chistory_christ3
CHRISTOLOGY
The problem of the nature of man may be stated simply as follows: What is man?
Historically there have been many solutions proposed to this problem. These solutions have been proposed from within the framework of Western thought and culture. Western thought and culture, as we know it today, had its origin not only among the Greeks but also among the Hebrews; it may be said to have two-roots or sources: the Greek-Roman and the Hebrew-Christian. Each of these two roots involved a fundamentally different and mutually exclusive ultimate commitment. And associated with each of these ultimate commitments is a characteristic world view or view of reality which is grounded in and implied by these two distinctive ultimate commitments. We shall summarize here these two views of reality in order to bring out their differences and incompatiblity which arise from the mutually exclusive ultimate commitments: Hebrews-Christian world view and the Greek-Roman world view. The difference between these two views of reality is most clearly seen in their views of man. During the Middle Ages, attempts were made to resolve the difference in their views of man by trying to synthesize these two views of reality.
The Hebrew-Christian world view of reality is grounded in an ultimate commitment to the personal Creator God who manifested Himself in Jesus Christ and reveals Himself by the Holy Spirit. This revelation is recorded in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. The personal God who has revealed Himself in this way exists as three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This triune personal Being exists independent of the world and is its Creator. The Hebrew-Christian view of reality makes a fundamental ontological distinction between the Creator and the Creation; God is the sovereign Creator of all things, of the world and man, and all things are His free creation.
Man was created by God and, in contrast to the rest of creation, was created in the image of God, who is Jesus Christ, the God-man (Col. 1:13-15; compare II Cor. 4:4). Man, as created by God, is a personal being, a unity of spirit [person] and body (see Gen. 2:7), having dominion over creation and fellowship with another equal human being (woman). Man’s existence as a person is also to be found not in his reason but in his limited free will and decision. And since decisions involve a reference to an ultimate criterion beyond the self, to a god, the Bibical view of man is that he is a religious animal, a being who must have a god.
The first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, used their freedom to disobey God and choose a false god, wisdom and knowledge; that is, Reason. The basic sin is turning from the true God and to faith in a false god of some kind; it is idolatry. Sin is any choice contrary to ultimate allegiance or faith in the true God (Rom. 14:23). The consequence of Adam’s sin was death (Gen. 2:16-17): physical death (the separation of their spirits from their bodies) and spiritual death (the separation of their spirits from God). In other words, they lost their fellowship with God and with each other (Gen. 3:7-8) and their dominion over creation. But even though they have fallen from the image of God, they still are persons and still have the freedom of choice.
The descendants of Adam are born not in the image of God but in the image of Adam, the man of dust, the old man, and as such are subject to death, physical and spiritual. Death has been inherited by all men (Rom. 5:12). And since they have been born into the world spiritually dead, alienated from God, not knowing the true God, and since they must have a god, an ultimate criterion of decision, they choose a false god as their God and thereby sin (Gal. 4:8). The creation, man himself, contains a knowledge about the true God which leaves them without excuse for the sin of idolatry (Rom. 1:19-20). But this knowledge is about the true God and is not a personal knowledge of the true God which comes from an encoounter and fellowship with God.
Salvation is the restoration of fellowship and communion with God through the historical death, bodily resurrection and exaltation of Jesus Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit. God in His love for man has sent His Son into the world to become a man – Jesus Christ. He is the image of God, the perfect man. But He came not just to be what man should have been or to give man a perfect example but to give them life and restore them to the image of God. He did this by entering into their condition of spiritual and physical death on the cross. So that as Christ was raised from the dead, they might be made alive with Him in His resurrection. That is, Christ’s death was their death and His resurrection is their resurrection. That is, salvation is basically from death to life (John 5:24). Also, Jesus Christ was exalted to the right hand of God as Lord to become their Lord and their God. God has sent the Holy Spirit to save man from death and sin by revealing Him personally to them in the preaching of the gospel, the good news of what God has done for man in Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, of Jesus Christ as their Savior who died for them and as their resurrected and living Lord. When a man responds to this revelation by turning from his false gods (in repentance) and turning to the true God, acknowledging Jesus as his Lord (in faith), he is saved from sin (Rom. 10:9-10). And since in this decision of faith he receives the living Christ as his life and identifies himself with the death and resurrection of Christ, the believer is also saved from spiritual death, being made spiritually alive to God in Christ. The believer has eternal life which a personal knowledge of the true God and Jesus Christ He has sent (John 17:3). Thus man is now being restored to the image of God.
But this restoration is not now yet complete. At the second coming of Jesus Christ (Acts 1:9) the believers’ bodies will be resurrected if they die before He comes (I Thess. 4:13-17), or will be transformed into bodies like His resurrected body if they are alive at His coming (I Cor. 15:51-52; Phil. 3:20-21; I Thess. 4:13-17; I John 3:2). Thus physical death will be replaced with physical life just as spiritual death was replaced with spiritual life when they first believed. What was begun at conversion will be brought to completion (Phil. 1:6) at Christ’s coming. Spiritual life will become eternal life – eternal fellowship with the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit (heaven) (Rev. 21:3). Thus will man be restored to the image of God. And their salvation is from death (both spiritual and physical) unto life, from sin (idolatry – trust in false gods) unto righteousness (trust in the true God), will be completed. The Image of God. What is the image of God?
The image of God is a person, the Son of God:
“13 For He [God] delivered us from the domain of darkness, and translated us to the kingdom of His beloved Son. 14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins; 15 And He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation.” (Col. 1:13-15 NAS; compare II Cor. 4:4; Rom. 8:29);
God’s Beloved Son is the model and pattern according to which God created man. As such He is the first-born of all creation. Not that He is the first created being, but that He is the pattern by which all men will be born. God created man with the anticipation that His Son would become man, a human being. Thus He is the first-born of all creation. Note that the Scriptures never says that the image of God is in man, but rather that man has been created in the image of God. What does it mean for man to be created in the image of God? The answer may be seen in Genesis 1:26-27.
“26 Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
In this passage of Scripture, we find that there are two aspects to man being created in the image of God.
1. The first aspect is found in the words “let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, … over all the earth ….” God has given man dominion, sovereignty, and lordship over the creation (Psa. 8:4-8). As God has sovereignty and dominion over all He has created, so God has given man sovereignty and dominion over all the earth. Man in his limited sovereignty over creation is like God in His unlimited sovereignty. In this sense, man is like God. Man’s lordship over creation is the first aspect of man being created in the image of God. This passage in Genesis justifies the task and existence of all the sciences and especially biology. But it is not only the study and knowledge of creation that is involved here. Man has a God-given right to use this creation for the good of mankind and for the glory of God.
2. But there is also a second aspect to man being created in the image of God. In these verses of Genesis one, we see this aspect in the words “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him: male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:26). This does not mean that God is male and female but that He is more than one person existing in an unique personal relationship or fellowship. As God has created man, he cannot live alone. In Genesis 2:18,
“The Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.'”
Of all the creatures God had created “there was not found a helper fit for him” (Gen. 2:20). So God created, out of man, woman. Man, in the very way in which he was created had a social need — a need for fellowship. This need could only be satisfied through an equal fellow creature. None of the animals could satisfy this need for fellowship. So God made an equal being, a woman. Man as a social being is able to enjoy a reciprocal personal relationship or fellowship with an equal being. In this respect, man is also like God. In God, there is an equality and fellowship between the three persons of the Godhead.
Thus according to Genesis 1:26-27, being created in the image of God means for man to have dominion over creation and to have a personal relationship with an equal human person – woman; these are the two aspects of man being created in the image of God. Both of these presuppose freedom – the freedom of choice and the freedom of action. This freedom is the presupposition and possibility of being in the image of God. Since God created man with freedom, dominion over creation and personal relationships with equal personal beings become possible. With freedom of choice and action, man can exercise his dominion over creation. And since love is the choice to do good to another personal being, love is the essence of personal relationships. With his freedom of choice and action, man can love an equal person and enter into a personal relationship with her. The freedom of choice and not reason, neither self-consciousness, nor self-transcendence, is that which make possible man’s dominion over creation and his personal relationship with an equal personal being.
This freedom of decision of man, not his reason, is what distinguishes man from the rest of creation; this is what gives to man his existence as a person or self and to his reason that human and personal character. Man as a personal being in a created physical world is as such a union of spirit (person or self) and body (physiological organism).
“Then the Lord God formed man of the dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul [nephesh]” (Gen. 2:7 KJV).
When God breathed into the nostrils of the body of man the breath of life, He created man’s spirit and man became a living soul. The soul of man is the union of this created spirit and the body formed from the dust of the ground. Thus man is a dipartite being having two parts, spirit and body; the soul is not a part of man but is the union of man’s created spirit and his body.
Man’s soul is the union and expression of the spirit or person of a human being in and through the body. And his existence as a person is found in his ability to choose, to make decisions. “I choose, therefore, I am”, not, “I think, therefore, I am”. To be is to choose, not to think nor to perceive. Man’s reason is a function and an expression of his will. “… whatever evidence one accepts, whether that of experience or that of logic, will depend upon neither logic or experience alone, but upon a decision by the individual concerned in favor of the one or the other.” [4]
Knowledge and reason depend upon a prior decision as to what is real and to what is the criterion of reality, ultimate reality, the Truth. Ultimate reality is not the universal and the necessary. That is, Reason, the universal and the necessary, is not God. God is a person (or more accurately, three persons) whose existence is not in His reason but in His unlimited sovereign free decision and will; it is not the universal ideas in God’s mind that determine how or why God will create man and the world, but His unlimited sovereign will (Rev. 4:11). Since reason is a function of the will, God is rational and His reason is a function of His will. Thus the world that God has chosen to create is rational.
“The Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.'”
Of all the creatures God had created “there was not found a helper fit for him” (Gen. 2:20). So God created, out of man, woman. Man, in the very way in which he was created had a social need — a need for fellowship. This need could only be satisfied through an equal fellow creature. None of the animals could satisfy this need for fellowship. So God made an equal being, a woman. Man as a social being is able to enjoy a reciprocal personal relationship or fellowship with an equal being. In this respect man is also like God. In God there is an equality and fellowship between the three persons of the Godhead.
This world view is grounded in an ultimate commitment to Reason, the universal and necessary. This religious foundation of classical Greek philosophy is usually denied or ignored by most writers and philosophers. [1] But Greek philosophy like all philosophy is involved with, grounded in, and carried on consciously or unconsciously from within a religious commitment. And this is essentially what classical Greek philosophy involved. Even though it was a rejection of the popular Homeric polytheistic religion, this does not mean that Greek philosophy is non-religious. “Greek thought did not cease to be religious when it became philosophical.” [2] The interest of the pre-Socratic philosophers was not, or not primarily, scientific but theological. They abondoned the myths of the Homeric poets and rejected the then popular Homeric polytheistic religion, not because these were unscientific but because they presented an unworthy picture of the Divine.
“The Being or Nature which philosophy sought to reach was thought of as a worthier conception of the divine than that presented by the anthropomorphic gods.” [3]
The religious language and the concepts of the pre-Socratics are not just relics of the pre-scientific way of thought, not yet outgrown, but the expression of their fundamental religious orientation. As Werner Jaeger says in his Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers,
“Though philosophy means the death of the old gods, it is itself religion.” [4]
And this religion is a religion of Reason. This became explicit in the teaching of Socrates. Socrates lived and taught the ultimacy of Reason and was executed in 399 B.C. for nothing less than the crime of rationalism – an act of destroying the gods by reason. [5] But he was only substituting for faith in one set of gods faith in another god – Reason. Plato was inspired by his teacher Socrates to the same faith.
The divine, according to the Greek conception of reality, is that which is not subject to change, decay or death; the gods in Homer are “immortals.” The divine, therefore, cannot be known through the senses because that which is known through the senses is a world characterized by change, decay or death. But since the objects of reason are always and everywhere the same, the divine can be known through reason. This eternal, unchanging realm of the Ideas, the Universals, the objects of Reason, are the divine. “Plato does not hesitate to use religious language of this knowing. He says that both reason in man and the objects of reason are divine, and speaks of the kinship of one with other.” [6] With this conception of the divine, Aristotle is basically in agreement but without the use of the religious language. He says,
“For while thought is held to be the most divine of things observed by us, the question how it must be situated in order to have that character involves difficulties.” [7]
After discussing these difficulties, he concludes,
“Therefore it must be of itself that divine thought thinks (since it is the most excellent of things) and its thinking is a thinking on thinking.” [8]
This self-thinking thought is the divine. Thus both Plato and Aristotle held reason to be divine. God is the divine or eternal realm of the Ideas in Plato’s philosophy, or he is a self-thinking thought of Aristotle’s philosophy. According to the Greek thinkers, Reason is the divine or God. But since the concepts of God and man are correlatives, the Greek concept of man reflects the image of this god. Since reason is god, man viewed in the light of this god, is a rational animal. Reason is the divine part of man. Aristotle says,
“It would seem, too, this (reason) is the true self of every man, since it is the supreme and better part. It will be strange, then, if he should choose not his own life, but some other’s … What is naturally proper to every creature is the highest and pleasantest for him. And so, to man, this will be the life of Reason, since Reason is, in the highest sense, a man’s self.” [9]
This is not the Biblical view of man or of God. God is not Reason, the universal and necessary. God is a person (or more accurately, three persons) whose existence is not in His reason but in His unlimited sovereign free decision and will; man is also a person (or more accurately, a unity of spirit [person] and body – see Gen. 2:7) whose existence is also to be found, not in his reason, but in his limited free will and decision. And since decisions involve a reference to an ultimate criterion beyond the self, to a god, the Bibical view of man is that he is a religious animal, a being who must have a god. Reason is not the divine part in man but is a function of the will of the person. To be is to choose, not to think or to know. Knowledge and reason depend upon a prior decision as to what is real.
“…whatever evidence one accepts, whether that of experience or that of logic, will depend upon neither logic or experience alone, but upon a decision by the individual concerned in favor of the one or the other.” [10]
It is upon decision that any knowledge finally depends. Reason is not the ultimate criterion but the sovereign will of the Creator who made all things and has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. This basic incompatibility between the Greek and Biblical view of God and man explains the conflict between Greek philosophy and the Christian faith and the failure of the attempted synthesis of these divergent points of view by Augustine and Aquinas. All attempts to synthesize the classical Greek view of God and man with the Biblical view will fail. Worst of all, the Biblical view of God and man will be obscured and misunderstood.
ENDNOTES
[1] cf. John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy (New York, 1930).
[2] Michael B. Foster, Mystery and Philosophy
(London: SCM Press Ltd., 1957) p.32.
[4] Werner Jaeger, Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers
(Oxford: The Claredon Press, 1947), p. 72.
[5] William Barrett, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy
(New York: Doubleday & Co., 1958), p. 72.
[6] Forster, Mystery and Philosophy, 32.
[7] Aristotle Metaphysics 12. 9. 1074b16, in vol. 8 of Great Books of the Western World
ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952), p.605.
[9] Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 10. 7. 1178a2-7, quoted in Barrett, Irrational Man, p. 78.
[10] Cherbonnier, “Biblical Metaphysics,” p. 372.
As Christianity spread thoughout the Roman world, the Biblical view of reality came into conflict with the Greek view of reality. The difference between these two views of reality is most clearly seen in their views of man. Attempts were made to resolve this conflict and the difference in their views of man by trying to synthesize these two views of reality. There were two major attempts at this synthesis: the Augustinian synthesis by Aurelius Augustine (A.D. 354-430) in the 5th century and the Thomistic synthesis by Thomas Aquinas (A.D. 1225-1274) in the 12th century.
| Hebrew-Christian | Medieval Synthesis | Greek-Roman | |
|---|---|---|---|
| God | Creator | Supernatural – Grace | The rational |
| World | Created | Natural – Nature | The non-rational |
| Man | spirit (person) & body | spirit (moral) & soul (rational) & body (animal) | mind (rational) & body (non-rational) |
Augustinianism is the philosophy of Aurelius Augustinus, better known at Saint Augustine, and of his followers. He was born at Tagaste in the Province of Numidia of North Africa on November 13th, A.D. 354; his father, Patricius, was a pagan and his mother, Monica, was a Christian; she brought him up as a Christian but his baptism was deferred, as was the practice of the time. He learn rudiments of Latin and arithmetic and a little Greek. In A.D. 370, the year his father died after becoming a Christian, Augustine began the study of rhetoric at Carthage and broke with Christian teaching and morals, taking a mistress, with whom he lived for ten years and by whom he had a son in his second year at Carthage. He became a follower of the teaching of the Manicheans. The Manicheans, founded by a Persian named Mani, taught a dualism of two ultimate principles, a principle of good that is the light, God or Ormuzd, and a principle of evil that is the darkeness, Ahriman. These principles are eternal and are engaged in an eternal strife, which is reflected in the world and in man. Man’s soul is composed of light, the principle of the good, while the body, composed of grosser matter, is the work of the principle of evil, darkness. This religio-philosophic system commended itself to Augustine because it seemed to explain the problem of evil and because of its materialism, since he could not yet conceive how there could be an immateral reality. Although the Manicheans condemned sexual intercourse and the eating animal flesh and prescribed various ascetic practices, such as fasting, for the “elect,” but not for the “hearers,” Augustine did not follow them, being only a “hearer.” Eventually Augustine became dissatisfied with Manichean when it was not able to answer his questions and difficulties with its teachings. After returning to Tagaste in A.D. 374, he taught rhetoric and Latin Literature for a year. He then returned to Carthage to open a school of rhetoric; but becoming frustrated with his students, he went to Rome in A.D. 383 and started another school of rhetoric.
Although giving up belief in the teachings of Manicheans, being attracted to Academic skepticism, he retained an outward adherence to Manicheanism, still accepting its materialism. Having obtained a position at Milan of municipal professor of rhetoric in A.D. 384, he moved to Milan and finally broke with the Manicheans through the influence of his new friends in Milan, the Bishop Ambrose and the circle of Christian Neo-Platonist around him. He got the answers to his questions about Manichean doctrine, and encountered a more satisfying interpretation of Christianity than he had previously found in the simple, unintellectual faith of his mother. The Neo-Platonic teaching of evil as privation, non-being, rather than as second kind of being, showed him how the problem of evil could be solved without recourse to the Manichean dualism. In this Christianized Neo-Platonism he believed he found the truth and he began to read the New Testament, particularly Paul’s letter to the Romans. After a intense moral struggle, in the summer of A.D. 386, while he was sitting in the garden of his friend Alypius’ house, weeping, he heard a child’s voice outside singing the words, “Tolle lege! Tolle lege!” [Take up and read! Take up and read!]. He picked up the New Testament and, opening it at random, his eyes lighted on Romans 13:13b-14: “not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chanbering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof.” “No further would I read,” he tells us later, “nor had I any need; instantly, at the end of this sentence, a clear light flooded my heart and all the darkness of doubt vanished away.” On Holy Saturday of A.D. 387 Augustine was baptized by Bishop Ambrose and soon after returned to North Africa in A.D. 388. He was ordained a priest in A.D. 391 and was consecrated Bishop of Hippo in A.D. 396. He wrote extensively against the Donatist and the Pelagains. He died on August 28th, A.D. 430.
Although Augustine wrote against pagan philosohy, he still showed a strong predilection for Neo-Platonism. There is a depreciation of sense-objects in comparison with eternal and immaterial realities; a grudging admission of practical knowledge as a necessity of life; the insistence on “theoretic” contemplation and purification of the soul and liberation from the slavery of the senses. Philosophically this predilection is shown in the Platonic and Neo-Platonic view that the objects of the senses, corporeal things, are inferior to the human intellect, which judges them with reference to objective standard as falling short. These standards are the immutable and eternal universal ideas or forms. The standards of goodness and beauty, for example, correspond to Plato’s first principles or archai, the exemplary ideas, and the ideal geometrical figures correspond to Plato’s mathematical objects, ta mathematika, the objects of the dianoia.
To the question, which was asked of the Platonic Ideas, “Where are these ideas?” Augustine answers that they are in the mind, the Nous, of God, they are the thoughts of God. The Neo-Platonics made this suggestion and Augustine apparently accepted it as the answer to the question: Where are they? Augustine does not accept the emanation theory of Neo-Platonism, where the Nous emanates from the One as the first hypostasis. But the exemplar ideas and eternal, immutable truths are in God. This theory must be accepted, Augustine argues, if one wishes to avoid having to say that God created the world unintelligently. Thus creation is like Plato’s formation of the sense-world by the divine artisan, the demiurge, except that there is no pre-existent matter; God created it out of nothing.
Thus the world of creatures reflect and manifests God, even if it does in a very inadequate way. The order and unity of creatures, their positive reality, reveals the goodness of God and the order and stability of the universe manifest the wisdom of God. But God, as the self-existent, eternal and immutable Being, is infinite and, as infinite, is incomprehensible. God is His own Perfection and is “simple,” without parts, so that His wisdom and knowledge, His goodness and power, are His own essence, which is without accidents. God, therefore, transcends space in virtue of His spiritually and simplicity, as He transends time in virtue of His eternity. “…He is above all things. So too He is in no interval nor extension in time, but in His immutable eternity is older than all things because He is before all things and younger than all things because He is after all things.” From all eternity God knew all things which He was to make. He does not know them because He has made them, but rather the other way around. God first knew the things of creation though they came into being in time. The species of created things have their ideas or rationes seminales in the things themselves and also in the Divine Mind as rationes aeternae. God from all eternity saw in Himself, as possible reflections of Himself, the things which He could create and would create. He knew them before creation as they are in Him, as Exemplar, but He made them as they exist, that is, as external and finite reflections of His divine essence. Since God did nothing without knowledge, He foresaw all that He would make, but His knowledge is not distinct acts of knowledge, but “one eternal, immutable and ineffable vision.” In virtue of this eternal act of knowledge, of vision, to which nothing is past or future, that God sees, “foresees,” even the free acts of men, knowing them “beforehand.” This exemplarist doctrine passed into the Middle Ages and was taken as characteristic of Augustinianism.
The Medieval philosopher-theologian, Thomas Aquinas (A.D. 1225-1274), attempted to bring Aristotelian philosophy into the framework of the Christian faith. He was born in the vicinity of Naples, Italy. After studying under both the Benedictines and the Dominicans, he joined the Benedictine order in 1243. He studied with Albertus Magnus (1206-1280) in Paris (1245-1248) and in Cologne (1248-1252). Albertus Magnus, or Albert the Great, translated Aristotle from Greek and Arabic manuscripts and wrote commentaries in which he interpreted Aristotle to the Christian Western mind. In fact, his interpretation of Aristotle was an attempt to fused Aristotelianism and Neo-Platonism, which had dominated Christian Western thinking since Augustine. In 1252, Thomas Aquinas returned to Paris to studied at the faculty of theology in the University of Paris, where in 1256 he was given the licentia docendi in theology and he taught theology until 1259. From 1259 to 1269, he was advisor to the papal curia or court in Rome. He returned to the University of Paris in 1269 to stem the tide against Averroism.
Averroism was that form of Aristotelian philosophy based on the commentaries of Aristotle written by the Arabic philosopher Averroes (Mohammed ibn Roshd) (1126-1198), whose Latin name was a corruption of Ibn Roshd. His commentaries became known to Western scholars in their translations by Michael Scottus, Hermannus Alemannus, and others at the beginning of the 13th century. Albertus Magnus relied heavily on Averroes’ commentaries on Aristotle, while noting certain difficulties.
The teachings of Averroes became the basis for a whole school of philosophers, represented first by the Faculty of Arts at the University of Paris, among whom the most prominent was Siger of Brabant. No philosophy was more often condemned in the Middle Ages by church leaders and councils than Averroism. It was condemned in 1209, 1215, 1240, 1270, and 1277. It was condemned for its teachings that held that
(1) matter is eternal (God and the world are co-eternal),
(2) the absence of personal immortality (the numerical identity of the intellect of all men), and
(3) the doctrine of double truth (that a proposition may be true in philosophy and false in theology).
Aquinas, relying on the translation of Aristotle by William of Moerbecke, criticized Averroes’ interpretation of Aristotle.
- On the first point, Thomas argued that there is no philosophical proof, either for the co-eternity of God and the world or against it; but the creation of the world is an article of the faith.
- On the second point, Thomas argued that the unity of the intellect of all men should be rejected, since it is incompatible with the true concept of person and with personal immortality.
- On the third point, it is doubtful whether Averroes himself held to the double truth theory; but it was taught by the Latin Averrosts, who, not withstanding the opposition of the Roman Church and the Thomistic philosophers, gained great influence and soon dominated many universities, especially in Italy at the University of Padua. Thomas and his followers were convinced they had interpreted Aristotle correctly and the Averroists had misinterpreted Aristotle; Aristotle did not teach the double truth theory. Truth is one, but there are two ways to discover it: by revelation of it in the Bible and by reason in the writings of Aristotle. Where the two are contrary to each other, the truths of revelation are to be accepted and the results of reason are to be modified to conform to the truths of revelation.
- On the first point, Thomas argued that there is no philosophical proof, either for the co-eternity of God and the world or against it; but the creation of the world is an article of the faith.
From 1272, Aquinas taught at the University of Naples. He died on March 7, 1274 on the way to the Council of Lyons. Aquinas was canonized in 1326, made a Doctor of the Church in 1567, and Pope Leo XIII (Aetrni Patris) gave his philosophy official status in 1879.
At the heart of Aquinas’ philosophy is his concept of being. And to understand being, reason must use the principle of analogy to fix the appropriate meaning of the term. And since there are certain “transcendental” terms that go beyond any genus, and apply to everything that is, they are attributes of everything. These transcendentals are ens (being), res (thing), unum (unity), aliquid (distinction), verum (true), bonum (good). All beings (ens) are things (res) with unity (unum), distinguished (aliquid) from what is not themselves. And since all beings are what they are, in relation to knowledge, they are true (verum). And since all beings tend toward their ends or goals, they are good (bonum). When the principle of analogy is applied to these transcendentals, human reason can begin to understand, within limits, the nature of God. The kind of analogy to be used here is the analogy of proportionality; that is,
By the use of this analogy of proportionality, human reason can begin to understand how God’s being exceeds any other being by comparing the properties of being. Since there are five properties of being, there are five ways to establish this comparison. From this comparison there arises the idea of a perfect being, God. God is perfect and unchanging being, utterly simple (without parts) and unitary, hence indestructible, absolute truth and goodness, not related to the world, yet everything in the world related to Him. Since the divine mind contains the archetypes of all things, simply in knowing Himself God is able to know at once all that is, was, or will be. In His self-knowledge, all time is concentrated in an eternal moment, in a totum simul. Aquinas argued that while God is the primary cause of all things, there are secondary causes and among these secondary causes some are necessary and others are contingent. Thus free will is compatible with God’s foreknowledge and God’s causation of all things.
At the heart of Aquinas’ ontology is the real distinction between essence and existence in all finite beings. Aristotle distinguished between actuality and potentiality, but he applied this to form and matter, not to the order of being. Aquinas argued that only God is pure being, pure actuality (actus purus), with no potentiality whatsoever. That is, God’s being is from Himself, not from another. He has aseitas in contrast to those beings that have derived their being from another. Thus God is necessary being, because God’s essence (what He is) and existence (that He is) are identical, hence He cannot fail to exist. In finite creatures, their essence (what they are) is separate from their existence (that they are). Aristotle does not make or use this distinction between essence and existence; Aquinas introduced this distinction because it allowed him to explain the difference between God and the angels. Angels are pure forms like God, but their essence and existence are not identical, unlike God whose essence and existence are identical. According to Exodus 3:14, God revealed Himself as the “I am”. Aquinas interpreted this to mean that God alone is Being (I-Am-ness). Everything else has being. God’s essence is identical to His existence; that is, it is of His essence that He exists. Thus God is a necessary being, not a contingent being like everything else; He cannot not exist. Neither can God change, since He is without potentiality to be anything other than he is. Likewise, God is eternal, timeless, since time implies a change from a before to an after. But as the I-am, God has no before and no after. God is also simple (indivisible), since He has not potential for division. And he is infinite, since pure act as such is unlimited, having no potentiality. Thus God is perfect Being.
Aquinas views reality as a hierarchical pyramid of being. Like Aristotle, he viewed the lowest level of reality as pure matter, without form, that is, prime matter, and the highest level as pure form, without matter, that is, God. God is regarded as pure actuality, Prime matter, on the other hand, is viewed as pure potentiality. But Aquinas also held that since prime matter cannot exist by itself, it is dependent upon form for its existence in a concrete individual substance. Since form, on the other hand, is not dependent upon anything for it to exist, it can exist from itself and indeed as pure form it must exist. But in Aquinas’ view, prime matter does not exist; it has only the potentiality of existence. God, on the hand, does exist and cannot avoid existing. Like Aristotle, Aquinas held that between these extremes there are to be found various levels of formed matter, the order of nature. Concrete individual substances are constituted of the abstract metaphysical elements of form and matter. Aristotle described substance as the union of form and matter. For example, man is the substantial union of form (mind or intellect) and matter (body).
By contrast, the Augustinians of the thirteenth century held that man is the union of two different substances, the intellectual soul and the material body; a man is a soul in a body. That is, there is gap between the intellectual soul and the material body, which for Bonaventure is the guarantee of the soul’s spirituality and its immortality. Albert the Great somewhat closed the gap by asserting that there is one substantial form between the soul and the body, the form of corporeity. The soul, he tells us, can be viewed either in itself, as an intellectual substance, or as a form exercising the function of animating a body. The first view, defining the soul’s very nature, he attributes to Plato; the second, describing one of its external and accidental functions, he attributes to Aristotle. Here Albert was simply following the Arabic philosopher Avicenna (980-1037), who had already tried to reconcile the two Greek philosophers in this way. What neither Avicenna nor Albert could see by considering the soul as a substance in another substance such as the body, was the relation between them is purely extrinsic and accidental. Now this view did safeguard the independence of the soul from matter and its immortality; but it is difficult to see how, under these circumstances, man is anything more than an accidental aggregate of soul and body. Thomas Aquinas saw this problem. The view of the Aristotelians and Averroism, on the one hand, threatened the independence of the soul from the body and the immortality of the soul; but, on the other hand, the view of the Augustinians and the Avicennians threatened the unity of man.
Albert the Great considered soul and body as radically distinct because he thought of each as an essence which by definition differs from each other. The Avicennian world is composed of essences of this sort, each of which corresponds to a definition and includes only what is contained in its definition. Whatever is outside the definition is accidental to it. For example, when we define man as a rational animal, nothing is said about his individuality and universality; these are accidental to the essence of man as such, so that it can be individual in Peter and Paul and universal in the concept we form of it in our mind. In addition, although the definition of a thing tells us what it is, it does not say whether it exists or does not exist. That is, existence itself is not included in the essence of a thing but is accidental to it. This is true of everything except God, whose essence includes his existence. William of Auvergne (1180-1249) adopted from Avicenna this view of the accidentality of existence and used it to explain the contingency of created being. For, he reasoned, if essence of God is existence, all other things must receive existence as an accident of their essence. Existence, then, is given them as a gift and they are contingent in their very being. Albert the Great expressed this same view, but Aquinas transformed and used it for his own purposes.
Thomas Aquinas saw that solution to the problem of the unity of man was, not to consider essence as primary in the understanding of being, but existence. Instead of the world being composed of forms or essences, Aquinas viewed the world as consisting of individual acts of existing (esse). Existence has the primacy in the concept of being. The form of each being is that whereby it is what it is; it is the principle that specifies and determines it to be a certain kind of being. But in addition to form there is a further and ultimate act[uality] that makes it to be or to exist. This is the act of existing, which Thomas describes as “the actuality of all acts” and the “perfection of all perfections”. It is the most profound in any being, its ontological nucleus, so to speak, the source of all its perfections and its intelligibilities.
The soul when looked at from the point of view of essence or nature, it appears deficient and in need of the body, for it is only a part of the complete essence of man. But from the point of view of existence, this is not true. As a substantial form the human soul has a complete act of existing (esse), and since it is a spiritual form, its act of existing is itself spiritual. When it informs the body, it communicates to it that act of existing so that there is but one substantial existence of the whole composite. For Thomas, therefore, the unity of man does not consist in a combination or assemblage of various parts or substances, but in his act of existing. This is the reason that Aquinas denied the presence of several substantial forms in man. If a substantial form gives substantial existence, several forms of this kind would give man several existences and his unity as a substance would be destroyed.
Aquinas upheld this doctrine of being in the face of wide spread opposition from his contemporaries. On the one hand, philosophers like Siger of Brabant wished to return to the Aristotelianism of the Averroes. Siger reminded Thomas that Aristotle had written about form and matter and composition of the two in substances; he had never mentioned an esse distinct from them. On the other hand, he faced the opposition of those who admitted esse as a distinct principle of being but simply treated as an accident of essence. This had been the view of William of Auvergne and Albert the Great, who traced the concept to Avicenna. For Thomas this was still to view being as primarily essence or form and to reduce the role of existence to an accidental determination of essence. Thomas stood alone in his century and indeed in the whole Middle Ages for the doctrine of existential being.
Personism is the ontological relational existentialism that affirms that persons exist, and that existence may be encountered in persons: ourselves and other selves. Personism is not to be confused with Personalism which is a pluralistic form of essentialism. Personalism views reality as being in essence personal. Brightman calls personalism qualitative idealism. [1] Thus for Personalism, essence has the primacy in the concept of being. For this reason, Personalism is classified as a form of essentialism. Personism, on the other hand, is not a view concerning the essence of reality; it does not tell us nature of beings. Personism as an ontological relational existentialism only affirms that persons exist, and that existence may be encountered in persons: ourselves and other selves. Whether there are other beings and what kind of beings they are, Personism makes no affirmations; it is not mainly a view concerning the essence of reality.
But since Personism affirms that persons exist, the question naturally arises: What is a person? In answer to this question, let us return to the shift that has taken place in the discussion of existence. This shift of attention was from the determination of the general concept of existence and the attempt to define it, that is, to determine the essence of existence, to find the place where existence can be discovered: the human self. This shift takes place because of the impossibility of defining existence in the traditional way. Existence just cannot be reduced to essence. Now within the self, existence is known in the act of decision. To exist is to decide. This is particularly apparent in those momentous passionate decisions of a crisis. In fact, every act of decision, whether in a great crisis or not, is the place where existence can be found. The act of decision itself is also an act of existence. That is, to be is to choose. This was partially apprehended in Descartes’ phrase: cognito ergo sum; I think, therefore I am. Descartes saw that the act of thinking or even doubting is to exist. For one to think or doubt he had to exist. However, since he sought to fit this into an essentialistic scheme of thought, Descartes did not recognize that thinking and doubting are basically acts of decision. Not only to think or doubt but to decide is to exist. Any act of decision is an act of existence: decerno ergo sum, I choose, therefore I am. A person therefore should be defined as a being (an existent) that is self-determining, not determined, who has freedom, free will, the ability to choose. A person is to be distinguished from a non-person, a thing, an “it,” which is a being that is determined, not self-determining, that has no freedom, no free will, no ability to choose.
Now a careful analysis of decision reveals that every act of decision involves three elements:
(a) the agent making the decision,
(b) the alternatives to be decided between, and
(c) a criterion to decide by.
The last two elements involve the act of decision of the agent deciding in relations to something else beyond the act of decision itself. The criterion and the alternatives of an act of decision involve relationships to other existents. Personism is pluralistic. But it is a relational pluralism, not an atomistic pluralism; that is, there are many existents that are interrelated in various ways. We have given to Personism and other forms of existential relational pluralism the general name of Relational Existentialism. However, we believe that there is only one form of the Relational Existentalism which adequately relates the many existents: Personism. This will become clear below in the next section.
The third element of every decision, the criterion by which the choice is made, means that every human decision involves a reference to a criterion in or beyond the self. In other words, behind every human decision as to what a person should do or think, there must be a reason. And the ultimate reason for any decision, practical or theoretical, must be given in terms of some particular criterion, an ultimate reference or orientation point in or beyond the self or person making the decision. This ultimate criterion is that person’s god. In this sense, every man must have a god, that is, an ultimate criterion of decision. Thus in the very exercise of his freedom, decision, man shows that he is such a being that must necessarily appeal to an ultimate criterion, a god. In fact, his every uncoerced decision implies this ultimate criterion. [2]
From this point of view, no man is an atheist in the basic meaning of that word (that is, no god). Every man must have a god. Man is a religious animal who must necessarily have some object of ultimate allegiance and trust which functions as his guide of truth and his norm of conduct. Every man must choose a god. Though free to adopt the god of his choice, no man is free to avoid this decision. Every attempt to do so turns out to be not a denial of having a god but an exchange of gods. Every man must choose and have a god. To ask whether one believes in the existence of God is to completely misunderstand the issue. The issue is not whether one should choose between theism or atheism, that is, to believe in the existence of God or not, but whether one should choose this god or that god as the true God. Atheism wants you to believe in his god and his god is that God does not exist.
Since everyone must have a god, the crucial question for every man is: Which god is the true God? Or to put the question differently:
How are we to distinguish between the one true God, on the one hand, and the many false gods on the other? In other words, by what means can we determine which of all possible gods are pretenders and which is the true one? The clue to the answer to these questions may be found in a further analysis of freedom.
As we have already seen, every man by the structure of his freedom must have a god. That is, in every one of his choices a person must necessarily appeal to some criterion by reference to which the decision is made. And the ultimate criterion by which a person makes his choices is his god. Clearly then the choice of one’s god is the most basic and fundamental choice that a man can make, it lies behind and is presupposed by every other decision as to what a man will do or think; it is clearly the most important exercise of his freedom.
What should one choose as his ultimate criterion of decision? Negatively, he should not choose that as his ultimate criterion which will deny, destroy or limit the very freedom of choice by which it is chosen. And positively, he should choose that ultimate criterion which will enhance and fulfill that freedom. Any ultimate criterion that denies or takes away the very freedom of choice by which it is chosen cannot be the true God. The choice of such an ultimate criterion is a contradiction of man’s basic freedom of choice; such a god is fatal to man’s freedom.
By freedom, we do not mean purposeless caprice or chance, indeterminism, but rather the ability of choice, freedom of decision, self-determination. Neither is this freedom an abstract entity, “freedom-in-general,” Freiheit, but rather the concrete decision of someone, of a free agent. The most appropriate word for such a being who has such freedom is the word “person.” A person is a being that is self-determining, not determined, who has freedom, free will, the ability to choose. A person is to be distinguished from a non-person, a thing, an “it”, a being that is determined, not self-determining, that has no freedom, no free will, no ability to choose.
A god that is a thing has less freedom than the person who chooses it as his god. Such a god does not have as much freedom as the one who chooses it to be his god. Now a god who does not have at least the freedom that man himself has cannot be the true God. It cannot do any more for them than they can do for themselves. Such a god is only the projection of the whims and fancies of its worshippers because it is in reality inferior to them. As a minimum criterion, therefore, a god can be recognized as a false god if it has less freedom than man himself. To choose such a god as one’s ultimate criterion of choice would be a denial of one’s freedom of choice and the worst kind of bondage. Thus having used his freedom to give this god his ultimate allegiance, the worshipper finds his freedom denied to the point of extinction and himself bound in a miserable slavery. As long as the false god remains his ultimate criterion of decision, he will not have the grounds for rejecting that god, since that god has not allowed him to have freedom of choice to do so. His power of choice having been effectively taken away from him, he is unable to reject the false god and free himself from its bondage. The commitment to such a god is the denial of human freedom. Therefore, a false god can also be recognized by the effect that it has upon the freedom of the one who gives it his allegiance; it limits the freedom and puts into bondage the one who chooses it as his god. The true God, on the other hand, sets free the one committed to him and fulfils and enhances his freedom. The true God must be at least a person in order to have at least as much freedom as the one who chooses Him as his god. But the true God must not only be a person, He must also have unlimited freedom if He is to be able to do the things He promises and to deliver the one who cries to Him in trouble and need. A god without unlimited freedom might not be able to keep his promises or to save the one who cries to him. Therefore, a god that does not have unlimited freedom must be a false god. The true God, on the other hand, has unlimited freedom; He can do whatever He pleases (Psa. 115:3; 135:6); He can save when He is called upon (Isa. 43:11; 45:15-17). The true God, therefore, is a person (or persons) with unlimited freedom.
It is this knowledge of what the true God must be like that lies behind all primitive religions, with their anthromorphic gods. Primitive man knows what a god must be like in order for it to be the true God. This knowledge derived intuitively from the nature of his freedom makes him uneasy about the things that he worships as god. He knows that the true God must be a living God. But having failed to encounter such a God, he fills the vacuum with what he imagines to be a facsimile of Him. And since the highest living being he knows is himself, he makes gods in his own image. He also knows that the true God must be a God of unlimited power, not limited like himself. He therefore identifies these anthropomorphic creations with the powerful forces that he sees in the physical world about him. Beyond the simple and profound suspicion that such a God does exist, he is at the end of his knowledge (“…whom ye ignorantly worship…” Acts 17:23 KJV). [3]
In what way can man find any additional knowledge of the true God? In the same way in which he gets knowledge about another person: by what the other person says and does. But the initiative lies with the other person. If he remains silent and inactive, no knowledge is available in addition to the fact that he is there. Therefore, if man is to know anything additional about the true God, God must take the initiative and reveal Himself in word and/or deed. And the true God has taken the initiative and has revealed Himself in word and deed. The Bible is a record of the “words and the mighty acts of God.” The true God is not silent and He is not inactive; He has spoken and He has acted. This is recorded for us in a book, the Bible. And we know that these are the words and deeds of the true God because they are the words and the acts of a God who is a personal being and has unlimited freedom and power. The God who is revealed in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament is the living God who created all things. (The living God – Joshua 3:10; I Sam. 17:26; Psa. 84:2; Jer. 10:10; Matt. 16:16; Acts 14:15; I Thess. 1:9; I Tim. 3:15; Heb. 10:31; The Creator – Gen. 1:1; 2:3-4; Ex. 4:11; Neh. 9:6; Job 38:4; Psa. 90:2; 102:25; 104:1-5,24; Isa. 40:28; 44:24; 45:11-12,18; 48:12-12; Jer. 10:11-12; John 1:1-3; Acts 17:24; I Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2,10; 11:3; Rev. 4:11). Because He is a person or persons, He is alive; and because He has unlimited freedom, He is the all powerful Creator of all things. The God of the Bible is the true God, and all other gods are false.
Man is also a person (or more accurately, a spirit [person] in a body) whose existence is also to be found, not in his reason, but in his limited free decision and will. And since decisions involve a reference to an ultimate criterion in or beyond the self, to a god, the Biblical view of man is that man is a religious animal, a being who must have a god; the view that man is a rational animal is not the Biblical view of man. Reason is not that which makes man different from the rest of the animals.
Reason as the universal and necessary is not God and Reason is not man’s ultimate criterion but the sovereign will of the Creator who made all things and has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. This is the basic choice that a human person must make if he is understand what is real and what is the Truth, the criterion of reality. Is the Truth the universal and necessary or is it the sovereign will of the personal Creator who made all things and has revealed Himself in the person of Jesus Christ?
This choice explains the basic incompatibility between Greek philosophy and the Biblical view of God and man; it also explains the conflict between Greek philosophy and the Christian faith and the failure of the attempted synthesis of these divergent points of view by Augustine and Aquinas. All attempts to synthesize the classical Greek philosophical view of God and man with the Biblical view will fail. And worst of all, the Biblical view of God and man will be and has been obscured and misunderstood.
ENDNOTES
[1] Runes, D.D. ed., Twentieth Century Philosophy
(New York: The Philosophical Library, 1947), p. 346.
[2] E. La B. Cherbonnier, Hardness of Heart
(New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1955), p. 40.
See also E. LaB. Cherbonnier,
“Biblical Metaphysic and Christian Philosophy,”
Theology Today 9 (October 1952): 367.
To read this article, click here
[3] Cherbonnier, “Biblical Metaphysics,” p. 369.
To read this article, click here
[4] E. LaB. Cherbonnier, “Biblical Metaphysic and Christian Philosophy,”
Theology Today 9 (October 1952): p. 372.
To read this article, click here.