How to Think Like Aquinas
Page 19
To conclude then with our heresies, that manatee with a key is sitting in my old chair (56) to remind us of Manicheanism, an ancient species not of sea mammals but of Gnosticism. The miracle drug on TV in the armoire (57) cures both mono and feet to remind us of Monophysitism, which held Jesus Christ had but one (mono) nature (physis), denying His full humanity and full divinity. That nest or ism (or “Nestor is him!” if you prefer) sitting atop the bookcase (58) serves to remind us of the heresy of Nestorianism, which promulgated various erroneous ideas, including that the Blessed Mother was not truly the Mother of God, because she gave birth only to Christ’s human nature, denying Church teaching that Jesus Christ is the Word Incarnate, one person with two natures, and that Mary gave birth not only to a nature, but to the person of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God. Across the room, the portrait by the doorway (59) depicts a pelican aging to remind us of the sound of the name Pelagianism, which held, in effect, that we could earn our own way and fly into heaven even without God’s grace. Our memory tour has reached its end at the study’s closet (60). Surely that opera singer singing a solo from Scripture will call to our minds the heresy of sola Scriptura, that pillar of Protestantism that forgets that “the church of the living God” is “the pillar and bulwark of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15), the pillar and bulwark that provided the Bible itself, under the Holy Spirit’s guidance, with its table of contents.
Location
Image
Heresy
56. Chair before armoire
Manatee with a key
Manicheanism
57. Armoire
Drug on TV for mono and feet
Monophysitism
58. Bookcase
Nest or ism (or Homer’s Nestor)
Nestorianism
59. Portrait
Pelican aging
Pelagianism
60. Closet door
Soloist sings Scripture
sola Scriptura
56. Manicheanism. Taking its name from its Persian founder, Mani (216–274), this religion was a variant of Gnosticism and a precursor to Catharism. It presented itself as in perfect accord with reason and as the logical synthesis of other world religions, comprising elements of Zoroastrianism, which proclaimed dual gods of good and evil, ancient Babylonian mythology, Buddhist moral principles, and some distorted Christian principles. Jesus was seen as a “suffering savior,” but rather than the Word Incarnate, He was regarded as a manifestation of “cosmic light” that was imprisoned in fleshly matter. Manicheanism is important in Christian history partly because of one very prominent former Manichean turned devout Catholic Christian, St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430).
Thomistic thought, as we’ve seen, is poles from Manicheanism, since it recognizes the goodness of the matter and spirit in which God made us as ensouled bodies. Further, the Word Himself was willing to take on a body for our sakes. Do you recall the time when Thomas was so lost in thought at the table of St. Louis, King of France, that he smashed down his mighty mitt upon the table and bellowed out, “And that will settle the Manicheans!” Perhaps Thomas’s arguments did indeed settle them. At least we don’t see a formal Manichean religion in our world today, though various elements of gnostic thought remain.
57. Monophysitism. This heretical view was espoused by Eutyches (378–456), an archimandrite (superior of a monastery) outside the great walled city of Constantinople. Monophysitism proposed that Christ had only one (mono) nature (physis) after the Incarnation. Christ, in this view, was not fully God and fully man because it was believed that “the human nature ceased to exist as such in Christ when the divine person of God’s Son assumed it” (CCC 467). It was a variant of another form of monophysitism called Apollinarism or Apollinarianism espoused earlier by Syrian bishop Apollinaris (310–390), who held that Jesus could not have had a human mind. When Apollinarianism was condemned at the First Council of Constantinople in 381, it was said that the heresy portrayed Christ as tertium quid, a “third thing” neither man nor God. Eutyches’s later version of monophysitism arose in response to, and as an overreaction to, the previous heresy of Nestorianism, which we will flesh out below.
58. Nestorianism. This heretical view was espoused by Nestorius (386–451), archbishop of Constantinople. He denied the validity of Mary’s title Theotokos (God-bearer or Mother of God) by arguing that she gave birth only to Christ’s human nature. Nestorius argued that she should actually be referred to as Christotokos (Christ-bearer or Mother of Christ). At the Council of Ephesus in 431, St. Cyril of Alexandria responded: “If any one does not confess that the Emmanuel (Christ) in truth is God and that on this account the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God (Theotokos) — since according to the flesh she brought forth the Word of God made flesh — let him be anathema.” The dogma confirms that Mary was truly a mother, giving birth not to just a “nature” but to a human being who was the Second Person of the Trinity. And so, it’s not just about an appropriate honorific for Mary; it’s about safeguarding the full meaning of the Incarnation. Nestorianism was condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431, and Monophysitism was condemned twenty years later at the Council of Chalcedon.
Thomas explained these issues in great depth in the Summa Theologica, part III, in fifty-nine questions with hundreds of articles addressing Christ, including the thirty-six articles of questions 2 through 6. He also addressed these issues sublimely in his explications of the first verses of John’s Gospel in his Commentary on the Gospel of John.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains these issues at length in paragraphs 464–478 and provides a terse summary in paragraphs 479–483. To summarize briefly, it teaches that the Word of God become incarnate and assumed human nature without loss of His divine nature, being true God and true man with two natures, one divine and one human, united in the one person of God’s son with a human intellect and will perfectly attuned to His divine intellect and will that He has in common with the Father and Holy Spirit. In sum: “The Incarnation is therefore the mystery of the wonderful union of the divine and human natures in the one person of the Word” (483).
59. Pelagianism. The British theologian Pelagius (360–420) promulgated a heresy that is in some respects the polar opposite of Calvinist and Jansenist views that would spread many centuries later. Whereas Calvin and Jansenius would, in effect, overemphasize our innate sinfulness as expounded in St. Augustine’s writings on original sin, Pelagius nearly completely discounted it. Whereas the Jansenists would deny the power of our cooperation with God’s grace through the use of our free will, Pelagius held that, in effect, we could raise ourselves to heaven by our own bootstraps, God’s grace providing just an extra, nonessential boost! Pelagius, influenced by Greek philosophers, including the Stoics, who had no notion of original sin, held that we are born morally neutral but can attain heaven by following the model and example of Christ through the exercise of our own natural powers and virtues.
At the Council of Carthage in 418, Pelagianism was condemned in a series of propositions that make clear the reality of sin and the need for God’s grace for the forgiveness of past sins, the avoidance of future sins, and even for the performance of good works.
St. Thomas addresses the necessity of grace again and again, specifically in the ten articles of question 109 in part I of the Summa Theologica: “The Necessity of Grace.”
60. Sola Scriptura. I refer to this heresy as sola Scriptura rather than as a last ism, though it could be cast as either Biblicism or Protestantism, because it refers to the foundational Protestant view that “solely Scripture” or “the B
ible alone” is the infallible guide to faith. The dissident English Catholic priest John Wycliffe (ca. 1320–1384) was among the first to spread this view, which denied the teaching authority of the Catholic Church through the pope and the Magisterium, and it led to the doctrine of private interpretation of Scripture under each person’s guidance by the Holy Spirit. That doctrine should seem rather disconcerting on the face of it. Consider the vast number of contradictory and conflicting interpretations the same Holy Spirit apparently guides different people of different Protestant denominations toward in matters as vital as what we must do to be saved and whether, once saved, we can lose our salvation. It also leads to conflict over infant Baptism, and the nature and validity of all of the sacraments, including Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist.
This subject is vast. A great many books have been written on the topic of sola Scriptura, and I’ve even included a chapter about it in one of my books.187 To make a very long story short, fatal to this doctrine is the fact that the Catholic Church, founded by Christ upon the rock of Peter (Matt. 16:18), existed hundreds of years before the Church, with the Holy Spirit’s guidance, pronounced the canon of books that the New Testament would comprise (its table of contents). Further, the Bible itself does not teach the doctrine of sola Scriptura, and, indeed, it identifies “the pillar and bulwark of the truth” as “the church of the living God” (1 Tim. 3:15, italics added).
As for thinking like Aquinas on this essential issue, anyone immersed in St. Thomas’s writings will recognize his astonishing knowledge and love of Scripture. There are multiple scriptural references in virtually every article of the Summa Theologica, for example. His magnificent Catena Aurea, or Golden Chain, consists of the text of the Gospels accompanied by line-by-line commentaries by dozens of Western and Eastern Church Fathers and Doctors (which some scholars believe Thomas dictated from memory), and among his own most sublime books is his Commentary on the Gospel of John. Yet this angelic lover of the truth of Scripture was always a lover of that truth’s “pillar and bulwark” as well, writing: “The Universal Church cannot err, since she is governed by the Holy Ghost, who is the Spirit of Truth.”188
182In his Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter to his flock around Easter in 367, Athanasius presented for the first time in history a list of the twenty-seven books that would come to be pronounced by the Catholic Church as the official canon of the New Testament for all of Christianity. (Let’s keep that in mind when we come to our last heresy.)
183Summa Theologica, III, Q. 16, art. 6.
184Chesterton, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 105.
185Having just returned from a trip to Ireland, still fresh in my mind is a famous twelfth-century cathedral confiscated and partially destroyed by the soldiers of Oliver Cromwell in 1530 and later converted to a Protestant cathedral. Crucifixes were replaced by crosses, and statues of saints and angels were removed as idolatrous — only to be replaced over the centuries with statues of political figures and wealthy benefactors! Thankfully, however, the iconoclasm was not complete, as the church is now adorned with beautiful stained-glass windows depicting scenes from the life of St. Patrick.
186Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, Q. 49, a. 1.
187Kevin Vost, Memorize the Reasons: Defending the Faith with the Catholic Art of Memory (San Diego: Catholic Answers Press, 2013), chap. 9.
188Summa Theologica, II-II, Q. 1, art. 90.
Appendix
Mnemonic Master Table
If Simonides was the inventor of the art of memory, and “Tullius” its teacher, Thomas Aquinas became something like its patron saint.
— Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory
Location
Image
Meaning
1. Front Door
Roosevelt speaks slowly; stick
Listen and think before you speak.
2. Doormat
Prayerful hands emit sparks
Live a life of virtue and prayer.
3. Glass panel
Thomas studies in cell; wine bottles
Learn to love the joys of studying.
4. Portrait
Friends smile over book, then argue
Be friendly, but not too friendly.
5. Gun rack
Globe entangles fingers
Don’t let worldly things keep you from higher thoughts.
6. Center of foyer
Christ and saints
Imitate Christ, the saints, and the sages.
7. Chandelier
Tooth held and admired by Mnemosyne
Embrace and memorize important truths.
8. Mirror
Book with legs stands under a power generator
Fully employ your powers of understanding.
9. Cushioned bench
Cupboard rests on base with no ledge
Never cease seeking to build your knowledge base.
10. Drawers
Mentalist fails at trick
Exert your intellect to the max, but know that your powers are not limitless.
11. Center of living room
Man, with vacuum, no, stick
Argumentum ad baculum
12. Picture window
Archaeologist and Homo sapiens
Argumentum ad hominem
13. Sofa
Man ignores ant
Argumentum ad ignorantiam
14. Coffee table
Miser with cord and money bag
Argumentum ad misericordium
15. Big-screen TV
Popular actors argue
Argumentum ad populum
16. Living-room fireplace
Man argues with barracuda
Argumentum ad verecundiam
17. Living-room doorway
Dictator and simpleton
Dicto simpliciter
18. Dining-room doorway
False dice
False dichotomy
19. Head of table
Jeans fall, and you see
Genetic fallacy
20. Center of table
Pacing military general
Hasty generalization
21. Wall thermometer
Hyper people bowling
Hyperbole
22. Seat on right
Petite principal
Petitio principii
23. Foot of table
Posting hockey puck
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc
24. Seat on left
Red herring
Red herring
25. Doorway to family room
Quotation out of con’s text
Quotation out of context
26. Dresser
Dresser is slanting
Slanting
27. Television
Preacher’s special pleading
Special pleading
28. Closet
Stereo typing
Stereotyping
29. Weight bench
Straw man lifting
Straw man
30. Pool table