First, in memoriam of a great and legendary Thomist who passed on the 29th of January, 2010: Dr. Ralph McInerny -
Recently, I have been thinking on the supposed opposition between scriptural and metaphysical modes of articulating truths in more modern theological systems. As JPII notes in Fides et ratio, metaphysical modes supposedly expose "reality in its ontological, causal and communicative structures" which in turn impedes theological understanding of the God who chose to reveal himself in a dramatic, historical, and narrative form (Scripture) and no in high and complex philosophical propositions. Eventually, I hope to lay out my view of the relationship between metaphysics and Scripture as not being 1) one in which Greek metaphysics only helped distance the Church from the personal and living God who, in His Divine Condescension, assumed a human nature and became Incarnate or 2) one in which metaphysics must in fact be redefined and organized around "scriptural points" by developing a distinctly Christian, and not simply a Greek, metaphysics. These of course, I feel are rooted in a horrible mis-interpretation of the Good Angelic Doctor. For example, Rahner states, in a criticism a so-called Thomistic approach to theology (so-called as it is just wrong), that "As a result the treatise becomes quite philosophical and abstract and refers hardly at all to salvation history. It speaks o the necessary metaphysical properties of God, and not very explicitly of God as experienced in salvation history in his free relations to his creatures." (Rahner, The Trinity, 17-18) From here, he goes on to establish a rather stark dichotomy between scriptural modes and metaphysical modes based on four principles: 1) metaphysical modes are "philosophical and abstract", 2) attention to salvation history (scriptural modes) rules out beginning with a metaphysical mode, 3) one will grant a theology of God as one, the other of God as a Trinity - the later being formed by metaphysics and allowing one to only make "purely formal statements about the three divine persons" due to the lack of the dynamism of salvation history (again presupposing that dichotomy), and 4) the Trinity, then understood in this way, is "locked within itself," remaining an object of mere abstract and formal contemplation. It is from this view that Rahner makes his most famous (and ill-advised) complaint --- "Christians are in their practical life, almost mere 'monothesists.' We must be willing to admit that, should the doctrine of the Trinity have to be dropped as false, the major part of religious literature could well remain virtually unchanged." (10-11) I will, however, attempt to discuss that in far more detail later; that a unified and holistic account of God as one and God as three; of a scriptural and metaphyiscal mode to ascertaining truth about God. At the moment, I want to simply talk about wisdom. In hopes of showing that Aquinas' Trinitarian theology in fact governed by salvation history in ways that people like Rahner fail to recognize - that is, that Aquinas' theology is one of "God experienced in salvation history in his free relations to creatures," - we must establish what our expectations of such a theology is and will produce. I will posit that his vision of theology is one of a contemplative wisdom patterned by the dramatic and awesome story that is Salvation History. For Aquinas, wisdom comes in 4 ways: 1) wisdom in a natural, intellectual virtue, 2) wisdom is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, 3) wisdom is sacra doctrina, and 4) Wisdom is the Son of God Himself.
Wisdom as an Intellectual Virtue
For a great treatise on the Intellectual Virtues, see Thomas Hibb's Virtue's Splendor: Wisdom, Prudence, and the Human Good... it is great!!!
In Aristotle's Physics and Metaphysics, we see that wisdom (Σοφία) is the understanding of causes, i.e. knowing why things are a certain way, which is deeper than merely knowing that things are a certain way. In the Summa, Aquinas adopts this position when he states that wisdom is a knowledge of what is most knowable in itself, first causes, but least knowable to our intellects which know only through sense perception:
"Et quia ea quae sunt posterius nota quoad nos, sunt priora et magis nota secundum naturam, ut dicitur in I Physic.; ideo id quod est ultimum respectu totius cognitionis humanae, est id quod est primum et maxime cognoscibile secundum naturam. Et circa huiusmodi est sapientia, quae considerat altissimas causas, ut dicitur in I Metaphys."
" And, since "things that are knowable last from our standpoint, are knowable first and chiefly in their nature" (Phys. i, text. 2, 3); hence that which is last with respect to all human knowledge, is that which is knowable first and chiefly in its nature. And about these is "wisdom," which considers the highest causes, as stated in Metaph. i, 1,2." (IaIIae, 57, a2)
As Aquinas notes in the prima pars, the ultimate reality of a thing is the first cause; pure act which utterly transcends all and every genus. (Ia, 2-3). Wisdom perfects the intellect in its grasp of the highest causes, including the First and Supreme Cause (i.e., God); it is the virtue of ordering all things in accord with knowledge of God as the First Cause and all the lower first causes of particular genii. In a sense, Wisdom can be seen as the greatest intellectual virtue, for as Aquinas notes, 'for any two virtues, the more excellent virtue has the more excellent object.' Thus, wisdom can been seen is the most important because its object, First and Supreme Cause quid est Deus, is the most excellent object of knowledge. That is, the object of wisdom is God as He is understood by means of human reason unaided by revelation. There in all of this, a underlying notion of an cosmological epistemology, since, by knowing the First Cause, the Wise man "rightly judges all things and sees them in order because there can be no perfect and universal judgment that is not based on the first causes." (IaIIae, 57, a2). And it is upon this knowledge of the transcendent First Cause that the wise man is capable of judging the conclusion of particular sciences (Ibid). Thus, in demonstrating conclusions from principles, in particularizing universals, wisdom is a science. Insofar as it judges the particular sciences by knowing their principles, wisdom is more than a mere scientia: "quod sapientia est quaedam scientia, inquantum habet id quod est commune omnibus scientiis, ut scilicet ex principiis conclusiones demonstret. Sed quia habet aliquid proprium supra alias scientias, inquantum scilicet de omnibus iudicat; et non solum quantum ad conclusiones, sed etiam quantum ad prima principia, ideo habet rationem perfectioris virtutis quam scientia."
" Wisdom is a kind of science, in so far as it has that which is common to all the sciences; viz. to demonstrate conclusions from principles. But since it has something proper to itself above the other sciences, inasmuch as it judges of them all, not only as to their conclusions, but also as to their first principles, therefore it is a more perfect virtue than science." (IaIIae, 57, a2, ad 1) For more on this, see my post on Newman, here, that involves a paper I wrote under teh great Alasdair MacIntyre in which I discuss Newman's eloquent view of the role theology, that is knowledge of God, serves as the key to unifying the plurality of sciences in a university curriculum by virtue of the content of Theology, namely God, who serves to unify the whole of the cosmos, and therefore, the particular sciences particular approaches to one aspect or notion of the cosmos.
Wisdom as a Gift of the Holy Ghost
In the very first question of his Summa, Aquinas address the objection of whether sacra doctrina (which I will get to next) is one and the same with the gift of Wisdom from the Holy Ghost. "Further, this doctrine is acquired by study, whereas wisdom is acquired by God's inspiration; so that it is numbered among the gifts of the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 11:2). Therefore this doctrine is not the same as wisdom..." To which he simply replies: "The first manner of judging divine things belongs to that wisdom which is set down among the gifts of the Holy Ghost" That is, Wisdom is indeed one of the seven gifts.
This comes from the passage in Isaiah 11 which some claim to mention fear twice. However, the Vulgate rests upon the Septuagint which reads: "
"καὶ ἐξελεύσεται ῥάβδος ἐκ τῆς ῥίζης Ιεσσαι καὶ ἄνθος ἐκ τῆς ῥίζης ἀναβήσεται καὶ ἀναπαύσεται ἐπ' αὐτὸν πνεῦμα τοῦ θεοῦ πνεῦμα σοφίας καὶ συνέσεως πνεῦμα βουλῆς καὶ ἰσχύος πνεῦμα γνώσεως καὶ εὐσεβείας ἐμπλήσει αὐτὸν πνεῦμα φόβου θεοῦ"
Thus we find to spirits of fear: "spirit of... godliness" (πνεῦμα ..εὐσεβείας) and the "fear of the Lord" (πνεῦμα φόβου θεοῦ). This, then, leads to the final rendering in the Latin Vulgate as follows:
"Et egredietur virga de radice Jesse, et flos de radice ejus ascendet. Et requiescet super eum spiritus Domini : spiritus sapientiæ et intellectus, spiritus consilii et fortitudinis, spiritus scientiæ et pietatis; et replebit eum spiritus timoris Domini."
This then, leaves us with the traditional list of seven gifts that Aquinas works with: i. sapientia, ii. intellectus, iii. consilio, iv. fortitudo, v. scientia, vi. pietas, and finally vii. timor Domini.
A gift of the Holy Ghost allows and enables one, who possessing a fides formed by caritas, to respond to special promptings of the Holy Ghost. As Servais Pinckaers notes in his marvelous "Morality: The Catholic View," 'in the collaboration between grace and us, the virtues [think here of the intellectual virtue of Wisdom I just discussed] represent the active side of our participation; but their action needs to be completed by the gifts which dispose us to welcome the motion of the Spirit and constitute the passive, or receptive, side o the spiritual life..." The virtues work with and rely on our natural resources; the gifts, however, operate on a divine mode and in a sense, blend the two by perfecting the natural virtue.
How, then, do the two relate? The virtue of Wisdom on its own is only capable of what the human intellect can ascertain and acquire through its natural powers and endowments. Wisdom as a gift however, is necessarily attached to the virtue of caritas is able to judge all things on the basis of the First and Ultimate Truth assented to through fides. Since fides is a supernatural participation in God's own knowledge, it is able to ascertain a knowledge of God beyond a mere human wisdom.
While on the one hand the intellectual virtue of wisdom perfects one's use of reason by judging things in accords with God's eternal Law, the gift of wisdom quite literally means a "connaturality with God's eternal Law" such that reason no longer performs its inquiry:
"As stated above (Article 1), wisdom denotes a certain rectitude of judgment according to the Eternal Law. Now rectitude of judgment is twofold: first, on account of perfect use of reason, secondly, on account of a certain connaturality with the matter about which one has to judge. Thus, about matters of chastity, a man after inquiring with his reason forms a right judgment, if he has learnt the science of morals, while he who has the habit of chastity judges of such matters by a kind of connaturality.
Accordingly it belongs to the wisdom that is an intellectual virtue to pronounce right judgment about Divine things after reason has made its inquiry, but it belongs to wisdom as a gift of the Holy Ghost to judge aright about them on account of connaturality with them: thus Dionysius says (Div. Nom. ii) that "Hierotheus is perfect in Divine things, for he not only learns, but is patient of, Divine things."
Now this sympathy or connaturality for Divine things is the result of charity, which unites us to God, according to 1 Corinthians 6:17: "He who is joined to the Lord, is one spirit." Consequently wisdom which is a gift, has its cause in the will, which cause is charity, but it has its essence in the intellect, whose act is to judge aright, as stated above (I-II, 14, 1)." (IIaIIae, 45, a2)
In other words, the perfection of the intellect through the gift of wisdom enables one to order all things correctly, in charity, to the God known in faith. For this reason, it is important to note that one need not be a philosopher to be a contemplative. Further still, this ordering through the gift is is not merely contemplative (as is the intellectual virtue) but is also practical since, rooted in caritas, it directs all aspects of a person. (IIaIIae, 45, a3)
Wisdom as Sacra Doctrina
In his discussion of sacra doctrina as wisdom, Aquinas makes reference to both the intellectual virtue and the gift of the Holy Ghost. First, he notes that sacra doctrina as wisdom is quite different from the intellectual virtue. Sacra doctrina does not merely compliment and extend the achievements of the intellectual virtue of wisdom; this would limit it to a mere adding of knowledge inaccessible to the natural mind through reason and accessible only through faith in the deposit of faith, presented primarily in sacra scriptura. (Note that a fantastic treatment of the relationship between sacra doctrina and sacra scriptura can be found in Fr. James Weisheipl, OP's "The Meaning of Sacra Doctrina in Summa Theologiae I, q.1"). Rather, what sacra doctrina brings is both an addition of supernatural knowledge and a re-ordering of natural knowledge in light of God who is both our beginning (Question I of the Summa) and our supernatual end. This is crucial for the greater project; Aquinas works out of a notion of our exitus from God and our eventual, eschatological reditus to God. Thus, as Aquinas notes in article 6,
"But sacred doctrine essentially treats of God viewed as the highest cause — not only so far as He can be known through creatures just as philosophers knew Him — "That which is known of God is manifest in them" (Romans 1:19) — but also as far as He is known to Himself alone and revealed to others. Hence sacred doctrine is especially called wisdom. "
Wisdom as the ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ Himself
It is obvious the prime role Christ the Incarnate Word plays in this. As Aquinas notes in the first chapter of the Summa contra gentiles, "Divine Wisdom testifies that He has assumed flesh and come into the world in order to make the truth known: 'For this I was born, and for this I cam into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth.' (John 18:37)" The focus and content of sacra doctrina, which can be seen as uniting the both the virtue and the gift, is God's own knowledge, his Logos. At the same time, sacra doctrina involves human knowledge, created wisdom, participating in this Divine Wisdom by being supernaturally elevated to particpate more deeply in the Divine Wisdom by virtue of the gift of the Holy Ghost; all the while remaining a profoundly limited and created wisdom.
Sacra doctrina remains a wisdom in a human mode in a human mind. It is "acquired by study, though its principles are obtained by revelation." (Ia, 1, a6, ad 3) (This is in response to the objection that wisdom is a gift and sacra doctrina requires study, hence sacra doctrina could not be a gift.) This, then, is the reference sacra doctrina has to the gift of Wisdom mentioned above in the previous section.
At the most supreme and sublime level, the principle is not God known by natural reason by God's own knowledge. The interplay between grace and reason is profound; the graced human being is elevated to a supernatural wisdom of God that approaches the very contents of the Divine Logos himself, the Christ. This is the supernatural end of man, after all, the reditus back into God's very existence. A life in which we see God as God sees Himself; the Holy Beatific Vision. This is what is meant when Paul writes to the Ephesians that all will be brought back to its fullness (reditus) in Christ:
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with spiritual blessings in heavenly places, in Christ: 4 As he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in his sight in charity. 5 Who has predestinated us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto himself: according to the purpose of his will: 6 Unto the praise of the glory of his grace, in which he has graced us, in his beloved son. 7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the remission of sins, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which has superabounded in us, in all wisdom and prudence, 9 that he might make known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he has purposed in him, 10 in the dispensation of the fullness of times, to re-establish all things in Christ, that are in heaven and on earth, in him. 11 In whom we also are called by lot, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. 12 That we may be unto the praise of his glory: we who before hoped in Christ: 13 In whom you also, after you had heard the word of truth (the gospel of your salvation), in whom also believing, you were signed with the holy Spirit of promise. 14 Who is the pledge of our inheritance, unto the redemption of acquisition, unto the praise of his glory."
With this in mind, then, I hope to eventually show that the metaphysical knowledge gathered through the intellectual virtue of Wisdom is taken up into sacra doctrina and illuminated there within, aided by the grace of God Himself through the Paraclete's gift of Wisdom.
