.
In face of these principles, the spirit of modern thought is clear. After reviewing that
thought in its characteristic statements and conclusions we may now suggest its fundamental
principles in terms of our own system. Possible the philosophers who are thus criticized would
be the first to say that our conclusions were not theirs, and that they were not aware of the
attributed implications. This we state to be just. We, however, consider, after a careful survey,
that the principles and implications lie deeply embedded in the nature, expression, and
structure of their tenets.
What common-sense philosophy attributes to the human intellect, modern philosophy
attributes to the Divine Intellect; and what common sense philosophy attributes to the Divine
Intellect, modern Philosophy attributes to the human intellect.
Putting their formula in the same terms as the common-sense formula, it reads as
follows:
The human intellect is a measure, not a thing measured.
The Divine Intellect is a thing measured, not a measure.

Its first principle, in other words, is the superiority of mind over being; its second
principle is the superiority of man over God. One has as its consequence the divinization of
man, the other, the humanization of God.
These two results are not diverse; they are reciprocal. One is the concave, the other is
the convex side of the same reality. The divination of man means always the humanization of
God.
This is true of nations and individuals. At that point in history of a people or the
history of a soul when man stresses unduly his own powers and self-sufficiency, faith is lost in
both gods and God. John the Baptist, seized with the tremendous truth of this fact, cried out
to his hearers beyond the Jordan: I must decrease and He must increase. As man takes on an
added and undue gravity through an undue estimation of his worth, God naturally becomes
less in His estimation. Humility, on the contrary, is not so much an emphasis upon ones own
insufficiency as it is upon Gods worth and power. God becomes greater in our eyes, according

67
as we become less in our own. In either case, there is no change in God, the psychological and
real but in us.

The first perversion of a fundamental principle of the philosophia perennis is, that man is the
measure of all things. This anthropometrism and deification of man finds concrete expression
in two principles underlying modern thought, and asserting respectively:

A. The divinization of the human intelligence.

B. The divinization of human nature.

A. The Divinization of the Human Intelligence

The divinization of human intelligence is manifested in the boasted superiority of the

human mind over being and truth.
Being and its transcendentals measure thought; this is the position of the perennial
philosophy. Thought measures being and its transcendentals; this is the position of modern
philosophy.
We turn then to show in contemporary thought mind is made the measure of being and
truth.

1. Mind is the Measure of Being

For Aristotle and his followers, mind is a tabula rasa upon which reality writes.
Nothing is in the mind except that which was first in the sense and therefore in the objective
reality. Mind is therefore not the measure of reality, so far as man is concerned. Reality does
not need to enter into a finite mind in order to exist. Even when reality does measure mind,
reality is in now way modified. Only the subjective reality is affected; not the objective. Hence
there is no real relation existing between matter and mind, or being and mind. The only real
relation exists between mind and matter, or mind and being, inasmuch as there is a causal
dependence on the latter. Intellectus humanus est mensuratus, non mensurans.

Modern thought, on the contrary, subverts this order of mind and being and makes
mind a measure instead of the thing measured. Whether it be Idealism of Empiricism, both
agree in this Kantian Copernican revolution: reality is to some extent the work of the mind.
The planets of reality revolve about the world of self. Mind is the measure of reality. But how,
on these theories, does mind measure reality? Either by the use of a priori forms native to the
mind and this is the Idealists answer; or by practical forms arising from need and utility -
and this is the Empirical answer. One is the modern interpretation of the First Critique of
Kant, the other that of the Second Critique.
Professor Ralph Barton Perry of Harvard has given the following principle as
representative of idealism: the assertion of the priority of the cognitive consciousness, the
assertion that being is dependent upon the knowing of it, may be regarded as the cardinal
principle of idealism. What therefore is real, is real only in virtue of mind. That he has

68
defined idealism well is evident from the words of the chief of the English Idealists: We
perceive, on reflection, that to be real, or even barely to exist, must be to fall within sentience.
Sentient experience, in short, is reality and what is not this is not real. We may say, in other
words, that there is no real being or fact outside of that which is commonly called psychical
experience. Feeling, thought and volition (any groups under which we class psychical
phenomenon) are all the material of existence, and there is no other material, actual or even
possible. This by no means implies pure solipsism, the author contends, for there is no such
things as a subject apart from reality. There is only one Reality, of which all things else are but
appearances. Nothing exists independently of it. This system of mind which is and which
measures reality is an Absolute but it is not God. God is only an appearance of reality. A
God can say to himself, I, as against you and me, is not in my judgment defensible as the last
and complete truth of metaphysics.
For the Empiricists of today mind, too is the measure of reality, but instead of mind a
single whole, it is take to mean the combined activities of many minds in the long course of
evolution. There is no ready-made world presented to us which we can suck in with passive
receptivity, Professor Schiller tells us. Reality is not a fact in its own right which pre-exists
the cognitive functioning. It is not something, which measures our mind independently of
any contribution, which we may bring to it. We construct reality, instead of being constructed
by it. Our needs, utilities and experience and conveniences are its determination and measure.
The a priori forms of the Idealist give way to the practical forms of action for the modern
Empiricist. Professor James goes so far as to admit that these practical forms, which measure
reality may even antedate the appearance of real objects.
Though the category of transcendental reality is now one of the foundations of our
life, yet we can speculatively imagine a state of pure experience before the hypothesis of
permanent objects behind its flux had been formed.
In just so far as reality depends upon it, mind may be said to be the measure and in
some sense to be reality. If only that is real which is in thought, and if it is meaningless to
speak of anything outside thought, then man has deified intelligence to the level of Gods
intelligence. A very happy reaction to this Protagorian philosophy has set with Neo-Realism
and Critical realism. Neither, however, has created sufficient metaphysics to merit discussion
here. At present they confine themselves almost exclusively to the problem of sensible
perception.

2. Mind as the Measure of Truth

Common-sense philosophy has always maintained that truth, while involving mind of
necessity, is not made ore created by the mind. It in no way makes truth. It discovers truth; it
does not manufacture it. Where is the ultimate source of that which it discovers? In the Mind
of God.
Truth resides, firstly, in the Divine Intelligence, which conceives eternally the ideas of
its works.
Secondly, it is found in things inasmuch as they are created in conformity with these
Eternal Ideas.

69
 Thirdly, truth oases into human knowledge when it represents things as they are. Thus
God measures truth just as things about us measure us. Thus we see that in the ontological
order, in the order of real gradation and dependence among things, as distinct from the order
of human experience, the reason why reality has ontological truth for the human mind is
because it is essentially and antecedently in accord with the Divine mind, from which it
derives its intelligibly.
Modern philosophy has some accord with this traditional notion, at least at first sight.
The source of truth for many is the other but the other is not God. It is man, not as an
individual, but as a stage in the evolutionary process. Ultimately, then, man has become the
measure and the source of truth. This is true of the generality of Pragmatic systems, and even
of those Absolutist systems, which admit evolution of mind and truth.
(a) Man is the source of truth considered from the point of view of evolution. Truth
has a biological, not a Divine source. Its source is not something transcendent to man; it
becomes as man becomes. There is no such thing as a truth with a big T. Truths make
themselves as we go. They are so many new creations that add themselves as fast as history
proceeds. Instead of being an antecedent principle that animates a process, truth is but an
abstract name for its results. The notion of a God as the source of truth is classed as a mere
idol of the tribe. Mach, Semmel, Avenarius and Professor Schiller insist particularly on this
man-made attitude of truth. Just as our organs in the course of evolution acquire a certain
fixity and stability and a certain biological immunity, so too, do our truths. They are to be
ultimately attributed to our ancestors. To speak of their source as residing outside the process
of evolution is nonsense.
The world is essentially [symbol]. It is what we make it. It is fruitless to define it by what it
originally was or by what it is apart from us. Take man from out the evolutionary series, and
truth automatically ceases to exists. Just as organic forms are born into the world, so is truth
born with man. Suppress man, and you suppress truth. For St. Thomas it is the contrary:
suppress man, truth will continue to exist; suppress angels, truth will continue to exist. But
imagine that God were suppressed, then, he concludes, truth would no longer exist. But, to
this the modern will answer, this notion of Scholastic metaphysics was Expedient for
centuries, but human experience has boiled over its limits.
(b) Less remotely, truth has been made by the experience of the individual, considered
not as developing but as developed. Human nature shapes all our questions, human
satisfaction lurks in all our answers, all our formulas have a human twist. But why have we
come to recognize truths as man-made and not something coming from God? Professor
James gives the answer: The enormously rapid multiplication of theories in these Katter days
has well-0nigh upset the notion of any one of them being a more literally objective kind of
thing than another. There are so many geometries, so many logics, so many physical and
chemical hypotheses, so many classifications, each one of them good for so much and yet not
good for anything, that the notion that even the truest formula may be a human device, and
not a literal transcript, has dawned upon us. Being devices, then, their measure will be their
utility their utility to us in handling the facts of experience. Subjective interest, our needs,
our desires, will be at every step the measure of the truths. The measure will not be
something objective; it will be that which satisfies us, or that which is expedient in the way of

70
our thinking. If an idea works, then it is true. If theological ideas prove to have a value for
concrete life, they will be true for pragmatism in the sense that they are good for so much. If
the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the world - experience shows
that it certainly does work it is true. If, therefore, at any time reason should come to prove
the fallacy of some popular conclusion, and demonstrate conclusively that it was in
contradiction to the fundamental laws of thought Pragmatism would keep it as a valuable
error or a vital lie. Man, in the philosophical sense, is thus considered as an artist, measuring
not only artificial things, but even the universe itself. The universe that we can know and use
is moulded as potters clay to the measure of the desires of man.
Modern absolutist systems do not adopt this anthropometrism with such boldness, at
least the strictly philosophical part of it. But once the subject of God is introduced, man, either
implicitly or explicitly, is made the measure. To judge or evaluate religion upon any other
grounds than those of our own needs and desires is dangerous and mistaken. But within the
sphere of Absolutism it is difficult to see wherein it can find the other by which truth can be
measured. There is only one, of which we are a part. On the common-sense view the many
may be suppressed world, men and angels yet there will still be truth; on the Absolutionist
position, if you suppress the many world, men and angels you suppress the Absolute.
Ultimately, then, on the Absolutionist position, we are the measure.

B. Divinization of Human Nature and the Humanization of God

Traditionally there had been recognized a double perfection of human nature: one
natural, the other supernatural. The natural perfection is the complete development of the
natural powers in the knowledge of the highest truth, and in union through love with the
highest good. It is not the attainment of God sub ratione Deitatis, this is the object of the
supernatural order. The supernatural perfection is effected through a gratuitous gift of grace
by which we are made partakers of the Divine nature, adopted sons of God and heirs of
heaven. The supernatural order exceeds the powers, the nature, the capacity and the merits of
the natural order. It is in the strictest sense a something not due to human nature an
indebitum. There is greater difference between the state of a soul without grace and the state of
a soul in grace, than a soul in grace on this earth and a soul enjoying the glory of heaven.
Grace is such a precious gift that is worth more than all creation. As we cannot know the
intimate nature of Michael Angelo by looking at his statue of Moses, so, too, we cannot know
the intimate nature of God by regarding His works the visible universe. But thanks to this
participation of the Divine nature, through the gratuitous gift of God, our nature becomes in
an analogical sense deified, as St. Augustine has put it: God became man in order that man
might become God.
Now, this sharp distinction between the natural and the supernatural order, between
knowledge by reason and knowledge by infused faith, between the natural perfection of our
nature and the supernatural perfection through grace, has been lost sight of the modern
philosophy. The result has been that what really is a gift of God is now looked upon as natural
to man, so that man, attributing to himself that Divine quality which makes him a partaker of
the Divine nature, has divinized himself to just that extent.

71
 According to the modern doctrines the mystical state is not die to any infusion of
grave. It is properly a psychological state, our soul being mysteriously one with a larger soul
whose instruments we are. Dean Inge rightly insists that to know God intimately we must
become partakers of the Divine nature but the source of this participation he attributes not to
God, but to the Divine spark already within us. But though we are made in the image of
God, our likeness to Him only exists potentially. The Divine spark already shines within us,
but it has to be searched for in the innermost depths of our personality, and its light diffused
over its whole being. The foundation of mystical states being considered as natural and
psychological, has given some the privilege to dispense with the Author of grace. The
indwelling Christ constituted the central doctrine of St. Paul, and can be apprehended and
experienced by each one of us now without any historical difficulties, without any reference
even to the historical Jesus.
This intimate participation by the human nature in the Divine nature is yet more fully
revealed in the various philosophies of Becoming in which man becomes identified with the
life impulse, which is God, or with the elan vital, or becomes continuous with God by a
mystical interpenetration. God is not apart from man, but there is a presence of one in and
through the other. The Divine Imaginal reflects itself in us as well as in Him; for He, like us,
is only a child of the Divine Imaginal. God is above us, it is true, but not far above; He is just
one stage above the stage yet evolved, and we shall in a future day attain the dignity and the
level He now possesses.

Modern philosophy has divinized the power of the human intelligence, making it
the measure of Being and its transcendentals; it has also divinized the mode of this knowledge
by making it like unto Gods. It has divinized human nature by confusing a gift with a claim-
that is, by turning the gift of grace and participation in the Divine nature into a claim and a
debitum to human nature, and a natural consequence of its psychological structure.
This divinization of man has for its counterpart. As we hinted in the beginning of this
chapter, the humanization of God. If we increase, God decreases in our estimation. Man has
made himself like unto God; it now remains for God to be made like unto man by a
misunderstanding if His nature. This is the negative side of the spirit of modern philosophy. It
is that of the humanization of God.
This aspect of modern philosophy is best evidenced in the novel and original concept
of religion. For traditional philosophy and theology, religion is a term, which has meaning
only if a God or gods exist. This notion is not proper to Christianity; paganism implied it and
Cicero defined it. There could no more be religion without God than there could be physics
without bodies, or mathematics without numbers. The creature was considered as related to
God as science to its object. The object is not relative to the science; it can exist without a
science. Life would exist whether biology ever existed or not. So, too, God can exist without
us. As the rays of the sun cease with the setting off the sun, so would our existence cease
without the conservation of God. We are, therefore, dependent on God. This dependence
begets religion. Religion is intelligible only in function of a God. Thus St. Thomas, quoting
Cicero and St. Augustine, the pagan and the Christian, states religion to be a relation to God,
to whom we are bound as to an unfailing principle.

72
 But this notion has been changed. The idea of dependence on a Supreme Being has been
lost. Instead of being rays that survive in virtue of our own sufficiency. Today, God is not
conceived as the starting-point of religion; rather religion is the starting-point. Religion first,
God afterwards. George Fonsegrive in his LEvolution des Idees dans la France contemporaine
characterizes this changed attitude in these words: Nos contemporains paraissent aller de la
religion a Dieu plutot que Dieu a la religion. Professor Hoernle in his study on contemporary
metaphysics notes also that this new notion of the relation between God and religion is one of
the characteristics of contemporary thought. A German historian has been so struck by it as to
give it special mention as a trait of modern thought.

The modern conception of the relationship between God and religion can be
understood only in the light of the new definition of religion. To retain the term religion in
the traditional sense, and still to maintain that we proceed from religion to God, would result
in confusion worse confounded. Religion has lost the meaning, which it has always
possessed. Today it means a relation as of old, but not necessarily with God. God is no
longer conceived as the starting-point of religion; rather, it is man. Man is the center around
which religion, revolve, and not God. We are the highest examples of individuals, and
therefore the solution of all riddles is to be found within us. Religion is the pure embodiment
of the practical motive that is, highly interested desire for a plan of action which will secure
the maximum good fortune from the environment as a whole. Religion is a projection in the
roaring loom of time of a concentration or unified complex of psychical values. The term
god or God is left entirely out of consideration; the source of the maximum goodness is
represented as the environment as a whole. Professor James has given a similar definition:
Religion is the feelings, acts and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they
apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine. Lest we
should be tempted to think that God is necessary for religion, and its starting-point, James
goes on to explain what he means by the divine. We must interpret the term divine very
broadly, as denoting the object that is god-like whether it be a concrete deity or not.

Whether God exists or not, is not important to the nature of religion. All the relations
that religion implies may be found within man himself. The explanation which Mr. Bertrand
Russell gives of it, and for which he won much praise from his contemporaries, is as follows:
Religion consists in the transfer from the life of the finite self to that of the infinite, both of -
which are to be found in man. This transition comes when all personal will seems to cease
and the soul feels itself in passive submission to the universe. After passionate struggle for
some particular good, there comes some inward or outward necessity to abandon the pursuit
of the object which has absorbed all our desire, and no other desire is ready to replace the one
that has been relinquished. Hence arises a state of suspension in the will, when the soul no
longer seeks to impose itself upon the world, but is open to every impression that comes to it
from the world. Thus from the moment of self-surrender, which to the finite self appears like
death, new life begins with a larger vision, a new happiness and wider hopes.
But is God required in order that the new infinite life be born in us? Mr. Russell
answers in the negative: To some men the belief in an all-wise God to whom submission is a

73
duty may make the surrender easier. But it is not in its essence dependent upon this belief
or upon any other.
Professor Pringle-Pattison in a commentary on this view of religion remarks: Thus man
creates God, all-powerful and all-good, the mystic unity of what is and what should be. This
is no exaggeration of the position of Mr. Russell; for the latter himself has told us: Thus man
worships at the shrine his own hands have built.
Two entirely different notions of religion are bound to arise according as we take our
point of departure from God or from man. Common-sense philosophy and theology made
God the term of the relations of creatures to Him. Our very being, the conservation of our
being all is from Him. In the intellectual life the knowledge of certain conclusions,
engendered by certain principles, would disappear if we forgot the principles, because it is
these principles, which are the superior cause, not only of the becoming but also of the being
of the effect. In a still deeper way do we depend upon God Religion, then, on the traditional
notion, becomes the sum of mans duties to God either in the natural or in the supernatural
order. Religion is primarily and essentially mans service of God.

Contemporary thought, on the contrary, making religion start with self, makes it sum
of Gods duties to man. If God is the source or the ratio of religion, then creatures are His
servants; if self be the source of religion, then God is the servant of men.

If God is mere appearance in the Absolute, and will eventually be lost in it; if finite
selves are eternal, and have a being independent of God; if God is a mere child of the
Imaginal, a creation of our desire, a being who learns from us how to be more effectively
faithful to His own greater tasks and whose very character depends on our acts, a mere
primus inter pares, without foresight of good and evil, facing the blackness of the unknown
and the blind joys and confusions of life; if God is merely the universe with a nisus towards
deity; if He is the work of our conscience and we worship at the shrine our own hands have
built; if God is the sum of all consciousness and appears at the term of evolution and not at
its beginning; if He is so weak that He Draws strength and increase of being from us, and
owes His being to the pre-existing finites; if we must change our idea of God with every new
scientific advance and change of government; if His nature is sustained by us; if He is a mere
President of a Cosmic Commonwealth then all that common-sense had regarded as holy
and sacred is vain and foolish, and God, instead of being the Lord and Creator of the
Universe, the Supreme Goodness, Beauty and Truth, is merely the servant of man and
religion, whose real end is to express the dependence of man on God, now becomes the
dependence of God on man, whether God be real or a mere creation of our conscience. We
are no longer the mere puppets of God, as Dr. McGiffert reminds us, but rather God-
makers; hence all adoration is looked upon as childish and unworthy of God who can take
delight in toyshop furniture, tapers and tinsel costume and mumbling and mummery and
finding His glory enhanced thereby seems intolerably bald and chalky and bleak. WE are
no longer the subject of God, but His intimate partner. It is, I believe, felt that we help
to sustain the nature of God. Man and God are business partners sharing one anothers losses
and profits. This whole modern conception is concisely summed up in the following sentence,

74
which represents the priority of man over God in this business, of which God is really the
silent partner: We and God have business with each other: To just this extent, God is
humanized and reduced to the level of a mere man who enjoys priority, not in virtue of His
intrinsic nature but in virtue of convention or empty title. Modern theology, taking over the
philosophical notion of religion as the sum of Gods duties to man, has worked it out in the
Christian doctrines of the Incarnation and Redemption. Though such a discussion is outside
the scope of this work, we can note it as another token of the humanization of God. The
Incarnation is represented solely and exclusively as the evolution of Gods love for man, of
which the act of Redemption is the triumph. There is no question of justice not genuine
justification involved. Man has no debt, which he owes to God. The whole idea may be
represented by picturing a man sitting calmly on the wharf of a great sea. Suddenly up from
behind him there rushes a friend who throws himself into the water and is drowned, just to
convince the man on the wharf that he loved him. Such is the modern notion of the
Incarnation and Redemption, viz. God throwing Himself into the sea of suffering and
hardship to convince man of His love. The whole scene would have much more reason if the
man on the wharf really fell into the water and his friend came to save him from drowning by
giving up His own life and this is the traditional notion.
To put the situation bluntly, religion must be separated from the other-worldly pull of
the traditional theologies and be sanely grounded in the outlook of modern knowledge. There
is no need for a rabid antitheism. The truth is, rather, that mankind is outgrowing theism in a
gentle and steady way until it ceases to have any clear meaning A humanists religion can
admit no cunning division into the things which are Gods and the things which are Caesars.
It would be quite as correct, then, to say that the highest term of religion is humanity. And
that Christianity is the religion of humanity. The only possible service of God must consist
in the service of men.
Such is the spirit of modern philosophy divinization of man and humanization of
God. Stressing his own sufficiency, making himself the measure of Being and Truth,
attributing to himself a divine knowledge and a participated Divine nature, man has pulled
down God from the heavens and reduced Him to a mere shadow of Himself. In stressing his
own insufficiency John the Baptist stressed for his own mind the greatness of God. In stressing
his own sufficiency, the modern philosopher stresses for his own mind the poverty of God. He
takes an irreligious humanity as a religion. It is actually much more difficult to worship a
humanity that is not worshipping. A self-contained and self-centered humanity would chill us
in the same way as a self-contained and self-centered human being. For the spiritual hungers
of humanity are never merely hungers for humanity The child in the field, if left entirely to
himself, does not wish to find the perfect parish ruled over by the perfect parish council. The
child in the field wants to find fairly land; and that type of fancy must either be satisfied or
thwarted, but it cannot be turned into something totally different In other words, it is
impossible to turn all eyes of that mutual admiration society inwards. Putting the whole
philosophy in a formula, which expresses the perversion of the traditional notions, we have
the following: -
Mind is confused with Being.
Grace is confused with Nature.

75
 Man is confused with God.
Or, in one simple formula contrasted with the traditional notion, it may read:
We take Gods measure God takes our measure.
There is an alteration in the seat of authority. It is the transfer of the seat of authority
from God to man, and a transfer of the measure from God to man. The earth of things, long
thrown into the shadow by the glories of the upper ether, must resume its rights.
In the beginning God made man to His own image and likeness.

Instaurare Omnia in homine is the motto of contemporary thought with Swinburne

it sings, Glory to man in the highest; with Mr. Wells it pleads the cause of the higher man
of today, and predicts the day when men will be like Gods; it insists that man must have a
vote in the councils of the world. With Mr. Fawcett it says that Each sentient is a prospective
Demiurge. The historic mission which it fulfills is to prepare the advent of a humanity
sitting in the visible world as in the temple of God, and showing itself as it were God Himself.
It is this reign which it announces as the prophets announced the kingdom of God. Yet there
are many who, not lacking either in wisdom or penetration, find such a kingdom of God no
more than a travesty, and who, through their love if truth, cannot listen to these prophets. The
wisdom of the ages and the epitome of our experience is given in the simple truth understood
by the simple and forgotten by many a philosopher, that we are not God-makers but God-
made.

76
2. ERRONEOUS PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEMS

Source: The Syllabus of Errors by St. Pius X.

I. PANTHEISM, NATURALISM AND ABSOLUTE RATIONALISM

1. There exists no Supreme, all-wise, all-provident Divine Being, distinct from the
universe, and God is identical with the nature of things, and is, therefore, subject to
changes. In effect, God is produced in man and in the world, and all things are God
and have the very substance of God, and God is one and the same thing with the
world, and, therefore, spirit with matter, necessity with liberty, good with evil, justice
with injustice. -- Allocution "Maxima quidem," June 9, 1862.

2. All action of God upon man and the world is to be denied. -- Ibid.

3. Human reason, without any reference whatsoever to God, is the sole arbiter of truth
and falsehood, and of good and evil; it is law to itself, and suffices, by its natural
force, to secure the welfare of men and of nations. -- Ibid.

4. All the truths of religion proceed from the innate strength of human reason; hence
reason is the ultimate standard by which man can and ought to arrive at the knowledge
of all truths of every kind. -- Ibid. and Encyclical "Qui pluribus," Nov. 9, 1846, etc.

5. Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to a continual and indefinite

progress, corresponding with the advancement of human reason. -- Ibid.

6. The faith of Christ is in opposition to human reason and divine revelation not only
is not useful, but is even hurtful to the perfection of man. -- Ibid.

7. The prophecies and miracles set forth and recorded in the Sacred Scriptures are the
fiction of poets, and the mysteries of the Christian faith the result of philosophical
investigations. In the books of the Old and the New Testament there are contained
mythical inventions, and Jesus Christ is Himself a myth.

II. MODERATE RATIONALISM

8. As human reason is placed on a level with religion itself, so theological must be

treated in the same manner as philosophical sciences. -- Allocution "Singulari
quadam," Dec. 9, 1854.

9. All the dogmas of the Christian religion are indiscriminately the object of natural
science or philosophy, and human reason, enlightened solely in an historical way, is

77
able, by its own natural strength and principles, to attain to the true science of even the
most abstruse dogmas; provided only that such dogmas be proposed to reason itself as
its object. -- Letters to the Archbishop of Munich, "Gravissimas inter," Dec. 11, 1862,
and "Tuas libenter," Dec. 21, 1863.

10. As the philosopher is one thing, and philosophy another, so it is the right and duty
of the philosopher to subject himself to the authority which he shall have proved to be
true; but philosophy neither can nor ought to submit to any such authority. -- Ibid.,
Dec. 11, 1862.

11. The Church not only ought never to pass judgment on philosophy, but ought to
tolerate the errors of philosophy, leaving it to correct itself. -- Ibid., Dec. 21, 1863.

12. The decrees of the Apostolic See and of the Roman congregations impede the true
progress of science. -- Ibid.

13. The method and principles by which the old scholastic doctors cultivated theology
are no longer suitable to the demands of our times and to the progress of the sciences.
-- Ibid.

14. Philosophy is to be treated without taking any account of supernatural revelation. -

- Ibid.

III. INDIFFERENTISM, LATITUDINARIANISM

15. Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light
of reason, he shall consider true. -- Allocution "Maxima quidem," June 9, 1862;
Damnatio "Multiplices inter," June 10, 1851.

16. Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal
salvation, and arrive at eternal salvation. -- Encyclical "Qui pluribus," Nov. 9, 1846.

17. Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are
not at all in the true Church of Christ. -- Encyclical "Quanto conficiamur," Aug. 10,
1863, etc.

18. Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian
religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church. --
Encyclical "Noscitis," Dec. 8, 1849.

78
CHAPTER THREE: THE MODERN SUPERSTITIONS

Source: Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Philosophies at War

1. The Superstition of Progress

The superstition of Progress asserts itself in some such fashion as this in our classrooms,
best-sellers and high-class journals: Man is naturally good and indefinitely perfectible, and
thanks to great cosmic floods of evolution will be swept forward and forward until he becomes a
kind of a god. Goodness increases with time, while evil and error decline. History represents the
gradual but steady advance of man up the hill of the more abundant and happy life. No special
institutions, no moral discipline, no Divine grace are necessary for the progress of man; for
progress is automatic, due to the free play of natural forces and the operation of freedom in a
world released from the superstition of religion. Because evil and sin are only vestigial remnants
from the bestial past, evolution and science and education will finally eradicate them.
This superstition of Progress is false because it completely ignores the goal and purpose
of progress. The modern world confuses motion with progress: instead, of working toward an
ideal, it changes the ideal and calls it progress. If every time an artist looked up he saw a
different person sitting for the portrait, how would he ever know he was making any progress in
painting? As Chesterton said: "There is one thing that never makes any progress and that is the
idea of progress." Progress in an indefinite future, but not beyond history, makes present moral
lives meaningless and endows them with no other value than that of so many sticks to keep the
cosmic bonfire blazing for the next generation. When the only kind of happiness men can enjoy
is one, which they celebrate in the distant future on the graves of their ancestors, then indeed
their happiness is the happiness of gravediggers in the midst of a pestilence. As Berdyaev so well
expressed it: "Both from the religious and ethical points of view this positivist conception of
progress is inadmissible, because by its very nature it excludes a solution to the tragic torments,
conflicts and contradictions of life valid for all mankind, for all those generations who have lived
and suffered. For it deliberately asserts that nothing but death and the grave awaits the vast
majority of mankind and the endless succession of human generations throughout the ages,
because they have lived in a tortured and imperfect state torn asunder by contradictions. But
somewhere on the peaks of historical destiny, on the ruins of preceding generations, there shall
appear the fortunate race of men reserved for the bliss and perfection of integral life. All the
generations that have gone before are but the means to this blessed life, to this blissful generation
of the elect as yet unborn.... Thus the religion of progress regards all the generations and epochs
that have been as devoid of intrinsic value, purpose or insignificance, as the mere means and
instruments to the ultimate goal." It is this fundamental moral contradiction that invalidates the
doctrine of progress, turning it into a religion of death instead of resurrection and eternal life.
There is no valid ground for degrading those generations whose lot has been cast among pain and
imperfection beneath that whose pre-eminence has been ordained in blessedness and joy. No
future perfection can expiate the sufferings of past generations. Such a sacrifice of all human
destinies to the messianic consummation of the favored race can only revolt man's moral and

79
religious conscience. A religion of progress based on this apotheosis of a future fortunate
generation is without compassion for either present or past; it addresses itself with infinite
optimism to the future, with infinite pessimism to the past. It is profoundly hostile to the
Christian expectation of resurrection for all mankind, for all the dead, fathers and forefathers.
"This Christian idea rests on the hope of an end to historical tragedy and contradiction valid for
all human generations, and of resurrection in eternal life for all who have ever lived. But the
nineteenth-century conception of progress admits to the messianic consummation only that
unborn generation of the elect to which all preceding generations have made their sacrifice. Such
a consummation, celebrated by the future elect among the graves of their ancestors, can hardly
rally our enthusiasm for the religion of progress. Any such enthusiasm would be base and
inappropriate." *

The doctrine of Progress confuses mechanical advancement with moral betterment. There
is no denying the fact that there has been great progress in the material order, but mechanical
development does not necessarily imply moral development. Progress in "things" is not
necessarily progress in "persons." Planes may go faster, but man does not become happier.
Progress in medicine is not necessarily progress in ethics, and mastery over disease is not
necessarily mastery over sin. Conquest of nature does not mean conquest of selfishness.
Scientific advancement is no guarantee of moral betterment. Greater power over nature can
increase our potentiality for evil. Put the forces of evil in charge of radio, the press and the new
inventions and you corrupt or destroy a nation. Mechanics is one thing, freedom is quite another.
Moral optimism, based on mechanical progress and the assumption of the natural goodness of
man, understands neither the heights to which man can climb through the grace of God, nor the
depths to which he can fall through the abandonment of a Divine life purchased through a cross.
The conquest of nature does not parallel our conquest of evil. We are equipped like giants to
subdue the environment of the air and the sea and the bowels of the earth, but we are as weak as
pigmies for the conquest of ourselves. The greater power which science has put into man's hands
can, unless his will is right, increase his potentiality for evil, as the present chaos so well bears
witness. Time does not always operate in favor of human betterment; because a man is sick, time
does not necessarily make him better. Unless evil is corrected, time operates in favor of disease,
decay and death.
The superstition of Progress denies human responsibility. When human goodness is
attributed to automatic laws of nature, but never to good will; when evil is explained in terms of
environment, heredity, bad milk, insufficient playgrounds and those naughty ductless glands, but
never to a perverse order, then the world is most in danger of losing freedom when it talks about
it. Someone was recently horrified at the immorality of young girls between the ages of fifteen
and seventeen and suggested that the solution to this problem was to "build more dance halls
where they sold soft drinks." If we attribute evil to external circumstances, and believe that we
can cultivate virtue by a swing band and soda pop, we will have become a nation where there is
no freedom because there is no responsibility. Evil is not in the absence of opportunities for
amusement. Evil is in the will, and in the heart and in the decisions of each and every one of us.
Youth can be vicious with dance halls; it can be virtuous without them, but youth will never be
good unless its will is ordered to the moral law of the all holy God. The confusion of the idea of
progress with the idea of evolution, kills the value of intention and the fruits of high resolves.
True progress is ethically and not cosmically conditioned; it depends not on the refinement of
luxuries, but in their deliberate control through human intention. There is really therefore only

80
one true progress in the world and that consists in the diminution of the traces of original sin.
Historical facts do not support the Utopian illusion that goodness increases with time. What
happens in reality is something quite different. Evil grows along with the good. The history of
the world is rather like a tension between good and evil than an escalator, which keeps going
upwards. "The kingdom of heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seed in his field. But
while men were asleep, his enemy came and over sowed cockle among the wheat and went his
way. And when the blade sprang up and had brought forth fruit, then appeared also the cockle.
And the servants of the good man of the house coming said to him, 'Sir, didst thou not sow good
seed in thy field? Whence then hath it cockle?' And he said to them, 'An enemy hath done this.'
And the servants said to him, 'Wilt thou that we go and gather it up?' And he said, 'No, lest
perhaps gathering up the cockle, you root up the wheat also together with it. Suffer both to grow
until the harvest, and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers: gather up first the cockle
and bind it into bundles to burn, but the wheat gather ye into my barn' " (Matthew 13: 24-30).
Nothing better proves the fallacy of progress than to recall the interval between modern wars. It
has been a common fashion for the Utopians to explain wars away as "falls in the evolutionary
process," or as "necessary incidents in the evolution from savagery to civilization," or as
"survivals of the animal in civilized man." But history does not prove we are making progress;
instead of evolving from savagery to civilization, we seem to be devolving from civilization to
savagery. The interval between the Napoleonic war and the Franco-Prussian war was fifty-five
years; the interval between the Franco- Prussian war and the first World War was forty-three
years; and the interval between the first World War and this one was twenty-one years. Fifty-
five, forty-three, twenty-one yearsand each war more destructive than the former, and at a time
when man materially had more to make for happiness than any other period of history. Is that
progress? Shall we not learn from our modem history its record that man, once he forgets his
God, has also an increasing capacity for evil?
The sad and tragic fact is that modern man under sufficient stress, and even amidst
comforts spiced with lust, will do deeds of evil as terrible as anyone recorded in history.
Barbarism is not behind us; it is beneath us. And it can emerge at any moment unless our wills,
aided by the grace of God, repress it. The modern superstition of man's indefinite perfectibility,
without God's sustaining graces, forgets the historical data before our eyes, that history is
creating ever-increasing possibilities for chaos and wars. Our mechanical progress in moving
quickly can go hand in hand with power to do more evil. Let no one deny it: our scientific
progress has outstripped our moral progress. We are a more comfortable people than our
ancestors, but are we necessarily a happier people? The myth of necessary progress is exploded.
But that is no reason why the Liberals who were so optimistic about Progress, like Bertrand
Russell, should now fall into a hellish despair. Because the evil in the world does not evolve
right does not mean there is no right. It only means that we have to put the evil right, and in order
to do this we may have to learn the lesson of a cross and the toil of Gethsemane. Neither is the
solution to be found among those Fascist intelligentsia who appeal to the authority of H. G.
Wells and re quote in the darkness of their souls: "Men are borne along through space and time
regardless of themselves, as if to the awakening greatness of Men." The answer is somewhere
else. Maybe we had better get back again to God.

81
2. The Superstition of Scientism

By the superstition of Scientism we do not mean science, but rather that particular abuse
of it which affirms that the scientific method is, as John Dewey put it, "The sole authentic mode
of revelation." For the modem sensate mind, to understand is to measure; to know is to count.
The senses are the only sources of knowledge. Hence any knowledge derived from any source
other than counting and experimentation is illusory. Sensible knowledge is the final arbiter of
experience. Science says "this," or science says "that," is the last word to be said on any subject.
Hence there is no place for values, tradition, metaphysics, revelation, faith, authority, or
theology. God has no purposes in the universe; first of all because there is no God, and secondly
because there are no purposes.
Scientism does not say we ignore purposes in our laboratory, but rather we eliminate
purposes from the universe. The greatest obstacle to progress, according to Dewey, is the
survival of old institutions such as the Church, and the best guarantee of freedom in the world is
the spread of the scientific method. Wherever there is science there is freedom, he declares. Or,
as Russell puts it, wherever there is science there is culture. Such is the superstition of Scientism.
Science is a very valid and necessary way of knowing, but only of knowing those things,
which are subject to experimentation and to the methods of a laboratory. The great values of life
such as justice, truth, and charity are beyond such experimentation. No one yet has ever been
able to put a mother's love into a test tube, and yet who will deny its reality. Nor can we throw a
man into a caldron to boil to see if he gives forth the unmistakable green fumes of envy and
jealousy. Once the modem mind denied that man was a creature made in the image and likeness
of God, it naturally fell into the error of saying that man was made in the image and likeness of
the beast. Man then ceased to be studied theologically or philosophically, and began to be
studied with the other sciences of nature, biology, physiology and physics. But this identification
of man with nature deprived man of all value. Once you make man a cog in a vast astronomical
machine, or a molecule in a spatio-temporal continuum, or an enlarged cell of some original
protoplasmic stuff, you deny that man has a right to be treated differently than anything in
nature. But, if man is not different from nature, then what value has man? If there is no specific
difference between a man and a horse, then why not yoke man to the plow of Nazism or the
tractor of Marxian Socialism, or make him an instrument of the State as the Fascist intelligentsia
teaches today.
The answer to this superstition of Scientism, which makes man meaningless by making
him one with nature, is not in the repudiation of science but in the recognition that there are
higher values beyond the ken of science. Professor Hocking, of Harvard University, speaking of
Scientism says, "This desiccated picture of the world is a damnable liefor values are there;
values are among the inescapable facts of the worldand whoever disseminates this death's-
head world-view in the schools and colleges of this era any other land is disseminating falsehood
with the brow-beaten connivance of a whole herd of intellectual sheep, and of culpable guardians
of the young. . . . This is one of the insights with which the new era of History begins." *
Scientism has ruined higher education in the United States by prostrating itself before the
god of counting, and by assuming that anyone who has counted something that has never been
counted before is a learned man. It makes no difference what you count, but in the name of
heaven, count! A certain western university has awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree for a
thesis on the "Microbic Content of Cotton Undershirts." A mid-western university has counted
the ways of washing dishes; and some eastern universities have counted the infinitives in

82
Augustine, the datives in Ovid, and the four ways of cooking ham; while another counted the
"psychological reactions of the post-rotational eye-movement of squabs." These subjects seem
amusing when extracted from the context of universities, but the universities unfortunately take
them seriously. The result is we are giving our students theories, opinions and facts, which would
be out of date before the ink on the diploma fades; but we are not equipping them for life by
proposing its high purposes. In the madness of specialization we have come to know more and
more about less and less, but in the meantime we have lost ourselves in the maze of numbers.
Fed with huge quantities of undigested facts, our judgment has become hampered and we have
only unrelated bits of information instead of wisdom, which alone is true knowledge. Go into
any parochial school in the United States, take out a child in the first or second grade and ask
him: "Who made you?" "What is the purpose of life?" "Are you different from an animal?" Any
such child aged seven or eight could answer the question of the purpose of life. But ask a Ph.D.
graduate, who has counted the microbes on cotton undershirts, why he is here or where he is
going; he could not tell you.
He would not have a five-cent-gadget in his house five minutes without knowing its
purpose, but he would live ten, twenty or sixty years without knowing why he is here, or where
he is going. What is the use of living unless we know the purpose of being a man? It is not true,
as is so often asserted, that modem youth is revolutionary because he has lacked sufficient
economic advantages. Never in the history of the world did youth have so many advantages. The
modem youth is revolutionary because he has no purpose in life and hence doubts the
worthwhileness of living amidst plenty. Anything that loses its purpose becomes revolutionary.
When a boiler loses its purpose it explodes; when a man loses his purpose he revolts. Is it true, as
Dr. Dewey has said, that the use of the scientific method is the guarantee of freedom? What
country, before this world war began, was generally recognized as the most advanced in the
scientific method? To what nation of the world did our American universities look as the
paragon of scientific perfection, and from which did they draw their greatest scientific
inspiration? It was from Germany. And yet there is no country in the world where freedom is
more universally suppressed. Is it true, as a Mr. Russell affirms, that if you spread science you
spread culture? We gave Japan science. But will these philosophers of the superstition of
Scientism dare assert that culture went with it? The scientific method did not bring to a benighted
people an increase of tolerance and kindness and brotherhood. They have proven what we ought
to recognize; namely, that a high degree of scientific advancement can exist with utter and
absolute moral depravity.
We are paying the penalty for divorcing our science from God. Nature, which science
studies, belongs to God, and when man turns against God nature or science turns against man.
Francis Thompson beautifully spoke of this when he found that the whole world turned against
him because he would not answer the call of God:
I tempted all His servitors, but to find My own betrayal in their constancy. In faith to Him
their fickleness to me, their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.
That is the true story: Nature will be false to anyone who is untrue to its Maker. I am free to
break the law of gravitation but if I do, the law breaks me. The law still stands. I am free to
ignore God the Creator of nature, but if I do, nature will wreck me. For years science has been
discovering the wonders of nature, finding in the tiny atom a miniature of the great solar system.
But, instead of glorifying God for the order, law, and harmony they found in His universe,
scientists vainly assumed that because they discovered the laws they were the authors of the
Book of Nature, instead of only its proofreaders.

83
 Tearing nature away from God, nature now turned against man; refusing to serve God,
nature refused to serve man. The result is that science, which was supposed to be our servant is
now our master. Why do millions in the world shrink in terror from a machine in the air? Why
does man use his technique to destroy man? Why do children crouch in dread and mothers dig
like moles into the bowels of the earth as bombs fall from the skies, as all hell is let loose, if it is
not because something has gotten out of our control?
Science has become a source of destruction, because we refused to use it as a means for
lifting us to God. It is not that God has punished man for his ingratitude to nature; it is rather that
nature, in unconscious loyalty, has punished man for his disloyalty. No creature can be used for
the happiness of man, which has alienated itself from the service to its Creator. Something else
that we have forgotten in our glorification of science as the only true knowledge, is that science
itself has no morality. An isosceles triangle for example is no more moral than a square; vitamins
may be more hygienic than the pointer-readings, but they are not more ethical. The morality of
science is derived from the purpose for which it is used. But in denying all purposes in life, we
have made science its own justification. If there is no higher knowledge than science, how will
we know what is good or bad? Hitler, using science, spreads tyranny on a vast scale and
suppresses human rights and liberties through new weapons which science puts into his hands.
How shall we say he is unmoral and we, who use science to defend liberties, are moral, unless
there be a standard outside of both? Cannot we see that by making science an ultimate, we have
deprived ourselves of a criterion by which to judge our cause from theirs?
Divorce the products of science from the higher objectives of human life, which reason
and faith reveal to us, and you have a mad world wherein "humanity preys upon itself like
monsters of the deep."

3. The Superstition of Relativism

The superstition of Relativism tells us there is no distinction between truth and error,
right and wrong; everything depends upon one's point of view. All values are relative and depend
entirely upon the way people live in any generation. If in the twentieth-century they live
monogamously, then monogamy is right; if in the future, they live polygamous, then polygamy is
right. Whatever the majority decides is right, and a Gallup Poll is the best way to find it out.
When expedient, moral conventions can be accepted; when a hindrance, they can be rejected.
There are no objective moral standards; no absolute distinction between good and evil. Everyone
is his own lawgiver; everyone is his own judge. Tolerance is the greatest virtue and tolerance
means indifference to truth and error, right and wrong. Such is Relativism. The superstition of
Relativism, or the notion that there is no absolute distinction between right and wrong, stems in
this country from the philosophy of Pragmatism. This philosophy denied that God was an
Absolute; it judged truth neither by its consistency, nor its correspondence with reality, but by its
utility. In the words of one of its best known exponents: Truth is to be judged by its "cash value
in terms of a particular experience." "The gods we stand by are the gods we need and can use."
"The 'true' to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of thinking, just as the 'right' is
only the expedient in the way of our behaving, expedient in almost any fashion. In other words,
whatever succeeds is right." This particular philosophy was boom of an excessive adoration of
the scientific method.
Science evolved practical prescriptions for dealing with particular problems; when the
practical problems changed, the prescription changed. This method was practical in dealing with

84
phenomena, but the philosopher enlarged it to apply to all truth. Nothing was considered
immutable or changeable. Everything was relative to a point of view. Not being able to apply his
method to religion and morals, instead of acknowledging the insufficiency of his method, the
pragmatist denied the value of religion and morals. The pragmatists thus assume that the spiritual
and moral needs of man and a nation needed no other foundation than that of the utilitarian
activities associated with earning a living. Ideas thus were regarded as instruments of power.
These ideasthat there is no absolute distinction between truth and error, right and wrong, that
morality is determined by the subjective outlook of every individual and is devoid of all
objective standards,are taught in many secular colleges and universities in the United States. A
distinguished professor in a mid-western university revealed that there was not a single student in
his class who could give a rational justification for democracy. The students justified democracy
solely on the grounds of expediency and the fact that it had the greatest power; none saw any
intrinsic value in democracy. Very few saw the evil implications in a morality of self-advantage,
and some who did were reluctant to abandon it in a world where success was the measure of
greatness. It took a great catastrophe to bring home its falsity. And this is how it happened. What
moral standards are the Japs violating, if the criterion of truth and righteousness is expediency?
Why do we say that Japan has violated the conscience of the world, if the conscience- of the
world has no other measure than the useful? Incidentally, where was this moral conscience of the
world before the war began? How shall the Tightness of our cause be distinguished from the
Tightness of our enemies, if there is no objective standard outside of both? If there is no right
and wrong, independent of the whims of individuals, how shall we defend ourselves against
despotism? The ultimate bulwark of democracy is in the recognition of moral standards, so
absolute that citizens are willing in the end, if need be, to give everythingeven lifeto
maintain them. If there is no objective distinction between right and wrong, how can Hitler be
wrong? How can he be right? Our journalists, our educators, our movies, our best sellers, our
forums, and even some of the Churches have been sniping away for years at the moral law,
knocking off first its application to politics and economics, and then to the family, then the
individual. They have sneered at and ridiculed those who still held on to the moral law, calling
them "reactionary," "behind the times," and labelling purity and truthfulness as "bourgeois
virtues" in the language of Marx. They now say that all we need do about evil is to forget it, and
that faith and morality can be brought back into civilization as one might buy a commodity at a
drugstore. We have an active barbarism to defeat on the outside, and we have a passive
barbarism from within; the first is openly violent, the second is sinister and secretive. The first
endangers our shores, the second pollutes our souls the first would take away external liberties
such as freedom of speech and press, and the second would take away internal liberty, or the
right to call our soul our own. The first makes us stronger by the mere fact that we resist; the
second makes us weaker by the mere fact that like a cancer we are blind to its dangers. We could
defeat the enemy on the outside, and still completely collapse from the inside. We could win the
war and lose peace. "Fear ye not them that kill the body and are not able to kill the soul: but
rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell" (Mt. 10: 28).
When Colin Kelly as a selfless pilot sank the first Japship of this war and in doing so lost
his life; when Edward O'Hara shot down the first Jap plane; when Dick Fleming made himself
the first human torpedo; when Daniel O'Callaghan became the first Admiral to go down fighting
on the bridge of the San Francisco; when Mike Moran became the first naval officer to sink six
Jap ships in single combat; when Commander Shea became the first fighting man whose last
letter to his son became a famous American testament on patriotism ; when the five Sullivans

85
became the first American family of boys to be snuffed out in this war; these men had no
"opinion" about America's cause; they did not believe that the righteousness of the stars and
stripes depended upon this subjective outlook. They believed in an absolute distinction between
right and wrong, our cause and our enemy; in fact, so much did they believe in it that life was
secondary to that cause. And while these and millions of men in our armed forces believe in such
an absolute distinction between right and wrong, our Fascist intelligentsia are telling us: "right
and wrong are relative to expediency; it all depends upon your point of view." Nonsense! It does
not! Our cause is right! It is right before God! It is right under God! And in God's name we will
defend it!

4. The Superstition of Materialism

The superstition of Materialism affirms that man has no soul, that there is no future life,
and that man has no other destiny than that of the animals. Being devoid of spirit man may best
be described not as a creature made to the image and likeness of God but as a "psychoanalytical
bag with physiological libido," or a "stimulus response mechanism." Since there is no future life,
it follows that the good life consists in material improvement; that civilization and culture vary in
direct ratio with wealth and the two chickens in every pot; that want is the greatest cause of
misery and unhappiness, and that abundance is the surest guarantee of peace and happiness.
Goodness, truth, honor, and beauty are natural by-products of the increase of national dividends.
The end of life is the acquisition of money, the ceaseless enjoyment of pleasure, and the
avoidance of sacrifice. Such is the superstition of Materialism. It simply is not true that peace
follows material prosperity, and unhappiness follows the want of it; rather unhappiness flows
from loss of a goal and purpose of life through the denial of the human soul. It is not economic
hardship nor political injustice, which has driven modem man to revolutionary action: it is the
horror of an empty sterile world. Men lived with only the necessities of life before, but they were
never as revolutionary as they are today. Religious communities throughout the Qiurch survive
on the minimum of existence, with vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, and where shall you
find greater happiness? The major frustrations of life are not economic. Glance around at those
who possess abundance of material goods. Does happiness increase with wealth? There is more
frustration among the rich than the poor. It is the former who are most addicted to selfishness,
who are satiated and unhappy. Sin and evil do not disappear with the advent of gold. Society can
become inhuman while preserving all the advantages of great material prosperity.
The materialist superstition that man has no other end than this life, and no other task
than economic betterment, and that education must produce a race of doers rather than an
"impractical" race of knowers, will eventually build a civilization in which we will have no
standards to judge what is economically good or socially bad. The philosopher could make a
good world without the economist, but the economist could not make one without the
philosopher. By making acquisitiveness supreme, we lose all standards of knowing what is right
or wrong. Social reform then has no other inspiration than envy. As Tawney says of them: "They
denounce, and rightly, the injustices of capitalism; but they do not always realize that capitalism
is maintained not only by capitalists but by those who, like some of themselves, would be
capitalists if they could, and that these injustices survive, not merely because the rich exploit the
poor, but because in their hearts too many of the poor admire the rich. They know and complain
that they are tyrannized over by the power of money. But they do not yet see that what makes

86
money the tyrant of society is largely their own reverence of it." And to complete Tawney's
picture, if we make material standards the only standards, then we become incapable of judging
the new acquisitive society, which is arisingthe acquisitiveness of power. As fortunes dwindle,
as taxes eat up inheritances, and as bureaucracies begin to administer vast sums of money
formerly administered by capitalists and bankers, envious, greedy and lustful men will seek to
become dispensers of that social booty, and who shall say that these new financiers of power are
wrong? Given no standards other than materialism, wherein remorse is disjoined from power,
and we will have a new capitalism - the capitalism of power, wherein the bureaucrats become the
bankers. Bidding the law makes courtesy to their will; Hooking both right and wrong to the
appetite, To follow as it draws!
*
The modern man wants back his soul! He wants the intelligentsia to stop the nonsense of
regarding him as an animal, a libido, a tool-maker, or a voter and to begin to look at him as a
creature made in the image and likeness of God. It is pathetic to hear people asking: "What can I
as an individual do in this crisis?" So many feel that they are like robots in a great machine, that
they would like to get away from it all, even if it meant climbing back into the Catacombs. Like
the Jews in exile they hang their harps on the trees, and ask how they can sing a song without a
soul. In plain, simple language, all these individuals want their souls back! They want to be
whole again. They are sick of being thrown into a Darwinian pot to boil as a beast, or into a
Freudian stew to squirm as a libido, or thrust into the Marxian sandwich to be squeezed between
two conflicting slices of capital and labor. They want to possess that which makes them human,
gives meaning to politics, economics, psychology, sociology; namely, the soul.
Listen to them: "I want my soul back; that I may be free from earth; that I may surrender
it to Him. I want to hold my own life, as a responsible creature, in my own hands, that I may
emancipate it not only from Nature, but even from the man-made environment. Somewhere I am
lost amid organized chaos. Everywhere I hear talk about freedom, but how can I be free unless I
have a soul? Stones are not free; neither are cows or cabbages. From every side I am told I have
no soul. If I have no soul, then I have nothing to lose, and if I have nothing to lose why should I
feel unhappy when I sin? "In my misery I go to the modern world and it tells me that I need to be
integrated with society, and hence I must throw myself into the vast social experiences and
sociological adventuring. But society cannot help me, for it is in the same mess as I. Society is
made up of millions of frustrated souls exactly like myself. How can it cure me, when it has the
same disease? Then the world tells me I should have ideals, for no one can live without faith;
give yourself over to aims, and you will find your soul. But when I ask whether these ideals are
real, such as God and the moral law, I am told that they are myths; that it makes no difference
whether there is a God, or Christ ever lived, or that there is any reason behind these ideals; but
that they are just helpful fictions. "I am thus back to where I was at the beginning. I am told I
should have faith, but the world can give me none; I am told to have ideals and at the same time
told that they are only fictions. I am not an animal, not a libido, not a proletarian, not an atom; I
am something else, more and greater than these things. And I want to be more! I want back my
soul!" *
To get back our souls we have to turn our backs on all the twaddle we have been fed for
the last century about the nature of man. We might just as well put it bluntly, and say that what
we call modern is only an old error with a new label. The modem view of man is wrong
completely and absolutely wrong, and if we go on following it we will end in blind alleys,

87
frustrated hopes and unhappy existences. It is not nearly as funny as we thought to make a
monkey out of a man.
The millions of our boys on the battlefronts of the world, fighting for their lives and for
great moral issues, will recover their souls. Amidst wounds of death, fire and shell, they will get
close to the meaning of life and to that something within them that makes them human. They will
be angry when they look back on the way some of them were educated. They will come to hate
not only the enemy they meet in battle, but the intelligentsia who told them they were only
animals. They will begin to realize that these intelligentsia robbed them of their greatest
possessionfaith. For a while they will wander around the battlefields like Magdalene in the
Garden saying: "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they laid Him." But
when they do stumble on Him as Magdalene did when she saw the livid marks of nails, they will
enter once again into the possession of the soul. And when they come marching home there will
be a judgment on those who told them they had no soul; they will live like new men and they
will give a rebirth to America under God. Recovering our souls demand doing two things:
turning our backs completely on the way the modem world thinks, and facing our Divine
Original, Who made us and Who alone can tell us what we are. Instead of drifting with the
current into the abyss of hopeless paganism, we must learn to swim against it like the salmon
back to the spawning ground where man is born again.

It is the Soul's prerogative, its fate,

To shape the outward to its own estate.
If right itself, then all around is well;
If wrong, it makes of all without a hell,
So multiplies the Soul its joys and pain.
Gives out itself, itself takes back again.
Transformed by Thee, the world hath but one face.

5. The Superstition of License

The superstition of License here means perverted freedom. It defines freedom as the right
to do whatever you please or the absence of law, restraint, and discipline. A man is considered
free when his desires are satisfied; he is not free when they are unsatisfied. The goal of freedom
is self-expression. Such is the superstition of License. This superstition is grounded on a false
definition of freedom. Freedom does not mean the right to do whatever we please. If it did, it
would be a physical power, not a moral power. Certainly, we can do whatever we please, but
ought we? Freedom means the right to do whatever we ought, and therefore is inseparable from
law. It was precisely because we made freedom consist in the right to do whatever we pleased,
that we produced a civilization, which was nothing but a criss-cross of individual egotisms in the
economic, political and international order. Communism, Nazism and Fascism arose to organize
that chaos and became as so many convulsive attempts to arrest a disintegration by the false
method of going to the other extreme, by extinguishing all freedom in order to preserve law.
The solution lies along other lines, namely that we are most free when we act within the
law and not outside it. An aviator is most free to fly when he obeys the law of gravitation. As
Our Lord said: "The truth will make you free." Nor is it true that freedom consists in the shaking-
off of convention and tradition and authority. What is called self-expression is in reality often
nothing else than self-destruction. The railroad engine that suddenly becomes so "progressive"

88
that it will not follow the tracks laid out by an engineer of a previous generation soon discovers
that it is not "free" to be an engine at all. If freedom means only the lessening of authority, then
we shall have indeed the thrill of risk, but in the end we shall have no freedom. As Leo XIII
expressed it, "liberty will ever be more free and secure, in proportion as license is kept in
restraint." About the only curbs, which the sensate man allows himself are those which
contribute to his own physical well-being. Dieting is about the only discipline left, and dieting is
not fasting. Dieting is for the body; fasting is for the soul. Moral restraints, spiritual discipline,
ascetic life, denial of evil thoughts and temptations, restraint in the use of the legitimate
pleasures of lifethese things are meaningless to the modem man who feels he has sufficient
warrant in throwing off moral standards for no other reason than because they are old. When we
reach a point where we measure our self-expression by the height of the pile of our discarded
disciplines, inhibitions, and moral standards, then anyone who would die to preserve that
disemboweled ghost of liberty is a fool.
Salvation lies in the fact that freedom exists for a purpose; that is, we have freedom to
give it away. No one keeps his freedom. A man in love surrenders it to the woman he loves and
calls it a "sweet slavery"; the modem man who has thrown off morality surrenders it to public
opinion, becomes the slave of fashion and passing moods; the Christian who uses his freedom
gives it to God, "to serve Whom is to reign" and then purchases the slavery of the Infinite in
Whom is Love and Life and Truth. Every freedom is for the sake of bondage, and we are all in
bondageto a fellow creature, to the mob, to Hitler, or to God Who alone can make us truly
free. That is why freedom for freedom's sake is meaningless. I want to be free from something,
only because I want to be free for something. That is why freedom is inseparable from purpose.
Freedom from restraint is justified only when it depends on freedom for something else. The
fallacy of the superstition of License is that it makes us free just to be free, which is as
meaningless and as unsatisfying as a cold in the head. The superstition of License assumes that
men will always do the right thing if they are educated; hence they need no restraint and no
discipline. And here we touch on the basic weakness of Sensate education; namely, it assumes
that sin is due to ignorance and not to the abuse of freedom. When evil was attributed to the will,
the school belonged to the Church. Now that we believe there is no sin, and that what we call
evil is only want of enlightenment, the school stands in isolation from religion and morality.
Schools once belonged to religious groups in order that moral training of the will might keep
pace with enlightenment of the intellect. Now the universities have for the most part lost all
concern for the will. When confronted with the problem of evil, they immediately rush to a
conference to discuss greater knowledge, when what is really needed is more discipline.
The Sensate culture is right in saying that sin is irrational because every sin is a violation
of a law of Eternal Reason, but the unreason or ignorance is not the citadel of sin. A man sins,
not because he is ignorant, but because he is perverse. The intellect makes mistakes, but the will
sins. A man may know all we teach him and still be a bad man; the intelligentsia are not
necessarily the saints. The ignorant are not necessarily devils. Enlightenment and education can
become the servants of a perverse will, and when they do it is like hell being let loose. Unless a
man's will has a purpose and it is a good one, education will do nothing for him except to fortify
his own egotism.
There is an almost unpardonable naivet about those who say that reason alone can
conquer anarchic impulses. Rather, the reverse is true. Reason can be used just as easily to justify
evil, to rationalize evil, to destroy supernatural truths and, in the form of science, to invent lethal
instruments for the defence of those wicked tendencies in time of war.

89
 Reason was made to lead us to faith as the senses were made to lead us to reason. Now
when reason is torn up from its roots in God, how can we trust its conclusions? If chance, blind
evolution, or chaos were its origin, then why should it now be expected to be anything less than
chaotic, unstable and fluid? An age which has put all its trust in enlightenment as the cure of evil
has found itself possessed of the greatest evil and war in the history of the world. These
superstitions constitute the cult of our contemporary Western Civilization. The chaos into which
they have led us reveals their fallacies more effectively than any intellectual argument. The so-
called progressive man, who today is bewildered, baffled and depressed at the disorder in the
world need only go into his own godless disordered interior life to find its secret; the man
without moral standards and therefore chaotic is the miniature of the world without a moral
standard and therefore at war. If these superstitions still exercise some influence, it is only
because of artificial respiration given them by two classes of reactionarieseconomic
reactionaries and intellectual reactionaries.
The economic reactionaries are those who believe that any system, which enables them to get
rich must necessarily be a good system; hence any change in the existing order they regard as
radicalism, revolutionism or Communism. The intellectual reactionaries are the intelligentsia (we
use that word to distinguish them from true intellectuals).

By the intelligentsia we mean those who have been educated beyond their intelligence.
Like the economic reactionaries they equate what they have with what is best, the difference
being that their wealth is ideological, not material. Their clichs, catch-words, and ideologies
have value only in a world of a chaos which produced two world wars in twenty-one years; but
they would be without validity any other time or in any other order based on justice and charity.
They would be just as out of place in such a world as a teeter-totter in an old folks' home. A
high-school youngster who thinks the "Jersey Bounce" is the highest expression of music would
be lost at a concert of Toscanini. Despite these two reactionary forces, it should now be
recognized that these superstitions have failed to provide an adequate dynamic for either peace or
war. The longer we try to keep them alive, the ruder will be our awakening; the more terrible will
be our judgment. It is no answer to retort with the old clich that religion has been the enemy of
science, for he who has eyes can see that science today is the enemy of man.
It is not religion, which has tyrannized man. Science has its place in the world; this we
not only admitthis we insist upon. But its place is not at the peak of the pyramid of knowledge
where Descartes placed it when he enthroned mathematics, or where Kant placed it when he
enthroned physics, and where Comte placed it when he enthroned sociology. That place belongs
to theology, the one science, which makes a university, for as the word "university" implies all
knowledge and all sciences and all arts turn on one axis, which is God. Cardinal Newman in his
masterly treatise, "The Idea of a University" allowed the imagination to run riot by picturing a
university of the future where there would be no theology. To bring home the horror of such a
condition, he described it as follows: "Henceforth, man is to be as if he were not, in the general
course of Education; the moral and mental sciences are to have no professional chairs, and the
treatment of them is to be left as a matter of private judgment, which each individual may carry
out as he will. I can just fancy such a prohibition abstractly possible; but one thing I cannot fancy
possible, viz.: that the parties in question, after this sweeping act of exclusion, should henceforth
send out proposals on the basis of such exclusion for publishing an Encyclopedia, or erecting a
National University." But these conditions are upon us now, and so strongly entrenched is the
opposition that to plead for a return of theology to university curricula would be to bring down

90
upon one's head the wrath of those intelligentsia who still live in the Dark Ages and still feed on
the superstition that the proper way to study man is to study nature. Someday under the pressure
of catastrophe we will come to see that as science reveals nature, so theology reveals man. In that
day, universities will be universities. In this conflict we must not save everything just as it is nor
seek to maintain the status quo, nor preserve an empire, nor get back the kind of a world that
existed before this war began, for if we did we would be fighting to keep a world from whose
womb came the satellites of anti- Christ: Hitler and Hirohito and others.
Some things are not worth fighting for. One of these things is an unredeemed,
materialistic selfish order, organized on the basis of neglect of God and the abandonment of
moral standards. The victors who won the war of 1918 lost the peace because they attempted to
keep a world together on the basis of the outworn slogans and the really bad philosophy of the
French Revolution. Our peace-makers, inspired more by the expiring convulsions of a liberal
world boom 150 years before, became blinded to the needs of a new world expressed in the
protests of the revolutions of Germany, Italy and Russia. We won the war because we were
stronger; we lost the peace because we tried to keep everything together on the basis of the
liberalistic, capitalistic, individualistic, irreligious world of the outworn nineteenth century.
Napoleon carried the ideas of the French Revolution over Europe. Hitler carried the ideas of
Marx over Europe. Both have done a service. Both swept away the litter of a bad world; one a
monarchical world based on privilege of power, the other the capitalistic world based on the
privilege of money. Both are wrong. He who would will to keep either privilege of power or
money will keep only the dynamite for the next world war. We are not out to preserve either the
Marxian or the French Revolutionwe are at war this time to build an order not for the common
man, spoon-fed by democracies, but for common service to a common good: a world of free men
free from economic want and therefore free to save their souls. This is worth fighting for!
When the ship is sinking, we must not think of the cargo. It is neither the ship of
democracy nor the ship of America, nor the ship of our Four Freedoms we must abandon. But
the barnacles we must abandon. Our task is not the restoration of everything as it was; restoration
could be our greatest obstacle to peace. It is regeneration we are seeking. No sane person would
suggest that when this war is over London should rebuild its bombed buildings just exactly as
they were, just as no sane person would suggest the restoration of a world which in fifteen years
vomited three terrific revolutions: red, brown and black. Nor would he suggest that we re-
establish the same old boundaries, the same sovereignties and the same anemic League of
Nations. Blind indeed would anyone be who suggests that we preserve the present order. There is
one other order and that is our hopethe Christian order, which starts with man.

91
CHAPTER THREE: A RETURN TO THE PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS

1. What is perennial philosophy?

The term perennial means permanent. It upholds that truth is not changed
and eroded through the elapse of time. This philosophy is attributed to the
philosophy of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. Others call it the Philosophy of
Common Sense (G.K. Chesterton), Primeval Platitudes (Peter Kreeft) or the Tao
(C.S. Lewis).

Truth is eternal though its verbal expression is localized in time and

49
space. Perennial philosophy is the system of thought that staunchly adheres to
this fact. Truth is objective, immutable and universal.
Benedict XVI describes the situation of our world today as a collapse of
civilization- a civilization that seeks for the truth.50 He was in a sense affirming
the words of Pope Paul VI who says that our modern world is facing the crisis of
truth51. He describes the collapse of religious truth as the concomitance of the
crisis of philosophical truth.52 For the world today is full of thinking but there is
no argument in thought; there are philosophers but there are no philosophy.53
Objective truth, which enables us to grasp reality, is now replaced by subjective
truth. Philosophical truth gives way to agnosticism, skepticism and to systematic
doubt.54

2. Why do we need to return to the principles of perennial philosophy?

The crisis of truth and the collapse of civilization convince us that there is
a great and a dire need to return to perennial philosophy, which is the natural
standard of human rationality.55

Returning to the principles of perennial philosophy then entails:

(1) To regain our lost humanity. C.S. Lewis describes these new
ideologies as the rebellion of the branches against the tree, if the
rebels would succeed, they would find that they have destroyed
themselves.56 When man refuses to acknowledge the supernatural, he
becomes unnatural.57 When man refuses to be human, he descends into
the level of subhuman.58 Fulton Sheen writes in his book God and
Intelligence contending that the erroneous modern systems of thought
is a direct assault to mans intelligence. It tries to mold a new man

49 Fulton J. Sheen, God and Intelligence, 14.
50 Pope Benedict XVI, Freedom, Truth and Tolerance
51 Carlos A. Walker, The Missionary Pope, 45.
52 Ibid, 54.

53 Fulton J. Sheen, God and Intelligence, p.21.

54 Ibid, 45.
55 Carlos A. Walker, The Missionary Pope, (IVE Press:USA)
56 C.S Lewis, The Complete C.S Lewis Signature Classics, (The Abolition of Man), 480.
57 Dale Alquist, Common Sense 101, Thoughts from G.K. Chesterton
58 Fulton J. Sheen, Lift up Your Hearts
 created in an image of himself. Reason is not being used for its
ultimate purpose. And if man cannot use his reason to ask about the
essential things in his life, where he comes from and where he is
going, about what he should do and may do, about living and dying,
but has to leave these decisive questions to feeling, divorced from
reason, then he is not elevating reason but dishonoring it.59 Nowadays,
the ephemeral is affirmed as a value and the possibility of discovering
the real meaning of life is cast into doubt.60
The modern man attempts to build a civilization that excludes God
from the public square. But the truth remains to true that when man
alienates himself from God, the more he alienates from himself. As the
Second Vatican Council points out, it is only in the mystery of Christ,
that the mystery of man is fully revealed.61

(2) To address the crisis of truth we experience in our present

system of education. The objectivity of truth is currently
disappearing from the conscience our society. People never bother to
talk about it. It is replaced with different terms such as values,
norms or standards. We are in a culture that exalts science as a
standard and final arbiter of truth. Its language is relativism and
mathematics. This has grave consequence in our system of education.
G.K. Chesterton wisely puts it, the pressing challenge we should
address in our system of education today is not so much on educating
the uneducated but on uneducating the educated. What is the
purpose of sending our children to school? Is it for them to be taught
by these teachers of hoax (FREUD in psychology, DARWIN in
biology and MARX in Economics)?

The modern man focuses on the functional truth but not the truth about
himself. Hand in hand with the growing knowledge of functional truth,
there seems to be an increasing blindness toward truth itself- toward the
question of mans real identity and purpose.62 This has lead to scientific
projects that does not acknowledge the real value of man, such as cloning,
the production of fetuses- that is of people simply in order to use their
organs for developing pharmaceutical products.63

There is a grave split between science and morality, between humanity and
spirituality. Our modern schools focus to teach us solving mathematical
problems, learning how to increase incomes, generating more profits,
producing more technologies but not so much not to make a man a better
person.

59 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance, 158.
60 John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, 16-17.
61 Gaudium et Spes 22.
62 Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth

63 Joseph cardinal Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance, 158

3. The need to return to St. Thomas Aquinas

In the face of the crisis we experience due to the errors of systems of

thought, St. John Paul II is strongly convinced that we should recover
philosophys original vocation and responsibility in forming thought and culturei.
A very staunch Thomistic philosopher in our time Father Cornelio Fabro
re-echoes the voice of the Church in beckoning us that this effort of recovering
philosophys original vocation entails a radical and decisive return to the
philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. Why St. Thomas Aquinas? What are the main
characteristics of Thomistic thought?
The Church herself faithfully adheres and strongly recommends the
doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas for the following reasons:

a. Orthodoxy of His Teachings. The works of the Angelic Doctor

contain the doctrine, which is most in conformity with what the church teachesii.
For that matter, the Church has recognized the doctrine of St. Thomas the
particularly high, full and fair expression of the Magisterium and the sensus
fidei of the whole people of Godiii The ecumenical councils, also, where
blossoms the flower of all earthly wisdom, have always been careful to hold
Thomas Aquinas in singular honor. In the Councils of Lyons, Vienna, Florence,
and the Vatican one might almost say that Thomas took part and presided over the
deliberations and decrees of the Fathers, contending against the errors of the
Greeks, of heretics and rationalists, with invincible force and with the happiest
results. But the chief and special glory of Thomas, one which he has shared with
none of the Catholic Doctors, is that the Fathers of Trent made it part of the order
of conclave to lay upon the altar, together with sacred Scripture and the decrees of
the supreme Pontiffs, the Summa of Thomas Aquinas, whence to seek counsel,
reason, and inspirationiv.
The Second Vatican Council specially mentioned St. Thomas in some of
its documents encouraging the faithful for a staunch adherence to St. his doctrine
and principles in order to explain as fully as possible the mysteries of salvation,
to learn to deepen them and to discover their connection, through speculation"v.
Thus, in those schools dependent on her (the church), she intends that by their
very constitution individual subjects be pursued according to their own principles,
method, and liberty of scientific inquiry, in such a way that an ever deeper
understanding in these fields may be obtained and that, as questions that are new
and current are raised and investigations carefully made according to the example
of the doctors of the Church and especially of St. Thomas Aquinas, that there may
be a deeper realization of the harmony of faith and sciencevi.
In honoring St. Thomas is not only an evident esteem for him, but also
recognizes the authority of the teaching Churchvii . For it has come to light that
there were not lacking among the leaders of heretical sects some who openly
declared that, if the teaching of Thomas Aquinas were only taken away, they could
easily battle with all Catholic teachers, gain the victory, and abolish the Church,
which is impossibleviii .
God has willed that by the strength and truth of the Angelic Doctor, all
heresies will be driven away, confounded and condemnedix. For, "his teaching
above that of others, the canonical writings alone excepted, enjoy such a precision
of language, an order of matters, a truth of conclusions, that those who hold to it
are never found swerving from the path of truth, and he who dare assail it will
always be suspected of errorx.

b. Realism and Objectivity. Realism is the main feature of Thomistic

thought. Its prevailing characteristic is that it is always in search of truth.xi It is
faithful to the voice of created things, which builds the edifice of philosophy and
faithful to the voice of the Church to construct the building of theologyxii. "In
Thomism is, so to speak, a sort of natural Gospel, an incomparably firm
foundation for all constructions of scientific inquiry, because Thomism is
characterized primarily by their objectivity; theirs are not buildings or lifts purely
abstract spirit, but buildings that follow the real momentum of things. never
decay the value of Thomistic doctrine, because to do so would have to decline the
value of things"xiii.

c. Openness and Universalism. The philosophy of St. Thomas deserves to

be accepted with convictions by the youth of our day by reason of its openness and
universalism; characteristics that are hard to find in may trends of contemporary
thoughtxiv. The Thomistic thought has an openness to the whole of reality in all its
parts and dimensions, without either reducing reality or confining thought to
particular forms or aspects (and without turning singular aspects into absolutes) as
intelligence demands in the name of objective and integral truth about what is real.
Such openness and universalism is a distinctive mark of the Christian faith.
Catholicityxv. His mind is open to all the advances of the truth, whatever the source
of their origin: it is the first facet of his universalismxvi. St. Thomas himself says
that the truth, whoever says, comes from the Holy Spirit, which infuses the natural,
light and moves to the intelligence and expression of truthxvii .

d. The Perennial Value of Truth. The Thomistic philosophy faithfully

abides to the perennial value of truth. It firmly holds to the position that truth,
though it is fragmentary has universal value. It means that it is valid for all people
and for all timesxviii . For this reason, the philosophy of St. Thomas is described as
perennial philosophy or philosophy of common sense, which is the natural norm
of human rationalityxix.

e. The Reconciliation of the Relationship between the Supernatural and the

Natural

Grace and Nature. Grace builds on nature and brings it to fulfillment. It

does not destroy nature but elevates and perfects itxx.
Faith and Reason. In the doctrine of St. Thomas, the demands of reason
and the power of faith found the most elevated synthesis ever attained by human
thought, for he could defend the radical newness introduced by Revelation without
ever demeaning the venture proper to reasonxxi.
Creator and Creature. St. Thomas cogently propounded the contingency
of creatures and the necessity of the Creator. God is the non-contingent and
necessary ground of all contingent beings. This is contrary to the modern view
conceiving God as a stiff competitor to human flourishing, which can be seen in
the atheism of Feuerbach and Sartre, whose followers are so thick on the ground.
This implies that creatures cannot be without God and the more creatures are
united to God the more perfect they become.

Two main exemplar intellectual qualities of St. Thomas Aquinas

a. Intellectual Magnanimity. He is most venerated the ancient doctors of the

Church, and in a certain way, he seems to have inherited the intellect of
allxxii.
He illumined the church more than all other doctors. In his books one
profits more in only one year than the study of all others during his whole
lifexxiii.
b. Intellectual Humility. He is faithful and fully submissive in mind and heart
to the divine Revelation, one that he renewed in his deathbed, in the abbey
of Fossanova, on the seventh of March 1274. St. Thomas himself humbly
and submissively utters, I have preached and taught; I have never said
anything against you, but if I had said anything, it has been in good faith
and do not follow stubbornly in my own opinion. If something less rightly
about it in the other sacraments, I trust completely to the correction of the
Holy Roman Church, in whose obedience I now leave this life.
The angelic doctor, during his lifetime had written voluminous
hundreds of works and treatises that approximately consist of ten million
words. Yet in all of this, he expresses his humble ignorance upon saying
All I have written seems straw to me after having seen God in a vision.

For all the reasons stated above, the Holy Catholic Church honors St.
Thomas as: Common Doctor of the Church, Angelic Doctor, Heavenly Patron of
Highest Studies, Patron of Catholic Schools and Universities and Apostle of Truth.
The Church herself embraces the doctrine of St. Thomas as her own doctrinexxiv.
Thus we have to be formed under his magisteriumxxv, and hold him especially
as a teacherxxvi

4. St. Thomas Aquinas and Cornelio Fabro

It is important to consider that among the many Thomistic philosophers

and interpreters of Thomism, we should follow the one who has objectively and
profoundly fathomed the Thomistic doctrine. For that matter, we follow Fr.
Cornelio Fabro who accordingly has truly fathomed the profundity of St. Thomas
doctrine after seven centuries.

4.1 The Essential Aspects on the Thought of Cornelio Fabro

a. The definition of the essence of Thomism

Better than anyone else, Fabro has been able to define the speculative
essence of Thomism as the comprehensive overcoming of Aristotelianism and
Platonism. His genetic, historical and critical study of original Thomism drove him
to assert the centrality of the metaphysical notion of participation, through which
the metaphysical understanding of creatures always has to be read.
 b. The defense of the main thesis of authentic Thomism

The discovery of the metaphysical notion of participation as the essence of

Thomism provided Fabro with the opportunity to show in a new light the
extremely important distinction between essentia and actus essendi in its real
composition, and also to give a physiognomy of emergent act of esse. This is the
first and last act, the act of all acts, of all forms and of all perfections. In direct
relation to these speculative achievements, we have to mention the accurate
defense of perseity, which is inherent to the principle of causality and which
rigorously demonstrates Gods existence as ipsum esse subsistens (fourth way) as
well as the ontological dependence of every ens of God (creation), always in strict
relation to the texts of St. Thomas.

c. The denunciation of the formalist trend among Thomists

Fabro also can be credited for denouncing the formalist downward trend of the
Thomistic school, which was increasingly adopting the terminology of its
opponents in order to ease the pressure of several controversies. In this way, the
school ended up reducing the value of the Thomistic thesis and sometimes even
encouraging the opposite position (gaetanistic principle of the mihi aliter
dicendum est).

d. Dialogue and confrontation with modern thought

The clear definition of the identity of original Thomism as well as a profound

comprehension of the Thomistic esse allowed the philosopher to establish a
consistent dialogue and confrontation with the sharpest instances of a thought
inspired by the modern principle of conscience. Among some of the numerous
fruits of this dialogue are: the valorization of the Thomistic ens as the
commencement of thought and the presentation of the exceptional character of
Thomism as philosophia essendi. Both themes are connected with the Hegelian
doctrine of the Anfang and with the accusation of the forgetfulness of being
(Vergessenheit des Seins), which Heidegger will launch against the whole of
Postparmenidian Western philosophy.

e. The blame of the atheist root in the principle of immanence

With unequalled dedication Fabro also denounced the intrinsically atheistic

value of the principle of conscience, or principle of immanence. In addition, his
vigorous accusation of the anthropological downward trend in progressive
theology, which has devoutly subjected itself to modern principles, may be
considered a corollary of this denunciation. The same may be said about the
theology of Rosminian immanentism.

f. Fabros discovery of Kierkegaard

Another important contribution, which has to be observed, is the valorization

of Kierkegaards work. Actually, apart from the fact that Fabro has been one of the
best translators of the Danish philosopher, it is important to underline the merit of
his having offered the most balanced and correct interpretation of Kierkegaards
thought, which has often been distorted and read on the basis of pre-defined
intellectual opinions.

g. The recovery of the authentic notion of freedom

Fabro himself considered his magnificent speculation about freedom as the last
step in the overcoming of formalism and Western rationalism. This speculation,
which might be seen as the fulfillment of all his merits, is a controversial point and
has been the cause of rejections even among some sectors of Thomism. However,
apart from every polemical aspect, the merit of Fabros touching the central point
of modern thought has to be recognized.

h. The need of a return to metaphysics according to the Magisterium of the

Church

Another motive, worthy of merit, comes to us from the Magisterium of the

Church with its insistent urge of a return to the real metaphysical instance, to St.
Thomas and to his philosophia essendi, as it appears in Fides et Ratio. This finds
an excellent response in Fabros works thanks to their metaphysical profundity,
their fidelity to authentic Thomism and the utter superiority which he himself
gives to being as act (esse ut actus).

i. Fidelity to the Church

Finally, Cornelio Fabros work undeniably represents a wonder of the sensus

ecclesiae in a time when the greatest praises seem to be directed to those daring
people who contest the Magisterium of the Church and the voice of the Supreme
Pontiff. By publishing his works we intend to recognize his fidelity to the
authentic Magisterium and to put his thought within the grasp of students and
scholars. Undoubtedly, this is a thought marked by the brightness of truth, a
thought apt to give an answer to the generous urge of faith with the authentic
audacity of reason, a thought which with wisdom and humility conceives being as
it is.

i Fides et Ratio, 6.
ii Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris
iii Pope Paul VI, Lumen Ecclessiae, 22.
iv Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris 22.

v Decree OptatamTotius on priestly formation, n. 16: AAS 58, 1966, p. 723.

vi Cf. Declaration on Christian Education, Gravissimum Educationis, n. 10: AAS 58, 1966, p. 737.
vii Pius XI, Encyclical Studiorum Ducem, AAS 15, 1923, p. 324.
viii Pope Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris, 23.
ix St. Pius V, Mirabilis Deus; cf. Leo XIII, Aeteni Patris 13.
x Pope Innocent VI, Sermo de S. Thoma. 37. Bucer, 14.
xiPerennial Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas for the Youth of our Times. St. John Paul IIs Address at Angelicum

University, December 17, 1979.

xii (Address of St. John Paul II to the participants of the VIII International Thomistic Congress, September 13,

1980.)
xiii Discorsi di Pio XII, vol. I, Turin 1960, pp. 668-669.
xiv Perennial Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas for the Youth of our Times. St. John Paul IIs Address at

Angelicum University, December 17, 1979.

xv Ibid.
xvi Paul VI, Lumen Ecclesiae, 11.

xvii Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, p.109, a. I ad 1: Ed, Leonina, v. VII, p. 290.

xviii St. John Paul II, Fides et Ratio.


xix Carlos Walker, The Missionary Pope, p. 43; cf. Pope Paul VI Ecclessiam Suam.
xx (Cf. Summa Theologiae, I, 1, 8, ad.2: cum enim gratia non tollat naturam sed perfectat.)
xxi John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, 78.

xxii Cardinal Thomas Cajetan, Commentary on Summa Theologiae, II-II, 148, 9,4. Quoted by Leo XIII, Aeterni

Patris, 10.
xxiii John XXII, Allocution in the Consistory, July 14, 1323.

xxiv Benedict XV, Fausto Appetente Die, 4b.

xxv cf. Optatam Totius, 16.

xxvi CIC, c. 252 par. 3




Part IV. PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY



A. THEOLOGY AS SCIENCE

A.1. REASON AND FAITH

We have to state, in the first place, that faith does not destroy reason; rather, it goes
beyond it and gives fullness or perfection to it. Faith is a supernatural virtue by which, we,
inspired and helped by Gods grace, believe as true what God has revealed, not because of the
intrinsic truth of things perceived by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority
of God Himself revealing them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. The Christian faith
leads us to a firmer assent to truths that can be known by reason, such as those about God,
the human soul, and the natural law, and besides, to the acceptance of truth that the human
mind cannot attain through its natural power.

Faith in revelation does not end up destroying the rationality of
our knowledge. Rather, it allows it to develop more fully. Just as grace does
not destroy nature but rather heals and perfects it and renders it fruitful, so
too, faith, through the influence it exerts from above on reason as such,
allows the development of a more fruitful and genuine rational activity.

Faith presupposes reason. If a person did no have the capacity to attain intellectual
knowledge, he could not be raised to the knowledge of supernatural truths. Besides, these
supernatural truths are beyond reason, but not contrary to it. They somehow rely on rational
knowledge, since a person gets a glimpse of them through rational concepts. For instance,
without a rational knowledge of the meaning of concepts such as person, nature, and
God, a person would not be able to understand anything about the mysteries of the Blessed
Trinity and the Incarnation. Nevertheless, we have to say, too, that reason is healed and
elevated by faith. Faith illumines the darkness in which reason dwells as a consequence of sin.
It also makes it easier for reason to know the basic truths it can attain by itself, and raises it
to the knowledge of supernatural truths that are completely beyond it natural power.

These two levels of knowledge are present in the believer, even though they are
distinct and separable, as one can see when a person loses his faith.

Through the use of reason, a person can know a set of truth called preambles of faith,
because they serve as a basis for revealed supernatural truths. They include the existence of
God, the spirituality and immortality of the human soul, human freedom and the natural law.

Although these truths can be known through the use of natural
reason, God revealed them as well, so that they may be known by everyone,
even in the present state of human race, with ease, with solid certitude, and
with no trace of error. Hence, compared with an unbeliever, the believer is
in a better position to make good use if reason in tackling the basic problems
of human existence, whose inherent difficulties are heightened by the
consequences of sin. Since revealed truths are backed by Gods authority,
they offer a greater certitude than that attained through merely natural
truths.

However, the misuse of reason can hinder the acceptance of faith. This may happen,
for instance, when a person erroneously strives to derive from the sciences arguments
contrary to revealed truths. In these cases, the right use of reason will suffice to show that
those alleged difficulties are baseless. The truth is that reason is helped and guided by faith in

its task, and faith clearly points out to it where errors lie. It is important to note that aside
from those errors directly contrary to the truths of faith, there are others, which are
indirectly contrary to them, through their consequences. This is the case of doctrines, which
give rise to conclusions incompatible with the faith when they are coherently led to their
ultimate consequences. Examples of these are: philosophical positions affirming that man can
never gave certainty in his knowledge of reality, or that he cannot know reality s it really is.

Materialist evolutionism, for instance, is contrary to the faith.
Nevertheless, it is easy to prove that materialism cannot be based on science
or on any rational grounds.

Kantian doctrines are indirectly against the faith. By ruling out the
possibility of knowing reality as it really is, they destroy the rational basis if
the faith.

At times, the alleged difficulties in accepting the faith come from
more sweeping general attitudes. For instance, some people say science
progresses by taking hold of fields that were previously entrusted to faith. In
the case of the Christian faith, this stand is outrightly erroneous. There is no
single truth contained in Catholic doctrine that has been or can possibly be
suppressed by scientific progress.

A.2. WHAT THEOLOGY IS?

Theology is the science of faith. It is the science, which deals with God and creatures in
so far as they refer to God, in the light of divine revelation.

When we speak of theology in this chapter, we obviously refer to
supernatural theology whose starting point is faith in divine revelation. We
have already seen that natural theology, which studies what can be known
about God through reason, is a part of metaphysics, and therefore, of
philosophy.

The subject matter of theology, therefore, includes:
- God in Himself: His existence, essence and attributes (such as infinity, providence),
as well as the Trinity of Persons in God;
- And the works of God: creation and created beings, the elevation of man to the
supernatural level, the Incarnation and Redemption, the Church, the sacraments.

Theology studies all reality in the light of divine revelation, from the
most profound perspective man can have, that is, the supernatural light of
faith. Hence, it is the science that fully represents the concept of wisdom. As a
supreme wisdom, theology has the right to judge and guide all the other
branches ok knowledge, without making them lose their own autonomy.

All these topics are studied in theology by using reason enlightened by revelation.
The source of theological knowledge is revelation, transmitted through Sacred Scripture and
Tradition, and safeguarded and interpreted in an authentic way by the Magisterium of the
Church.

Therefore, faith is the starting point, the foundation and norm of theology. A statement
contrary to faith would be unacceptable, even though it might be expressed with the
trappings of theological terminology. A theological doctrine contrary to the Magisterium of
the Church would be automatically erroneous. Theological study and research demands
adequate personal dispositions, especially those related to the faith and to fidelity to the
mission of the Church in union with its authentic Magisterium.


The essential link between theology and faith, based and focused
on Christ, illumines with great clarity the bond existing between theology
and the Church with its Magisterium. One cannot believe in Christ without
believing in the Church, the Body of Christ. One cannot have a Catholic
belief in the Church without believing in its irrenounceable Magisterium
Hence, the ecclesial Magisterium is not something alien to theology, but
rather something intrinsic and essential to it. If a theologian id basically and
above all a believer, and if his Christian faith is faith in the Church of Christ
and in the Magisterium, his theological effort will certainly remain faithfully
linked to his ecclesial faith, whose authentic and binding interpreter is the
Magisterium.

The correct use of reason allows us to go deeper into the content of revealed truths.
However, through the natural power of reason alone, we cannot attain the knowledge of
supernatural mysteries and accept them. Neither can we proceed to demonstrate them once
they have been known.

The theological process should not be regarded as some sort of
centrifugal movement through which, starting from an essential nucleus of
faith, one derives conclusions which are progressively distant from the
center and increasingly irrelevant from the perspective of Christian living. It
should rather be seen as a centripetal movement, for its task is to bring
towards its center all truth and knowledge in order to illumine them.
Theology is something that internally belongs to the faith; it is based on faith
and serves it.

Thus, theology is not a form of knowledge dissociated from Christian living. Its
mission is to illumine the most varied practical problems through the light provided by an in-
depth view of the truths of faith. The Christian faith presupposes both an objective content
and personal proximity to God. Hence, as a science of faith, theology seeks to help the person
get closer to God, by giving him a better knowledge of God Himself and of the truths He has
revealed, and illumining with that knowledge the problems and concerns of human existence.

A.3. THE ROLE OF REASON IN THEOLOGY

In line with what we have previously seen, we should state that in theology we make
use of reason enlightened by faith. Reason and faith are two distinct sources of knowledge.
They are not mutually opposed; rather, they complement one another.

The role of reason in theology is not to demonstrate the supernatural truths of faith,
but to attain a greater understanding of them. For this, it has recourse to analogies found in
the natural order of things, and takes into account the interconnection of divine mysteries
and their relation to mans last end. Even though we may draw up some rational explanation
of the truths of faith, it is quite clear that they will continue to be mysteries for us.

Theological errors oftentimes arise as a consequence of wanting to
make supernatural truths more understandable. For example, from a
purely natural point of view, it might seem more reasonable to reduce the
Eucharist to a symbol through which God works in a special manner, or to
affirm that Jesus Christ is a human person in whom God acted in a unique
way. However, doing so will not be a way of expounding s true Christian
theology. It would mean deforming and mutilating the content of the faith,
and in the final analysis, reducing the theological endeavor to a useless,
meaningless and, above all, false activity.

Through the correct use of reason enlightened by faith, theology carries out the
following tasks:


(a) The demonstration of the preambles of faith, in the theoretical aspect (the
existence of God and of the human soul, for instance), in the historical aspect
(the authenticity of Sacred Scripture, the Catholic Church as the Church founded
by Christ, for example), and in the personal aspect (analysis of the faith, its
rational foundation, for instance). This task is carried out by Fundamental
Theology.

Reason provides for this task arguments that are truly
demonstrative at times. At other times, however, these arguments only show
the conformity of faith with the demands of human nature. For these
purposes, one may rely on philosophy, history and psychology, and
secondarily, on other sciences.

(b) The systematic study of Sacred Scripture, with the help provided by human
sciences. This is carried out by Exegesis of Sacred Scripture.

Historical as well as linguistic knowledge is widely employed in this
field. Nevertheless, one has to bear in mind that Sacred Scripture must be
interpreted according to its own nature, hence, in the light of faith. This has
important consequences. For instance, the unity and truthfulness of
scriptural texts, in accordance with their respective literary forms, should be
regarded as a given fact, and not a conclusion that still has to be reached.
(c) The systematic study of Tradition. Patrology us the study of the doctrine that
the Fathers of the Church have left us as a legacy.

The study of Tradition necessarily complements the exegesis of
Sacred Scripture, for the guarantees concerning Scripture and its correct
interpretation come from Tradition.

(d) The study of the truths of faith, which seeks to grasp their content, examine the
relationships existing among them, and facilitate our understanding of them
through analogies taken from the natural order of things. This is done by
Dogmatic Theology.

In order to carry out these tasks, theology makes use of reason and
of philosophical doctrines, which enable a person to rigorously deepen his
understanding of revealed truths. Obviously, doctrines such as
immanentism, existentialism, and historicism are hardly suitable for
theological use. Theology understandably demands philosophical
foundations in conformity with common sense and objectivity, which faith
presupposes, and these foundations are not automatically present in just
any type of philosophy.

(e) The study of the application of revealed truths to the moral dimension of human
lives. This is carried out by Moral Theology.

Supernatural morality is founded on natural ethics. Hence, the
conclusions reached in philosophical ethics will have repercussions in moral
theology.

(f) The study of different facets of the life of the Church, such as Liturgy and
History of the Church.

Historical accuracy is particularly necessary in modern times. There
are some doctrines, which seek to change important elements of the
Christian faith by appealing to changing needs of the times.


(g) The defense of faith, by showing that the attacks wages against it are based on
false or inconclusive arguments. This is an integral part of the previously
mentioned tasks theology carries out.

The use of human reason suffices for this task. One does not have to
make use of faith in this regard, for those attacks against the faith stem from
supposedly rational arguments and must therefore be scrutinized through
the natural use of reason.

B. PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY

B.1. THE ROLE OF PHILOSOPHY IN THEOLOGY

Taking into account what we mentioned in the preceding chapter regarding the role
of reason in theology, and the fact that philosophy is simply the systematic actualization of
the capacity to know reality through natural reason, we can easily conclude that philosophy
plays an important role in theology, and that that role is only an instrumental one, since the
source and norm of theology is faith and not reason.

It would be a mistake to try to make theology do away with
philosophy, under the pretext of freeing divine revelation from all
conditioning influences of human perception. It would be equally wrong to
make theology depend on some particular philosophical systems, s if that
were the only way it could adapt to the real needs of every historical period.

St. Thomas Aquinas clearly states that theology does not need
philosophy, since its principles (revealed truths) are above any other science.
Theology makes use of philosophy, not because it cannot stand by itself, but
because of the limits of human reason: by means of what an individual
comes to known through the use of natural reason, he can more easily
deepen his understanding of supernatural truths.

One should note that this particular perspective successfully avoids
the pitfalls laid by the two previously mentioned extreme attitudes. Indeed,
the Church does not adhere to particular philosophical systems; it makes use of
philosophical notions coherent with faith.

In our discussion of philosophy of nature, we referred to the continuity that must
exist between spontaneous natural knowledge and philosophical knowledge. Philosophy
presupposes this spontaneous knowledge and it should perfect it. It carries out its task by
clarifying vague notions, explicitly and systematically taking up matters that require careful
study, examining the basis of different kinds of knowledge, and proceeding to a critical study
of false presumptions that could have crept into a generally accepted and prevailing
mentality. This correct philosophical perspective is made easily accessible to the believer by
his faith. Faith clearly points out to him the truths about the meaning of human life that
natural reason can attain, and thus makes it easier for him to perceive the continuity that
exists between philosophy and the correct spontaneous use of reason.

We have to state, however, that although faith points to the truth of
some knowledge accessible to reason, the latter can ultimately be satisfied
inly by evidence. Faith does not spare reason the effort needed to acquire
such knowledge. Here we are dealing with two distinct levels with regard to
the way of arriving at the truth.

Hence, just like reason, philosophy is an instrument of theology, for philosophy
systematically actualizes the possibilities of natural reason. One may say that philosophy is a
necessary instrument of theology, since the scientific exposition of faith is not possible without

relying on the scientific use of natural reason. In fact, one can easily observe that theological
explanations make use of philosophical thought.

We have already touched upon the precise meaning of the necessity
of philosophy for theology. We are dealing here with instrumental necessity
in varying degrees, according to the different branches of theology that may
be considered.

B.2. CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY

Historically, the study of theology has been carried out by starting from faith and
making use of philosophy as an instrument. With the help of faith, the Fathers of the Church
fashioned a philosophical instrument in harmony with faith, and this ahs been called
Christian philosophy. This philosophy takes Christian dogmas into account, but it proceeds
in the study of its subject matter by using arguments drawn up by reason. It is not theology,
therefore; nevertheless, it facilitates theological study. It has been enriched all throughout
history by significant contributions; it reached its summit with the doctrine of St. Thomas
Aquinas.

The term Christian philosophy has given rise to controversies
involving many authors:

E. Gilson, a main protagonist, states: Before everything else, I
would simply like to issue a reminder: before, the term Christian
philosophy had nothing more than a historical meaning. It referred to the
immense work of philosophical speculation integrated by the Fathers of the
Church and the Scholastics into their theological endeavor. This
contributions exists, it is of such importance that one cannot write the
history of philosophy without taking it into account.

In the end, the real question that has to be asked is: Can we call real philosophy a
system of thought, that from the very start already includes acceptance, influenced by the
faith, of solutions to many significant philosophical problems? Or, expressed in another way:
Is it possible to philosophize without putting ones faith aside?

A convincing reply can be found by going over the works if St. Thomas Aquinas, the
most preeminent Christian philosopher. It is quite clear that his main concern for theology
did not prevent him from studying philosophical issues with scientific rigor. In his
philosophical works, and in the philosophical discussions included in his theological works, his
reasoning exclusively relies on strictly rational arguments. Undoubtedly, the certitude of faith
served as a firm support for him in tackling basic philosophical issues. But it was like a
stimulus that inspired reason in its intellectual work, never a form of suppression of rational
though. If he managed to achieve an outstanding harmony between philosophy and theology,
he did not accomplish the feat at the expense of philosophical precision. He did it precisely by
paying heed to the truth.

This can easily be confirmed. One can make use, for instance of the
arguments of St. Thomas Aquinas employs regarding the existence of finality
ion nature. This is an important philosophical issue that is especially
relevant in our time. St. Thomas expressly links it with one of his proofs to
establish the truth of Gods existence. The pagan philosopher Aristotle dealt
with this matter deeply. St. Thomas Aquinas studies Aristotles reasoning
rigorously, and makes use of his conclusion to argue in favor of the existence
of a provident God. There is nothing in this process that is not strictly
rational. This also applies to other philosophical issues. For instance, the
problems and solutions presented by St. Thomas Aquinas in connection with
his doctrine about the act of being are perfectly in line with natural and
supernatural theology; nevertheless, they are always backed by rational

arguments, and they can be assessed and accepted by any person, regardless
of his attitude towards the Christian faith.

Hence, the so-called Christian philosophy is true philosophy in the strict sense. The
term Christian points to its inspired origin and its continuity, which do not go against its
strictly rational nature.

B.3. PHILOSOPHY AND DOGMATIC STATEMENTS

The Magisterium of the Church has made use of philosophical terms in formulating
dogmas. This does not mean that the Magisterium makes dogma depend in some concepts
found in the most outstanding philosophical systems, since that would entail subordinating
the faith to a form of human thought, which is always limited. In its doctrinal formulations,
the Magisterium of the Church uses philosophical terms which represent a more precise
continuation of correct spontaneous knowledge. This happens, for instance, when the
Magisterium uses terms such as person and nature in connection with the mysteries of
the Blessed Trinity and the Incarnation, or substance in connection with the Eucharist, in
order to define transubstantiation. Thus, Church Magisterium strives to clearly expound the
meaning of truths of faith and defend it against all errors. This also makes us realize that
abandoning the use of such terms carries with it the risk of falling once again into the errors
that provoked the need to devise those terms.

Referring to concepts used by Catholic doctrine, Pope Pius XII
teaches: No one denies that the terms used, in the teaching of theology as
well as of the Magisterium of the Church itself, in order to express the
corresponding concepts, can be perfected and made more precise it is also
obviously true that the Church cannot adhere to any ephemeral
philosophical system. Nevertheless, the ideas and terms that generally
accepted Catholic teachers have been accumulating are truly based on
principles and notions deduced from real knowledge of created things, in the
light of revealed truth. Hence, it is not at all surprising that some of those
concepts were not inly used, but also approved by ecumenical councils in
such a way that it would not be lawful to deviate from them.

The real issue we are facing here is the safeguarding of the content of the Christian
faith. There is always the possibility of a greater understanding and a better expression of
that content, but these should not be achieved at the expense of truth. Genuine advancement
in this matter will never involve a rejection or a watering down of content found in the
formulations of the faith used by the Magisterium of the Church.

Pope Paul VI wrote: The norm of expression that the Church, in its
sustained effort through the centuries, has established with the help of the
Holy Spirit, and which it has confirmed by the authority of the councils
should be faithfully observed For those formulas, like all the rest which the
Church makes use of to propound dogmas of faith, express concepts which
are not tied to a particular form of culture, or a specific period of scientific
progress, or any theological school; rather, they manifest what he human
mind perceives in reality through universal and necessary experience, and
they express it trough adequate and specific words taken from either
common or cultural parlance. Hence they are suitable to all men, in varied
circumstances of time and place.

Theological errors are frequently the result of using an erroneous philosophy. Thus, the
correct use of philosophy enables us to pinpoint in many instances the root causes of those
errors and correct flawed perspectives, and it provides a great help more than what mere
abundance of data offers- to discern truth and error in theology. And individual who ahs a
vast knowledge of the life and history of the Church, for instance, may easily fall into errors in
theology if he does not have a solid training in philosophy. He may easily fit and interpret the

facts he has obtained within excessively partial systems of thought, subject to intellectual or
practical tendencies in vogue.

B.4. PHILOSOPHY, AN INSTRUMENT OF THEOLOGY

We must stress, however, that philosophy us used by theology only as in instrument,
since faith is always the norm or standard of theology. If this truth is not taken into account,
faith may be relegated to the level of knowledge that man can acquire through the use of
natural reason alone. Besides, there would be the risk of accepting erroneous doctrines
presented as seemingly indispensable by false philosophical systems.

When we say that philosophy is an instrument of theology, we are
not rejecting the autonomy of philosophy within its proper order, nor are we
stating that it is really nothing outside being a mere instrument of theology.
Far from being outrightly degraded, philosophy is rather ennobled by its use
in theology, the supreme human wisdom.

Thus, there are two ways of studying philosophy. First, it can be studied mainly for
its own sake; and second, in view of its role as an instrument of theology. Obviously, these are
not two opposing perspectives, and they can even coincide. Nevertheless, when an individual
studies philosophy mainly because of its significance in theological doctrine, he will have no
need to tackle many issues which would, in contrast, be useful and even indispensable for
someone who pursues philosophy as an autonomous science in itself, or as his professional
expertise. This does not in any way mean that a superficial dabbling in philosophy already
qualifies as a theological instrument. It simply mean that whoever is primarily interested in
the doctrinal angle can skip matters that have little or no relation whatsoever with it.

Even though comparisons may not be that exact, we can
nonetheless draw up illustrative analogies concerning the matter for
instance, the physicist makes use of mathematics as an instrument, without
rejecting its proper autonomy. This use of mathematics makes it even more
important. The physicist does not usually have to confront problems with
the technical rigor of the mathematician. But this does not mean that he
should be satisfied with a superficial knowledge of mathematics, or that he
can make use of it as he likes. It simply means that many legitimate
requirements of purely mathematical demonstrations have no practical
application for problems in physics.


C. PHILOSOPHY IN CHRISTIANITY

C.1. PHILOSOPHY IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY

In the early centuries of the history of the Church, theology arose for thee two-fold
purpose of defending the faith against two dangers that threatened it, namely, criticism
coming from pagans, and the heresies that originated within the Church. Theology made use
of classical philosophy as an instrument. Whatever truth could be found in ancient
philosophy was accepted in order to defend the humanly reasonable elements of the faith
against pagan attacks, and to express the truths of the faith in a way that precluded heretical
interpretations.

The apologists defended Christianity against pagan criticism. At
times, they even addressed their writings to the Roman emperor himself. St.
Justin loomed as an outstanding figure among them. He embraced
Christianity after having sought the truth in the most diverse ancient
philosophies. In the Apologies written during this period, the stress was
understandably on what could be known by the use of reason.

Clement of Alexandria, likewise a convert, exerted a great influence
in Alexandria, which was an important center of culture in antiquity. He
combined the tasks of philosophy and theology. Origen was to become his
prominent successor.
From the very start, the Church opposed heresies like Gnosticism.
Nevertheless, when the persecutions against Christians finally ceased in the
year 313, a new doctrinal era began. The Fathers of the Church and the early
Councils would experience the need to make doctrinal formulas precise,
dictated by the serious effort to acquire greater understanding, and by the
difficulties raised by new heresies.

Christians of those times had the full awareness of the superiority of revealed
doctrine over any discovery made by human reason. Revelation gave importance to truths
that were unknown or neglected in pagan philosophies, as well as other truths that were
previously dealt with in a fragmentary way, thus bringing strictly supernatural elements
together with philosophical truths. Christianity clearly taught truths like the existence of a
personal God, the creation of the universe the spirituality and immortality of the human soul,
and the existence of human freedom, sin and objective morality. All these entailed
superiority, even in the natural level, over pagan philosophies.
Christianity made use of classical philosophy, after having corrected it in the light of
faith. Such philosophy contained doctrinal and practical errors, mixed with partial natural
truths, and this fact justified a general attitude of caution before it. The heresies that cropped
up were many times the result of an uncritical use of totally and partially erroneous
philosophies in the study of revealed doctrine.
Thus, a body of natural truths gradually and laboriously emerged. It constituted a
Christian philosophy, on account of its origin and purpose. It took its inspiration mainly from
revealed truths, and it sought to defend them, making use of arguments of reason and of
whatever truth there was in ancient philosophies. St. Augustine played a particularly
significant role in the development of Christian philosophy.

The path that led St. Augustine to his conversion is linked with
different with different philosophical systems, especially those marked by
Platonic influence. In his numerous writings, St. Augustine dealt with all
kinds of philosophical and theological matters. Due to the power of his
thought and the richness of his spirituality, theologians of subsequent
historical periods would look up to him as the great master of theological
science.

C.2. THE MEDIEVAL SYNTHESIS

Christian theology, together with philosophy, was developed and systematized
during the Middle Ages. Its summit is represented by the original synthesis worked out by St.
Thomas Aquinas, which features a deep harmony between reason and faith.

In this process of development, some individuals and events proved
significant. We should acknowledge the contributions of authors like Scotus
Eriougena, St. Anselm of Canterbury, Peter Abelard, Alexander of Hales, St.
Albert the Great and St. Bonaventure; the importance of schools of learning
such as Chartres and Oxford and the foundation of universities; and the role
played by Jewish and Arab philosophers, who also served as transmitters of
ancient Greek Philosophy.

St. Thomas Aquinas successfully drew up a profound and coherent philosophical
doctrine. His philosophy assimilated the valid elements of earlier philosophies (Platonism,
Aristotelianism, Arabic philosophy, Christian philosophical tradition). St. Thomas Aquinas
made use of this philosophy to delve deeper into Catholic doctrine, in full conformity with
Sacred Scriptures and Tradition to which he constantly referred and with the Magisterium
of the Church. The perennial significance of his work can be explained in part by his total

openness to the truth, which enabled him to include in his harmonious synthesis the valid
elements of many centuries of philosophical and theological thought.

The work of St. Thomas Aquinas can be divided into two general
classifications:

a) Commentaries on the books of the Old and New Testaments, and on
different works, such as the Book of Sentences of Peter Lombard,
and the twelve works of Aristotle. There are a total of 42
commentaries written by St. Thomas Aquinas.
b) Personal works, which include the Summa Theologiae and the
Summa Contra Gentiles, the Quaestiones Quodlibetales, lectures
and homilies, and minor theological and philosophical writings. All
in all, there 88 personal works of St. Thomas Aquinas.

The philosophical doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas can be found in
his commentaries on philosophers (especially Aristotle), in some of the
quaestiones regarding philosophical matters, in his shorter
philosophical works, and in scattered fashion, also all throughout his
theological writings.

The philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas is a profound synthesis of permanent value,
because of its correct use of philosophical elements in conformity with properly fostering the
development of natural reason, and because of its coherence with Catholic doctrine.
Obviously, it has room for further perfection and development. It cannot be expected to
provide solutions to all the issues that have cropped up in subsequent periods. In some
particular topics, linked in a special manner with the scientific knowledge during the time in
which St. Thomas Aquinas lived, the doctrine has become out of date. Nevertheless, the
philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas continues to provide a valid view of fundamental
philosophical issue. With regard to its basic principles and conclusions, it can be described as
perennially valid.

Thus, anyone can readily see why the doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas has been
widely used by the Magisterium of the Church, and why the Magisterium has expressly and
repeatedly endorsed it up to our time, presenting it as a sure and indispensable guide for
philosophical and theological studies.

This can be gleaned from the following official documents issued by
the Church in the past 100 years:
- Encyclical Aeterni Patris, issued by Pope Leo XIII on
August 4, 1879: it vigorously recommends fidelity to
Thomistic doctrine;
- Motu proprio Doctoris Angelici issued by Pope Pius X on
June 29, 1914;
- The 1917 Code of Canon Law; Canon 1366 stipulates the
use of the doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas in eccelesiastical
studies;
- Encyclical Studiorum Ducem, issued by Pope Pius XI on
June 29, 1923;
- Encyclical Humani Generis, issued by Pope Pius XII on
August 12, 1950
- Address Singulari Sane, delivered by Pope John XXIII on
September 16, 1960;
- Letter Lumen Ecclesiae, issued by Pope Paul VI on
November 20, 1974;
- Decree Optatam Totius, nos. 15 and 16, issued by the
Second Vatican Council (and the reply given by the
Congregation for Seminaries and Universities, dated

December 20, 1965, in connection with no. 15); Vatican II
Declaration Gravissimim Educationis no. 10.
- Pope John Paul II, Address delivered at the Pontifical
University of St. Thomas Aquinas on November 17, 1979;
Address delivered at the 8th International Thomistic
Congress on September 13, 1980;
- The 19883 Code of Canon Law; canon 252 states that
students of dogmatic theology are to have St. Thomas in
particular as their teacher.

In its documents endorsing the philosophical and theological doctrine of St. Thomas
Aquinas, the Magisterium of the Church expressly highlights the perennial validity of his
metaphysics, its capacity to integrate whatever truth proceeds from ancient and modern
philosophies, its fidelity to Catholic doctrines, and its capacity to safeguard the truth in the
face of error, and to serve as a sure guide for study and research. It also encourages a direct
reading of the works of St. Thomas Aquinas, stresses that the basic points of his philosophy
are certain truths and not mere debatable opinions, and points to the need to tackle newer
issues in conformity with Thomistic principles, with the openness to the truth that was so
characteristic of St. Thomas Aquinas.

C.3. CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN PHILOSOPHY

The direction Western Philosophy has taken in modern times is conditioned in great
part by currents of thought that separate faith and reason and many times pit one against the
other. Rooted in medieval nominalism, this rupture finds its way into theology mainly
thorough the influence of Luther, who affirmed that human nature is essentially corrupt, and
ended up disdaining reason. It finds its way into philosophy through the influence of
Descartes, who made the truth depend on subjective certitude. Once the harmony between
reason and faith is broken, the way is clear for philosophical systems espousing radical views
and leading to most varied errors. Thus, the moral necessity of the revelation of the principal
natural truths appears. Without the help of faith, reason easily goes astray, and an erroneous
reason, in turn, deforms the content of the faith.

The Magisterium of the Church has insistently issued warnings
about the errors of different systems of thought. It would be erroneous to
conclude that this way of acting reflects an attitude of hostility or mistrust
toward anything modern. The Church has constantly exerted the effort to
pinpoint the truths these systems may contain, separating them from the
rest. Obviously, however, this task is fraught with serious difficulties, since
many times, the errors proceed from false foundations.

In the field of philosophy, the errors referred to arise from materialist, scientistic,
pragmatist and subjectivist tendencies, which clash with the faith and frequently lead to
explicit or implicit atheism. These perspectives gave influenced theology and have led to
positions seriously harmful for the faith, such as modernism and neo-modernism. In the
cultural field, they have spawned a prevalent attitude of using reason to embark on a
malignant criticism, leaving no room for fundamental metaphysical truths; isolated from all
natural truths, faith is thus reduced to mere subjective sentiment.

Obviously, not everything is false in modern philosophy. Nevertheless, it is a fact that
the previously mentioned factors exercise a powerful and negative influence on philosophical
and theological perspectives. The development of modern thought in these past centuries
offers some positive elements and partial truths of considerable interest, but it would take a
heavy dose of discernment to make good use of them.

C.4. CONTINUITY IN CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY


Christian philosophy has been continuously developing up to the present time, even
though it has, on not a few occasions, suffered from the negative influence exerted by some
philosophies incompatible with the faith. For this reason, the Magisterium of the Church,
especially after the encyclical Aeterni Patris issued by pope Leo XIII in 1879, has constantly
affirmed the need to foster the study of Thomistic philosophy, for it still represents the
summit of Christian thought.

The study of Thomism declined in the 17th and 18th centuries, even
though during that period, there were also Thomistic philosophers. In the
second half of the 19th century, there was a resurgence of Thomistic studies;
worthy of mention were the efforts of the Italian Sanseverino, of Naples; the
magazine La Civilta Cattolica founded by Fr. Curci, a Jesuit; and Cardinal
Zigliara in Rome. In Spain, the Dominican cardinal Ceferino Gonzales exerted
a considerable influence. In Germany, the leading figure of Thomistic
Thought was the Jesuit Fr. Joseph Kleutgen, who had a hand in preparation
of the encyclical Aeterni Patris.

Pope Leo XIIIs encyclical was a big boost to Thomism and it gave
rise to a wide-based movement that has been called neo-Thomism or neo-
Scholasticism. Among the outstanding figures of this revival were Cardinal
Mercier (especially during the early years), founder of the school of Louvain,
and a host of very different personalities like Louis de Raeymaeker,
Francesco Olgiati, Cornelio Fabro, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Martin
Grabmann, Josef Pieper, Antonin-Dalmace Sertillangesm Regis Joliver, and
two authors who have exerted a vast influence up to our present time the
French philosophers Jacques Maritain and Etienne Gilson.

D. THE CHRISTIAN BEFORE PHILOSOPHY

D.1. FAITH AND PHILOSOPHICAL STUDY

Since philosophy deals with truths that can be known through reason, and some of
the truths are contained in revelation, obviously, faith has important consequences for a
Christian who studies philosophy. These specific consequences are as follows:

a) God has revealed the most sublime natural truths (the existence of God and His
attributes, the immortality of the human soul, the natural law, among others) so that
they may be known by all human beings more firmly, more easily, and without any
trace of error. Hence, a Christian knows these truths by faith. This prevents him from
falling into errors regarding them, and helps him attain knowledge of them through
the use of reason.

In this sense, a Christian finds himself in an advantageous position,
since thorough his faith, he knows more (in terms of supernatural truths)
and better (due to the certitude he has, concerning natural truths). Of course,
he does not enjoy, on account of this, any advantage with regard to the
specific knowledge provided by the sciences, which may bear no relation to
revealed truths. Faith is advantageous to reason because it perfects it
without obliging it to renounce what is proper to it.

b) In the study of philosophy, one should not momentarily cast aside the knowledge of
natural truths that faith brings, or totally disregard it. Fait heals the intellect
darkened by sin, this making its corrects spontaneous and philosophical use
possible. Besides, in this manner, one can avoid presumption, which is a source of
errors, and preclude a false attitude that tends to make everything problematic in an
indefinite way.


There is no danger of producing a spurious philosophy, since only
what has been rationally founded will be acknowledged in the philosophical
plane.

c) The help provided by the faith does not suppress the natural development of the
intellect and the effort exerted by reason to attain the most sublime truths.

Faith is a stimulus that demands more from reason, since it presents higher
goals to it, without sparing it the consequent effort needed to achieve them.
It fulfills its role as a guiding light by specifying goals that demand a more
rigorous and careful study of the rational process. Thus, it is against the
paralyzationof rational activity.

d) A Christian passes judgment on philosophical doctrines in the light of faith. Later on,
by using philosophy, he can pinpoint the root causes of the possible errors contained
in such doctrines.

Just like other previously mentioned cases, the scrutiny of such doctrines in the field
of natural reason requires full philosophical rigor.

e) Pre-Christian philosophers erred in basic points, indispensable for the task of leading
human life towards its end. This makes us realize that the revelation of the highest
natural truths was morally necessary, although by itself it was not absolutely
indispensable. Later on, philosophers who turned away from the faith they had
already known, fell into even greater errors. This becomes understandable when we
consider that the sin of apostasy leads to consequences that are more serious than
those brought about by mere ignorance.

We can perceive, without any special difficulty, that not a few
doctrines incompatible with the faith can be described as pseudo-religious.
They advocate, as substitutes for religious truths, inadequately founded
ideologies which provide a global view of human problems by transforming
into absolute factors some partial aspects of reality or of human experience.

f) Faith puts man in touch with spiritual realities studied in metaphysics, this making it
easier for reason to acquire knowledge concerning these realities.

g) As in the case of faith, proper dispositions are also required for correct philosophical
knowledge, for man is free in the use of his intellect. The attitude that accompanies
faith facilitates the acquisition of these dispositions. Hence, for instance, a person
with faith is helped to avoid considering himself as the measure of reality and falling
into subjectivist errors.

The relations between freedom and thought so tightly-knit when it comes
to matters touching upon the meaning of human existence explain why
there can be many philosophical errors. Faith leads the human being to see
God, the sole Absolute Being, as the center of reality. Thus, faith frees him
from improper generalizations and false theories arising from a subjective
and self-serving view of reality, allegedly resting on objective bases a claim
which may be either partially valid or totally unrealistic.

In summary, we can say that the present state of human nature redeemed but with
a weakened intellect and will due to the consequences of original sin and personal sins
explains why the faith per
forms an important service to reason as the latter carries out tasks proper to itself, and why
the absence of faith can enable errors to crop up more easily even in the natural level. Faith
helps reason know the principal natural truths, but without sparing it the effort it must exert
in order to attain these truths through the rational process.


D.2. PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIAN LIVING

The study of philosophy enhances the coherence of Christian living.

a) Since philosophy serves as an instrument of theology, the study of
philosophy enables us to acquire a better knowledge of Christian doctrine.
b) Faith and theology must shed light on the knowledge acquired by particular
sciences and its applications. This is carried out better through philosophy,
the highest wisdom in the natural level.
In the natural sciences, this link is verified above all, in
some assumptions and in the interpretation of results (in reflections
on the scientific method and truth, or in statements about the being
of the material universe, for instance). In the human sciences, the
link is more strongly significant, since philosophical doctrines
exercise a decisive influence on the idea a person has of man, thus
greatly affecting the basic approaches used in history, sociology,
psychology and other related sciences.

c) Philosophy must be of help to the faith. There can be no absolute separation
or mutual opposition of philosophical thought and Christian faith. Hence,
knowledge of Christian philosophy is extremely useful.

An evident danger arises from inadequate philosophical
knowledge. It lies in not realizing the relation between the faith and
specific ideologies arrayed in scientific garb which are really
incompatible with it, such as Freudian, Marxist, agnostic or
scientistic theories. In such cases, a Christian would actually possess
an erroneous idea about the faith and natural knowledge. Although
he may sincerely practice his faith, he will inevitably suffer from the
negative effects such confusion necessarily causes, leading him to
incoherent attitudes.

d) Catechetical teaching, and in general, every form of expounding Christian
doctrine is necessarily accompanied by philosophical concepts at different
levels. Thus, even in this field, knowledge of Christian philosophy is of great
help, since it facilitates the understanding of doctrine. Besides, it enables an
individual to appreciate the value of the Christian cultural heritage, acquired
through the effort of many generations and destined to achieve further
development in continuity with already attained truths. Furthermore, it
helps one see the importance of terminological precision in the explanation
of Catholic doctrine.

All these should be kept in mind so as t refute false charges
of opposition between what is doctrinal and what is vital.
Philosophical depth is not averse to practical problems. It rather
helps us discover their real meaning and the proper approach to
them. Superficiality prevents us from seeing the connection
between life and the doctrinal truths that give meaning to it. If this
happens, there will be problems that may seem practically
impossible to solve, simply because they are seen from an
erroneous perspective.

D.3. CHURCH MAGISTERIUM AND PHILOSOPHY

The following are among the most significant teachings and instructions on
philosophy, given by the Magisterium of the Church:


a) It is important to subordinate reason to faith, and philosophy to theology. The
Magisterium has constantly emphasized this highly significant point, and
this insistence becomes understandable when we realize that many
theological errors have arisen as a consequence of not seriously taking this
matter into account. Besides, faith is a superior norm which never
contradicts truths attained by reason. Faith neither limits nor does violence
to reason; rather, faith elevates it.

Although faith is above reason, there can never be a real
discrepancy between faith and reason, since the same God who
reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason
on the human mind, and God cannot deny himself, nor can truth
ever contradict truth. The deceptive appearance of such a
contradiction is mainly due to the fact that either the dogmas of
faith have not been understood and expounded according to the
mind of the Church, or that uncertain theories are taken for verdicts
of reason. Thus, we define that very assertion that is opposed to
enlightened faith is utterly false. (Fifth Lateran Council).

After due corrections and adaptations, the doctrine of
Aristotle as well as those of other philosophers could be and can be
accepted by virtue of the universal value of their principles, their
respect for objective reality, and their acknowledgment of a God
distinct from the world. The same thing cannot be said of
philosophies and scientific theories whose basic principles are
incompatible with religious faith because they are based on
monism, or because they deny transcendence, or because they
advocate subjectivism or agnosticism. Unfortunately, there are
many modern doctrines and systems of thought which are radically
irreconcilable with Christian faith and theology.

b) The Magisterium recommend the study and teaching of the philosophy and
theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. The pronouncements of the Magisterium
regarding this matter continue being applicable in our time. This is not
equivalent to belittling the importance of other valid expressions of
philosophical thought, or to suppressing an individuals legitimate freedom
in debatable issues, or to refusing to acknowledge the existence of new
difficulties and situations that require further advances in doctrinal studies.

The capital theses in the philosophy of St. Thomas are not
to be placed in the category of opinions capable of being debated
one way or another, but are to be considered as the foundations
upon which the whole science of natural and divine things is based;
if such principles are once removed or in any way impaired, it must
necessarily follow that students of the sacred sciences will
ultimately fail to perceive so much as the meaning of the words in
which the dogmas of divine revelation are proposed by the
Magisterium of the Church. We therefore desired that all teachers of
philosophy and sacred theology should be warned that if they
deviate so much as a step, in metaphysics especially, from Aquinas,
they will expose themselves to grave risk.

The Second Vatican Council, too, recommended to Catholic
schools, on two separate occasions, the study of the doctrine of St.
Thomas Aquinas. Indeed, while tackling the issue of priestly
training, the Council said: In order to throw as full a light as
possible on the mysteries of salvation, the students should learn to
examine more deeply, with the help of speculation and with St.

Thomas as teacher all aspects of these mysteries, and to perceive
their interconnection (Decree Optatam Totius, no. 16). The same
ecumenical Council, in its Declaration on Christian Education,
exhorted schools of higher education to work for the fulfillment of
their objective in such a way that by a careful attentions to the
current problems of these changing times and to the research being
undertaken, the convergence of faith and reason in the one truth
may be seen more clearly, and right after this, it affirmed that to
achieve such an end, there is a need to follow the traditions of the
Doctors of the Church, and especially St. Thomas Aquinas (cf.
Declaration Gravissimum Educationis, no. 10) There is no real and
fruitful fidelity if the principles enunciated by St. Thomas Aquinas
are not accepted received, in some way, from his own hands.

c) The Magisterium of the Church has clearly pointed out the errors of different
philosophical systems that are incompatible with the faith, and has also
issued warnings against other systems of thought which lead to doctrinal
errors when they are allowed to reach conclusion coherent with their
principles. For instance, it has rejected doctrines like immanentism,
idealism, materialism and pragmatism, firmly noting that attempts to make
Catholic doctrine compatible with such doctrines lead to serious errors.

Pope Pius Xii refereed to those who scorned perennial
philosophy and at the same time praised other philosophies
ancient or modern, eastern or western - , seemingly insinuating that
any debatable philosophy or doctrine, duly corrected or enhanced
whenever necessary, can be made compatible with Catholic dogma.
However, no Catholic can entertain doubts regarding the falsity of
this attitude, especially when the philosophies involved are systems
like immanentism, idealism, materialism whether historical or
dialectic and existentialism whether it defends atheism or rejects
the significance of reason ion the field of metaphysics.

The Second Vatican Council explains in a positive light the
Catholic doctrine concerning man, explicitly highlighting numerous
truths affirmed by perennial philosophy, such a s the composition of
body and soul, the spirituality and immortality of the human soul,
the dignity of man as a being superior to the maternal universe, the
human capacity to grasp reality with certainty through the use of
the intellect, the natural law written in mans conscience, human
freedom and the need to overcome ones passions in order to act in
accordance with human dignity. At the same time, it discusses
several doctrines contrary to the truth, such as communism and
scientism. It affirms that the Church, as given over to the service of
both God and man, cannot cease from reproving, with sorrow yet
with the utmost firmness, as she has done in the past, those harmful
teachings and ways of acting which are in conflict with reason and
with common human experience, and which cast man down from
the noble to state to which he was born. Lastly, it teaches that
these drawbacks are not necessarily due to modern culture and
they should not tempt us to overlook its positive values.

Every Catholic has to carefully observe these pronouncements of the Magisterium in
activities related to doctrinal formation, teaching and research. They constitute an
indispensable requirement in order to obtain fruitful results. Confusion in doctrinal and
practical matters, against which the Magisterium of the Church has forewarned the faithful in
times past as well as in our present era, arises from the attitude of ignoring these
pronouncements, their acceptance and observance, in contrast, constitute a firm guarantee of

doctrinal and moral integrity, allowing a Catholic to share in the task of finding the right
approaches and solutions to many human conflicts and difficulties.

In our days, the Magisterium of the Church has constantly expressed the need for a
new humanism based on an integral view of man, that will be capable of going beyond the

inevitable negative consequences of functionalist and pragmatist currents of thought. For
this, man can rely above all on the help of his supernatural faith. However, many elements of
this humanism are accessible to human reason; establishing its rational foundation is
precisely the task of philosophy. The teachings and pronouncements of the Magisterium of
the Church regarding philosophy tend toward a clear objective: to serve man in his quest for
truth and the meaning of his life, illumining his way with the light that God Himself has
entrusted to the Church.

Pope John Paul II affirmed that now, more than ever, there is a
need to sow the good seed of metaphysical truth above all. Confusion in
theology and crisis in morality are generally caused by a crisis in
philosophy. Philosophy has a social role of tremendous importance, for
mans path leading to his end passes through it. This explains why the
Church is so keen about safeguarding the integrity of philosophy.