Scholastica commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologicae

IT IS DOUBTED therefore first concerning the aforesaid conclusion which St. Thomas presupposes: Whether sacred doctrine, or theology, is argumentative? I raise this doubt, not because the arguments on the opposite side carry much weight — since St. Thomas too brought forward two very easy ones — but that I may show how certain it is that sacred doctrine is argumentative, and how pious it is for a theologian to give attention to arguments of this sort.

Let there therefore be the certain conclusion: Sacred theology is argumentative. It is proved first from its own definition. Because sacred doctrine is a true science, which proceeds from revealed principles; therefore it is argumentative. The consequence is proved. Because every science is argumentative. It is proved secondly from that of 2 Tim. 3: All scripture inspired of God is profitable for teaching, for arguing, etc. It is proved thirdly by examples. First of Christ the Lord, the master of all theologians, who often argued from the sacred writings against those who opposed his doctrine. An example occurs when Christ the Lord said (Lk. 6) to the Pharisees: Have you not read this, what David did, when he himself was hungry and they that were with him, how he went into the house of God, and took and ate the loaves of proposition. By which testimony he wished to convince them that it is lawful, without violation of the Sabbath, to rub the ears of corn with their hands, that the hungry might eat. Likewise Matth. 19, the Pharisees tempting him and saying, whether it is lawful for a man to put away his wife for any cause, he answered: Have you not read, that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said: For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Behold, from a place of Scripture he argued to prove that it is not lawful to put away one's wife for any cause. And Matth. 21 he said to the same: Did you never read in the Scriptures: The stone which the builders rejected, etc. And again in the same place: Did you never read, that out of the mouth of infants and sucklings thou hast perfected praise? From which places he argued that he was the Messiah. This same thing the Apostles often did, as is clear in the Acts of the Apostles, and from their canonical epistles, in which they often argue, and from one thing infer another. Examples of which readily occur to everyone who reads. This same office the doctors of holy Church also most often performed for the edification of the Church, as is clear both in their exhortations and also in their writings against the various errors of heretics. Where they argue in many ways from the sacred writings, from the traditions of the Church and also from the authority of the same doctors. For Augustine cites Cyprian and Jerome and Ambrose. Often too they do not reject the use of human disciplines and the authority of philosophers. And in this way is verified what Augustine says, lib. 4 On the Trinity, ch. 1, that to this sacred science it is granted that through it the most wholesome faith be begotten, nourished, defended, and strengthened, and that the Apostle called it by the proper name of science. The conclusion is therefore so certain that I do not hesitate to condemn the opposite as error.