Faith and reason for Thomas

This article is based on Arvin Vos's book, Aquinas, Calvin & Contemporary Protestant Thought (Christian University Press, 1985).


It is good to start by pointing out, as Arvin Vos does, some misconceptions of Aquinas taken by some Reformed thinkers as follows: 1) Thomas was a rationalist, 2) Depravity does not affect man’s reasoning powers, 3) faith and reason are separate domains, 4) grace is not necessary for man’s natural powers and virtues, 5) Thomas held a Pelagian view of free choice and grace, 6) Thomas’s view gave rise to secular humanism, 7) Reason is the foundation of faith in God, 8) Grace is superadded to nature, but not essential to it, 9) God’s existence must first be proven before one can properly believe in God, 10) Philosophers can know the essence of God by reason alone, 11) Thomas was an evidentialist in the sense that he felt it is necessary to give reason for believing in God.


According to Thomas, there is in humans a threefold knowledge of divine things. The first is that in which they, by the natural light of reason, ascends to a knowledge of God through creatures. The second is that by which the divine truth, exceeding the human intellect, descends on us in the manner of revelation. The third is that by which the human mind will be elevated to gaze perfectly upon the revealed things. The first knowledge is obtained by reason, the second by faith, and the third by the vision of God in the future life. Thomas regards faith to be a consent without inquiry in so far as the consent of faith, or assent, is not caused by an investigation of reason. Faith and reason are parallel. One does not cause the other because faith involves will and reason involves intellect. Nevertheless, this does not prevent the understanding of one who believes from having some discursive thought or comparison about those things which he believes.


Thomas denies that faith must be based on rationally sufficient evidence. Though he holds that the preambles of faith can in principle be known by unaided human reasoning, Thomas denies that rational knowledge of such matters is a prerequisite for proper Christian faith. In other words, it is to be denied that natural theology must prove the preambles as a necessary foundation for appropriate belief. The preambles are necessary as contents or objects of faith, things that are believed, but not prerequisite as a step in the act of believing. In this vein, Thomas maintains that the proofs for God’s existence, one of preambles, does not serve as a precondition for belief in God, but has only a clarifying role for theology. Thus, Thomas is in full agreement with the Augustinian-Reformed claim that belief in God can be basic.


The relation between faith and reason for Thomas is well depicted in that: 1) there is no conflict or contradiction between them; 2) faith has a certitude which the intellect does not fully understand and come to rest in; 3) the assent of faith is neither a work of reason nor an irrational or foolish act; rather, faith is above reason; and 4) knowledge that is of faith pertains especially to the intellect but we do not receive it as a result of investigation by our reason. Thus, it is fair to say that Thomas’s discussion of natural theology must be seen in the light of his understanding of revealed theology. Natural human reasoning yields only imperfect and limited knowledge, but theology based on revelation surpasses all other theoretical sciences in its certitude and worth.


Furthermore, Thomas’s discussion of faith and reason may be located within the relation between grace and nature: grace restores or completes nature. He does not simply adopt a rational, Aristotelian view of human nature as uncorrupted and then add a treatment of grace. He holds that humans were created in a state of grace and needed grace both before and after the fall. He always holds that, just as faith is above reason, grace is preeminent over nature. He looks like a fideist. However, I would consider him as a moderator who made a balance between two extremes of radical fideism and radical rationalism by defining the act of believing as an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth at the command of the will moved by the grace of God. ‘Reasonable faith’ well summarizes Thomas’s view of faith and reason.


Thomas is not different from Augustinian-Reformed thinkers, like Wolterstorff and Plantinga, in that, for Thomas’s structure of theology, belief in God can be basic and faith is prior to reason in their certitude and worth. It is good to remind that Augustine emphasized both the priority of faith and its incompleteness without the help of reason. Thus, he could say that philosophy does have a role in how the Christian understands the revelation of God. The Reformed epistemology holds that belief in God, like belief in other persons, does not require the support of evidence or argument to show its reasonableness. Thus, Aquinas is in agreement with Augustinian-Reformed epistemology.