Scholasticism, Dominic, and Thomas

   The eleventh and twelfth centuries saw the rise of the universities. The early part of the middle ages was dominated by a theology that was monastic in nature but not necessarily systematic in nature. It’s emphasis was devotion and contemplation. In the thirteenth century there was a shift. What arose from that shift was perhaps the most enduring and influential period of theology in the history of the Church. It endures to this day and is traditionally championed as the method par excellance of the Church. It is known as Scholasticism and it refers to the method of pursuing the higher philosophical and theological things.      The Scholastics were driven by a desire to unite faith and reason, seeking to put reason at the service of faith. They used philosophy as the handmaiden of theology. The harmony that developed as a result of the properly ordered union of these two things profoundly influenced the thirteenth century. At the fore, of this work was a blossoming mendicant order, The Friars Preachers, otherwise known as the Dominicans.      St. Dominic the founder of the The Friars was born in 1170 in Old Castile, Spain. He grew up during the flowering of the Scholastic movement. Sixty-one years earlier the first Scholastic had died. Not however, before demonstrating the importance of using reason in the exploration of philosophy and theology. In perhaps, his most famous work the Saint explored through question and answer, the reason for God taking on human flesh. St. Anselm later developed a rational proof for the existence of God. This proof is commonly referred to as the ontological argument. St. Anselm died in 1109, however, his work became a part of the great Scholastic discussion. Another of the early Scholastics was St. Peter of Abelard. Abelard was born thirty years before St. Dominic. He said of himself, “of all philosophy, logic most appealed to me…To study logic I travelled-a wandering philosopher in the manner of antiquity-to every center of this science that I heard praised.” Abelard was most famous for Sic et Non, which he opens with a testimony to the pursuit of intellectual excellence, which in part says: “…By raising questions we begin to enquire, and by enquiring we attain the truth…” In Abelard and Anselm we see the flowering of Scholasticism. This was the world that St. Dominic entered into.      At the age of seven St. Dominic was sent by his family to Gumbel d’ilan. There he stayed with his uncle, a priest. He learned Latin, logic, and altar service. At fourteen, Dominic attended the university of Palencia.  He immersed himself in such works as the conferences of Cassian, the Gospel of Matthew, and the Epistles of St. Paul. All of which inspired his pursuit of truth. His sense of wonder and his desire for the pursuit of higher things began at an early age and it was this reverence for study which inspired him to enter the priesthood in 1195.     St. Dominic spent his life defending the faith. He did so through the use of faith and reason. For this reason, he was often viewed by heretics as an enemy to be eliminated. The Order of Friars Preachers began to take shape when St. Dominic was forty-six years of age. While in Toulouse, he and some brothers who had taken up the habit and surplice of the Augustinian Canons, as he had, were preaching to both heretics and the faithful alike. When they were finished St. Dominic said “that he had been the first master of the Friars Preachers.” The order itself had as it’s end the sanctification and salvation of souls. It attempted to accomplish this mission in a manner that no previous order had. St. Dominic combined the principles of evangelical poverty, the contemplative life, diligent study of truth, and missionary preaching and evangelization. Blessed Humbert wrote: “Study is not the purpose of the Order, but it is the supreme necessity for the prescribed end, namely, preaching and work for the salvation of souls, because we could do neither without study.” His vision for the order was that they would preach and teach the truth throughout the world. This presupposes a proper education in theology and philosophy on the part of those who preached and taught. In part, his goal was to reach the thinkers among the heretics and to refute their irrationality. In it's early stages the Dominicans were fighters of heresy-erroneous ideas about revelation.      The primary enemy for the Dominicans of this time was the Albigensian heresy. The Albigensian's preached dualism. They thought that there was a creator of all that was good and a creator of all that was evil. They did not believe that hell existed, rather, we were living in a type of hell now. They also believed that the escape of the soul from the body was the great end for the human person. All of which is contrary to the teaching of the Church. Were it not for the teaching and preaching of St. Dominic and the Order of Preachers, it is possible that this heresy may have overrun the Church. The holiness and brilliance of Dominic and the Order were able to stem the tide of the Albigensians.      The motto of the order was Veritas - Truth. The Friars Preacher filled a void in the universal Church. Embracing and promoting an early form of Scholasticism, the Friars were an enigma. It was known to many as the “order of truth.” Pope Clement IV commenting on the order said “Your Order is a fortified city which guards the truth and welcomes the faithful through its open portals.” The response to the Dominican Order was overwhelming. Wherever Dominican houses were born, Scholasticism rose and defended the faith. St. Dominic’s attention to first principles led to a profound understanding of the human person or Imago Dei-Image of God. He recognized the human capability to know the truth and to act on the truth once he knew it. His love for people, for truth, and above all for Jesus Christ, drew many men and women to the order. Including men and women such as St. Agnes, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Hyacinth, St. Louis deMontfort, St. Martin de Porres, St. Pius V, and of course St. Thomas Aquinas.      If the Dominican’s were the order of truth it is easy to understand why St. Thomas Aquinas was drawn to it. While studying philosophy at the university in Naples he encountered the holy and Scholastic nature of the Dominican order. Drawn to it he received the Dominican habit in 1244. He studied under St. Albert the Great. St. Albert was perhaps one of the great Scholastics in the history of the Church and were it not for his prized pupil, perhaps it would be his work that is frequently referred to in order to systematically pass on the faith of the Church. Nevertheless, St. Thomas went on to become a model Dominican.     St. Thomas was perhaps the master Scholastic. Like St. Dominic before him he understood the necessity of lecture, disputation, and preaching of the revealed truths both natural and supernatural. He gave himself to the life of prayer and pursued truth in light of his union with the inner life of the Holy Trinity. He demonstrated his use of the Scholastic method, considering things in the form of a question in much of his writing. Of this method St. Thomas says: : “The Scholastic disputation aims not simply at removing error, but in instructing the listeners and bringing to them the understanding of the truth in question. For this it is necessary that the argument base itself on proofs that show the root of the truth, and show us how and why the thesis is true. If on the contrary, the professor decides the question simply by citing authorities, the listener may satisfy himself that the thesis is true, but he will not acquire any science or understanding and will walk away with an empty mind.” St. Thomas was a zealous pursuer of truth. He desired above all things to love God above all things and believed that the more one knew about a person, the more fully and freely that person could be loved. As a result he rejected arguments based solely on authority, regardless of who the authority was.      Most of the teachers in the universities at France and Oxford, were of the Mendicant Orders. St. Dominic and his Order of Preachers heavily influenced the university system. St. Thomas was no different. He taught at Naples. In 1259, St. Thomas was called to Rome. For nine years he taught, lectured and wrote as theologian of the Papal Court. Applying his understanding of the Scholastic method to everything that he did. St. Thomas was responsible for writing more than sixty separate works. The most widely known is the Summa Theologica-Summary of Theology. This work is perhaps the most complete work of Catholic Theology ever written. While at the same time a it is a summary of Christian Philosophy. He also wrote the Summa Contra, Gentiles-Treatise on the truth of the Catholic Faith against unbelievers, a commentary on the Sentences, the Catena Aurea, and a series of sermons he gave was later commended to writing in the form of a catechism. His preaching, writings, and manuals were generally the primary source for teaching the faith to teachers and priests, throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth century. Perhaps the most notable of his works are his commentaries on Aristotle.      Ten years into his life as a Dominican St. Thomas encountered Aristotle. During this time Arab interpreters were presenting Aristotelean principles into European universities. One of the primary foes of St. Thomas was Averros. The result of Aristotle’s purely rational attempt to explain the universe and man’s end, was perceived as worldliness in his work. Rejecting Aristotle for this reason alone however, is the great error of far to many men. It requires the divorce of faith from reason. In Aristotle, St. Thomas, discovered true principles of reason that enhanced the understanding of revelation. In regards to this, St. Thomas says; “They hold a plainly false opinion who say that in regard to the truth of religion it does not matter what a man thinks about the Creation so long as he has the correct opinion concerning God. An error concerning the Creation ends as a false thinking about God.”      To understand St. Thomas’s approach to Aristotle we ought to recall the motto of the order “Veritas!” The appeal of Aristotle to St. Thomas, certainly was not one of authority. Neither, was it the preference of one philosophy over another. Rather, in Aristotle he found a truth that supported and was, in a number of ways, compatible with divine revelation. In an effort to dispute the erroneous presentation of Aristotelean principles making their way through the university, St. Thomas discovered the truth in them and converted those principles into Christian light. This was not out of some blind love of Aristotle, St. Thomas himself quite clearly chastised “those who vainly endeavor to prove that Aristotle said nothing against the faith…” His work with Aristotle was unique and in many ways incomprehensible. His fusion of seemingly incompatible works is unparalleled. St. Thomas succeeded at “…creating, intellectually and existentially, a foundation upon which the whole orderly structure of the Christian world view could be raised, a structure which continues to serve us to this day, and seems to have a timeless durability.”       In the history of the Church there has been no more unique order. Beginning with St. Dominic and leading to St. Thomas Aquinas. The Friars Preachers have given the Church a timeless and lasting witness to the truth. Perhaps the greatest feat accomplished by the Scholasticism of St. Thomas Aquinas was his ability to form a synthesis on a broad scale of the Church of the East and West as well as the patrimony of Greek Philosophy. Throughout the history of the Church the necessity of studying St. Thomas has been recommended. Pope Leo XII wrote Aeterni Patris in the 1800’s in which he extensively exhorted the Church to remain close to the Scholastic work of St. Thomas Aquinas in it’s teaching. In 1914, Pope St. Pius X wrote, Doctors Angelici, in which he recommends St. Thomas Aquinas as the “supreme guide in Scholastic Philosophy.” Pope St. Pius XI wrote Studiorum Ducem in 1923. Again the entire document was to commend the Church and the faithful to seek a deeper understanding of faith and reason by following the Scholastic work of St. Thomas Aquinas. Even after the Second Vatican Council both Pope Paul VI and Pope St. John Paul the II were convinced that the Scholasticism of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Friars Preachers would bear great fruit in the conversion of souls.      Ultimately, Scholasticism and the Dominican order go hand in hand. The task of the Dominicans was to use their gifts of lecturing, disputing, and preaching, for the salvation of souls. Their pursuit of truth was rooted in a contemplative life of prayer, poverty, and holiness of life. They were not men who wanted to produce a system of learning, they were men who pursued the truth and that truth had a name and a face. The embrace of Scholasticism and it’s lasting mark on the Church can be explained in what seem to be Our Lord’s approval of St. Thomas Aquinas and his scholastic work. While St. Thomas was in ecstasy it is reported that Our Lord said to  him, “You have written well of me. What would you like as your reward?” To which St. Thomas replied: “Nothing other than thee Lord.” We should not be surprised then that Scholasticism and the Friars Preacher continue to serve the Church as a source of renewal.