Faith and Reason in St. Thomas Aquinas’ Philosophy
Faith and Reason in St. Thomas Aquinas’ Philosophy
The Question of Reason and Faith
The relationship between reason and faith is one of the fundamental problems of scholastic philosophy. According to Aquinas, reason, i.e., the set of truths that the soul alone can discover by natural light, and faith, the set of truths revealed by God, are two distinct areas. However, both have points of confluence and possible contradiction.
St. Thomas Aquinas’ Position
St. Thomas faced two models that had dominated the understanding of this problem in the Middle Ages until the 13th century:
- The Augustinian tradition, the dominant position since the beginning of scholasticism.
- Latin Averroism, contemporary to St. Thomas, which supported a controversial position regarding the question of reason and faith.
The Augustinian Tradition
In the Augustinian tradition, knowledge is always the result of a process involving the necessary enlightening action of God. It is aimed at those eternal truths that reside in the mind of God. If rational knowledge and revelation come from God, it is clear that between reason and faith there can only exist a relationship of solidarity, since both are mechanisms for access to a single truth.
Latin Averroism
Latin Averroism, on the other hand, argued that reason and faith constitute two parallel and independent areas of truth, and that contradiction may exist between the two.
Aquinas’ Response
Aquinas holds that truth is unique and that contradiction between reason and faith is not possible. Against the Augustinian tradition, St. Thomas accurately distinguishes between domains:
- By their origin: The origin of rational knowledge comes from reason, and the origin of faith comes from divine enlightenment.
- By their actions: The act of reason is to understand, and the act of faith is to believe.
- By their objects: The object of reason is natural things that appear to the understanding, and the object of faith is the mysteries of revelation.
The Scope of Reason and Faith
Accordingly, the scope of reason, philosophy, and the special sciences is composed of the truths of reason drawn from experience according to their own natural light, regardless of anything similar to what the Augustinian tradition called illumination.
The field of faith is made up of those truths that are beyond the rational capacity of man, and we believe them because we accept the authority of divine revelation.
Preambles of Faith
There are also a kind of truth that can be indistinct, but never simultaneously, objects of rational knowledge and faith. These truths are an area of confluence between reason and faith that Thomas called the “preambles of faith,” which are a series of truths necessary for faith itself and which we can access through reason.
The Relationship Between Reason and Faith
Between reason and faith, there is a relationship of subordination, which is reflected in the famous medieval ruling according to which philosophy is the handmaiden of theology. In St. Thomas, reason serves faith in three ways:
- Showing the preambles of the faith.
- Clarifying the truths of the faith by comparison.
- Refuting objections against faith.
Faith as an Extrinsic Criterion for Truth
Faith is an extrinsic (external) criterion for truth in a negative sense. This means that any rational truth contrary to faith is a sign of an error in reasoning or the reason is trying to know truths that exceed its capacity. The principles of reason that are reliable come from God, who is the author of human nature and therefore of reason. It is not possible, then, that rational truth conflicts with revealed truth because both come from God.
In a positive sense, faith illuminates and guides rational activity. Under the rule of St. Thomas, reason is clarified by the distinction between reason and faith, which will make possible the separation between them in the next century, as thematized by authors such as Duns Scotus and Ockham.