METAPHYSICS IS A DIVINE SCIENCE by Gary L. Morella
he question of metaphysics as a Divine Science is addressed in Saint Thomas
Aquinas's exposition of Boethius's "On the Trinity" which uses metaphysics as
the highest form of philosophy for the bridge from the natural to the
supernatural, "the" bridge that Aquinas traversed in answering the final
questions of Aristotle's De Anima in the Summa.
The human mind is divinely illumined by a natural light (Psalm 4). The
human mind by its natural light, without any help, can know the truth. It is
the definition of science that from some known things other things are
necessarily concluded. Aquinas recognized that this comes about with divine
things so that we can talk of a "divine science."
There are two kinds of divine science. One uses the principles of sensible
things to make the divine known, another grasping divine things in themselves
through infused faith. The former will be our focus.
Wisdom is knowledge about principles and causes. In the first two chapters of
Aristotle's Metaphysics, wisdom, science and understanding pertain to the
speculative part of the soul referred to as the scientific part of the soul.
Understanding is the habit of the first principles of demonstration whereas
science is a function of conclusions drawn from subordinate causes with wisdom
similarly a function of first causes. In this sense wisdom is referred to as
the "chief science." The more a man attains to a knowledge of the cause, the
wiser he is necessitating the concept of a hierarchy or degrees of knowledge,
e.g., the speculative are more scientific than the practical with their
higher dimension of contemplation for its own sake. Thus, science which is
wisdom in an absolute sense is concerned with the causes of things, in
particular, the most universal and primary or ultimate causes. This science
must also consider the universal end of all things which is the greatest good
in the whole of nature. Another name for the ultimate cause of things is God
Who is also the Universal End of all things showing the relationship between
reason and faith.
This science in the Metaphysics is said to be divine in two ways, and only this
science is divine in both ways. First, the science which God has is said to
be divine; and second, the science which is about divine matters is said to be
divine. Only this science meets both requirements because it is about first
causes and principles, namely God, and such a science which is about God and
first causes, either God alone has, or at least God has it in the highest
degree as it is had by men borrowed from God.
Philosophy in its progression from logic (method of sciences) to mathematics to
natural science to moral science and ultimately metaphysics seeks a wisdom
which is the grasp of the highest or ultimate cause of things, a kind of
knowledge possessed by God and, in that context, mimics as much as humanly
possible, God's knowledge or Divine science. There is another aim, however,
regarding knowledge which has God as its principal object - theology which was
the aim of Greek philosophy, its completion. As such, we can speak of
Divine science as the defining aim of philosophy. Beyond the Divine science of
the philosophers is another based on Sacred Scripture. Theology is a wisdom
beyond and superior to that of the philosophers which, in turn, finds itself
looking up to a gift of the Holy Ghost - infused faith.
Metaphysics addresses the most deep seated questions we have. What is the
point of everything, the purpose of life? We have an existential drive
to answer these questions especially during hard times such as we now find
ourselves. Accordingly, it is the culminating quest of philosophy as a set of
disciplines necessary for or useful for the attainment of wisdom of theology
or first philosophy per Aristotle. This desire to know is inherent in man's
nature. Metaphysics and theology form the two kinds of Divine science in which
divine things are not considered as the subject of the science but as
principles of the subject in the case of metaphysics which philosophers pursue,
and the consideration of divine things themselves as subject of the science in
the case of theology handed down in Sacred Scripture. A robust philosophy will
culminate in wisdom, in theology. It is no accident that a pagan, Aristotle,
came to the conclusion of the existence of God as reason is not divorced from
faith, a concept so eloquently illustrated in Aquinas's monumental sequel to
the De Anima where he answered Aristotle's final questions.
Getting back to Aquinas's commentary on Boethius "On the Trinity," it is licit
to treat the divine by way of investigation. The inquiry into the things of
faith, Divine Science, by way of argument is necessary which can be
clearly seen in an apologetics sense for discourse with nonbelievers.
Since man's perfection consists in union with God, man must direct everything
in him as much as possible to divine things given an intellect free for
contemplation and reason free for inquiry. Faith and reason are intertwined,
not mutually exclusive which is the secular argument. The error is that in
matters of faith reason precedes faith not faith reason such that one wants to
believe only what reason can discover when it should be the reverse. This
does not allow for faith at all. Every creature is so moved as to be more and
more like God which is why the human mind should be always seeking to know God
more according to its manner. In this way Divine science does not make those
things which are faith based to be seen, but rather from these makes other
things to be seen in a way that reinforces faith which is supreme. The end of
faith in this context is that we might come to understand what we
believed similar to knowing a subordinate or inferior science in order to learn
a higher, e.g, the relationship between arithmetic and geometry or calculus, or
arithmetic and algebraic topology using a mathematical hierarchy analogy.
It is impossible that those things which have been divinely taught us through
faith should be contrary to our naturally infused knowledge as one of them
would have to be false - an impossibility since both came from God, i.e., the
natural law or natural reasoning, and Divine revelation. The imitation of the
Perfect is found in the imperfect as in things that are known by natural reason
there are similarities to things taught by Faith.
Sacred doctrine is to faith what philosophy is to natural reason. They do not
contradict each other for to do so makes their Author capable of falsehoods
which is an impossibility as He is Perfect Truth. Accordingly, if something
contrary to the faith should be found in philosophy, this is not philosophy but
an abuse of same due to bad reasoning.
Metaphysics is the highest philosophical inquiry into the supernatural, the
Divine science of God. Its telos is a theology which through a Divine Light
illuminates reason as man's key to a supernatural door which the Angelic
Doctor, Saint Thomas Aquinas, fashioned via a work (Summa) later
described by him as "nothing" compared to the Beatific Vision awaiting the
faithful. In human terms, "some nothing!" We are dealing with a two-way
street with philosophy leading to theology and theology making philosophy
possible. The extremes of naturalism and fideism exist only
in the minds of those who can't see this truth.