De locis theologicis

It remains for me to teach what arguments natural reason supplies to the theologian, as I promised to do in the eighth source. I will proceed as briefly as the matter itself allows. This source has wide scope. Although it does not properly belong to theology but is foreign to it, it is a great subject, and has been richly cultivated both by other scholastics and by the family of D. Thomas. This is not because any scholastic theologian has yet discussed the force or use of this source, but because all philosophers have brought philosophy and the other disciplines acquired through natural reason into the Christian school, or at least cultivated disciplines introduced by others. Each did so according to his own ability, but D. Thomas excelled beyond dispute among the theologians, so to speak. At the outset, however, in treating this source we must avoid two contrary errors. The first belongs to those who have devoted themselves so completely to arguments drawn from reason that, whether they debate or write, they seem not even to have read Sacred Scripture or the books of the holy fathers. They are little different from those whom Eusebius mentions in lib. 5 Hist. eccles., final chapter: they had fallen into such foolishness that, if someone put forward a passage from Scripture, they would instead ask whether the passage under discussion formed a conjunctive or disjunctive kind of syllogism. Eusebius also says of them: “Abandoning the Holy Scriptures of God, they study geometry, and, being truly of the earth, they speak of earthly things; and so they do not know him who is from above and came from heaven.” Euclides is especially esteemed among them in geometry. They also admire Aristoteles and Theophrastus, and some of them even worship Galenus. Augustinus, in epist. ad Dioscorum, no. 56, and Bernardus in epist. 189 are most reliable witnesses that there were once people in the Church who preferred reason to authority and settled theological matters by syllogisms. If only we had not ourselves experienced in this age many people in universities who conducted almost every theological debate with sophistical and foolish arguments. The devil acted so that—this is painful to say—at the very time when scholastic theologians needed to be equipped with the best weapons against the heresies pouring in from Germany, they had none at all, except long reeds, that is, the light weapons of children. Many mocked them, and rightly, because they had no solid grasp of the true form of theology; they used shadows, and would that they had even followed those, for these arguments are drawn from the principles of Sacred Scripture, whose shadows they did not even grasp. Thus, though only nominally masters of theology, they fought against the Church’s enemies, but very unsuccessfully. Matters go badly when men of little talent and little learning attempt what should be accomplished by intelligence and erudition. They had been going wrong from the very beginning of their studies. They had astonishingly neglected the disciplines that refine language, and after spending too long polishing their skill in sophistry, they finally approached theology—not theology itself, but its smoke. If those who erred through ignorance deserve blame, what should we think of those who fell into error knowingly and willingly? For when they ought to have restored by their authority a ruined and fallen discipline, they instead, as they say, yielded to the times and not only

did not drive out sophisms but increased them. These must be removed both from philosophy and, even more, from theology, along with the art of quibbling, which wants to appear dialectical but is far from it. Dialectic consists in skill and practice in dividing, defining, and arguing, all of which is essential for a theologian. Sophistry, however, contains nothing but empty quibbles, which bear no fruit in theology. Indeed, no greater harm can be found for theology than a counterfeit theology in the dregs of sophisms. This leads to the absurdity that sophists seem to be theologians. If anyone enjoys these things—and lest I seem to have declared total war on sophisms, which perhaps have some proper use—I do not understand why learned men brought into the schools, under the name of dialectic, exponibles, obligations, insolubles, reflexives, and other monsters of this kind, yet said not a word about the use of dialectic. Are these things useful to boys? Let them be; for we too were sophists once. But, I beg you, let them be regarded as useful not as ornaments for men but as exercises for boys. Let the boys themselves understand that the play of sophisms should be brief and that a different use of dialectic must be sought, one especially necessary for philosophy and theology. But enough of this. Let us return to our subject. Those who measure the doctrines of theology by human arguments and refuse to let arguments drawn from reason be outweighed by authority first strip theology of all its force and weight, and then make it so that, deprived of authority, theology is not only scorned but is no longer theology at all. For if theology is true and legitimate, it must descend from faith, where the principles proper to this discipline reside, as we established at the beginning of this work. Faith, however, rests entirely on the authority of Scripture and the Church. We may therefore be quite certain how poorly those write or debate theological matters who reject or do not know the Sacred Books, the traditions of the apostles, the dogmas of councils, the decrees of pontifical law, or the teaching of the holy fathers of old. Therefore, let this first kind of opinion be expelled; it is entirely untenable and impious. Such men think that arguments drawn from reason are more suitable to a theologian than arguments drawn from authority. From what was said above, it is plainly understood that, especially when discussion concerns God and divine mysteries, arguments pertaining to faith in God, than which nothing should be dearer to a theologian, must be preferred to philosophical arguments. Since the weakness of this first error is easily recognized, it needs no further refutation.