De locis theologicis

When the discussion concerns the school of one philosopher or another, the question is quite different. The more learned and distinguished someone is, the more probable his authority and the more trustworthy his testimony. Yet a theologian must not bind himself to anyone so completely that he thinks it wrong to depart from him even by a hair’s breadth. It is not right for the authority of one pagan to prevail among Christ’s disciples so far that it wins even without reason. In any art, it certainly matters greatly to read one outstanding author, to whom you devote yourself above all. Yet no one, however learned, will be your authority for agreeing or disagreeing. No one has ever lived who did not sometimes err as a human being. Indeed, the learned disagree about who should rank first among philosophers, and who is therefore the one worth studying above all. To pass over others in this matter, Augustine usually holds one view—no one should be preferred to him, for no one was more learned or renowned—while St. Thomas, the greatest and most weighty theologian and philosopher, seems to hold another. Plato is supreme for Augustine; Aristotle for Thomas. In general, each person most favors the kind of learning to which he was most accustomed from childhood. Augustine’s reasoning arises on one side: no philosophers agree more with Christian doctrine than the Platonists. For Plato was a philosopher among the Hebrews, as Clement of Alexandria attests. Thomas, however, says that the doctrine of the Peripatetics agrees very much with Christian dogma. Clement of Alexandria also reports in lib. 5 Stromatum that Aristobulus proved in many books that Peripatetic philosophy derived from the Mosaic Law and the other prophets. St. Thomas’s opinion has been approved by nearly all peoples and by the practice of many centuries. For many years now Plato has scarcely been read except by idle men in corners, while the academies of the world resound with broad agreement in Aristotle. All peoples also agree on Aristotle’s unique distinction: by antonomasia he was the Philosopher, that is, the foremost of philosophers. We therefore embrace him justly, since everyone agrees in praising him. Scholastic theologians have also agreed with St. Thomas so completely that Plato has no place in the school of theology; Aristotle has entirely occupied it. It is certain that no one can be fully learned in natural things by reading Plato alone. Aristotle alone is more than enough for a man to be learned in philosophy in all three parts. So no one should complain that Aristotle pleased theologians in a wretched age, while Plato pleased them when the Church was in a better state: let him know that the Aristotelian school was accustomed to flourish in Alexandria even when the Apostolic Doctors flourished there greatly. Yet, as I see it, neither Augustine’s nor Thomas’s opinion should be disregarded. We must concede something both to those who love Aristotle and perhaps to those who are friends of Plato. It is difficult not to approve their judgment when they say Plato spoke more clearly and consistently about the soul’s immortality, God’s providence, the creation of things, the ends of good and evil, and the rewards or punishments of the next life. St. Thomas’s view is to be preferred, but only with a certain moderation, without which it cannot be approved. We too like Aristotle, and rightly so, provided we do not always try to convert even his opposing views into Christ’s doctrine. His interpreters nearly always do this: they often force the context and compel Aristotle, whether he will or not, to pronounce in favor of the Catholic faith. If you please, let us test this with examples in which the common run of theologians may not think Aristotle erred. For here we need not discuss the eternity of the world ^{1 2}

or the predetermined number of souls. Nor need we discuss the soul’s immortality, since Cajetan has argued this question most carefully in his commentaries on the works he wrote De anima. Instead, let us consider matters that are more difficult, and that Aristotle seems to have expressed obscurely with cunning words deliberately contrived to impose on his readers, so that if learned men should sometimes rightly and truly criticize him, he might have a way to escape and be excused by his friends. I do not, however, bring an accusation against Aristotle here, a most learned man who has deserved greatly of all humane letters. But since most people now seem to depend on him as if he were an oracle and read all his works without hesitation, this opinion must be weakened, lest dissenting from this philosopher’s views be treated as a sacrilege. For we have heard that some Italians give as much time to Aristotle and Averroes as those most devoted to sacred doctrine give to Sacred Scripture, and as much faith to them as those most religious in Christ’s doctrine give to the Apostles and Evangelists. From this arose those deadly doctrines in Italy about the soul’s mortality and God’s lack of providence over human affairs—if what is said is true, for I know nothing beyond hearsay. Men inflated by their opinions of Aristotle shamefully flatter themselves and thereby fall into the gravest error. Enough of this. Let us return to our subject. The first passage in which I think Aristotle erred against the faith of Scripture is in De somno et vigilia. There he denies that God sends dreams, and gives as the reason that, if God were their author, he would send them especially to the wise, and while they were awake. A second example occurs in the treatise De bona fortuna, where he removes chance events from divine governance and direction, persuaded by two arguments: first, that good fortune comes to the wicked, whose affairs it is implausible that God would care for; second, that God would guide the wise toward fortunate outcomes, whereas we generally see the most imprudent people enjoying the greatest good fortune. A third passage is in libro primo De coelo, where he asserted that whatever was generated is corruptible, and that nothing is incorruptible unless it was generated. He had first set out the various meanings of these words so that the question would not be obscured by ignorance of a term. Thinking, then, that he had a good argument against Plato and could therefore promise himself certain victory, he taught, contrary to his custom, not obscurely but as plainly as possible that whatever is corruptible must be ungenerated and everlasting—that is, it must never have begun to exist. That is how he interprets the term. It would follow that the rational soul must either be subject to corruption or be ungenerated and eternal. A fourth passage occurs in libro quinto rursumque duodecimo Metaphysices, where he defines God as an everlasting and excellent living being. He calls any celestial and divine substance by the common name “god.” For afterward he begins to ask whether that everlasting substance is one or many. In the same lib. 12 he agrees that the ancients rightly called those most excellent things “gods.” But he plays on an equivocation: sometimes he calls the intellect itself god, sometimes the heaven, whose soul is intellect; this can also be seen in libro etiam secundo de coelo. Let no one be surprised that Aristotle here calls the celestial substances living beings: following the usage of the ancients, he calls an animate substance—whether it has a sensitive or intellectual soul—an animal. He therefore thinks that the one first God, ruler of the others, fixed to the outermost heaven, moves it by himself, as the other intellects move their own spheres, and that they are

the souls of those very spheres, as St. Thomas also admits in secundi contra gentiles capite septuagesimo. Neither in octavo Physices nor in duodecimo Metaphysices does Aristotle refer human intelligence to any other principle than that first intellect, which by its everlasting power moves the first mobile. A fifth passage occurs in that same book, where he attributes infinite power to the intellectual substances that move the heavens, because they move them for infinite time. A sixth passage is also in that same book, where, as it seems to me, he suggested that God’s providence and the rewards and punishments awaiting the good and wicked in the next life were fables invented to keep the common people in their duty. “The rest,” he says, “has been recounted in fable to persuade the common people and serve the laws and the usefulness of human life.” What, I ask, were those beliefs of the ancients that meet both conditions—that they were handed down for use by the laws and for the usefulness of human life—unless they were the very matters we have set out? Aristotle was unwilling to state them lest he incur the resentment and hatred of good men, especially those responsible for the commonwealth. That Aristotle denies God’s providence over human affairs is asserted by theologians on the highest authority: Clement of Alexandria libro quinto stromatum and Epiphanius in libri tertii adversum haereses capite ultimo What more reliable witnesses could we seek than holy and learned men thoroughly versed in Greek doctrine? Should we also wait for Aristotle’s own testimony about himself? In lib. 12 Metaphysices, in carefully contrived words so that even in this he would not depart from his custom, he taught that it is absurd for God to understand certain things as better to see than not to see. He does not say that it is absurd for God to understand certain things, but to understand or contemplate certain things, as the old translator rendered it, so that what was signified was not so much a simple understanding of lowly things as providence and care for them. He therefore thinks that God cares for great things and neglects small ones. And in the little book De mundo—if the work is indeed his—he makes God like the great Persian king Xerxes, Cambyses, or Darius, who personally performs the greatest and finest duties of his kingdom but entrusts the smaller and baser tasks to others. In decimo Ethicorum libro he says: “If the gods have any care for human affairs, as is thought and believed, it is reasonable that they favor those who love and honor the gods, as being their dearest charges and doing well.” Note his words “as is thought and believed,” and so forth. Diogenes Laertius openly reports that Aristotle restricts God’s providence to the heavens. Learned and weighty men also support with such strong arguments Aristotle’s denial of God’s freedom in natural affairs that it would be superfluous for me to repeat here arguments readily found in their books. Certainly, when he battles Plato tooth and nail, as they say, over the world’s eternity, he would seem ridiculous if he made the author of nature free. What of his indignation at the prosperity of the wicked, which in secundo rhetoricorum libro he says pertains to good morals? What of his prescription in septimo Politicorum libro that nothing naturally defective, diminished, or deprived should be brought up—that is, so the commonwealth would not lose its proper form and appearance through an excessive number of children? For the same reason, he thinks fetuses should be destroyed and abortion performed before animation; but after they have received life, he considers it impious to touch them.

What of the infinite multitude of souls, which Aristotle must admit lest he fall into Pythagoras’s μετεμψύχωσιν? Once this is admitted, since he thinks there cannot be infinite bodies, he will not accept the article of the resurrection that has been demonstrated. Moreover, Aristotle posited two principles, God and matter, for he did not acknowledge the creation of things from nothing. Reader, do not disregard as insignificant witnesses to this matter Clement of Alexandria and Epiphanius; I do not know whether they are not the most weighty witnesses of all. I state more cautiously that these were Aristotle’s views because of St. Thomas, who is usually almost a patron of this philosopher. But most learned doctors prove that he held these views, and I have followed them on this point. If someone should compose an apology for Aristotle’s view, I would not greatly contend with him. I ask only that the reader grant me, if possible, that Aristotle erred in these passages. If St. Thomas makes this impossible, at least grant that Aristotle must be read cautiously, as inconsistent and slippery, or that some of his opinions must certainly be rejected. Either is enough for me, and each seems more probable; nothing else seems probable. I think I have now explained carefully enough how much force philosophers, whether all together or each separately, have for establishing belief.