Christopher Blosser posted an inquiry from a reader yesterday in Against the Grain, asking for information to respond to what the reader believed to be a biased textbook concerning psychological testing. Christopher asked for replies. This is my reply. The reader's inquiry was:
"I'm currently studying for a masters in counseling and am taking a course on Psychological testing. The text is Psychological Testing and Assessment - An Introduction to Tests and Measurements (McGraw-Hill, 6th Edition) by Ronald J. Cohen & Mark E. Swerdlik.
The inside cover contains "a decidedly noncomprehensive historical
overview of events in the field as they stand out in the minds of the
authors"
The bias of the authors
against religion is apparent - "200 AD, science takes a backseat to
faith and superstition" and 313 AD "Christianity is established as the
state religion of the Roman Empire and "medical practice" (prayers,
potions and magic) is in the hands of the clergy."
And
then to the reason I'm writing - 1265 "Thomas Aquinas argues that the
notion of a human capacity to think and reason should be replaced with
the notion of an immortal soul."
Now ... I have not read much
Aquinas, but am certain in the little I've done that this is an
inaccurate summary of his work, to say the least.However, I do not have
the background (or the time) to be able to refute this statement. Even
so, I feel a duty to write the authors and correct the error.
So
my plea to you - can you direct me to some specific works of Thomas
Aquinas that would refute this statement? Any direction would be
helpful. If you can summarize a position and give some references, that
would be fantastic. As someone who apparently understands and
appreciates his work, you may be interested in helping correct this
error. If so, I'd be grateful for any help you could provide."
I am not quite sure what experts in psychological testing are supposed to know about history, or why this sort of thing would be on the inside cover of a book about psychological testing in the first place. However, the version of intellectual history presented in the reader's inquiry above is inaccurate in every respect mentioned. I'll take them one at a time:
1. "200 AD, science takes a backseat to
faith and superstition"
The Church was still a minority in 200 A.D. However, it was around that time that St. Clement of Alexandria was beginning to express the Christian Gospel in the language of Greek philosophy. See my short bio of St. Clement of Alexandria here. That is exactly when the philosophical reasoning of Plato and Aristotle began to be accepted in Christianity.
Also, the most extensive collection of Roman medical instruments ever found dates to the late second century. I saw it on display at the Historical Museum in Bingen, Germany, which is near the place where a second century doctor's grave was found together with his instruments. While most Roman doctors would be buried with their supply of a few tools, and a few wealthy doctors had as many as 30 tools, that particular doctor was buried with a collection of 67 Roman medical tools dating back to the second century. The exhibit attempted to explain the use of the various items to the extent that the use is known. Since the largest known collection of Roman medical instruments dates from that era, it would not be reasonable to say that medicine was then taking a back seat to superstition.
2. "313 AD "Christianity is established as the
state religion of the Roman Empire"
This is a common misconception. However, if you look at the biographies of the fourth century Church Fathers on this website, you will see that they were often in conflict with Arian and Pagan emperors during the fourth century, after Constantine. Constantine's conversion led to an end to the severity of persecutions that had existed in the second and third centuries, but it did not immediately make Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire. Here is a discussion of this from one of the most respected textbooks of Early Church history, The Rise of Christianity by W.H.C. Frend, Fortress Press (Frend was Emeritus Professor of Ecclesiastical History, University of Glasgow, Scotland, an expert in the history of the Early Church, and a fellow of the British Academy from 1983):
The [Edict of Milan of 313 A.D.] marks the end of the era of the persecutions. It also marks the first steps toward the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the empire. Nominally it proclaimed complete religious freedom beginning, "Since we saw that freedom of worship ought not to be denied, but that to each man's judgment and will the right should be given to care for sacred things according to each man's free choice. . . ." Hence, unrestricted freedom was granted to the Christians along with complete and free restoration of all church property still remaining in the hands of the state or of individuals. . . .An attentive reader might have caught an echo of the demands for complete toleration for all religions made by Western Apologists from Tertullian to Lactantius. "It is not in the nature of religion to compel religion," Tertullian had urged, and Lactantius had claimed that "to worship as one pleased was a privilege of nature." . . . (Pg. 483)
It was not until the emperor Theodosius, in the late fourth century, that the state began to suppress paganism and heretical sects. Frend says:
"In some ways, Theodosius I (379-95) recalls Constantine." (pg. 635) "The edict that he issued to 'the inhabitants of Constantinople,' but addressed in fact to 'all the inhabitants of the empire' from his headquarters at Thessalonica on 28 February [380] was strongly Western in outlook. All were ordered to follow 'the form of religion handed down by the apostle Peter to the Romans, and now followed by Bishop Damasus and Peter of Alexandria' described as 'a man of apostolic sanctity.' All other teaching, described as 'heretical poison,' must be abandoned. This was the first step toward enforcing a universal Catholic faith over the whole empire. During the next months, however, Theodosius's ideas as to what Catholicism was would modify in favor of the views of his Eastern subjects. . . . On 10 January 381 Theodosius issued a new edict proclaiming once more the sole orthodoxy of the Nicene faith, forbidding heretics the right of assembly, but omitting any reference to Damasus and Peter (or his successor Timothy, 380-85) as orthodox leaders." (Pp. 636-637)
This status of the Church as the State religion of the Roman Empire thus was not long lived before Alaric took Rome in 410 A.D. Indeed, Rome was already in decline in 480 A.D., as shown by the biographies of St. Ambrose and St. Basil the Great here (see "biographies" in the right column). From then until the sixth century, many of the most educated people fled Rome. Not only did the Roman education system collapse over the next 2 or 3 centuries, but it became difficult to even find safe water. A series of earthquakes and floods hit the city, and the majority of the population indeed fled in the sixth century (See the biography here of Pope/St. Gregory the Great).
Becoming the state religion of the Roman Empire for only about 30 years, while Rome was in decline, the Church was in no position to have damaged the position of science during that short time frame. Rather, a series of invasions from Goths, Vandals, and others undermined and eventually destroyed the Roman education system. As education became less available, it was in fact the Church that took up the role of educator, not in order to undermine another education system but rather in order to educate its clergy (See the biography here of St. John of Damascus, from the eighth century east, which speaks of this situation at the time when the Roman education system had virtually collapsed, and before a ninth century Renaissance when education began to re-emerge).
3, "medical practice" (prayers,
potions and magic) is in the hands of the clergy."
The state of medical knowledge in the mid to late fourth century is described as follows by F. Homes Dudden, D.D., in The Life and Times of St. Ambrose, a 2-volume, 755-page scholarly biography published in 1935 by Oxford at the Clarendon Press. Dudden was then Chaplain to the King, Master of Pembroke College, Oxford, Canon of Gloucester, and Honorary Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford. He wrote (with citations to Ambrose's writings in his footnotes):
"With the habits of the better known animals Ambrose is fairly acquainted. He makes some sound remarks on the instinct, often surpassing the sagacity of human reason, which teaches the creatures to foretell the weather, cure their ailments, and nurture their young. . . .
The human body excels the bodies of all animals in comeliness and grace. It is an image of the world in miniature, and, like the world, is constituted of the four elements. Ambrose is aware that the brain is the centre of the nervous system and the heart of the arterial, and that the pulse is the index of sickness or health. He gives an account of the action of the heart, describes the process whereby food is assimilated, notices the sympathetic connexion between the brain and the stomach, and enlarges on the physiological effects of intemperance.
Ambrose appears to have known something of medicine, although he emphasizes the fact that he is only an amateur, and not a professional physician. He considers that health is best preserved by a careful diet, and that herbs provide the most efficacious medicines. He attests the value of mandragora juice as a soporific and of opium as an anaesthetic; and thinks that violent desire may be mitigated by hemlock. Garlic has medicinal properties, but is not suitable for ordinary food. He mentions the drug theriac, compounded of dried adders and other constituents; speaks of collyria (eye-salves) and other remedies for diseases of the eye; and refers to a curious remedy for jaundice. One recipe is offered for keeping off mosquitoes -- they will not come near a man who has smeared himself with an ointment made of wormwood boiled in oil."
By the twelfth century, some ancient Roman medical ideas were still in practice. Thus, Sabina Flanagan, in her biography of Bl. Hildegard of Bingen, wrote:
"Two very important sources of medieval scientific lore were Pliny's Historia naturalis (Natural History) and the works of Isidore of Seville (†636), especially his Etymologiae (Etymologies). Some elements of Greek medical (Hippocratic) thought had been transmitted through the writings of Galen (in translations of Constantine of Africa) to become part of the accepted medical background. When Hildegard wrote, the major translations of Aristotle's works on natural history and translations of Arabic medical writings were only just appearing. A flourishing school of medicine existed in Salerno in southern Italy, the teachings of which circulated in more or less popular forms. Whether Hildegard had any acquaintance with such specialized works on women as Soranus' Gynaecology is doubtful. These sources were supplemented by the fantastic lore of the bestiaries, and the more empirical traditions of Greek herbalists such as Dioscorides." (footnote 5 on page 219)
By the twelfth century, moreover, the universities were developing, and education was no longer fully in the hands of the monasteries. Thus, having covered the time frame of medicine from St. Ambrose in the fourth century to Bl. Hildegard in the twelfth without a loss of the knowledge of Greek and Roman medicine, that covers the entire time frame that the texbook author in question could have had in mind.
4. "1265 "Thomas Aquinas argues that the
notion of a human capacity to think and reason should be replaced with
the notion of an immortal soul."
The textbook authors here have somehow reversed their history. It should be readily apparent that the Christian belief in the immortal sould did not originate in the thirteenth century, as so many of the New Testament's most quoted passages speak about that. It should also have been clear to the textbook authors that Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy did not hold on through the Dark Ages only to get dumped in the thirteenth century (while they say science had given way to superstition at the year 200). So I'm not quite sure how this misconception got into the inside cover, since it seems to contradict their other misconceptions. Perhaps what is at play here is what G.K. Chesterton called a "Victorian prejudice" that would lead someone to believe that a monk could not also be a philosopher (G.K. Chesterton, St Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox, Image Books/Doubleday, pg. 34). However, Chesterton is not dealing with quite the same proposition as in the textbook, but rather with a Victorian comparison of St. Thomas Aquinas and his relative Frederick II.
For a more scholarly overview of the thirteenth century's move toward Aristotelian reason, you might take a look at earlier posts in this blog about the Aristotelian revival of the thirteenth century, in which the role of reason and science actually came to play a much greater role in Christian philosophy, and not a lesser one. I quoted some very highly regarded history texts there and provided a short biographical sketch of St. Albert the Great drawn from other great texts on that era. Both St. Thomas and his teacher St. Albert the Great played central roles in the increasing importance of Aristotelian reason. They most certainly did not replace it with anything. See posts here, here, and here.
A look at St. Thomas's discussions of reason and the human brain in the Summae is sufficient to correct the misconception in the textbook.
In the first article of the Summa Theologica, First Part, Question 1, Article 1 (hereafter cited as Summa Theologica 1, Question 1, Article 1), he offers his basic concept that knowledge comes from two sources, which are reason and divine revelation, and that both are necessary to theological truth:
"It was necessary for man's salvation that there should be
a knowledge revealed by God besides philosophical science built up by
human reason. Firstly, indeed, because man is directed to God, as to an
end that surpasses the grasp of his reason: "The eye hath not seen, O
God, besides Thee, what things Thou hast prepared for them that wait for
Thee" (Is. 66:4). But the end must first be known by men who are to
direct their thoughts and actions to the end. Hence it was necessary for
the salvation of man that certain truths which exceed human reason should
be made known to him by divine revelation. Even as regards those truths
about God which human reason could have discovered, it was necessary that
man should be taught by a divine revelation; because the truth about God
such as reason could discover, would only be known by a few, and that
after a long time, and with the admixture of many errors. Whereas man's
whole salvation, which is in God, depends upon the knowledge of this
truth. Therefore, in order that the salvation of men might be brought
about more fitly and more surely, it was necessary that they should be
taught divine truths by divine revelation. It was therefore necessary
that besides philosophical science built up by reason, there should be a
sacred science learned through revelation."
This proposition is remarkable both for the value it places on philosophy and scientific reasoning (all of which fall into St. Thomas's broad concept of "reason") and for its simultaneously democratic concern that the people who are not capable of sophisiticated analysis should have equal access to the knowledge necessary for salvation through some other means. The man who, having studied Aristotle and Boethius, said he had never read a page that he did not understand, also said that man is directed to God through divine revelation that surpasses reason. Both were necessary. In writing that, however, he was moving toward a greater emphasis on reason and not away from it, as compared to past centuries.
In the Summa Theologica 2,1, Question 19, Article 3, ("Whether the goodness of the will depends on reason") he wrote:
As stated above (Articles [1],2), the goodness of the will
depends properly on the object. Now the will's object is proposed to it
by reason. Because the good understood is the proportionate object of the
will; while sensitive or imaginary good is proportionate not to the will
but to the sensitive appetite: since the will can tend to the universal
good, which reason apprehends; whereas the sensitive appetite tends only
to the particular good, apprehended by the sensitive power. Therefore the
goodness of the will depends on reason, in the same way as it depends on
the object.
In Summa Theologica, 2.1, Question 63, Article 2, St. Thomas spoke again of reason and divine revelation:
I answer that, We have spoken above (Question [51], Articles [2],3) in a general way
about the production of habits from acts; and speaking now in a special
way of this matter in relation to virtue, we must take note that, as
stated above (Question [55], Articles [3],4), man's virtue perfects him in relation to
good. Now since the notion of good consists in "mode, species, and
order," as Augustine states (De Nat. Boni. iii) or in "number, weight,
and measure," as expressed in Wis. 11:21, man's good must needs be
appraised with respect to some rule. Now this rule is twofold, as stated
above (Question [19], Articles [3],4), viz. human reason and Divine Law. And since
Divine Law is the higher rule, it extends to more things, so that
whatever is ruled by human reason, is ruled by the Divine Law too; but
the converse does not hold.
It follows that human virtue directed to the good which is defined
according to the rule of human reason can be caused by human acts:
inasmuch as such acts proceed from reason, by whose power and rule the
aforesaid good is established. On the other hand, virtue which directs
man to good as defined by the Divine Law, and not by human reason, cannot
be caused by human acts, the principle of which is reason, but is
produced in us by the Divine operation alone. Hence Augustine in giving
the definition of the latter virtue inserts the words, "which God works
in us without us" (Super Ps. 118, Serm. xxvi). It is also of these
virtues that the First Objection holds good.
In writing about the law, in Summa Theologica 2.1, Question 91, St. Thomas emphasized reason as the source of human laws (2.1, Question 91, Article 3):
"As stated above (Question [90], Article [1], ad 2), a law is a dictate
of the practical reason. Now it is to be observed that the same procedure
takes place in the practical and in the speculative reason: for each
proceeds from principles to conclusions, as stated above (De Lib. Arb. i,
6). Accordingly we conclude that just as, in the speculative reason, from
naturally known indemonstrable principles, we draw the conclusions of the
various sciences, the knowledge of which is not imparted to us by nature,
but acquired by the efforts of reason, so too it is from the precepts of
the natural law, as from general and indemonstrable principles, that the
human reason needs to proceed to the more particular determination of
certain matters. These particular determinations, devised by human
reason, are called human laws, provided the other essential conditions of
law be observed, as stated above (Question [90], Articles [2],3,4). Wherefore Tully says
in his Rhetoric (De Invent. Rhet. ii) that "justice has its source in
nature; thence certain things came into custom by reason of their
utility; afterwards these things which emanated from nature and were
approved by custom, were sanctioned by fear and reverence for the law."
Also, while the textbook author speaks of St. Thomas as writing of an immortal soul instead of reason, Summa Theologica 1, Question 91, Article 3 talks about the importance of the human brain and argues that God made the human body as it is because of the importance of intellect to humans, as compared to the importance of vision or speed or some other abilities to the animals. The Article, interesting for what it shows of thirteenth century medical understanding as well as for its display that St. Thomas understood that reason came from the brain and not just from an eternal soul, is as follows:
"The sense of touch, which is the foundation of the other
senses, is more perfect in man than in any other animal; and for this
reason man must have the most equable temperament of all animals.
Moreover man excels all other animals in the interior sensitive powers,
as is clear from what we have said above (Question [78], Article [4]). But by a kind of
necessity, man falls short of the other animals in some of the exterior
senses; thus of all animals he has the least sense of smell. For man
needs the largest brain as compared to the body; both for his greater
freedom of action in the interior powers required for the intellectual
operations, as we have seen above (Question [84], Article [7]); and in order that the
low temperature of the brain may modify the heat of the heart, which has
to be considerable in man for him to be able to stand erect. So that size
of the brain, by reason of its humidity, is an impediment to the smell,
which requires dryness. In the same way, we may suggest a reason why some
animals have a keener sight, and a more acute hearing than man; namely,
on account of a hindrance to his senses arising necessarily from the
perfect equability of his temperament. The same reason suffices to
explain why some animals are more rapid in movement than man, since this
excellence of speed is inconsistent with the equability of the human
temperament."
One of the theological premises of St. Thomas's thinking has to do with the unity of body and soul, implied by bodily Resurrection. A present day psychologist might find that part of St. Thomas's thinking quite interesting. As G.K. Chesterton put it, "Thomas stood up stoutly for the fact that a man's body is his body as his mind is his mind; and that he can only be a balance and union of the two." And yet, in Thomas's thinking, this is bound up with the miraculous and with a belief in the bodily Resurrection (Chesterton, supra, pg. 18). This is perhaps the closest aspect of Thomas's thinking to the statement on the inside cover of the textbook in question, and yet it is drawn largely from Aristotle and is actually productive of that form of reason that is the underpinning for science, including psychology. St. Thomas wrote, in Summa Theologica 1, Question 76, Article 1, for example:
"We must assert that the intellect which is the principle
of intellectual operation is the form of the human body. For that whereby
primarily anything acts is a form of the thing to which the act is to be
attributed: for instance, that whereby a body is primarily healed is
health, and that whereby the soul knows primarily is knowledge; hence
health is a form of the body, and knowledge is a form of the soul. The
reason is because nothing acts except so far as it is in act; wherefore a
thing acts by that whereby it is in act. Now it is clear that the first
thing by which the body lives is the soul. And as life appears through
various operations in different degrees of living things, that whereby we
primarily perform each of all these vital actions is the soul. For the
soul is the primary principle of our nourishment, sensation, and local
movement; and likewise of our understanding. Therefore this principle by
which we primarily understand, whether it be called the intellect or the
intellectual soul, is the form of the body. This is the demonstration
used by Aristotle (De Anima ii, 2)."
St. Thomas's view of reason and divine revelation is discussed in more detail in the Summa Contra Gentiles, portions of which are available online from the Jacques Maritain Center here. For example:
Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 1, Article 3:
The truths that we confess concerning God fall under two modes.
Some things true of God are beyond all the competence of human reason,
as that God is Three and One. Other things there are to which even
human reason can attain, as the existence and unity of God, which
philosophers have proved to a demonstration under the guidance of the
light of natural reason.
Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 1, Article 4, discusses why it is important that reason is not the only means of knowing God (similarly to the discussion of the same subject matter discussed above from the Summa Theologica):
IF a truth of this nature were left to the sole enquiry of reason,
three disadvantages would follow. One is that the knowledge of God
would be confined to few. The discovery of truth is the fruit of
studious enquiry. From this very many are hindered. Some are hindered
by a constitutional unfitness, their natures being ill-disposed to the
acquisition of knowledge. They could never arrive by study to the
highest grade of human knowledge, which consists in the knowledge of
God. Others are hindered by the needs of business and the ties of the
management of property. There must be in human society some men devoted
to temporal affairs. These could not possibly spend time enough in the
learned lessons of speculative enquiry to arrive at the highest point
of human enquiry, the knowledge of God. Some again are hindered by
sloth. The knowledge of the truths that reason can investigate
concerning God presupposes much previous knowledge. Indeed almost the
entire study of philosophy is directed to the knowledge of God. Hence,
of all parts of philosophy, that part stands over to be learnt last,
which consists of metaphysics dealing with points of Divinity.* Thus, only with great labour of study is it
possible to arrive at the searching out of the aforesaid truth; and
this labour few are willing to undergo for sheer love of knowledge.
Another disadvantage is that such as did arrive at the knowledge or
discovery of the aforesaid truth would take a long time over it, on
account of the profundity of such truth, and the many prerequisites to
the study, and also because in youth and early manhood, the soul,
tossed to and fro on the waves of passion, is not fit for the study of
such high truth: only in settled age does the soul become prudent and
scientific, as the Philosopher says. Thus, if the only way open to the
knowledge of God were the way of reason, the human race would dwell
long in thick darkness of ignorance: as the knowledge of God, the best
instrument for making men perfect and good, would accrue only to a few,
and to those few after a considerable lapse of time.
Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 1, Article 7, speaks of why what we know from reason and what we know from divine revelation must be consistent:
THE natural dictates of reason must certainly be quite true: it is
impossible to think of their being otherwise. Nor a gain is it
permissible to believe that the tenets of faith are false, being so
evidently confirmed by God.* Since therefore
falsehood alone is contrary to truth, it is impossible for the truth of
faith to be contrary to principles known by natural reason.
2. Whatever is put into the disciple's mind by the teacher is contained
in the knowledge of the teacher, unless the teacher is teaching
dishonestly, which would be a wicked thing to say of God. But the
knowledge of principles naturally known is put into us by God, seeing
that God Himself is the author of our nature. Therefore these
principles also are contained in the Divine Wisdom. Whatever therefore
is contrary to these principles is contrary to Divine Wisdom, and
cannot be of God.
3. Contrary reasons fetter our intellect fast, so that it cannot
proceed to the knowledge of the truth. If therefore contrary
informations were sent us by God, our intellect would be thereby
hindered from knowledge of the truth: but such hindrance cannot be of
God.
4. What is natural cannot be changed while nature remains.* But contrary opinions cannot be in the same
mind at the same time: therefore no opinion or belief is sent to man
from God contrary to natural knowledge. And therefore the Apostle says:
The word is near in thy heart and in thy mouth, that is, the word of
faith which we preach (Rom. x, 8). But because it surpasses reason
it is counted by some as contrary to reason, which cannot be. To the
same effect is the authority of Augustine (Gen. ad litt. ii, 18) : "
What truth reveals can nowise be contrary to the holy books either of
the Old or of the New Testament." Hence the conclusion is evident,
that any arguments alleged against the teachings of faith do not
proceed logically from first principles of nature, principles of
themselves known, and so do not amount to a demonstration; but are
either probable reasons or sophistical; hence room is left for refuting
them.*
Summa Contra Gentiles, Book II, Article 4 speaks of how a "philosopher: (i.e, someone looking at the world from the standpoint of human reason, which would include a scientist or, in our day, a psychological perspective) differs from a "faithful Christian" looking at the world from the standpoint of divine revelation, and how both lead to truth in different ways (and yet which Thomas, as quoted above from Book 1, Article 7, expects will lead to consistent truths):
Therefore the philosopher
and the faithful Christian (fidelis) consider different points
about creatures: the philosopher considers what attaches to them in
their proper nature: the faithful Christian considers about creatures
only what attaches to them in their relation to God, as that they are
created by God, subject to God, and the like.*
Hence it is not to be put down as an imperfection in the doctrine of
faith, if it passes unnoticed many properties of things, as the
configuration of the heavens, or the laws of motion. And again such
points as are considered by philosopher and faithful Christian alike,
are treated on different principles: for the philosopher takes his
stand on the proper and immediate causes of things; but the faithful
Christian argues from the First Cause, showing that so the matter is
divinely revealed, or that this makes for the glory of God, or that
God's power is infinite.
Far from being opposed to reason or opposed to natural science, St. Thomas and his teacher St. Albert the Great laid the groundwork for scientific reason that brought the natural sciences and Aristotelian reason into full bloom in Western European thinking. Take a look also at the short biography of St. Albert the Great in this blog, which speaks of his and St. Thomas's role in furthering scientific reasoning in the thirteenth century.
Indeed, it can be fairly well shown that the concept of reason that fueled the Enlightenment came from St. Thomas. His view of reason and divine revelation carried into Anglican thinking during the Reformation through the ecclesial legal theory of Richard Hooker, in The Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, at the time when the monarchy was legislating for the Church of England and determining the scope of the monarchy's power over the church. Richard Hooker's Lawes would have been studied by Francis Bacon, who was not only a philosopher but also attorney general to King James I, a legal adviser to the very monarchy whose legal authority over the English church was much of the subject matter of the Lawes. Francis Bacon is often seen as one of the sources of the Enlightenment, and his familiarity with Thomas's concept of reason can be shown from Richard Hooker's own acknowledgment of indebtedness to St. Thomas Aquinas.
In the Preface to the Lawes, 3:10, Richard Hooker followed the First Article of St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica (1, Question 1, Article 1, given above), without quoting it, when Hooker wrote:
There are but two ways whereby the Spirit leadeth men into all truth; the one extraordinary, the other common; the one belonging but unto some few, the other extending itself unto all that are of God; the one, that which we call by a special divine excellency Revelation, the other Reason.
Hooker elsewhere divided his sources of authority into three parts, expressed best in Book V, 8:2, as Scripture, Reason, and Ecclesiastical Authority:
Be it in matter of the one kind or of the other [order or doctrine], what Scripture doth plainly deliver, to that the first place both of credit and obedience is due; the next whereunto is whatsoever any man can necessarily conclude by force of reason; after these the voice of the Church succeedeth. That which the Church by her ecclesiastical authority shall probably think and define to be true or good, must in congruity of reason overrule all other inferior judgments whatsoever.
Richard Hooker’s resulting triad of Scripture, Reason and Tradition became the foundation for an Anglican concept of truth and moral authority. The radical shift in Hooker from St. Thomas was that Richard Hooker took St. Thomas's concept of reason and divine revelation and divided divine revelation into two parts: (1) Scripture and (2) ecclesiastical law, often called "tradition." He considered all such law to be human law, the collective reasoning of people. Thus, while in Thomas Aquinas, divine revelation as a whole is given priority over reason, in Richard Hooker, only Scripture is given priority over reason. Tradition is lowered to a third tier of authority, so that it is given less weight than both Scripture and reason. This was the departure on which he based his position on what the monarchy could legislate for the Church of England, limiting the monarchy's powers to what is permitted by Scripture and what is consistent with reason.
Hooker connected his triad to Thomas Aquinas in Lawes, Book III, 9:2, where he quoted Aquinas’s Summa Theologica concerning the application of reason to divine revelation to establish human law (from Summa Theologica 2.1, Question 91, Article 3, quoted above), and Hooker opined that all ecclesiastical authority is such human law:
"The greatest amongst the School-divines, studying how to set down by exact definition the nature of an human law, (of which nature all the Church’s constitutions are,) found not which way better to do it than in these words: “Out of the precepts of the law of nature, as out of certain common and undemonstrable principles, man’s reason doth necessarily proceed unto certain more particular determinations; which particular determinations being found out according unto the reason of man, they have the names of human laws so that such other conditions be therein kept as the making of laws doth require,” that is, if they whose authority is thereunto required do establish and publish them as laws."
Hooker relied on St. Thomas Aquinas’s caution that human laws must be measured by two rules: the laws of God and the laws of nature. Thus, Hooker concluded, “laws human must be made according to the general laws of nature, and without contradiction unto any positive law in Scripture. Otherwise they are ill made.” In other words, ecclesiastical law must be consistent with reason, and must not contradict Scripture. In the Summa Contra Gentiles, 1:7 (quoted in part above), Aquinas similarly made the point that the truth of reason cannot be contrary to Scripture, since “God Himself is the author of our nature” and the source of both “the truth of faith” and “principles known by natural reason.”
Accordingly, the Enlightenment drew its concept of reason from St. Thomas, and departed from Catholicism in its rejection of divine revelation. While appearing to reject divine revelation, however, Western Europe retained the values of family life and culture that had developed within the Church and which reflected Catholic values in their origin. Accordingly, even the rejection of divine revelation was truly only partial, and not complete.
Thus, there is ample evidence to reject the entire version of history given on the inside cover of this Against the Grain reader's textbook. It drew from a fictionalized account of intellectual history which, from beginning to end, is contrary to extensive evidence of the Catholic Church's beliefs and values.
, Classics of Western Spirituality series.
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