By Cynthia R. Nielsen
I recently came across an interesting article by Paul DeHart entitled, “The Ambiguous Infinite: Jüngel, Marion, and the God of Descartes”[1] [thanks to Shane W. for sending this my way!]. In this post, I will comment briefly on Jüngel with regard to Descartes, as my next “guest blogger” will be presenting a series on Marion and Descartes.
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DeHart begins by presenting a passage from Eberhard Jüngel’s work, Gott als Geheimnis der Welt (1977):
“Thereby, however, the being of God necessarily falls asunder. For on the one hand God, in accordance with his essence—that is, as that which is absolutely superior to me—cannot be thought of as limited to the presence of the ego. Even for Descartes, it belongs to the essence of God to be more than merely present with me. On the other hand, God’s existence can only be asserted when he is present within the horizon of my existence. Because for ‘Descartes being-ness means: being represented through and for the subject,’ which ‘I’ am. Thus the following aporia emerges:
a) The existence of God is secured through me when the essence of God is represented by me.
b) In terms of his essence God is of course the almighty creator who exists necessarily through himself and through whom I exist (and also through whom I am what I am).
c) In terms of his existence, however, God is through me, inasmuch as even his existence can be understood only as a being-represented through and for the subject, which ‘I’ am” (pp. 76-77).
The aporia that Jüngel detects arises due to the traditional way of understanding God as the unique being whose essence is his existence. In other words, God’s existence is not “something” separable from his essence, as is the case with creatures whose existence comes from God and whose essences serve as limiting or determining factors. What Jüngel finds troubling is that though Descartes accepts this traditional understanding of God, his new epistemology seems unharmonizable with such a view. As DeHart explains,
“Descartes located the foundation for cognition and rationality in the human ‘ego’ or self, which ‘clearly and distinctly’ apprehends its own presence as well as it own defining activity, thinking. Heidegger, whom Jüngel closely follows in this discussion, argued that one result of this new foundation of thought is that the existence of things outside the self is strictly a function of their perception by the self, their ‘being present’ to thought. This is neither a logical inference, nor a stipulative definition […] Rather, Heidegger claims that the meaning of any assertion of existence is now implicitly determined as a mode of being present (‘re-presented’) with the cognizing self which makes the assertion: to say ‘X exists’ henceforth means or implies that X is within the horizon of the self’s presence to itself” (p. 78).
The difficulty that Jüngel brings to the surface is that given Descartes’ new epistemological configuration, for knowledge of God’s existence to be meaningfully asserted, the divine essence (given its transcendence to human reason) must be re-presented by human thought—“it must be given in some idea to that human reason and thus constructed by the human subject as an object, similar to any other existent. This is because in this new Cartesian epistemological scheme ‘to exist’ becomes virtually identical with ‘to be present in the form of some attribute which affects the knowing human subject’ ( Gott als Geheimnis, p. 166) [DeHart, p. 79]. Thus, there seems to be an irresolvable dissonance between the traditional view of God and Descartes epistemology founded on the “I” or “I think.”
According to Jüngel, Descartes attempts to conceal or attenuate this tension by distinguishing between finite and infinite substances—the latter referring to God who is a se and the former to creatures who depend on God for their being. Thus, the word “substance” is being used in a non-univocal fashion and is Descartes’ attempt to bring God into his “representational scheme” with the hope that this ambiguity of this unique will ease what Jüngel claims as ultimately unharmonizable position.
DeHart sums up the problem as follows:
“God’s essence is defined by Descartes (following venerable traditions) in such a way as to problematize its relation to the new role of the human subject in constituting knowledge. Existence now means objectifiable presence within the human cognitive horizon; but how can the absolutely transcendent creator appear within this horizon? Descartes’ denial of the univocity of substance suggests that God’s appearance in this horizon is possible but problematic, a quasi availability qualified by infinite unavailability. To know God as God involves a claim about God’s essence and a claim about God’s existence that do not exactly negate each other, but that are resistant to harmonization, threatening to move off in separate directions. This puts a question mark on the traditional metaphysical claim of identity of essence and existence. In short, Descartes’ traditionalist theism sits awkwardly with his revolutionary epistemology” (pp. 79-80).
Notes
[1] The Journal of Religion, Vol. 82, No. 1. (Jan. 2002), pp. 75-96.
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
Given the significance placed on the dialectic of the two powers (potentia absoluta et potentia ordinata Dei) by the moderni (mentioned in the previous post), it would be helpful to spend some time discussing this distinction, its historical background, and its use by the theologians of the via moderna. The distinction of the two powers can be traced back to Peter Damien and Anselm of Canterbury.[1] St. Thomas Aquinas also recognized the distinction; however, he employed it as a limiting concept rather than making it a central focus.[2] For example, St. Thomas taught that from an initial set of possibilities God freely chose to actualize a particular subset. God, being both free and omnipotent (limited only by acting such that the principle of non-contradiction is upheld), could have willed to actualize a different subset. However, given his choice, God abides by his decision and the unrealized possibilities must be regarded as only hypothetically possible.[3] As McGrath explains, the initial set of possibilities open to God refers to his potentia absoluta, whereas the actualized subset refers to his potentia ordinata. This distinction enabled theologians to provide a defense against any charge of necessatarianism. As McGrath explains,
God cannot be said to act out of absolute necessity (neccessitas consequentis), in that he was free to select any possibilities he cared to for actualization, subject to the sole condition of non-contradiction (that is, God is unable to construct a triangle with four sides). Nevertheless, having selected which possibilities to actualize, God imposes upon himself a certain degree of restriction, in that he has freely chosen to be faithful to a certain ordering of his creation. The significance of the distinction between the two powers of God lies in the concept of necessity involved: how can God be said to act reliably, without simultaneously asserting that he acts of necessity?[4]
In other words, the dialectic provided a way to affirm the reliability of God’s actions, while rejecting that God acts necessarily. God in a sense freely limits himself and commits himself to that which he has ordained. The ordained order is a contingent consequence of God’s free decision in which he acts not by absolute necessity but by a “conditional necessity (necessitas coactionis or necessitas consequentiae).[5] So long as the dialectic of the two powers remains a dialectic and functions as a limiting notion, it can be a useful theological tool.
Notes
[1] Alister McGrath, Luther’s Theology of the Cross, (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1990), p. 55.
[2] See, ST I, q. 25, a.5, resp., “God does not act from natural necessity, but that His will is the cause of all things; nor is that will naturally and from any necessity determined to those things. Whence in no way at all is the present course of events produced by God from any necessity, so that other things could not happen. […] when the end is proportionate to the things made for that end, the wisdom of the maker is restricted to some definite order. But the divine goodness is an end exceeding beyond all proportion things created. Whence the divine wisdom is not so restricted to any particular order that no other course of events could happen. Wherefore we must simply say that God can do other things than those He has done.”
[3] Alister McGrath, Luther’s Theology of the Cross, (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1990), p. 55.
[4] Ibid., p. 56.
[5] Ibid., p. 56.
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
The university at Wittenberg, founded in 1502 by Frederick the Wise, served as the context for much of Martin Luther’s early intellectual training. As McGrath observes, upon his return to Wittenberg in the late summer of 1511, Luther “found an Augustinian priory and a university in which three particularly significant elements of later medieval thought were well established,” viz., the studia humanitatis, the via moderna, and the schola Augustiniana moderna.[1] For my purposes here, I focus on the via moderna, which includes a discussion of the dialectic between the two powers of God (potentia absoluta et potentia ordinata Dei). The via moderna, which arose in the latter half of the fourteenth century, is often explicated in contrast with the via antiqua. The former is generally associated with the nominalism[2] of William of Ockham and Gregory of Rimini, whereas the latter represents the realist positions of St. Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus.[3] Moving outside of the narrow confines of epistemological theories, nominalism as a movement exercised a far-ranging impact that extended well beyond the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. For example, Heiko A. Oberman lists the following as key elements of the nominalist movement in its broader understanding. First, there is the dialectic between potentia ordinata (that which God has in fact decreed but which could have been otherwise) and potentia absoluta (the infinite possibilities available to the absolutely free God, i.e., barring a violation of the principle of non-contradiction). Second, we encounter an emphasis on the contingency of creation. Oberman emphasizes that this contingency must be understood both vertically (God—world—human beings) and horizontally (world—human beings—future), and should not be taken as that which is unstable and constantly threatened by potentia absoluta. Rather, “[t]he contingency of creation and salvation means simply that they are not ontologically necessary. The point is that in the vertical dimension our reality is not the lowest emanation and level in a hierarchy of being which ascends in ever more real steps to the highest reality, God.”[4] Third, nominalism insists that our world is not a shadowy reflection of “higher levels of being,” but instead has its own “full reality.”[5] Fourth, the nominalists of this period protested against “wild speculation” and “vain curiosity,” particularly against claims of reason that are not verified by tests of experience. Stated from a different but related perspective, one might view the underlying intention of nominalism as a rejection of meta-categories that obfuscate reality. “Just as it rejected metaphysics to establish physics, so nominalism ventured to strip theology of her distorting meta-theological shackles, with the result that the Scriptures and the prior decrees of God were emphasized at the expense of natural theology.”[6] Fifth, we find an emerging new image of God as a result of the stress on God’s potentia ordinata. Here God is understood as the covenant God who has made a pactum with his creation (which includes salvation history and everything that entails) and human beings are seen as “contractual partners” with God in this covenant. According to Oberman, this new emphasis on God as a “contractual partner in creation and salvation,” is intimately connected with what he considers as a Pelagianist view of facere quod in se est, a doctrine which is here interpreted as God having determined in eternity “past” to accept and reward certain human moral efforts apart from a prior movement of grace.[7]
Notes
[1] Alister McGrath, Luther’s Theology of the Cross, (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1990), p. 27.
[2] Speaking epistemologically, nominalism (understood as “terminism”) is the denial of extramental universals.
[3] Ibid., p. 30.
[4] Heiko Oberman, The Dawn of the Reformation, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), p. 27.
[5] Ibid., p. 27.
[6] Ibid., p. 28.
[7] Alister McGrath, Luther’s Theology of the Cross, (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1990), p. 29. McGrath, in contrast, does not interpret the facere quod in se est teaching of the nominalist theologians as Pelagianist, but does deem it synergistic. This alternate interpretation will be discussed in more detail in a subsequent section.
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
This post is a kind of “follow-up” to the previous short series on Scotus and the univocity of being. Given that finals are approaching and papers are coming due, this will unfortunately be a very informal post with the hopes of at least pointing out features of Radical Orthodoxy’s critique of Scotus and his influence on modernity that seem to me worth further exploration. (Much of what I say below is inspired by a recent discussion given by a fellow classmate at UD—J. McIntosh).
First, the absence of Neoplatonic elements in Scotus (in comparison with Augustine and Aquinas) is interesting and this absence no doubt is interpreted as a serious lack by RO proponents. RO of course highlights the Neoplatonic aspects of St. Thomas, and in my opinion for good reason, as these seem downplayed in many accounts which want to portray an overly “rationalistic” Thomas (think of the way in which numerous introductory texts to St. Thomas present selected excerpted texts so as to further this portrait). Moreover, RO, Pickstock in particular, has brought to our attention the vast differences between Thomas’ view in which truth is understood as adequatio of the mind to the object, which involves participation (intrinsically) understood—again there are strong Neoplatonic themes here—and Scotus view, viz. that what one knows is a picture or representation of reality. More explicitly, in Scotus’ representative epistemology the concept in which the meaning lies is separated from reality—thus, RO will say that things are turned into meanings. The movement here in the direction of modern epistemologies is not difficult to discern. RO, following the Christian Neoplatonic/Thomistic participatory path, wants to emphasize that there is a greater ontological depth in knowing as they favor a “thicker” metaphysical terrain. Lastly, in the representation model, things are indifferent to the mind, whereas for RO’s Thomas, one’s knowing the tree is not indifferent to knowing the tree, rather, the tree is there to be known—as Pickstock (I believe) puts it in Truth in Aquinas, you “catch the tree on its way back to God.”
I am also quite sympathetic to RO’s rejection of the dualism between theology and philosophy, and frankly, I see much continuity with Milbank’s read of Aquinas and certain emphases of Gilson. Milbank stresses that Thomas breaks with Aristotle in many places due to his Christian faith. For example, contra Aristotle, Thomas upholds the Creator/creature distinction in his claim that metaphysics studies ens commune (created being) and not being in its entirety. In making this distinction metaphysics is subservient to theology and not vice versa. In other words, we might say that Aristotle still falls prey to and promotes onto-theo-logy whereas, according to RO, Aquinas gives us a theo-ontology.
Other interesting topics for further study would be why theology must be construed as a science on the model of Aristotle, the relation between a metaphysics of participation and whether this necessarily involves some (Christianized) theory of recollection or divine implantation of ideas, as well as the significance of Scotus’ reduction of exemplar causality to efficient causality and how this fits into RO’s more global critique.
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
Scotus, of course, is a Christian philosopher/theologian and takes seriously our predications about God. For Scotus, contra Maimonides and the claims of negative theology, our negative predications of God must be “grounded” in positive statements. For Maimonides (or a thinker in this tradition), one can claim only negative knowledge of God (given God’s simplicity) and thus negative predication is the proper way to speak of God. For example, to predicate “is not dead” of God is more fitting than to say “God is alive.” As William E. Mann explains, this position was attractive to Maimonides for the following reasons. The first has to do with what is called the “repeatability criterion” for attributes. That is, “any positive attribute is repeatable or sharable: one thing’s being good does not preclude many things from being good.” The second reason relates to God’s simplicity—the idea that God is not composed of “parts” and has no real distinctions (e.g., between essence and existence or substance and attributes).[1] At the end of the day, for Maimonides, the metaphysical account of how a creature is good, wise, etc. must be wholly other than that of God. To claim that wisdom is a positive attribute of both God and a creature is (for Maimonides) to claim (in accordance with the repeatability criterion) that the two are good in exactly the same way. This would then land us in some form of polytheism. Thus, all positive predications of God must be rendered in negative terms. Scotus too wants to uphold God’s simplicity; however, he finds the negative theology approach incoherent for a number of reasons. First, simple negative concepts are impossible because “every negative concept is logically parasitic on some positive concept.” The only simple concepts that we have are positive concepts. Second, to apply a negative predicate to God, we ultimately must have in mind some positive affirmation of God to which the negative predication stands in contradiction. Third, “our greatest love is not directed at negations. When we love God, it is not because he is conceived as not dead or not bad.”[2] As we stated above, Scotus affirms the doctrine of God’s simplicity, and it is for this reason that he introduces “quasi-properties.” In other words, because the grammatical structure of the two statements, “God is wise,” and “Socrates is wise,” is identical, the (infinite) ontological difference between the two is concealed. Hence, “what is a property in creatures must be understood as an as-it-were property in the case of God.”[3] This is not to suggest that Scotus conceives of God as “having” properties. Scotus here is in perfect continuity with Aquinas in understanding God to be Wisdom Itself, Goodness Itself, Power Itself etc. Where Scotus does in fact disagree with Aquinas concerns the former’s denial of analogy as a “third” way between equivocity and univocity. For Scotus, however delicately one parses analogy, in the end it remains a subset of equivocity. In order for a concept to qualify as univocal it must (1) result in a contradiction if the same thing is both affirmed and denied of it; (2) it must be able to function as a middle term in a valid syllogism.[4] Moreover, Scotus is after a simple concept of God that is naturally acquired. An analogical concept, which for Scotus is actually an equivocal concept, is a complex concept. Either this analogical (or equivocal) concept is ultimately grounded in a univocal concept or it is incoherent because we have no way of telling what it is about. Such a situation would of course have serious ramifications for our theological predications. Though significantly more could be said (particularly by those who know Scotus much better than I), hopefully, I have presented a fair and accurate sketch of Scotus’ understanding of the concept of the univocity of being.
Bibliography
Mann, William E. “Duns Scotus on Natural and Supernatural Knowledge of God,” as found in the Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003), pp. 238-262.
Notes
[1] William E. Mann, “Duns Scotus on Natural and Supernatural Knowledge of God,” pp. 240-241.
[2] Ibid., p. 241. Other reasons may be cited, but the above-mentioned ones are suitable for our purposes.
[3] Ibid., p. 244.
[4] Ibid., p. 246. Again, this formulation indicates that Scotus is concerned with scientific understanding and discourse.
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
As I noted in the previous post, the doctrine of the univocity of being is a Scotist distinctive. As Peter King observes, according to Scotus, “there is a single unified notion of being that applies equally to substance and accident (and generally to all ten categories), as well as to God and creatures, which serves to ground metaphysics as a science.”[1] King notes two arguments (among many) that Scotus gives for the univocity of being. First, Scotus states that one can be certain about a concept that he possesses and yet doubt another concept. The example that Scotus gives is that one can be certain that God is a being and yet doubt whether God is an infinite or finite being or a created or uncreated being. Consequently, this indicates that “being” can be separated from the concepts of a finite or infinite being, yet being is included in the latter concepts.[2] The second argument is a kind of reductio ad absurdum. That is, Scotus argues that if we do not have a univocal concept of being, then we ultimately must deny that substance, and more seriously, God, are unknowable (by us). Given that the viator’s knowledge is derived from sense perception, which leads to “simple concepts that have a content in common with that which inspires them,” there is, therefore, “no basis [contra Henry] for forming simple analogous concepts.”[3] In addition, if we do not possess a simple concept of being, then in light of the fact that we do not directly perceive substance (but only perceive accidents directly), it would be cast into the realm of the unknowable. The same type of argument can also be applied to God.
Bibliography
Duns Scotus. Philosophical Writings, trans. Allan Wolter. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987.
King, Peter. “Scotus on Metaphysics,” as found in the Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003), pp. 15-57.
Notes
[1] King, “Scotus on Metaphysics,” p. 18. Scotus himself writes, “I designate that concept univocal which possesses sufficient unity in itself, so that to affirm and deny it of one and the same thing would be a contradiction. It also has sufficient unity to serve as the middle term of a syllogism, so that wherever two extremes are united by a middle term that is one in this way, we may conclude to the union of the two extremes themselves” (Philosophical Writings, p. 20).
[2] “Every intellect that is certain about one concept, but dubious about others has, in addition to the concepts about which it is in doubt, another concept of which it is certain. […] Now in this life already, a man can be certain in his mind that God is a being and still be in doubt whether He is a finite or an infinite being, a created or an uncreated being. Consequently, the concept of ‘being’ as affirmed of God is different from the other two concepts but is included in both of them and therefore is univocal” (Philosophical Writings, p. 20).
[3] King, “Scotus on Metaphysics,” p. 18.
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
This is the first part of a multi-part post focusing on Duns Scotus’ teaching on the univocity of the concept of being. I have to say up front that I am quite sympathetic to certain aspects of Radical Orthodoxy’s critique of Scotus; however, in this series, I am simply attempting to understand Scotus’ teaching and clearly explicate the doctrine as understood by Scotus himself. Perhaps a second series might involve a summary of RO’s critique of Scotus. I would, however, be interested in receiving critical comments from Thomists and RO advocates in regard to perceived problematic aspects of Scotus’ teaching. I would also be interested in hearing from Scotists, as to whether or not I have accurately explicated Scotus’ position. Lastly, I want to stress that I am no Scotus expert–in fact, this semester has been my first exposure to reading a number of Scotus’ texts, and frankly, I find Scotus’ arguments to be incredibly complex.
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As Stephen D. Dumont explains, Scotus was well aware that his teaching on the univocity of being would generate controversy, as the medieval tradition up to his day held to an analogical doctrine of being in regard to predications between God and creatures (or substance and accidents). Scotus, however, rejects any form of the doctrine of analogy that does not rest on univocity. In terms of historical context, it is important to note that Scotus is “in dialogue” with Henry of Ghent whose teaching on analogy has its own specifics that distinguish it from other teachings on analogy (e.g., St. Thomas’ doctrine).[1] According to Henry, “there can be no real concept of being univocally common to God and creature because they communicate in no reality which could serve as the objective foundation for such a concept.”[2] Moreover, in Henry’s doctrine, because there is no concept common to both God and creatures, one ends up with two concepts that are completely distinct from one another—one proper only to God and the other to creatures.[3] In other words, if we predicate “being” of both God and creatures, the unity of this analogous concept is actually a disjunction because “being” is only properly predicated of God who (is) “possesses” being primarily and infinitely, whereas, creatures have being secondarily by relation of dependency, participation, or causality, and hence, necessarily enjoy a limited degree of being. Scotus finds Henry’s doctrine unsatisfactory for a number of reasons. First, the unity described is a kind of pseudo-unity. That is, the unity seems to result simply from two terms being included in the same set. Second, Scotus is concerned with scientific understanding and discourse, and this does not harmonize well with Henry’s disjunctive formulation. In other words, because the way in which God is “good” and a creature is “good” has no univocal point of contact, we seem faced with the problem of equivocation when predicating anything of both God and creatures. Third, Henry claims that the two discrete concepts of being “can appear to form a single, univocal notion.”[4] As Dumont explains, Henry contends that the reason for this appearance of a univocal notion is due to the fact that in both cases being is understood as undetermined.
“As proper to creatures […] being is conceived as undetermined by those limitations to which it is by nature subject. This is a universal concept formed by abstracting from creatures all determinations with which they are actually found. This concept of being is proper to creatures since the divine being cannot be conceived as a universal open to some advening determination. Rather, the being proper to God is undetermined in the sense that it is repugnant to any limitation. Being undetermined in this sense is infinite. In Henry’s technical language, being conceived as proper to creatures is undetermined privatively, as proper to God undetermined negatively. The first is the absence of determination in act alone, the second in act and potency. These two modes of indeterminacy are so similar, claims Henry, that the intellect fails to distinguish between them and conceives them as one. That is, when the intellect first abstracts from creatures the general concept of being, it appears to have a unified concept of being as absolutely undetermined, equally applicable to God and creature. In this the intellect is deceived, for there is no positive concept of being as absolutely undetermined apart from its proper modes of negation and privation. Instead the intellect has conceived in a confused fashion two proper and distinct concepts, one applicable only to God, and the other only to creatures.”[5]
Though it is the case that for Henry we end up with two discrete concepts of being (one proper to God and the other to creatures), he claims that the unity of the concepts are found both confusedly (as described above) and through intrinsic attribution due to the creature’s participation in divine being.[6] The metaphysician then has the task of analyzing and discerning these two disparate notions.
With a basic understanding of Henry’s view sketched, we now turn to the various ways in which Scotus articulates his teaching on univocity in response to Henry’s doctrine, as well as the creative ways in which Scotus attempts to overcome problems associated with theological predications (given God’s simplicity). In the final section, we shall discuss Scotus’ argument for being as the primary adequate object of the human intellect, which will include sections on his quid/quale distinction in connection with the primacies of commonness and virtuality.
Notes:
[1] As Dumont is quick to point out, “it is worth stressing that the debate is over the univocity of the concept of being. Both Henry and Scotus hold that being is not a single reality (res, realitas) common to God and creatures but two wholly diverse realitates proper to each. At issue is whether any concept which is positive and real, as opposed to a mere second intention, can be applied univocally to these two diverse realitates” (“The Univocity of the Concept of Being in the Fourteenth Century,” n. 6, p. 3).
[2] Ibid., p. 5.
[3] Ibid., pp. 5-6.
[4] Ibid., p. 6.
[5] Ibid., pp. 6-7.
[6] Ibid., p. 8.
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
I finally made it back to Dallas from the Baylor conference, which was, by the way, excellent! Michael Hanby and company deserve a raise for putting together such a tremendous line up of speakers and for extending such a warm welcome to the participants. (In one of the after conference gatherings, Hanby, Peter Candler, and David Schindler pulled out their guitars and brought the house down).
If you are interested in reading the paper that I presented, I have posted it on my website at this link. Because I am so behind in my school and teaching responsibilities , I won’t be able to blog more extensively on the conference. So if any of you happen to come across any other blogs that do present a few summaries or highlights on specific presentations, please let me know.
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
By Michael Vendsel
So if Barth is right about Anselm (which is an open question, of course, but not one which I mean to take up here), then how might Anselm respond to someone who doubted the faith?
Two things appear to be certain. One is that Anselm certainly would not tell the non-believer that they are capable, in and of themselves, of reconstructing the truths of the Christian faith by reason alone. Human reason is incapable in and of itself of knowing those things that God has revealed:
“surely it is impossible that all of a sudden at this point Anselm should have conceded to the non-believer…a noetic rationability [...] in order to embark arm in arm with the unbeliever on an arbitrary reconstruction ‘from pure reason’ of Christian knowledge and so to surrender to him the required proof for the ratio fidei.”[1]
But it is also clear that Anselm thinks that if certain tenets of the Credo were already believed, they could be used as premises in arguments to demonstrate the other elements of the Credo. And Barth reads Anselm as saying that something like this situation is always the case (a point at which, interestingly, Barth’s reading of Anselm enjoys some similarities with C.S Lewis’s concept of The Tao in The Abolition of Man). Any objector, then, would already believe something with which the apologist could work toward dispelling objections.
Assuming for the moment that this reading is faithful to Anselm, is a method of this sort plausible? Is the faith really as coherent as is being suggested, and can it seriously be said that every human being believes at least one part of it?
Taking the second of these two objections first, Barth acknowledges the possibility that a person might reject the entire Christian system, but defends Anselm by saying that the proposed method may still be useful:
“Perhaps he [Anselm] saw him [the unbeliever] standing at his side not only within the precincts of theology, but more important within the precincts of the Church. [...] It may be [...] that Anselm could quite well have risked that assumption because of the power of the objective ratio of the object of faith that enlightens and is enlightened from above by the summa veritas and which, according to Anselm, was able to teach and all along did teach truths, that are beyond the power of one human being to teach another.”[2]
This is a somewhat convoluted paragraph, but Barth’s meaning seems to be that the promise of a proof would win the ear of the unbeliever, and while a proof that operated on explicitly Christian presuppositions may not prove, it would be a chance to preach the faith, and that may be empowered by God to change the heart of the unbeliever. This is how one Catholic reviewer interprets Barth here:
“…there is given [the unbeliever] in the proof an occasion of grace in virtue of the power of faith to enlighten because it itself is enlightened from above by God.”[3]
The reviewer has immediate objections to this interpretation, however:
“This places the efficacy of Saint Anselm’s Proof outside itself. Its ability to convince…that God does exist lies not in any intrinsic merit but in its opportuneness as an occasion of grace. But herein, too, lies its weakness, namely in its lack of intrinsic merit. As Saint Thomas warns, the proof that is not really a proof might well be the occasion for that ridicule which derides the faith for its supposed reliance on proofs that are not proofs.”[4]
The irony of this objection is that Barth might be comfortable with it. In Protestant thought it has long been said that what is an occasion of grace for one person might well be an occasion of hardening for another.
This line of reasoning, however, assumes that there really can be such a thoroughgoing objector. If I may insert some of my own ideas, perhaps more can be said for Anselm’s notion (at least on Barth’s reading) that such thoroughgoing objection is impossible. Anselm’s statement “I believe in order to understand” can arguably be taken two ways. On one hand, believing and understanding could be seen as two distinct but contiguous activities. First comes what is involved in believing, then comes what is involved in understanding, and what is involved in each is fundamentally different. One might think here of lightning being immediately followed by thunder. But could the statement mean that belief itself is involved in the act of understanding? Perhaps the action of understanding presupposes the action of believing, the way that seeing lightning presupposes the firing of the optic nerve. If one took matters this way, would this help the situation?
Remember that Barth said that faith is always faith in something – that is, it is never wholly devoid of intellectum. It begins at a small, meager level of intellectum, and moves from that meager level to progressively greater levels as it matures. If that is an accurate description of faith, then saying that faith is involved in understanding seems tantamount to saying that understanding works to some extent off of theological claims. Put another way, it would be to claim that any act of understanding requires making certain assumptions about God. This reading is not without precedent; in the Scottish Journal of Theology, Professor Stanley Kane discusses Anselm’s understanding of faith and reason:
“The common use of ‘reason’ refers to a method or set of methods for gaining and expanding knowledge, which operates autonomously, free from subordination to extrinsic principles or doctrines. But it also indicates conclusions that have been reached and built into a body of knowledge through the use of such methods. ‘Faith’ has a similar twofold sense. It refers both to the doctrinal content of a system of truth which is based ultimately on revelation and also to the manner or attitude in which this is apprehended by the believer. Thus, in both faith and reason, there is a distinction between cognitive content and the subjective means for apprehending such.”[5]
Kane goes on to argue that Anselm affirms only three of these four uses; he acknowledges the double sense of the term “faith”, but only one sense of the word “reason.” For Anselm, he says, reason is a way of knowing things but not a body of truths. Reason is capable of penetrating the meaning and interconnection of received truths but cannot discern truths on its own. If that is genuinely Anselm’s view, then the substance of any claim would ultimately reduce to something received by faith rather than by reason.
But even if this reading of Anselm is defensible, is this a plausible way to look at things? Does all knowledge actually have a theological component to it? While that may seem untenable, recall that for Descartes the trustworthiness of the laws of mathematics and sense perception both rested on the question of God’s malevolence or beneficence. While Descartes did not think this was the case with all knowledge (his own existence being a prominent exception), in his mind the existence of God was still rife with epistemological ramifications. Of course the isolated example of Descartes does not settle the question, but perhaps it shows that (Barth’s interpretation of) Anselm’s claim is not prima facie implausible.
That leaves the first question – does the faith have the coherence Barth/Anselm is claiming for it? While that question is well beyond my scope here, suffice it to say that if the traditional doctrine of simplicity is true, that would seem to favor Anselm’s claim. If God’s ideas are ultimately one with His nature and if His nature is ultimately simple, that would seem to indicate that God’s ideas cohere in a supreme, ultimately unfathomable way. But that, of course, would mean that their full coherence is not something human reason could ever adequately appreciate. It would, however, be an incentive to persevere in looking for coherence, to continually seek understanding of what has already been revealed and believed. And according to Barth’s reading of Anselm, that is the very heart of the theological task and the very thing that will best provide for Christianity’s defense.
Notes:
[1] Barth, 63.
[2] Barth, p. 70, 71.
[3] Taylor, Joseph C. “Book review of Anselm: Fides Quaerens Intellectum by Karl Barth” in The Thomist, vol. 25, 1962, p. 174.
[4] Idem
[5] Kane, Stanley Gordon. “Fides quarenes intellectum in Anselm’s thought” in Scottish Journal of Theology, vol. 26, Feb 1973, p. 59.
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
By Michael Vendsel
This begins a multipart series of posts on Barth and Anselm by Mike Vendsel, my colleague and very good friend. Mike holds a Master of Arts in philosophy from the University of Dallas, a Master of Arts in Religion from Westminster Theological Seminary, is currently working toward a Th.M. at Westminster and is an adjunct professor of philosophy at LaSalle University. Mike also plans to pursue doctoral studies in philosophy.
***
While a bias toward doubt has been an enduring attitude in Western philosophy since Descartes, it was not a hallmark of scholastic philosophy in the centuries before him. The attitude of those previous centuries is expressed by Anselm in his Proslogion:
“I do not endeavor, O Lord, to penetrate thy sublimity, for in no wise do I compare my understanding with that; but I long to understand in some degree thy truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand.” [1]
This methodology, however, has been a stumbling block for many post-Cartesian philosophers. Even with the postmodern discovery that reasoning is inevitably influenced by the context of the reasoner, the plurality of contexts makes the assumption of the authority of any one of them seem irresponsible. As a result, it has often been assumed that scholastic philosophy has little to suggest to the contemporary philosopher. Jeffrey Pugh gives a good description of this attitude in the beginning of an article about Anselm:
“In our day, it may seem difficult at first pass to imagine Anselm of Canterbury as having much to contribute to the struggles of contemporary theology. The notions of partiality, relativity, and contextuality that mark our age do not allow us to assent easily to Anselm’s apparent placid certainty about theological difficulty….” [2]
But is this a fair assessment? Certainly Anselm and others of his era thought about the basis of authority, and certainly they knew the reality of competing authorities.
In his book Anselm: Fides Quaerens Intellectum, Barth provides a close analysis of Anselm’s theological method. According to Barth, Anselm’s view of the coherence of the faith and the universality of certain articles of the faith enable the faith to be defended even if it cannot be proved. If Barth’s analysis is correct, it may be that Anselm’s method is better equipped to deal with the challenges of contemporary philosophy than is commonly thought. To explore this further, I will try to go through Barth’s analysis and show how Anselm might have responded to contemporary interlocutors (assuming Barth has understood him correctly).
Barth begins by asking how theology is possible for Anselm given the distance between man and God. On the one hand, he says, the very nature of Anselm’s faith involves cognition, so that the soul possesses partial knowledge of God from the very beginning of its desire for God. Faith is primarily an act of the will, but the operation of the will cannot happen without knowledge. The will can only be exercised in response to perceptions of good and evil, truth and falsity, desirability and undesirability, and such apprehensions are a form of knowing. Accordingly, the soul cannot have faith in God without having known Him in a limited way, and that initial knowledge comes through God’s condescension to reveal Himself – first through the incarnation of the eternal word, then through the inscripturation of that word, and then through the interpretation and proclamation of that word by the Church. In short, Anselmian faith cannot exist without revelation. The faith that seeks understanding – the faith that impels one to seek understanding – is a faith that springs from the verbal proclamation of the Church and has that verbal proclamation of the Church as its ultimate goal. “Anselm’s subjective credo has an objective Credo of the church as its unimpeachable point of reference,” Barth writes,
“that is, a number of propositions formulated in human words (including, of course, the Bible and the Symbols of the Early Church as basic documents of the Catholic Church’s faith). The ‘Word of Christ’ is the truth that faith believes it to be, in that it is identical with the ‘Word of those who preach Christ’. In relation to this human word of Christian proclamation, credere is the presupposition of intelligere.” [3]
Barth goes on to say that this means theology will only ever be a positive endeavor. It does not assume a defensive posture, guarding the faith from its assailants and answering their objections. Its aim instead is to expound and exposit the elements of the Church’s verbal proclamation. As Barth puts it,
“The knowledge that is sought cannot be anything but an extension and explication of that acceptance of the Credo of the church, which faith itself already implied. The man who asks for Christian knowledge asks, ‘to what extent is it thus?’, on the basis of a presupposition that is never for a moment questioned, namely, that it is as he, a Christian, believes.” [4]
Accordingly, theology is nothing more than an effort to make explicit what the Christian believes. It is not an effort to vindicate the truth of that Christian belief. “Intelligere comes about by reflection on the Credo that has already been spoken and affirmed.” [5] This does not mean, however, that Anselm’s theologian gives no thought whatsoever to the factuality of the Christian faith. He does broach such questions, but only from within the context of the Christian faith itself. He considers the factuality of Christianity “as the impetus of its inner necessity” [6] – that is, he examines the way in which particular articles of the faith are demanded by the logic and coherence of the overall system. In that sense he grounds particular aspects of the Christian faith using other aspects of the Christian faith. What he does not do is try to ground the whole system by arguing from a standpoint outside of revelation: “Intelligere will not go beyond the limit of the inner necessity of the articles of the Credo, beyond the limits of the faith’s essential nature which corresponds to these articles.” [7]
While all this sounds like a restriction on the theologian, it is actually placing an additional responsibility on him. Theology cannot consist merely in articulating the sense of the various articles of the creeds – it must also demonstrate their inner coherence and systematic unity. The articles of faith are not mere items on a list, but strands in a fabric, and the theologian is responsible to enumerate both the strands and the cloth, so to speak.
Anselm goes on to say that the best way to solve theological confusions is to borrow those articles of faith that are accepted by both parties and logically extrapolate from them. The inner necessity and coherence of the faith will guarantee that by doing such, an answer to the questions under consideration will eventually surface. “Throughout all Anselm’s investigation,” Barth writes,
“the origin of the rationes necessariae is to be found somewhere other than where it ought to be found in a philosopher who deduced the Credo a priori – namely, on the same level as that on which the question to be answered is raised, within the Credo itself.” [8]
In other words, the premises behind the arguments that solve theological problems are borrowed from the same body of doctrine as those statements whose interpretations are the whole question. The Credo is governed by such overall coherence that understanding part of the Credo provides one with the tools necessary to embark on the never-ending quest to understand all of the Credo. Barth thinks this is Anselm’s basic procedure in all his theological treatises. Concerning the Cur Deus Homo, he even goes so far as to list out all the various theological presuppositions at work:
“The vital presuppositions which underlie the demonstration of the rationality, or rather, the necessity, of the Incarnation and atoning Death of Christ are: continuity between a divine purpose and the human race, the obligation essential to the nature of man to obey God, sin as man’s eternal guilt before God, the inviolability of God’s negation of man’s sin, man’s inability to save himself, and…the aseity and ‘honor’ of God.” [9]
Even with an argument as seemingly free of theological presuppositions as the ontological argument,
“That God is id quo maius cogitari non potest is not a philosophical assumption arrived at by argument, but a name of God, a divine revelation in the guise of something ‘conceived’ by a human brain…. God has revealed himself by a Name which is also an authentic human conception; a name which we can understand and one which enables us ‘to prove’ God’s existence. Anselm was seeking for a name which would enable him to understand what he believed and thus to do theology.” [10]
Notes:
[1] Anselm, Proslogion, I.
[2] Pugh, Jeffrey C. “Fides Quaerens Intellectum: Anselm as Contemporary” in Theology Today, vol. 55, Apr 1998. p. 35.
[3] Ibid., p. 24.
[4] Ibid., p. 26-27.
[5] Ibid., p. 27.
[6] Ibid., p. 28.
[7] Idem.
[8] Ibid., p. 55.
[9] Ibid., pp. 55-56.
[10] Haroutunian, Joseph. “Critical Review: Anselm: Fides quaerens intellectum by Karl Barth” in Journal of Religion, vol. 43, 1963, p. 153.
