So now we look to Scott Oliphint’s more
detailed treatment of the Five Ways in his Chapter 2, ’Foundation of
Knowledge,’ which consists of four expository sections and a fifth of critique.
We shall see that the discussion of this and the next chapter assumes Aquinas
propounds a set of foundational principles on which Christian faith is erected.
It is intended to reinforce what Oliphint takes to be the errors of Aquinas’s
two foundations which the author has identified, one of knowledge, the other of
metaphysics.
So what Oliphint’s two main
chapters of comment on Aquinas boil down to is criticism of the Five Ways in ST 1a 2.2, from the point of view of his
understanding of Christian apologetics. There is first a discussion of Reason
and Revelation. Here the author is in the area that we have concentrated on,
natural theology and its relation to the supernatural theology of ‘Articles of
Faith.’ Oliphint says that reason is the foundation and revealed theology the
superstructure (13). As we have already noted this seems odd, for in ST 1.1 Thomas is already at home in
referring to revealed theology before he attends to natural theology. Why else
is Scripture, e.g. Romans 1:19 and John 1:9, cited as authoritative?
We have seen earlier that the
articles of faith form a distinct science. Here is a passage that supports this
from a writing earlier than the ST.
First of all I
wish to warn you that in disputations with unbelievers about articles of the
Faith, you should not try to prove the Faith by necessary reasons. This would
belittle the sublimity of the Faith, whose truth exceeds not only human minds
but also those of angels; we believe in them only because they are revealed by
God. Yet whatever come from the Supreme Truth cannot be false, and what is not
false cannot be repudiated by any necessary reason. Just as our Faith cannot be
proved by necessary reasons, because it exceeds the human mind, so because of
its truth it cannot be refuted by any necessary reason. So any Christian
disputing about the articles of the Faith should not try to prove the Faith,
but defend the Faith. Thus blessed Peter (1 Pet 3:15) did not say: ‘Always have
your proof’, but ‘your answer ready,’ so that reason can show that what the
Catholic Faith holds is not false.[1]
The point being made is that articles of
faith cannot be defended by reason since they are above reason. Nevertheless,
articles of faith cannot be false, being from God, and so are not falsifiable
by reason, but may be defended, as recommended in 1 Peter 3:15. This is a clear
claim that articles of faith are quite distinct from demonstrative proofs, and
that Aquinas was not a foundationalist. Certainly he did not hold that
Christian theology was built on the foundation of natural theology.
At this stage Oliphint cites
Thomas’s commitment to a three-fold knowledge of God from another text than the
ST. First, by his effects; secondly,
knowledge of God through the operation of reason; and thirdly, knowledge
imparted through infused supernatural light (14). But the author spends no time
in showing how this diversity in the sources and kinds of knowledge can be the
fruits of the foundation that Aquinas allegedly provides. Writing of this
three-fold knowledge Oliphint holds that the third class in which God is known
in himself ‘garners little or no respect in Thomas’s system’ (16). In other
words, in Oliphint’s view, Thomas’s system is one in which reason and not revelation
is dominant. But is that so?
Here we come upon one of the most
puzzling features of Thomas’s method, according to Oliphint. Thomas exegetes Scripture. He is a
Christian theologian, even though he is a bad exegete, in Oliphint’s eyes
(121). But the glaring puzzle is how Aquinas can legitimately have this role if
he is (as he is at this stage according to Oliphint) principally a natural
theologian expounding the Five Ways as an Aristotelian, appealing to “’pure
nature’ as a foundation for the grace of redemption” (32, n. 40). Is this not
to put the cart before the horse? This shows that Oliphint muddles up the role
of the philosopher engaging in scientia,
according to Aquinas, with that of the Christian theologian engaging in
expounding the articles of the Christian faith, another form of scientia.
Incidentally, Paul’s assertion in
Romans 1:20 seems more positive according to Aquinas than Oliphint allows it to
be; it provides an account of part of what the Reformed later referred to as
the sensus divinitatis. This
discussion of self-evidence is concerned with the notion as it is employed in
the proofs, demonstrations that God exists. But what does Oliphint have to say
about such qualifications of Aquinas as “However, there is nothing to stop a
man accepting on faith some truth which he personally cannot demonstrate, even
if that truth in itself is such that demonstration could make it evident” (ST 1a 2. 2)? This seems a significant
qualification to the value Aquinas places on the proofs in Christian belief, but
Oliphint ignores it. I think their acknowledgement would significantly
undermine his critique of Thomas.
Early in Chapter 2 there is a
section on the praeambula fidei (25).
What are they for? Are they primarily theological or philosophical? We have stressed
that in the ST there is a
separateness between them in that faith in the articles of faith can occur
without requiring philosophical demonstration. As understood philosophically
they may be said to ratify the character of God in revelation in which God is
not knowable in himself, but as he is to us—his effects in special revelation.
So, there is an overlap between the two, but the praeambula do not justify Christian faith. Aquinas says:
The truths about
God which St. Paul says we can know by our natural powers of reasoning—that God
exists, for example—are not numbered among the articles of faith but are
presupposed (praeambula) to them. For
faith presupposes natural knowledge, just as grace does nature and all
perfections that which they perfect. However, there is nothing to stop a man
accepting on faith some truth which he personally cannot demonstrate, even if
that truth in itself is such that demonstration could make it evident. (ST 1a. 2.2)
Oliphint seems to favor Ralph
McInerny’s view of the separateness of philosophy from theology and thinks that
this shows that for Thomas the discipline of apologetics (which naturally
Oliphint is interested in) “is rooted in the principium of human reason, which,
of itself, according to Thomas, is able to produce, by way of demonstration, a
true theology” (29). But this seems to be an unwarranted conclusion if ‘a true
theology’ covers all the ground covered by ‘the articles of the Christian
faith.’ Theology of the articles in this sense, Thomas would say, is a product
of the authority of the Church’s preaching via the canonical Scriptures.
Philosophy may clarify them, as Aquinas notes, citing Paul’s adducing “the
resurrection of Christ to prove the resurrection of all” (ST 1a 1.8).
Chapter 3
Foundation of Existence
The foundationalist emphasis is continued in
this chapter which is concerned with what Oliphint thinks are the metaphysical
foundations of Aquinas’s thought. We see now that he omits discussion of
Aquinas’s distinction between a proposition which is self-evident in itself and
one which is made self-evident to us (ST 1a
2.1). This is the role of natural theology, a discipline which not all may be
versed in.
Oliphint runs cursorily through
who God is, and God’s simplicity. He makes a series of stray comments,
discussing the topics of the relation of existence and essence, and of analogy.
Thomas concludes “God’s effects, therefore, can serve to demonstrate that God
exists, even though they cannot help us to know him comprehensively for what he
is” (ST 1a 2.2). That is, we cannot
know God in himself. The distinction between that God exists, and what he is
that exists, is of some importance.
In his discussion of the proofs
Aquinas moves on to the importance of God’s simplicity, an essentially negative
notion. The cosmological arguments of the Five Ways are efforts at proving
God’s existence from his effects, indirectly. It is good to see that Oliphint
affirms divine simplicity (90), but the longish discussion of it from Alvin’s
Plantinga’s skepticism of divine simplicity to Eleonore Stump’s affirmation of
a version of it to Brian Leftow’s skepticism of it once again, does not take us
very much farther. In terms of the brevity of the book, when so many of the
strands of Aquinas’s treatment of divine scientia
are ignored, this long discussion (91-109) seems excessive.
All five proofs seem to be
variants of cosmological arguments, deductions based on the observations of
obvious features of experience, in which that there is a God is demonstrated.
This is very Aristotelian, most obviously so in Thomas’s version of them in his
earlier Summa Contra Gentiles.[2]
Some commentators think the fifth way is an early form of the argument from
design made famous by William Paley in the eighteenth century. Oliphint does
not venture to give any opinion of the validity of any of these arguments. From
being products of philosophy, and so a case of scientia, in Oliphint’s view, these have become foundational
instances of the operation of ‘neutral rationality – natural reason’ (85,
neutral is a term that is unexplained) and so a seriously mistaken apologetic
strategy. And Aquinas’s alleged mistakes in exegesis compound his errors in
Oliphint’s eyes. And as such he is open to critique by Oliphint’s ‘revelational
epistemology’ (121). But to offer these as the Reformed critique of Thomas’s
epistemology simply underlie his lack of sympathy with Thomas.
Oliphint’s strategy becomes
clear. He is not intent on discussing the validity of Thomas’s arguments for
God’s existence, nor in their historical setting. What interests him is
Thomas’s foundationalism, the way in which he allegedly builds grace upon
nature, and his reliance upon natural reason to achieve this. In this way he
fattens Thomas Aquinas for Van Til’s market, for Van Til was dead set against
any such apologetic.
Oliphint’s
Conclusion
In his Conclusion Olphint underlines even
more clearly why he has chosen such an idiosyncratic approach to Aquinas, one
that is completely ahistorical. He seems to fault Aquinas because he did not
anticipate Hume and Kant. This among his ‘confusions’! All this is to present
him as a foil for his view of Van Tillian apologetics. So his anachronistic
account of the Five Ways has become that of a classical foundationalist
rationalism of the Enlightenment. His references to contemporary debates on
philosophy and theology in Aquinas is to adopt the approach of Ralph McInerny’s
view that in the proofs Aquinas is behaving as a philosopher, and not, as with
such as Etienne Gilson, that the proofs are theological in character. And
therefore, he implies that Aquinas relies on pagans and Muslims. So much the
worse for Aquinas’s bad philosophy.
He repeats what he has said
throughout the book that, according to Thomas, natural theology must have a
sole foundation in special revelation. This is one reason why he pays such
attention to Aquinas’s exegetical mistakes, if they are that. And while he pays
attention to Aquinas’s work as a Bible commentator this is to show what he
regards as more of his shortcomings: Aquinas in his view paid attention to
“Aristotle and his Muslim followers” (50). He “was no exegete” of Scripture
(121). Oliphint’s outlook does not encompass the more generous view of a number
of contemporary scholars that Aquinas’s work as a biblical commentator is of
considerable value.
There are additional oddities, as
when he ascribes Thomas as a forerunner of Molinism, “an Arminian approach to
divine sovereignty” (125), passing by the fact that opposition to Molinism in
the Roman church was largely in the hands of Dominicans. (He never lets on that
Thomas was an Augustinian theologian.) The Molinists’ libertarianism is more
likely due to the influence of Duns Scotus on Molina, or perhaps that of the
Franciscan Jean Olivi (1248-1298), but almost certainly not Aquinas.
Concluding Thoughts
This book is a great disappointment and
represents a lost opportunity. Too often Oliphint’s low opinion of Thomas
Aquinas is only too clear. So if his price for the use of Aquinas for the
purposes of furthering his own views on apologetics is the distortion of
Thomas’s views, is this not too high a price to pay? His manipulation of
Thomas’s ideas in the interest of a neo-Calvinist apologetic is unscholarly.
Maybe it is of doubtful morality too.
There are two things that will
endure: first, treating Aquinas un-historically as an evidential
foundationalist, while yet recognizing Thomas’s dependence on Scripture in
carrying out his program and, second, treating the Five Ways as apologetics in
the modern evangelical sense. The contribution of Aquinas is then seen
exclusively as the author or publicizer of the Five Ways, handing them on as
gifts to the culture of apologetics down the centuries, and so a target for
critique in the light of current apologetics in the twenty-first century. It is
in this guise that Oliphint treats and critiques them. The author’s selection
of Thomas’s writing material is skewed by his own, quite different, apologetic
convictions. His interpretation of Thomas is likewise skewed. His account of
Aquinas would have been much more faithful and useful had he given attention to
Thomas’s stress on the Christian character of Part 1 Question 1 of the ST, and the place of philosophical
argument within it. He would then have seen that Aquinas’s Five Ways do not
easily migrate to become a paradigm for modern evidentialist apologetics, and
he would not have been cast in the role of an opponent of other styles of
apologetics.
Overall, Oliphint’s treatment of
Aquinas as a Great Thinker is a disappointment because the shape of his book
intends the reader to see how his writing is an obvious case for adhering to
the apologetics of Cornelius Van Til. And this is the case at whatever cost to
what Aquinas’s writings actually tell us. Had he taken Aquinas’s general,
positive influence on Reformed Orthodoxy and beyond, for example, the book
could have been an altogether more positive and instructive study for his
likely readership.
[1] Reasons for the Faith Against Muslim
Objections, 1264 (trans. Joseph Kenny) Ch.2. Chapter 2: How to argue with
unbelievers, Opuscula theologia, ed
Marietti.
[2] The Summa Contra Gentiles (1259-1265), to
which Oliphint occasionally refers, was the earlier and more apologetic of the
two Summae of Aquinas.
