MacIntyre, A. C. (2009). God, philosophy, universities: A selective history of the Catholic philosophical tradition. Lanham, Md: Sheed and Ward Book/Rowman & Littlefield.
MacIntyre poses three “internal philosophical challenges” to belief in an omnipotent God: the problem of evil, the independence of human beings, and the problem of describing God within the limits of language. A common theme throughout the book is thus the problem of reconciling “philosophical truth” arrived at by reason and “revealed truth” based on scripture.
MacIntyre provides his “selective history” of philosophical thought, primarily as it pertains to and influenced Catholic philosophy, from Plato and Aristotle (with much on Augustine and Aquinas) to recent times. There is an interesting section on Islamic and Jewish philosophers (the former made me wonder how Islam and Judeo-Christianity became so inimical).
An important point in the chapters on Aquinas is that one cannot arrive at knowledge of God through reason alone (i.e. philosophy or natural science) but only through revealed truth (theology), because only God is both nature and existence and needs no further explanation (p. 76).
In struggling with Aquinas’s interpretation of Aristotle’s ente (actual existing things) and essentia (the essence of things) I found an example helpful: “cat” is an essence, “cat-ness”, or species Felis catus. But it has no concrete existence without particular individual cats, like my cat Mr. Patches, an actual cat who exists in the world. But “cat” is more than an abstract concept because the essence, the category, exists by virtue of particular cats. And all individual cats are “contingent” because they might not have existed at all; they are contingent on genetics, birth, survival etc. Only God is not contingent because He is both essence AND existence, and is not dependent on either a category or individual representatives. Thus “God’s existence is not limited by his essence, as finite beings are … His existence IS his essence” (p. 85).
However, another difficulty I encountered and have not yet resolved is Aquinas’s view of the unity of body and soul AND mind and body: does he see mind and soul as the same thing? (p. 80-81).
In Macintyre’s brief discussion “Aquinas, God, philosophy, universities” (Ch. 11) he notes that for Aquinas, the purpose of education was “the achievement of understanding” and “to develop [students] into self-teachers, such that their exercise of their intellectual and moral powers enables them to become independent theoretical and practical reasoners”. His “ordering of the curriculum” was designed to lead ultimately to “metaphysics and theology” once students had sufficient knowledge and experience to engage it (p. 94-5). But, he makes two points of particular note: (1) as far back as the 13th century, universities were “scenes of recurrent conflict” in both the development of particular disciplines and their relationships to one another, and (2) that many students saw the aim of their studies was to complete them (!) in order to “acquire whatever qualification was needed … to proceed successfully to the next stage in their chosen future career” (p. 93-4). We tend to think of these issues – specialization and professionalization – as recent developments, especially in the US, so it is salutary (and perhaps reassuring?) to realize how long these challenges to “ideal” education have existed.
In chapter 13, MacIntyre seems to tease us with references to the Spanish/Portuguese dominion over Mexico and Peru and subsequent brutality, opposed by Thomist Vittoria and bishop La Casas, with no further detail. Instead, this chapter segues into skepticism and Descartes efforts against it. MacIntyre dismisses Descartes reasoning for the existence of God (and skepticism) rather quickly by saying just because we might doubt (the evidence of our senses or reasoning) there is no reason to assume we are wrong. But, it does not necessarily follow that we are right! However, like postmodernism, the undeniable fact that skepticism doesn’t “go anywhere” is clear (if you can’t know anything, there is no point to enquiry!). This is followed by an interesting account of Pascal’s “wager” on believing in God, which differs from the popular perception that he was just playing the odds.
Chapter 15, which deals with the “new universities” is particularly helpful in clearly setting out the decline of Catholic philosophy and marginalization of theology following the Enlightenment, along with the proliferation of new disciplines. By the first half of the 19th century the university “became a place where it is nobody’s responsibility to relate what is learned and taught in any one discipline to what is learned and taught in any other”, which was “deeply at odds with any Catholic world view and knowledge of the world” (p.135). MacIntyre notes that universities showed “extraordinary intellectual achievement” during a time of “great discoveries” (such as those of Darwin and Mendel) but Catholics were “largely excluded, sometimes self-excluded [but more often] by reason of the Protestant or secular character of modern universities (p. 136). For MacIntyre, the most significant reaction was the founding of a Catholic University in Dublin by John Henry Newman in the 1850’s, which he describes as “the beginnings both of the modern Catholic university and of modern Catholic philosophy” (p. 136). His discussion of Newman in this and the following chapter makes Newman’s thinking and importance clearer than any text I have read to date (although see Collini, 2012, for an interesting critique of Newman). His explanation of “the moral limitations of a university education” and “moral versus aesthetic judgment” (p. 148-9) is particularly enlightening.
MacIntyre concludes with a plea for more integration between the disciplines, and a call for Catholic philosophers to engage, not only with one another, but with those of all faiths and positions.
Questions
- How well do we reconcile faith and reason in our courses, especially in the sciences? Are there courses where it is not really viable to even try?
- If we cannot “reason our way to faith”, how do we talk to students or colleagues who do not have faith about the above question?
- Do we worry too much about the apparently age-old problem of students seeing education solely as a way to get qualifications and advancement (versus seeing opportunities to broaden their minds)?