Ross. On Christian Philosophy

Hegeler Institute
ON CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY: UNA VERA PHILOSOPHIA?

Author(s): James F. Ross
Source: The Monist, Vol. 75, No. 3, Christian Philosophy (JULY 1992), pp. 354-380
Published by: Hegeler Institute
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ON CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY: UNA VERA PHILOSOPHIAl
I. INTRODUCTION
We have to frame a
position
that fits
philosophy
as it is done
now,
but
respects
its
perennial
features
yet
also
responds
to the literature
concerning
medieval writers1 and the recent
suggestions
for
contemporary philosophy.2
Philosophy,
as
Aquinas,
and
many others,
described it?as a demon
strative
progression
from self-evident
premises
to evident
(or
even
necessary
[Scotus])
conclusions?is
rarely attempted nowadays,
even
by
"scholas
tic"
philosophers.
Demonstrative success?that
is, entirely
to eliminate
competitors
to one's conclusions?is not the
expectation
now,
nor has it
been the achievement of
philosophers historically. Thus,
some restrictions
upon starting points may
be relaxed as
unnecessary, e.g.,
that
they
be self
evident.
Nevertheless,
the idea that one is not entitled to
premise things
one
does not find out on one's
own,
and that others cannot evaluate
publicly
and
interpersonally,
seems to retain
force, though
not
unqualified
force.
For, pulling against
that restriction
are, first,
the
recognition
that a
good
deal of what we know
independently
in fact comes
by
a
system
of reliances
(e.g.,
reliance on
measuring
instruments from
spoons
to
micrometers;
on
the
authenticity
of texts we cannot
check;
on records made
by others;
on
statistical theories one cannot
verify,
and on traditions of how to make
observations and to record
them,
and even on traditions of how to evaluate
reasoning
and
classify data,
on traditions of
logic,
and even on our
memories and
senses)
and that we are entitled to
rely upon
such
things,
with
caution.
Secondly,
we
recognize
that the rational basis for some
important
commitments is to be found both in natural faith
(in
our
parents)
and in
refined
feelings by
which commitments are obtained and sustained. Stable
commitment is more a matter of
appraising
and
exercising
the rational func
tions of the will
(aimed
at our
good3),
than it is a matter of items of evidence
or individual
arguments.
The
upshot
is that
philosophy,
and science in
general,
does not have the
self-evident,
or clear and
distinct, beginnings
en
visioned
by
Aristotle's commentators and
adaptors,
or even
by
Descartes
and other modern
philosophers. Rather,
both
philosophy
and science are
systems
of
commitment,
often based on
comprehension,
but as much based
on
reliances, quite
different in
origin
and structure from what is
typically
Copyright
?
1992,
THE
MONIST,
La
Salle,
IL 61301.
ON CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY
355
proposed. Still,
in certain areas of
science,
for
instance, general mechanics,
statistical
theory
of
gasses,
and
optics,
the outcome is like the derivation of
many
and varied truths from a few first
principles
that are
evident on ex
perienced
consideration. And some areas of
philosophy
contain
equally
im
pressive reasoning,
for
instance,
as to
why
there cannot be a
satisfactory
phenomenalist analysis
of
physical-object statements,
or
why
the
principle
of
verifiability
is not an
adequate principle
of
meaningfulness,
or
(to
take
more classical
themes) why
causation cannot account for
being-as-such,
or
why possibility
cannot be
prior
to
being-as-such,
or
why
act is
prior
to
potency absolutely.
Some considerations seem to be
dispositive,
to make the
comprehension
so
elementary
as to
put
the burden
wholly
on
any
challenger.
But those are the
exceptions,
even
though
there
may
be
many
of
them. In
general, important
and
disputed points
are not
directly
resolved
by
argument,
but are
(as Jung
said of
conflicts)
transcended or
transformed
by
shifts of evaluation.
Arguments
do
not,
typically, change
minds on substan
tial issues like the existence of
God,
the freedom of the will and the immor
tality
of the
soul, points
central to
Augustine, Aquinas,
and
Descartes,
or
even on
ontological
issues like the
relationships
of
universals,
common
natures and
individuation, among Aquinas, Scotus,
and Ockham. Never
theless,
the
arguments
are essential elements in the
cognitive progression,
forming
the
steps
to which a
response
makes an advance.
Because we are not
doing
demonstrations for the most
part,
we have to
reconsider
whether,
with certain
cautions,
we can
employ knowledge
we
have
gained by
revelation.4 For as
long
as the
starting points
are true and
reasonably believed,
what will be the basis for
excluding
them?
Maybe
we
will have to fall back on the traditional
argument
that
philosophy
is essen
tially
an endeavour on our
own,
without elements
provided only by public
revelation,
and that
theology
is a similar endeavour to which revelation is an
integral starting point.
That will
put Plantinga's
recommended "Christian
Philosophy,"5
which is to be marked
by
its
outright
theistic commitment
(not, however, presented
as
something
discovered or
proved by merely
ra
tional
inquiry)
into the
category
of
theology.
The view I
develop
here
assumes that we can
prove
the existence of God and that the "faith
elements" that make a
philosophy
Christian are
quite
different from that.
Similarly,
the classical monotheist
philosophers,
from Aristotle
through
Augustine, Anselm, Maimonides, Avicenna, Averro?s,
Albertus
Magnus,
Aquinas, Scotus, Ockham, Descartes,
and
Leibnitz,
were
agreed
that one
can demonstrate the existence of God. Thus it was not their
theism,
or even
their conviction about
proof,
that marked them as
Christian,
Muslim or
Jewish
philosophers,
but other elements of their faith
that,
at least
by
magnetism,
affected their
philosophies.
356
JAMES F. ROSS
Today
in
philosophy
where
proof
is
attempted,
it is more
likely
to be
"proof by
a
preponderance
of the
evidence,"
or
"proof by
clear and con
vincing evidence,"
or
"proof beyond
a reasonable doubt"
(see
Section
V,
below),
rather than
proof
with the additional marks of a
demonstration,
namely,
that it eliminates all
counterpossibilities
to its conclusion.
Sometimes
we can reach demonstrative
standard;
but those are not the
points
about which there is division both in
principle
and in lived convic
tion.
Many
of the observations made in the context of the famous discussion
of the "Christian
philosophies"
of St.
Augustine,
St.
Bonaventure,
St.
Thomas,
and Duns
Scotus,6
are still
enlightening
and will be
adapted
here.
But the
framing assumption
that
philosophy
is a demonstrative science has
to be
put
aside for more limited
objectives. Still,
I think the
reality
of God is
accessible to rational
inquiry
and can be
proved by
considerations that
range?according
to the
dispositions
of those who examine them?from "a
preponderance
of the evidence" to
"beyond
a reasonable
doubt," though
falling
short of the
finality
of demonstration. In
any case,
it is other
features that make a
philosophy Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu,
and
Taoist.
The Outcome.
Thus we can come
directly
to the issue as it exists
now,
and answer
without reservation. Of
course,
there is Christian
philosophy
in at least four
useful
senses,
each of which I will discuss:
(1)
when the
philosophy
has
distinctively
Christian
insights
into what is involved in a
question
of interest
to
philosophers regardless
of their
faiths, e.g.,
"Can
a
thing
be of more
than one nature or
quiddity?" (Incarnation); (2)
when the
philosopher
con
siders Christian revelation
indispensable
as a source of considerations to be
accommodated, negatively
or
positively, (even
if not mentioned
or made
part
of the
doctrine)?here
E. Gilson's famous notion
seems to
apply,
as
does what J.
Wippel
calls
"being
Christian in the moment of
discovery";7
(3)
when the basic issue
(of morality,
of
law,
of
cognition,
the
will,
or even
being)
cannot even be
comprehensively
framed
neutrally
to the Christian
faith: what is true human freedom?
(the ability
to attain life with
God);
what is a
properly functioning cognitive system? (one prior
to the Fall or
partly
restored
by grace,
or
given
the blessed in accord with
original
divine
design);
what is the
problem
of evil?
(the mystery
of God's
creating
death
and
permitting evil);8
and
(4) lastly,
but most
distinctively,
when the whole
Christian
Wisdom, including
not
only
the
disciplined
and articulate
understanding
of life and of the
path
for
attaining fulfilment,
but also its
ON CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY 357
elaboration into Christian
civilization,
with all its
arts, sciences,
technologies
and means for
developing
human
potential,
is
compared
con
trastively
to other Wisdoms and
Ways, ranging
from the
philosophies
of the
pagans
that
Augustine considers,
to other secular or
pagan (Greek, Roman)
wisdoms,
other
religions (Buddhist, Hindu),
other ethical
systems (Confu
cian),
and even other "folk
mythologies,"
the stories and rituals
by
which
people (say,
native
American) integrate
individual and
community
life with
all of nature. For it is
exactly
in such a contrastive context that
Augustine's
question
becomes central: which is the one true
philosophy?
And
Augustine's
answer becomes one we can
adopt:
"Christianitas est una vera
philosophia," though my application
of the word is more inclusive than
his,
and
"Christianity"
as a
philosophy
has not one or a few
expressions,
or
any
one more authoritative than all others or
any
that is even consistent on all
points.
II. PHILOSOPHY AS ARTICULATED COMPREHENSION
Philosophy
as an intellectual
discipline
is marked from its
beginnings
by
the
cogent articulation, through
courses of connected
reasoning,
of com
prehension
of
questions
about the ultimate "causes" of
things.
Not all
philosophy
is
expressed
as connected courses of
reasoning;
other activities
may
serve related ends. For
instance,
Plato used
myths, stories, analogies,
dramatic
tension,
historical connections and even characters who
display
the
positions
and
temperaments being
examined.
Still,
the dominant feature
of the
discipline
is its articulated
reasoning
in aid of
comprehension
of the
kind that terminates the
inquiry
with
an
insight
that satisfies the
originating
questioning.
Mastery
at
philosophy
as a
discipline
is
displayed by concert-quality
ar
ticulation of connected
reasoning
about ultimate
matters,
along
with ex
traordinary
skills at
communication,
some of which are skills at disclosure
(see Plato, Sartre,
and
Wittgenstein).
Since the
object
of
philosophy,
like
science,
is
expressed comprehension
that terminates
inquiry
with
insight,
display
and disclosure of
comprehension
can be
just
as effective as concert
articulation of
cogent reasoning,
or serve
cooperatively
with it to achieve
persuasiveness.
In
fact,
as Plato
exemplified,
the
greatest philosophers
master
many
forms of
expression, typically inventing literary
forms to
achieve their
objectives
as well.
Philosophers
are also attracted and affected
by
intellectual
fashions,9
e.g.,
to
emphasize
formal
argument (Scotus),
to fill the work with formal
logic (some contemporary writers),
to make
philosophy
look like science
358 JAMES F. ROSS
(some ancient, medieval,
and a whole tribe of recent
philosophers),
even
though
such features are surface
markings,
like
styles
in clothes.
Thus,
Russell
thought
he had achieved a new level of
discipline
and decisive
thought;
so had
Leibniz;
so had
Spinoza;
so had Descartes. Theirs were
just
fashions within a
perennial discipline.
Philosophy,
as a
discipline,
is neither Christian nor
non-Christian,
though
it has flourished in the Christian
West,
and enriched
Christianity
for
a thousand
years
after it ceased to be a
key
feature of Judaism or
Islam,
or
even of Greek and Russian Orthodox
Christianity.
In
fact,
the cultivation
of the
discipline (as
well as of natural
science)
marks a distinctive
aspect
of
Western
Christianity: fides quaerens
intellectum.
Furthermore,
the cultiva
tion of the
discipline
has caused an
important religious
difference between
Catholics and Reformers over the
proper
role and extent of rational
inquiry
into matters
religious
in the life of a Christian. In the Christian West
philosophy
has
had,
and still has a societal role in the
way thought
is to be
disciplined,
even
religious thought.
One would have to
say, then,
that
philosophy
as a
discipline
is
incidentally
Christian from its influence
upon
Christainity
and its societal role as one
important
continuation of Greek
and Roman culture into the new Christian civilization.
But we also have to ask about the content of
philosophy,
both about
the
understanding
of the
questions
and of the answers. For it turns out that
the content of certain
problems,
even some
ontological
and
epistemological
ones,
is not
religiously neutral,
as we shall see.
III. PHILOSOPHY UNDER CHRISTIAN INFLUENCES
There are a number of
respects
in which one's
philosophy may
be
enough
under Christian
(Muslim
or
Jewish)
influences that one
may
call it
"Christian
(or
Muslim or
Jewish) philosophy"
even
though
it
may
have or
not have more Christian
(Muslim
or
Jewish)
content than its
sensitivity
to
the
religious effect
of
philosophical positions,
or the extensiveness with
which issues that are of concern to
religious people
are debated
(e.g.,
the
relation of time to
eternity;
the relation of God to natural
causality;
of
foreknowledge
to
predestination.10
Most obvious are the
philosophies
that
develop
issues of
explicitly
religious
concern,
rather
than,
or as well
as,
philosophy
of
science,
meta
physics, epistemology,
and ethics. Others reflect
religious differences,
as
I
mentioned,
in their
preoccupations:
Christians with
providence;
Muslims
with occasionalism and fatalism.
Broadly, Augustine, Bonaventure,
An
selm and
Aquinas
and
Scotus, Ockham, Descartes, Berkeley, Leibniz,
359
Locke and Kant11 have to be called Christian
philosophers
in these re
spects. Moreover,
in each we can find much more than concentration on
themes in which Christians have
particular interest;
we can find
positive
ad
justments
to take account of faith and
negative adjustments
to avoid con
flict with the faith.
There is content to be considered Christian in
apparently
neutral
ques
tions,
like "What constitutes the
identity
of a
person
over time and
change?",
because the outcomes have an
impact upon religiously
central
notions
(e.g.,
"what is a
person?"). First,
the outcome
may
conflict with
one's
religious commitments; secondly,
one's lack of
sensitivity
in
foreseeing
such outcomes
may
blunt one's
understanding,
so that one
gets
little of
significance
from an
inquiry
rich with
potentialities
for the
faith,
as I think
happened
to the Christian
"applied
modal semanticists"
(Ross, 1990b)
and
as
certainly happened
to the Christians who tried to accommodate
Positivism.12
Thirdly,
the content of
a successful
philosophy
needs distinc
tively
Christian
elements, negatively,
to avoid conflict with the
faith,
and
positively,
because some issues cannot even be
correctly
framed without
elements of Christian faith
(e.g.,
the
proper functioning
of human
cognitive
systems
cannot be described
neutrally
to the doctrine of the
Fall,
as A. Plan
tinga
also
observes;
nor can the nature of human
beings
be determined in
dependently
of their
supernatural origin
and
destiny). Fourthly,
some
parts
of
philosophy
have to be
developed specifically
for the
expression
of
religious mysteries,
for
example,
a
theory
of real kinds is needed to discuss
the Incarnation
(or
a substitute for real
kinds,
as Descartes tried to resolve
the
matter);
a
theory
of
"persons"
for the
Trinity
of Divine
persons,
and a
theory
of real
presence
for the
Eucharist,
and of causation for the relation
ship
of nature and
grace
and the divine
operations
in nature and
through
humans.
A Christian
philosopher
has a different
insight
into what is involved in
certain
questions?e.g.,
"Can one substance have two
natures?",
and "Is
what a
physical thing
is determined
by
its
micro-parts?",
"Can one and the
same
living thing
be reassembled with different
physical parts
after
having
died and
disintegrated?"?because
of the
implications
for the Incarnation
and the
Eucharist,
and
bodily resurrection,
even
should no mention of such
things
occur in the
inquiry.
I could
imagine
a
Hindu
similarly
influenced
by
the
background
conviction that all matter is illusion or that survival as a
distinct
person
is of no
importance,
when
considering
the same
questions.
Christianity,
like
many
other
preoccupying backgrounds,
can modulate
content without
becoming part of
it. Those are the first levels of involve
ment,
the
very
minimum
ways
in which
Augustine, Anselm,
and the
long
360
JAMES F. ROSS
line of others I
mentioned,
wrote Christian
philosophies, just
as the Arabs
wrote Islamic
philosophy
and the Jews wrote Jewish
philosophy.
Present-day
Christian
philosophers,
like the
great
medieval
writers,
typically
confront
philosophical
issues that have to be resolved as
general
philosophical questions, through
considerations
directly
concerned with the
religion.
Thus elaborations of the
theory
of final
causality,
where the in
quiry
and
subsequent disputes
are
triggered by questions
about how
grace
operates
on the
will,
have to be done and sustained
by
the kind of
thinking
that is
indisputably philosophical,
even
though
there is to be a
religious ap
plication
of the outcome later on.
Thus,
within the
overtly theological
works of
Aquinas,
Scotus and Ockham there are extensive treatments that
are
indisputably philosophical inquiries
and
disputes, regardless
of the
theological
environment that
triggered
them. For
instance,
there is no
way
a
serious Christian or Jew or Muslim can
approach
issues of
personal
con
tinuity through physical change
without
having
an
eye
toward accounts that
will cohere with their notions of
bodily
resurrection.
Their
religious perspectives give
them an
independence
from the
secular academic establishment
(Plantinga
also remarks on
this), allowing
them to contribute
something special
to the
development
of
ideas,
whether
or not the establishment listens. If the
quality
of the intellectual
discipline
is
high enough
to make the
philosophy meritorious,
I think one's
actually
stating
what
religious
commitment
prompted
or motivated one's
inquiry
or
suggested
one's outcome will
only
make one's
writing
more
interesting,
even to
non-believing
readers. At the same
time,
I have to
acknowledge
that
intellectual
prejudice
is so
rampant
that the mere association of work with
one another Christian tradition will cause
many
of the best
philosophers
simply
to tune it out. But that is a mere feature of our
time,
one that
changes
when the establishment
changes.
IV. PHILOSOPHY WITHOUT NEUTRAL CONTENT
This is the controversial and the novel
part.
There is Christian
philosophy,
too,
in the sense that on a number of the basic
problems
of
philosophy, including
the
"problem
of
evil,"
the foundations of moral
law,
and the
goals
and
proper functioning
of human
cognitive powers,
or even
what freedom
is,
and whether
possibility
is
consequent
on
being,
there is no
religiously
neutral
standpoint
from which even to state the
problem
com
prehensively,13 despite
centuries of
pretty
much
unchallenged thinking
that
there
always
is. This is the feature in the discussion of "Christian
Philosophy"
that has not been discussed before.
Instead,
it has
always
been
assumed that
genuinely philosophical
issues can be
adequately
stated and
resolved without
any
content that
presupposes
one or another
religious
commitment. Even
Aquinas
seemed to believe that. It now seems to me on
several crucial
points
to be
quite
the
opposite.
In
fact,
so marked is the
religious perspective,
and so
necessary (e.g.,
the doctrine of the Fall as it affects
conceptions
of human
rationality),
that
Christians,
and in this case Jews and Muslims or
Hindus, may
claim that
theirs is the
only adequate
statement of the basic
problem.
On other mat
ters,
Christians
may
claim theirs alone is the correct
way
to formulate the
problem. Moreover,
there
may
be no
religiously
neutral
standpoint
from
which to state the
problem adequately.
I will
explain
this
further, noting
that I was
entirely opposed
to this view for
many years,
never
having
no
ticed such a
case,
until I
thought
I discerned that
approach
to the
problem
of evil in
papers respectively by Marilyn
Adams and Eleonore
Stump;14
cer
tainly
that seems to be a reasonable conclusion to draw from their
insights
into the factors involved. Then I
began
to notice that there is no neutral
way
to discuss the nature of human freedom at sufficient
depth, except
from the
point
of view of what is lost in the Fall and restored with
grace
and ex
pressed
in the death of Jesus.15 That inclined me to
Plantinga's (and
Wolterstorff s and
Alston's) position.
There is not a
religiously
neutral
standpoint
from which even to state
what
properly functioning
human
cognitive powers
have to be able to
do,
or what the role of the will is in belief and unbelief and to what extent
per
sons
may
be
responsible
for what
they
do and do not
believe,16
or whether
the command-force of moral law
may
come from divine
will, (see Philip
Quinn
on divine-command
morality).
These
recognitions
seem to take a
considerable
step beyond
the restraint of
Aquinas
and
Scotus,
for
example,
and,
as to
content,
do threaten a loss of the
prized neutrality
of
philosophy
among
sectarian differences. Yet another advance has also been achieved:
that
philosophers
of similar
degrees
of
disciplinary
excellence can and do
continue effective communication
despite
content in their views that reflects
their sectarian differences or differences of tradition
(e.g.,
Protestant or
Catholic).
In
fact, they
find themselves
nowadays
in a common
enterprise
in
response
to the far-advanced secularization of
philosophy
in the "establish
ment" universities.
For
example,
a
believer in God should be
quick
to
point
out the absur
dity
of
reasoning
that
supposes
that it would be evil for an
omnipotent
and
perfect
creator to make the biotic
kingdom
in which life comes from death
and
predators
and
prey
are intertwined in their
perfections.
The theist
should
point
out that no world is made
impossible by
the amount of evil in
362
JAMES F. ROSS
it,
and that the moral
qualities
of the creator cannot be read-off the world
on
analogy
to human
persons. For,
because to make creatures that suffer
cannot of itself be
evil,
the
goodness
of God cannot be the
simple-minded
likeness to us that the initial secularized
"problem"
assumed.
Furthermore,
the existence of God is
required
for the
"problem,"
so the more
perplexed
one is
by
the evil of the
world,
the more committed one becomes to the be
ing
of God.
(Otherwise,
what would be the
problem?)
The classical
pagan
formulations
(Epicurus)
of the
problem
are incoherent in the notions of
"goodness"
involved and in their
understanding
of "what
ought
not to
be"; for,
of
course,
if God
exists,
there is
nothing
that
absolutely ought
not
to be.
Further,
as writers even before
Augustine argued,
and as we
continue
to
argue, right up
to
now,
it cannot be
wrong
to make creatures
capable
of
acting rightly,
but
imperfectly
so,
and
thus,
"able" to do
wrong (in
the
sense that an
imperfect pianist
is able to
play
wrong notes,
whereas a non
player
cannot make a
mistake, only noise).
The
problem then,
to be
coherently formulated,
must
suppose
the existence of
a
powerful
creator
who is
"good"
but in a sense not
naively
modeled on us. A
religious
perspective
transforms the secular framework
and,
as M. Adams and E.
Stump show,
can be
applied
to transform what
appear
to be the issues.
Even some
very
abstract
metaphyiscs
is not
religiously
neutral. If I am
right
in
my
criticisms of certain modal
actualists,
what
they
claim conflicts
with the
very
theism
they purport
to
expound.17
One
might
think that such a
broad
question
as "Is
possibility prior
to
being?"
has to be
independent
from the fabric of Judeo-Christain faith. But
no,
only
some
responses
are
compatible
with the theism
professed by
both Jews and Christians.
Moreover,
the kind of
being required
for the
Trinity
of Persons excludes
propositional knowledge, temporal vantages, possibilities independent
of
the divine
will,
and
any
distinction at all between the divine nature and the
divine
being;
denials of
simplicity
are
simply incompatible
with the re
quirements (at
later
points)
of Christian belief.18 Another
example
is the
continuing
debate as to whether a
wholly
different
metaphysics,
the
Whiteheadian
process ontology,
can
provide
a
description
of God that is
compatible
with Christian
faith,
as Hartshorne
(1983), Ogden (1986),
Cobb,
Neville
(1980),
Ford
(1984),
and
many
others have
argued.
Not all the "Christian
philosophers," philosophers
whose
positions
are
responses
to Christian faith
as I have described such
responses,
are
religiously
active believers. As Van
Harvey
characterized
himself,
former
believers now
acting
as intellectual
point-men
for the faith
they
used to
share,
like scouts or
patrols correcting
the course of the
community
as much
as
fighting
its
enemies,
can also be
theologians;
so,
I
suppose, they
can be
"Christain
philosophers"
as well.
Some
philosophical subjects
are
actually philosophy
done "in house"
by
Christian
believers,
such as the
dispute
about the role of natural
theology
that I will comment
upon,
and
inquiries
into the
rationality
of commitment
to the Christian
faith,
or about what
sanctity really is,
or whether there is a
place
for
"proof"
in the rational basis for Christian belief. Sometimes
disputes
are thrust
upon
the believer
by
outside
attacks;
for
instance,
the
dispute,
now
defunct,
over
what,
if
anything,
can be said
meaningfully
about God.19
Philosophy
done "in house" in
response
to outside attacks or
to differences of
religious
tradition can and does influence the
larger
philosophical community
when it is well
done,
as can be seen from the ef
fects of the "reformed
epistemologists"
and other Christian
responses upon
the notions of
empirical knowledge
and of scientific
knowledge
in
general.
The whole field of
epistemology
is
changing.
V. A DISTINCTIVELY CHRISTIAN RATIONAL
INQUIRY
Philosophical Theology, though
once
part
of Judaic and Muslim
thought,
is now almost
exclusively practised by
Christians. The
enterprise
might
be called a
distinctively
Christian kind of
philosophy. Yet,
that is an
historical accident since the
inquiries
are
appropriate
to
any
monotheism.
The
subjects
have been
strictly
limited to
things
accessible to reason unaided
by revelation,
even
though prompted, often, by religious wonderment, e.g.,
the
relationship
of
providence, foreknowledge
and
predestination
to free
will. It tells us
something
about the Christian
religious culture, namely
that
it is
integrated
with and
employs
the efforts of human
reason,
that
philosophy
has a societal role in Western Christendom. Other
religious
traditions do
not,
or no
longer,
have an associated rational
practice
like
"natural
theology."20 Secondly,
there is a
traditional
religious dispute, go
ing
at least as far back as St. Bernard's
hostility
to
dialecticians,
about the
extent and role of natural
theology
within the Christian
religious tradition,
having
to do with the extent to which our own intellectual efforts
can, first,
make
cognitively accessible,
and
secondly, establish,
elements of
things
revealed,
like the existence of God. The difference
represents
a difference of
attitude toward the extent to which it is
religiously appropriate
to
say
that
something
that is revealed is also accessible to rational
inquiry,
and the ex
tent to which it is
religiously appropriate
to substitute our own
"finding
out"
(unreliable
as it often
is)
for
unyielding acceptance
of the word of
God. In
addition,
after the
Reformation,
a more
pessimistic
view of the
condition of human
cognitive
and
voluntary powers
on account of the Fall
("total depravity") gained currency,
with a
consequent
devaluation of the
364 JAMES F. ROSS
supposed accomplishments
of human
reason,
and an
impatience
with the
futility, religious evasion,
and even distrust of the divine word that such in
quiries
seem to
display.
There are other differences as
well,
some of them
exaggerations.
One
exaggeration
attributes to "Catholics" and sometimes to Jesuits
and sometimes to
Aquinas,
the intention to
compel
assent with
argument,
as if
they
intended "to clobber one into belief." Some
over-eager apologists
may
have intended
that,
but it is a deviant view.
However,
Catholics do
think
people
can realize21 that God exists
by reflecting
on
things
made
plain
by
our
experience (of
the need for
an ultimate
explanation
of
order,
mean
ing, causation,
the foundations of
justice,
the
being
and
beauty
of the
world, etc.).
No
special training
is
required, just clarity
of
insight (how
fre
quent
it
is,
is not
important). Moreover, they
think that with
proper
train
ing,
or an astute
intelligence,
one can
figure
out for
oneself,
in an articulate
course of
reasoning
that rests on
things
obvious to
perception,
that God ex
ists,
more or less the
way
one
figures
out how to breed roses or make a boat
seaworthy,
or at
least,
the orbits of the
planets
and celestial
navigation.
Whether
cogent
lines of
reasoning
amount to demonstrations or
somethng
less is
disputed. Further, many
understand St. Paul to have stated the same
general
idea and think Vatican I
pronounced
the same view: that a human
being
is able
(fit), by nature,
to
find
out for itself that God exists
(conditions
being favorable), though
there is no claim that this will
happen
with
any
particular frequency
or that all will describe God the same
way
or even suc
ceed in the
discovery.
None of
that,
not even
augmented
with the convic
tions of St.
Augustin,
St.
Anselm, Aquinas, Scotus, Ockham, Descartes,
Leibniz and even
Locke,
that the existence of God can be
proved, supports
the idea that belief in God can be
compelled by argument.
On the other
hand,
the courses of
reasoning
offered to disclose the ex
istence of God should not be
disdainfully downgraded, just
because of the
centuries of
dispute
about how best to formulate
them,
or because of what
appears
to
beginners
and even
journeymen,
to be
gaps.
For
they begin
with
what is
plain
to see and look for its
deepest explanation
and
may very
well
make the matter
"beyond
reasonable doubt" or at least
"plain
and certain"
for a
person, depending upon
how much he or she knows and on other
psychological
and social conditions. In a
word, they may
fall short of ex
cluding
all other
options
but
may
in fact exclude all other reasonable and
coherent
options.
Of course,
equally
to be avoided is the shameful
exag
geration
of the demonstrative success of
particular
formulations of lines of
reasoning
in which the well-trained can see
unjustified gaps,
as often
hap
pens
when amateurs formulate the
design arguments
or the moral
arguments
or the
arguments
for a first cause.22
365
Sometimes there are
exaggerations
of the differences between Catholic
and Reformed
thinking
on these
matters,
too. Thus the "reformed
epis
temologica!"
claim that theistic belief does not
(in general)
need
argu
ment in order to be
justified
or
reasonably maintained,
or even have an
evidential basis in the fabric of one's
belief,
is one Catholics
typically share,
but for a different reason: After
all,
if belief in God comes
by
natural
faith,
it is as reasonable as one's belief in the
identity
of one's
parents,
or that the
earth is a
planet,
or that the
stars,
far
away,
are like the sun.
Moreover,
if
natural faith is confirmed with the
grace
of
Baptism,
the belief has to be
regarded
as stablilized
by
the hand of
God,
as it were. And if conviction
that God exists comes as a result of one's
figuring things
out,
then it is
justified
and
reasonable, provided
there are not too
many
and too
large
er
rors in the
thinking.
Even
more,
conviction that comes from natural
faith,
can and often does amount to
knowledge; that,
of
course,
is
disputed,23
but
I think
by persons
who fail to see how much we know as a result of
parental
instruction and
schooling.
I even think we can take St. Paul to
express
the
same idea when he
says
that faith is our
cognition
of
things
unseen. In
any
case,
one does not have to
accept Plantinga's analysis
that belief in God
may
be a "basic
belief,"
one that
requires
no evidential
grounding,
to
get
the same effect.
(My objection
here is not to the
outcome,
but to the
foundationalist-framework in which the result is
attained.)
I
prefer
to
reason that "natural faith" from "rational reliances" makes commitment
rational,
even in the absence of evidence. The outcomes are the same.
In
fact,
there is a
general position
about
empirical knowledge
relevant
here. Where belief is not
compelled
either
way by
the
evidence,
the
engine
of
assent is the will
(volition)
which is aimed at our
apprehended goods.
I have
argued
elsewhere
(Ross: 1985)
that
Aquinas
not
only
held that
position, but,
as far as I can
tell,
invented it as a
general
account of
cognition
in the
absence of self-evidence or scientific
knowledge.
Theistic commitment does
not need an evidential basis. In
fact,
the
knowledge
of God's
reality
does
not need an evidential basis. It can come from natural faith and be as cer
tain to us as that
sunlight
makes the
sky blue,
even
though (before
we learn
about diffusion and
wavelengths
of
light
we cannot understand
why
the
yellow
sun makes the
sky blue).
It is also worth
noting
that
by having
ac
quired
certain
conceptual
sets
by
natural faith in childhood and
having
con
sistently
used them in
judgment,
the
reality
of God is
directly
evident to
some
people,
the
way light
is evident to me when I am
seeing.24
There is a second
position
on which I
agree
with
Plantinga
and other
"reformed
epistemologists":
that theistic conviction can be
supported by
arguments. Then,
we differ
again,
in that he thinks the
many "good"
arguments only
lend likelihood to the conclusion we
accept
on faith.25 I
366
JAMES F. ROSS
think some
arguments
can
put
the matter of God's existence
"beyond
a
reasonable doubt" for some
people,
for others "make it clear and convinc
ing"
that God
exists,
and for still others make it "sure
by
a
preponderance
of the evidence"
(say,
as sure as that the Exxon Valdez
polluted
an Alaskan
bay),
but which considerations will do
that,
and for
whom, vary greatly
with the
subjective preparation
and
proclivities
of
individuals,
even
though
the items to be considered are
objective
and accessible. Thus with a little
training,
I think a
person
can be
brought
to
recognize
that the
only
condi
tion under which a divine
being
is even
possible (rather
than
outright
im
possible)
is if such a
being actually
exists.
(For
it
cannot,
for
many reasons,
begin
to be or have ceased to
be,
or
merely "might
have
been.")
Next one is
brought
to see that a divine
being
is
really possible, perhaps,
as Duns Scotus
suggests,
from the nature of causation
or
being
or
finality
in
things,
or in
some other
way.26
For now I will take it that most
people
feel no discomfort
with the idea that a divine
being
is
really possible
and that their conviction
on that
point
is
epistemically prior,
for
them,
to their
seeing
that actual be
ing
is a condition for the real
possibility
of a divine
being. Then,
the conclu
sion
simply drops
out,
that God exists. One
just brings
"Actual existence is
a condition of real
possibility
for God" into focus
after
the
person
reaches
conviction about the real
possibility
of God.
(It
is
quite important
to
keep
the
cognitive
order that
way; otherwise,
a
person may
come to think that his
judgment
that a divine
being
is
really possible
is no
longer warranted.)
Others are more
readily
reached with considerations of
design,
or of a
cause for matter or a cause of
objective justice
in a universe in which there is
moral evil. That sort of
reasoning,
while it will not
put
the matter
beyond
reasonable doubt
(because
of
challenges
about
evil,
the
mysteries
of sin and
death, etc.),
can still amount to clear and
convincing
evidence for a
person
interested in
explaining
such features of the universe and conversant with
the failure of all other
options
to do so.
And for those
disposed
and
equipped, comparing
various accounts of
human life and the
cosmos,
in detail
(as
if we were
holding
a
complex
trial
on the
explanation
of an
airplane
crash and had to consider thousands of
pages
of
proposed evidence),
that
is,
all the
major philosophical
stories
about the
origin
and nature of
being, etc., many
will find a
preponderance
of the evidence
favoring
the
proposal
that there is a
spiritual
creator of the
material world.27 In those
respects
and
by
those
standards,
I have no doubt
that there are
"good
theistic
arguments," just
as
Plantinga, using
a
somewhat different
measure,
thinks there are
"good
theistic
arguments"
from other considerations that I do not evaluate here. Whatever the dif
ferences of
detail,
there seems to be a
convergence
between reformers and
367
Catholics here: the Catholics don't
propose
to
produce
classical demonstra
tions of the existence of God
(though
there
may
be some to be
pro
duced?that issue is not
settled);
and the "reformers" don't
say
there are no
arguments
with
any weight
even relevant to the matter. So both endorse the
reasonableness of
figuring
the matter
out,
with the Catholics
expecting
to
achieve a
higher degree
of rational
certainty,
but the "reformers"
being
open
to
achieving
a
high degree
of likelihood.
Nevertheless,
there is a residual difference that
Plantinga expresses
nicely,
as a doubt about the
propriety
of
replacing
a belief held
by
divine
gift
with a mere
product
of human
inquiry?whether
natural
theology
ought
to transform "faith into
knowledge,"
as if a
higher
moral state is
converted into a less
worthy
one.28 The reformers were
rightly suspicious
of
any suggestion
that one has to see and see
why
God exists to have
rationally
permissible
faith in the
Creation,
Fall and
Redemption.
That
you
have to
find out that God exists on
your own,
is not
only opposed
to the
preaching
of Jesus and the
Apostles,
but a threat to the
general
idea that faith is entire
ly
a
gift
of
God,
and
obviously
cannot be
improved by
some effort of
reason.
Nevertheless,
there is no
oddity
about
getting
a scientific
grasp
of
God's
existence,
or even
reasoning
that
places
it
beyond
doubt or makes it
clear and
convincing,
as if a divine
gift
were
replaced
with
something
in
ferior. Scientific
grasp
is not
superior
to divine faith as a source of certain
ty,
but it is a more
perfect
exercise of our
cognitive powers,
one to which we
are ordered
by
nature and enabled
by grace,
in the same
way
that the
beatific vision is
superior
to divine faith and
hope
in via.
For,
of
course,
one
has faith and
hope
in
things
to be seen.
Looked at one
way, philosophical theology
is a
study
in its own
right:
what can we come to know
by
human
reasoning,
about God.
(Aquinas
describes it that
way,
SCG.
I.9.4.).
In another
way,
it can be
part
of a Chris
tian
philosophy,
a worked-out
world-view,
full of reasons where reasons
can be
found,
but rich from God with the revelation of what is
necessary
and sufficient for human fulfilment in the broad sense of a "worked-out
world-view on how and
why things
are and how to live
accordingly"
that I
describe in the next section.
Thirdly, philosophical theology
can be done as
a
part
of the believer's
activity
of
understanding
his
faith,
as
seeking
reasons where reasons are to be
found,
not because of
any deficiency
in the
faith,
but because this is
"fides quaerens
intellectum"
philosophical
in
quiry inspired
and
prompted by religious faith,
a kind of common "Chris
tian
philosophy" regardless
of the differences of
philosophical
or
religious
doctrines arrived
at;
so the
doctrinally
deviant Scotus
Eriugena, Durandus,
or
Wycliff,
or Descartes is as much a Christian
philosopher
as the more or
thodox
Augustine
and
Aquinas.
368 JAMES F. ROSS
VI. DISTINCTIVELY CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY
From ancient times
"philosophy"
was associated
just
as much with a
"world-view and a
way
to live
according
to it"?what I
call,
"a Wisdom
and a
Way"?as
with a
thought-discipline
with articulate courses of reason
ing
about ultimate realities.
Stoicism, Epicureanism, Platonism,
Aristoteli
anism are as much associated with a
world-story
and the
ethics, political
theory,
and individual
prudence
that
organizes
life within such a world
view,
as
they
are with
metaphysics
and
epistemology.
Now it is as
philoso
phy
in that broader
sense that St.
Augustine,
in The
City of God,
The
Confessions,
De Beata
Vita,
Contra
Julianum, etc.,
sees
Christianity
as
pre-eminent.
In The
City of God, XIX, 12.2,
he mentions Varro's "now lost
manual of
philosophy
in which 288 different
'philosophies'
had been
distinguished precisely according
to the kinds of answer it was
possible
to
give
to the
questions
how the
happy
life is to be attained."29 R. A. Markus
goes
on to
say,
"This
conception
of
philosophy
as an
all-embracing activity
concerned with
everything
relevant to the realization of the ultimate
pur
pose
of human life is itself derived from
antiquity."
That is
right.
And
Augustine, making comparison
to all the
others, says
in C.
Julian, IV,
14.72
(PL 44.774)
that
Christianity
is the
one true
philosophy.
In order to make
that claim
good, Augustine
had
consciously
to
ignore
the idea that
philosophy
is
wholly
the
product
of human
inquiry
and
reflection,
without
any
admixture of
authority
or trust.
Instead,
he
emphasized
that
among
the
advantages
of
Christianity
is the
authority
that makes it sure
(De Ordine, II,
5.16). Moreover,
the other
"philosophies"
were not the
pure products
of
reason
alone,
either. Thus
Manichaeism, Stoicism, Epicureanism (which
Augustine regarded
as
vulgar
and
corrupting),
and all the varieties of
gnostic philosophy,
often involved
mythological, religious,
and
superstitious
elements.
Moreover,
there is an intermediate sense of Christian
"philosophy"
which others
might
now call
"theology,"
but I think
inaccurately:
that
is,
as
a name for the Wisdom that is the
product
of the
"spoils
of the
Egyptians"
doctrine
(De
Doctrina
Christiana, 11,40.60).
St.
Augustine says, just
as God
ordered the Israelites to "take the
spoils
of the
Egyptians"
when
they
left
captivity
for the
promised land,
so Christians are to take the best of
pagan
learning
to enrich their
understanding
of the
things
God has revealed. The
pagan learning
is of course transformed in its new Christian home but also
causes new
understandings
and new
appreciation
of the elements of revela
tion. The reason I think it inaccurate to call the Christian
product,
made
up
of the
"spoils"
and the
faith, "theology"
is that a
great
deal of what is to
be taken into the
promised
land from
among
the
pagans
is
literature, music,
drama, poetry, law, physical science, history, astronomy, mathematics,
physics, philosophy, political economy,
and
every
other ornament of the in
tellect and human achievement
(I suppose, including military
tactics and
civil
engineering),
and
thus,
we
produce
a combined and transformed
wisdom that is not
theology, though
it
may
have one
important part
which
is
theology (in
the sense in which
Aquinas spoke
of "divine science" in
Summa
Theologica).
So we have a
Christian wisdom that is much more than
theology, yet very
little the
product
of human demonstrative
reasoning
from self-evident first
principles,
and in
fact,
full of
things
to which such a
notion is irrelevant. I call that
"philosophy"
too.
Yet there is
something
even broader
still,
that is the whole Wisdom and
Way,
and
may
be called the one true
philosophy.
We would be short
weighting
Christian Wisdom were we
unwilling
to
regard
it as a whole. The
"separate provinces"30
staked out for
theology
and
philosophy by
St.
Thomas,
while
dividing
two sciences from one
another,
is no more than a
minor subdivision within Christian Wisdom. We have to
keep
in mind that
Thomas's distinction was between
sciences,
between intellectual
practices
and their
products. Christianity
as a wisdom and a
way,
rich with the
spoils
of its
pagan
benefactors which have
developed
and been transformed as
Christian
practices
for two
millennia,
is neither a mere combination of
sciences nor a unified
body
of mere
assertions,
nor a mere
library
of ancient
and modern
learning
combined with a museum of ancient and modern art.
When we talk of Christian
Wisdom,
we are not
speaking
of a unified
science, though
the wisdom
may
have scientific
parts,
for
instance,
both
theology
and
philosophy, along
with secular sciences and arts. But the
scientific
parts, though
characteristic and
important,
are small in substance
compared
with the
literature, plastic art, architecture, music, poetry,
meditation, reflection, history, law, spiritual traditions,
and varieties of
spiritual
life. Nor are we
speaking
of a unified and
single body
of
knowledge
or true belief taken as
itemizations;
for one
thing
there are dif
ferent versions of Christian
Wisdom,
both sectarian
(religious)
and
philosophical
and historical
(e.g., Byzantine
vs.
Roman),
and different
phases
both
historically
and
geographically.
I
deliberately
extend
Augustine's
notion
by
which he called
Christianity
a
philosophy,
indeed the
one true
one,
to include as much a human
learning,
wisdom and
art,
as
marks and identifies the whole Christian culture as
product
of art and in
tellect,
transformed
by
faith
(the way
Bach's St. John Passion is a
unity
of
musical
genius
and
comprehending faith).
370 JAMES F. ROSS
That Christian
Wisdom,
with its inheritance from
pagan cultures,
along
with the intellectual
accounts,
both
by
rational
inquiry
and
religious
faith,
and the whole of the
way
of
living
that is
fitting
to such culture and
wisdom,
amounts to a Christian
philosophy
of
comprehensiveness
suitable
for
comparison, along
with the
society
it
creates,
to
any
other
competitor
of
suitable
generality along
with the
society
it creates.
(Indeed,
it is even worth
asking
whether there is another
suitably
unified and
variegated competitor
for
comparison.)
The relevant notion of
"truth," then,
is not
item-by-item accuracy,
but
fidelity,
in the overall themes as to the fundamental
truth,
the
reality,
of the
origin, meaning,
and
purpose
of
things
and how one should
live,
to the
revelation and to the riches
incorporated
from
every
source Christian
culture
apprehends,
a
fidelity
that
contrastively
discloses
opposing
wisdoms
to be at essential
points
in error.
Thus a useful notion of
Christianity
as the one true
philosophy
is that
Christian wisdom contains the fundamental truth and is faithful to
it,
not
without error and distortion as far as the human contributions to it are con
cerned. But in contrast to
any
other wisdom
comprehensive enough
to com
pete, especially
as to the
dignity
and enoblement of the individual human
life,
the others contain elements that
are,
by inquiries
accessible to human
reason,
in error on central
points
and contain elements
opposed
to the re
vealed
truth,
however much
they may
be
rightly admired,
imitated and even
assimilated into
Christianity.31 Thus,
the
philosophies
that conclude that
the material world is an illusion are in that
respect
false. The
philosophies
that conclude that there is
nothing
but matter
(conceived
in a cor
puscularian 18th-centuryish way)
are false. The
philosophies
that conclude
there is no
personal
God are
false;
and so
on,
for those that
deny
free
will,
survival after
death,
or claim that one
may
do evil that
good may
come of
it,
or
deny
that there is
any
real
justice
or hold that some humans are above the
law,
or that human life is of no worth.
The claim that
Christianity
is the one true
philosophy
can
only
amount
to a claim
that,
in certain
comparative contexts,
Christian
wisdom,
taken as
a whole with its
many
varieties and better and worse
versions,
is
superior
both as an account of the ultimate realities and of mankind's
relationship
to
those realities and of what is the
path
to
personal
human fulfilment.
Superiority
is a matter of
avoiding
crucial errors about what
reality
is fun
damental,
and about how humans are to behave and how much
they
are to
be invested in this
world,
while
being qualitatively
more
revealing
about the
ultimate
reality
and the
right path
for
living.
Moreover,
there
can,
in this
respect,
be various
expressions
of Chris
tian
philosophy,
of
varying merit, and,
as I said
above, they
can and must
be
developed
and renovated from time to time. For
example,
the
early
Christian
philosophies
were too much influenced
by
Plato and did not con
tain an
appraisal
of
competing
societal
organizations
based on diverse
economic
principles.
Now a
Christian
philosophy
without a
critique
of no
tions of social
justice
and the
just
distribution of wealth and
opportunity,
and a
theory
of remedial
justice (how
to
get
from an
unjust society
to a
just
one), along
with reasonable restraints on coercion and eminent domain in
such a
project,
will be
woefully inadequate.
A Christian world view that
does not contain a rational account of the
way
the
dispossessed may
use
force
(but perhaps,
not
lethal,
or at least not
massively
lethal
force)
to attain
redistribution of wealth and
opportunity
is
inadequate
and unrealistic.
Christian ideas that would allow the denial of free
expression
in order to
control the
speaking
and
writing
of error and the
production
of
corrupting
"art,"
would be a deterioration from what Christian
thought
has
already
accomplished.
Christian
philosophy
has to be renovated because old ideas
become threadbare:
simple
views that civil
government
is the result of the
Fall and necessitated
by
sin
(instead
of a
view, say,
that civil
government
is a
means of
obtaining goods
for all that cannot be obtained
by
mere
coopera
tion
among persons acting entirely
out of individual
self-interest,
and
without a common
conception
of the
goods cooperation attains;
for in
stance,
preparation
of
society
for the Second
Coming)
have to be
revised,
as
do notions that the
right way
to resolve social conflicts is
by legislation
and
implicit coercion,
when we all
know,
as did the
ancients,
that
tranquility
of
order and
conformity
to law arises from
respect
from the law as a minimal
standard of
public conduct,
and not
by regulation
and coercion.
No
philosophy,
on the scale I am
discussing,
can be taken as a
conjunc
tion of claims and
pronounced
true. But
contrastively,
and at the level of
general
themes and cultural
accomplishment, they
can be
compared
and
judged,
even
though
there is no "neutral"
position
from which to do that.32
For one cannot
step
outside
religious
faith and its cultural
unity
to
appraise,
say
Hindu
religion
and culture.
Yet,
for all our
respectful appreciation,
we
have to
judge
that
polytheism, pantheism
and animism are
mistaken,
as are
fatalism,
destruction of the
environment, acceptance,
even
exploitation,
of
the conditions of the
poor,
the ill and the
despised,
or that human action is
of no cosmic
significance
and individual action of no
importance.
372
JAMES F. ROSS
Indeed,
we would be remiss not to
compare thinking
and
society
on the
vast
scale,
and with the varied forms I
mention,
because it is as real as is
English,
the
language
that subsists in all the
utterances, mostly ungram
matical,
invaried dialects and
vocabularies, accents, idioms, platitudes
and
figures
of
speech,
and variations
throughout
the world. Some
partial
ex
pressions
of the Wisdom and
Way,
like
Augustine's, Aquinas's,
and
Bonaventure's, philosophical-theological
and
Scriptural expressions, along
with the artistic
expressions
of
Dante, Milton, Marlowe, Shakespeare
and
the achievements of architecture and
painting, sculpture
and window
making, manuscript
illumination and
liturgy,
as well as the achievements of
spiritual life, political
advancement and
literature,
will stand for millennia.
Others will have shorter or more limited and
ancillary
life as
steps
toward
new "classical"
expressions. Thus,
de Chardin's
speculations
about evolu
tion and the
unity
of the universe will
probably
be
incorporated
and
transformed within some new Christain
philosophy
of
greater scope
and
comprehensiveness.
And
present stages
of
painting
and of the novel will be
reincarnated
by geniuses
into
deeper appreciation
of the
spiritual plight
of
humans and the means that have been offered to
escape
it.
Someone
might say
we should
just
reserve the word "Christian
wisdom" for this
conglomerate
of
faith, science, history,
humanities and
culture.
Why
devalue the word
'philosophy', especially
when 'true'
applies
only
in the
adapted
sense of
"fidelity
to fundamental realities both revealed
and
real,"
and where
"superiority"
in what is
agreed
to be
spiritually,
ar
tistically
and
humanly rich,
has to do with
avoiding
error on the fundamen
tals and
attaining
better the
potentialities
of mankind?
First, calling
such
wisdoms and
ways "philosophies"
is not at variance with the
ordinary
discourse of
non-specialists. "Philosophy"
as understood
by
non
specialists
is
largely
the sort of "Wisdom and
Way"
even
applied
to the
way
people
think of a
particular
task or business or of themselves. So there is
more immediate
recognition
of the notion of "Christian
Philosophy"
than
there is of "Christian Wisdom" which is
thought
to be the
accomplishment
of a few talented and brilliant
Christians,
most
people being
too modest to
think
they
share
wisdom,
but not hesitant to
say they
share a
philosophy.
Secondly,
not even
specialists
restrict the word
'philosophy'
to a
demonstrative science from first
principles,
or even to the backbone of
disciplined thought
I described above.
Everyone
learned is aware that there
is a
thought-discipline
with an ancient
history,
that is
'philosophy',
even
though
there is little
agreement
about how to describe
it, despite
our
being
able to
recognise,
under the
passing
fashions in its
expression
and the
fashions in the
subjects explored,
the backbone of
disciplined reasoning
ON CHRISTIAN
PHILOSOPHY 373
about "ultimate
explanations."
No
specialist
is
going
to confuse that
discipline,
the
perennial philosophy,
even
when it is done with
explicit
or
implicit religious content,
with the broad notions I used above. So there is
no
devaluation to be feared.
The real
danger
of devaluation of the notion of
philosophy
comes from
the idea that truth and
falsity
have little to do with
it,
that the
discipline
is
an
illusion,
that
philosophy
is a kind of
literary
criticism or a
kind of
hermeneutical mediation
among
views
expressed
in
science, literature,
and
art
(as
Richard
Rorty
and some Continentals seem to
suppose).
It is
simply
without
any
basis at all to
say
the
discipline
of
thinking
of the kind I
described above has
bankrupted itself,
and to insist that
philosophy
has
transformed, by
its own
pretensions
and
failures,
into some
vague
hermeneutical
negotiation (as Rorty recommended),
or into some kind of
literature where the
"polarity"
of the "true" and the "false" is
collapsed,
and all
explanatory objectives
are abandoned. Even if that were the out
come of three centuries of
philosophy (as Rorty
thinks and I
deny),
that
would still leave out the
prospects
of a
realignment
with medieval and an
cient
thinking
that would resuscitate the
grasping enterprise.
If that
pessi
mistic, historically myopic, unimaginative depressed proposal
is what is
to be
"postmodern philosophy,"
then indeed there is a
devaluation,
but it
is of the
discipline.
The
expression
and embellishment of
Christianity
as a
philosophy (a
Wisdom and a
Way)
is the collective
enterprise
of all Christian
(and
Christian-influenced) philosophers, theologians, moralists, legalists, artists,
writers,
scientists and
scholars,
each
doing
his or her
job well,
whether
they
are aware of the effect or not. It is a collective
enterprise
that is both a
path
to individual Christian fulfillment and a
display
of
Christianity's
un
paralleled excellence,
in
comparison
with all other
"philosophies
of life."
The collective effect is to
develop
Christian
Wisdom, speculative, artistic,
spiritual
and
practical,
as "the one true
philosophy." Truth,
of this
sort,
is
possessed only
in the fundamentals and some of the
embellishments,
but is
otherwise
sought
and
projected.
For when we make a
comparison
on the
scale
Augustine proposed, enlarged
even as I
suggest here,
to
compare
both
our accounts of the
being
and order of the universe and our
way
to human
fulfilment,
with all
competing
wisdoms and
ways,
the scale of elements in
cludes the whole culture and its cultural
history
and its future for millennia.
It is
participation
in and contribution to such a common
objective, pursued
mostly by
the
independent
efforts of
writers, painters, musicians, artists,
businessmen, philanthropists,
churchmen and
statesmen,
and even
govern
ments,
that not
only
makes individual life
coherent, rich,
and
properly
374 JAMES F. ROSS
aimed,
but
gives
to the
history
of the
people
of God a collective aim that
can be discerned from the
accomplishments
of the
society, just
as the faith
of the Middle
Ages
can be read off the
great
cathedrals.
James F. Ross
University of Pennsylvania
NOTES
1. John
Wippel (1984),
with extensive
citations,
assesses the
"great
debate" E.
Gilson
sparked by speaking
of the "Christian"
philosophies
of St.
Augustine,
St.
Bonaventure and St. Thomas. Gilson asked "How can
thinking
become Christian
and remain
philosophy?" Among
the writers
Wippel cites,
are E.
Sillem,
Van
Steenbergen,
J.
Owens,
J.
Maritain,
A.
Pegis,
and J.
Weisheipel.
Leo
Sweeny,
S.J.
(1985) presents
views much like the one I
develop here;
he
considers Maurice Nedoncelle
(I960)
to offer a
good summary
of the
controversy
in
recent times. The collection of Fr.
Joseph
Owens
(1990)
came to
my
notice after this
paper
was written. Fr. Owens
elegantly expresses
three
key
ideas of Christian
philosophy: first,
that "A world
penetrated through
and
through by
the
super
natural cannot be understood
satisfactorily
when the
naturally
knowable
aspects
are
regarded
as
making
it a
complete
and finished
object" (Owens:
1990:
ix); secondly,
that "even
supernatural facts,
like the
trinity,
have
aspects
that
belong
to
philosophy: existence, being, action, quality,
relation and the like."
(Owens:
1990:
ix);
and
thirdly,
that
reality
described
scientifically
and
interpreted religiously
"can
be
given
marvellous intellectual
appeal
under
floodlighting by
Christian
philosophy." (Owens:
1990:
307) Except
for
my
emphasis upon
the deflated
expecta
tion of what can be
accomplished philosophically,
and
my exploration
of two
very
broad notions of Christian
philosophy,
Fr. Owens made the other
points
of this
paper.
2.
Plantinga (1984);
see
also,
his
1983; 1986a;
1986b:
307; 1987;
and 1988a. John
Wippel (1983)
seems to think
philosophy
is a demonstrative rational
inquiry
that can
only incidentally
be aided
by faith,
as in its "moments of
discovery,"
where the idea
to be considered is
suggested by
the Christian faith.
Plantinga,
on the
contrary,
seems at first to be
advocating
a much
deeper
influence of one's Christian faith. But
then one notices that he is
insisting
that one's
philosophy
be
overtly theistic,
and
even mentioned that in this sense it can be Jewish or
Moslem,
as well. And here the
crucial difference with St.
Thomas,
and with Fr. Owens
(1990),
shows
up.
For Plan
tinga
thinks one has to
rely upon
faith in the
reality
of God because the existence of
God cannot be
proved
or
demonstrated, though
he
acknowledges
there are
many
"good"
but
only probabilistic arguments
for it.
Moreover,
he
gives
no detail as to
any
further
scope
of the "Christian" content of
philosophy, except
for its
finding
theistic roots in
epistemological problems previously thought
to be neutral to God's
existence; Joseph
Owens
(1990) goes
much further in
explaining
the Christian con
tent of
philosophy.
See:
Plantinga (1988b: 159),
and James A. Keller
(1988: 165).
I
describe a
deeper
Christian
involvement,
as does Fr. Owens.
3. See James Ross
"Cognitive Finality" (1992a, expected),
and
(1986)
and
(1985). Aquinas
sees science as
proceeding demonstratively
from
insight compelled
by
a
"manifestant
visionem veritatis" in self-evident
premises
to a conclusion com
pelled by
the
transparent necessity
of the
logical steps.
Duns Scotus raises the stakes
by requiring
for a demonstration that the self-evident
premises
be modalized into
necessary
ones and that conclusions be derived that are
necessary,
too: thus
develops
the
procedure
he
adopts
for
proving
the existence of God. See also James Ross
(1990a
and
1992a, forthcoming),
which discusses the roles of reliance and the inter
nal
rationality
of our
cognitive processes.
4. St. Anselm in Cur Deus Homo was too
ambitious, trying
to demonstrate what
he could not. But his mistake was not in
trying
to demonstrate what is
revealed,
for it
is common
practice
to
try
to demonstrate the existence of God.
Rather,
the Incarna
tion is considered a revealed
supernatural truth,
not
subject
to demonstration or
even to our
knowing
the
fact,
absent divine revelation.
A few decades
ago, George
Mavrodes
challenged: why
can't one use
everything
one knows as
premises
in
philosophy, including
the
things
we know on the
testimony
of God? I think it would be an evasion
(and false)
to
say
that what we believe on
testimony
is not
something known,
as used to be the
practice.
With
Aquinas,
faith
does
yield cognition (cognitionem), though
not science
(scientia), except
in the
special
case of "divine science" not discussed here. A better
reply
seems to be: what
you
can
begin
with
depends upon
the extent of the initial
agreements you
can
expect
from the
discoursing community.
5.
Plantinga (1984: 255).
6. See the extensive literature used
by
John
Wippel,
cited in
nl,
above.
7. The matter is
highly controversial,
as
Wippel*
s
references
(cited above)
in
dicate.
Basically,
I think G?son
regarded Augustine's, Aquinas's,
Bonaventure's and
Scotus's
philosophies
as "Christian"
because, despite
the
origins
in Plato or in
Aristotle,
their
philosophical
accounts of such matters as
"being," "universale,"
"participation,"?and every
other detail?were
clearly
modified
by
and moulded
by
their awareness of the
implications
for what
they
believed
by revelation,
even when
no revealed matter was
being
discussed.
Moreover,
the whole
effect,
even
leaving
out
the
"theology,"
is
detectably
and
measurably
"Christian" in its
emphasis,
in the
way
it is used to
prepare
answers that become
part
of the
theology (e.g.,
"what is a
person?").
It is Christian from the aim in which
philosophy
is
appropriated
from
pagans,
the
aspects developed
in detail and the
anticipations
of issues that have to be
resolved to
explain
Christian doctrine.
So, Aquinas's
doctrine of
being
and of
par
ticipation
and of the
ipsum
esse subsistens is worked out so as to be
compatible
with
and advance the
intelligibility
of the notion of three
supposita
of one nature that
are,
yet,
one substance.
8. Items
(1), (2),
and
(3) combined, particularly
with extensive discussions of oc
casionalism and fatalism
by
Muslims and of freedom and
providence by
Christians
make
up
a
distinctively
Christian or Muslim
philosophy,
without
any purely
theological (revelation)
content.
9. Like the dialectical
arguments
in
Plato,
the mixed
empiricism
and abstract
arguments
of
Aristotle,
the more
geometrico
of Duns Scotus
(esp.
De Primo Prin
cipio)
and
Spinoza,
the formal modal
argument
in Duns Scotus and
many
recent
philosophers,
and the
penchant
for
writing
out
quasi-logical
formulas or lists of
"truth-conditions,"
and other tools for
precision.
376 JAMES F. ROSS
10. On a number of occasions
bright
students
reading
medieval
philosophy
are
alienated from the
prominent theism;
I
sympathize, remembering my
aversion to
talk of "the
gods"
in Plato.
11. See
Stephen Palmquist (1989).
Even
Hume, by
reaction and
yet
concentration
on themes
peculiar
to Christians
(e.g., miracles),
can be
counted, although
one
historian to whom I mentioned
that,
while
accepting
that William
James, Berkeley,
Locke,
and Leibniz
may
be
counted, thought
Hume should not.
12. See the extensive literature I cite in Ross: 1981: ch. 7.
Plantinga
also uses this
example
in "Advice"
(Plantinga:
1984:
256).
13. This seems to be the view of A.
Plantinga,
and I
think,
N.
Wolterstorff,
as
well as other "reformed" Christian
philosophers.
14.
Marilyn
Adams and Eleonore
Stump
renovated the discussion of the
problem
of evil
by undercutting
the
assumption
that there is some
religiously
neutral state
ment of
exactly
what the
problem
is. See Adams
(1986).
Also see Adams
(1985; 1987;
1975 and
1976-77;
and also
1988),
and
Stump (1983).
One of the roles of
religion
is to
tell us what the "brokenness" of man,
visible in outline even to secular
philosophers,
and the resolution of
evil, actually
consist in.
15. See the
forthcoming
Ross: "Mindful of Man."
16. See Ross
(1986)
and similar
papers
on
"cognitive
voluntarism."
17. See Ross
(1990).
18. See
Plantinga (1980).
19. See Ross
(1981
: ch.
7)
for the
literature, especially
the
mortifying
accommoda
tions various Christian writers
attempted
to make to the demands of the senseless
veriflability
test for
meaningfulness.
20. For
instance,
see the
summary
of
Aquinas's
views in Leo J.
Elders,
S.V.D.
(1990).
21. This is not an inferior
state,
but one of
knowing,
attentive
knowing.
22. See Ross
(1970).
23. See the
papers,
mentioned
above,
on
Aquinas
on faith and
reason,
on
Augustine
and on various
aspects
of
cognitive
voluntarism.
24. I
acknowledge Aquinas's
view that for God to become
directly present
to the
understanding
in his
being
rather than as a
cause,
the abstractive intellect has to be
bypassed by
God's
using
His own
being,
as
intelligible species,
to enable and ac
tualize the human
understanding.
I am
talking
here
only
about an habitual
awareness of the
presence
of God in
things
as the enablement of our
knowing
natural
objects,
in
effect,
habitual awareness of the "existence of God in
things"
that
Aquinas
discusses in
ST, Ia.q.8.
Alvin
Plantinga
seems to think
(see
above-mentioned
papers)
that one is not
necessarily improved by replacing
faith in God's existence with scientific
knowledge
on the
point.
Doubts of that kind show a
post-Reformation
difference
among
Chris
tian
philosophers.
To use our
cognitive powers successfully
to find out for ourselves
that God
exists,
or even to become scientific
enough
to see
that,
and
why
God
exists,
is not to
go
from a more
perfect
moral state of
accepting
a divine
gift,
to a less
perfect
state of
acting
on our own.
Rather,
belief is an
anticipatory
commitment to
what is
(in
this
case)
to be seen. So we
progress
from a
cognitively
less
perfect
state to
a more
perfect
one; the fact that divine faith is a virtue in no
way derogates
the fact
that science is a virtue as well.
25.
Moreover,
we not
only
differ on the force of the
arguments,
we differ on the
items that are candidates for the list of
"good" arguments,
even
arguments lending
likelihood. That is because
Plantinga,
in
listing
"a dozen or so"
good arguments,
lists several that
require
the existence of God for the
permanent being
and
infinity
of
propositions, numbers, sets,
and the
like,
whereas I do not think there are
any
such
eternal,
infinite abstract
objects, apart
from human or
perhaps angelic thought,
and
think it a
limitation, inappropriate
to
God,
to have to think
mathematically, by
logical
forms
(or any process)
or to have one's
thought-contents
sorted
linguistically
into
propositions,
or the like. God cannot think that
way,
as I believe I show in
Truth and
Impossibility (forthcoming).
On the other
hand,
I
argue
that without the
existence of God there would be no
problem
of
evil,
not even a
genuine mystery,
because there would be no
background against
which to "find
something objectively
wrong"
in the
universe,
but
only
an
anthropomorphic projection
as
Spinoza
reasoned.
26. Some
philosophers
think that mere
consistency
of the claim is
enough
for real
possibility. Unfortunately,
I can now show that to be
false;
see Truth and Im
possibility.
So it is not
exactly
clear how we
recognize
the real
possibility
of
things
whose existence is not evident to
us,
but we
do, frequently.
And most
people
have lit
tle or no
difficulty reaching
that conviction about
God, especially
when
facing
the
challenge "Well,
if
you
think there couldn't be a divine
being,
show me
why
not."
One relevant consideration is that esse has to be
prior
both to causation and to
possibility, because, otherwise,
there could be neither: thus some
ipsum
ese sub
sistens is
possible.
27. Where
proof by preponderance
of the evidence is
involved,
it is not
impossible
or even
unlikely
that
well-disposed persons
of different
education, especially
dif
ferent emotional
training, might
reach
opposed
conclusions each
finding
it
sup
ported by
a
preponderance
of the same
body
of evidence.
28. See
Plantinga's papers
cited in
n2,
above. See
also, Gary Gutting (1985).
29. See R. A. Markus
(1967: 344).
30. See F.
Copleston,
S.J.
(1985: 146),
where he describes
Aquinas by using
this
phrase.
31. There are advocates of cultural
understanding
who consider it a solecism even
to consider whether Hinduism or Islam or
Christianity,
taken as a whole
culture,
in
cluding
its
science, philosophy, literature, arts,
its historical achievements and its
contribution to the
dignity
and ennoblement of individual human
life,
is
"superior"
as a Wisdom and a
Way
for
humans,
or even true in a
way
the others are not. For
one
thing,
there is
supposed
to be no "fair" and "neutral"
standpoint
from which
to
judge.
But that is
part
of the Christian
message
and
objective. Christianity
does
not
encourage vulgar disrespect.
Such
comparisons require
a Christian frame of
respect
and love
along
with one's interest in truth and
open-mindedness
to the riches
of other
great Ways
and Wisdoms.
32. It is a mistake to think that
sceptical
threats are
supported by
our
admitting
that there is no neutral
standpoint,
not
part
of one of the
contestants,
from which to
judge,
and
therefore,
that all such
judgments
are
culturally
and
religiously
biased. I
developed
some
principles
for such matters in Ross
(1992b).
378
JAMES F. ROSS
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