Integrative and Comparative Biology Advance Access originally published online on June 21, 2008
Integrative and Comparative Biology 2008 48(2):202-212; doi:10.1093/icb/icn059
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Thomism and science education: history informs a modern debate
Department of Physical Science, School of Physical and Life Science, Arkansas Tech University, Russellville, AR 72801, USA
Correspondence: 1E-mail: lkondrick{at}atu.edu
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Synopsis
IntroductionThere is no debate over the Theory of Evolution. Among biologists the Theory of Evolution is a settled principle. Yet, the issue is far from settled in the larger context of society; between sectors of lay society and biological scientists in the United States there is evidence of a deep divide. Faith and reason, religion, and science at odds—that is hardly a recent divide. It is the premise of the author that the origin of the current conflict over the teaching of evolution stems from a fundamental philosophical divide that began long before Darwin first proposed his Theory of Evolution. It predates the inclusion of physical and biological sciences in the curriculum of western universities. It is older than either Islam or Christianity. The conflict goes back to Plato's Academy in 385 BC where the schools of Idealism and Realism first emerged as two distinct philosophical systems. Idealism and Realism diverged over essential issues of philosophy: What are we, what is true, and how do we know? Answers to these questions about the natural order are framed within philosophical constructs, themselves based upon essential assumptions about the essence of being, the essence of truth, and the nature of learning. Idealism and Realism developed independently for over 1500 years into two competing schools: the Augustinians (fundamentally Idealists) and the Latin Averroists (fundamentally Realists). It was over the place of natural philosophy in the curriculum that these two competing schools collided violently at the University of Paris in 1252. It was Thomas Aquinas who brokered a ceasefire between two embattled schools. Aquinas forged a philosophical system, called Thomism, that allowed the two schools to agree to disagree to the extent that in the graduate curriculum of the University Natural Philosophy could be taught apart from theology. This separation of secular or natural philosophy from theology opened the way for the development of the empirical sciences, the effects of which are evident today. All but forgotten, however, is that Thomism provided a system for resolving the disparities between these two separate ways of knowing, not by compartmentalizing them into separate domains, but by proving the domains to be philosophically complementary, creating a holistic framework in which to reconcile apparent conflicts between theology (religion) and natural philosophy (science). The essence of this historic compromise and its implications for the teaching of the Theory of Evolution form the core of this article.
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Introduction |
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Today there is no debate over the Theory of Evolution such as occurred in the 19th century. Among biologists today the Theory of Evolution is a settled principle. By the early 20th century, Taylor (1939
) had declared that: "The conflict of Science and Authority ended with the Evolutionary Controversy in the ‘seventies’ [1870's]. Since that time the scientific method of objective observation, experiment and statistical examination has invaded every department of knowledge" (p. 310). However, it is evident today, at the beginning of the 21st century, that the controversy over the Theory of Evolution, over science and authority, persists in the lay community. A topic of discussion in the Chronicle of Higher Education (2001) posed the question: "Does intelligent design deserve more support within academe?" This query was based upon the claim that "A growing number of scholars are embracing the theory of ‘intelligent design’ which holds that the universe is too complex to have developed in such a sophisticated way without help from some external agent." Granted, this description may be an oversimplification of the theory of Intelligent Design, yet the statement reveals that in the larger context of society the debate over the Theory of Evolution is far from settled.
On one side of the debate are politically active proponents of Creationism and Intelligent Design who persistently challenge the Theory of Evolution by insisting on the right to teach in the public schools their faith-based alternative explanations for the origins and diversity of life on earth. They insist that they have a constitutional right to teach Creationism or Intelligent Design alongside the Theory of Evolution. On the other side of the debate, the biological community has responded by actively resisting this threatened incursion of religion into the science classroom. Forrest and Gross (2004) exposed these political activists not as proponents of freedom of religion and freedom of speech, as claimed, but as opponents of science, or at least of the separation of science and religion. According to Scott (2005), maintaining this separation of science and religion is the essential issue in resisting the political agenda of these activists.
Keeping religion out of the science classroom, however, does not necessarily keep conflict over the Theory of Evolution out of the classroom. Classroom walkouts staged to protest the teaching of evolution in an undergraduate biology class spurred Kondrick and Lovely (2005) to study the relationship between religiosity and students’ learning. They found that students were impeded in their study of evolution when they struggled with conflicts between religious beliefs and science. Winning court battles to keep religion out of the science classroom is a hollow victory if the minds of the students in those classrooms remain closed to science.
Faculty who teach evolution may find themselves unprepared to understand how it is that the minds of students, particularly those from fundamental evangelical backgrounds, can remain closed to the Theory of Evolution even when presented with the overwhelming scientific evidence of its validity (Kondrick and Lovely 2005). Faculty faced with these classroom issues should be aware of the underlying philosophic issues in the intrapersonal conflict between science and religion that these students experience. Opening the minds of these students to the evidence for evolution requires strategies to help them understand the nature of the conflict they experience as well as alternatives for resolving it. Resolving these internal conflicts should be no more difficult than resolving the external conflicts between the separation of religion and science. That compromise was forged in 1252 at the University of Paris, over 800 years ago by Thomas Aquinas (Taton 1963).
To understand this Thomist strategy for the resolution of conflict, it is necessary to understand the underlying philosophic issues regarding truth and authority that divide science and religion. Both religion and science are ways of knowing, ways of interpreting the world and human experience, ways of arriving at what is believed to be true (Scott 2005). Some scientists may object to the word truth in regards to science, but as Eugenie Scott explained at a roundtable discussion at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, either evolution did occur or it did not; either the historical records in the earth that confirm the Theory of Evolution exist or they do not. Both alternatives cannot be true. It is in this sense that truth is meant here. Others may object to religion or theology being treated as a philosophy, but many historians and philosophers recognize that those distinctions were not always clear (DeWulf 1956; Davies 1998; O’Daly 1998). The distinction in this article is between theology as a form of moral philosophy and science as a form of natural philosophy.
In relationship to truth, religion and science operate upon two very different systems of logic. Religion, like mathematics, operates upon the deductive method of arriving at knowledge (Manktelow 1999). Religious reasoning begins with what it knows or accepts to be true, such as sacred texts and divine revelation (Davies 1998; Scott 2005). This divine truth is then applied to explain particular matters of both the spiritual and natural worlds. For instance, theologians and other religious leaders use those truths to decide whether or not stem-cell research, cloning, or birth control are acceptable practices. Within a religion, the foundational truths do not change, but the understanding of the world may. For instance, at one time the Roman Catholic Church did not accept the theory of a heliocentric solar system. It now does.
Scientific reasoning, on the other hand, operates upon the inductive method (Alioto 1993; Scott 2005). It begins with observations of the particulars and uses the scientific method to build a model of what the governing principles must be. It may also use deductive logic to test the theories that are induced but it begins with the particulars, with evidence, and is therefore an inductive process (Manktelow 1999). For instance, Antoine Lavoisier observed many chemical reactions under controlled conditions. Data from these reactions were analyzed to induce the theories that led to the Law of Conservation of Matter, a model used in inorganic chemistry to balance chemical equations. This model is true only to the extent that it is consistent with the evidence. As more evidence is acquired, scientific models change over time. For instance, it was later found that the Law of Conservation of Matter had to be amended because it was proven that it did not hold true for nuclear reactions in which matter can be converted into energy. The model was expanded to include all situations in which conversions of mass and energy occur; it is now known as the Law of Conservation of Mass and Energy.
Science and religion, then, are two very different ways of knowing, each with its own limitations. Science begins with observations of the particulars to induce the general principles that guide behaviors of natural systems. The inverse of this process is the model that governs religion, which begins with the general principles and applies them to the particulars. According to Scott (2005), one of the problems with religion as a way of knowing is that there is no outside referent to verify the validity of those foundational truths from which all else is reasoned. The limitation of science as a way of knowing is that it cannot tell us about anything except the natural world of mass and energy (Scott 2005). Given these two very different ways of knowing, their limitations, and the different realms in which they operate, the conclusions of religion and science are bound to conflict from time to time.
Indeed, disagreements between science and religion have resulted in a long history of conflicts over evolution as well as a host of other issues. It is the premise of the author that this current conflict has evolved from an even deeper struggle between the competing philosophies built upon these two systems of logic, these two ways of knowing. Deductive and inductive logic were first systemized in ancient Greece where they emerged in the schools of Idealism and Realism.
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Origins of Idealism and Realism |
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The origin of the current issue over the teaching of evolution stems from a fundamental philosophical divide that began long before Darwin first proposed his Theory of Evolution. It predates the inclusion of physical and biological sciences in the curriculum of western universities. It is older than either Islam or Christianity. The conflict goes back to Plato's Academy in 385 BC when the schools of Idealism and Realism first emerged as two distinct philosophical systems. Idealism and Realism became distinct as they diverged over essential issues of philosophy: What are we, what is true, and how do we know? Answers to these questions about the natural order were framed within philosophic constructs, themselves based upon essential assumptions about the essence of being, the essence of truth, and the nature of learning. Differences in these assumptions arose between Plato and his student Aristotle. Their philosophies began side by side with subtle differences in their fundamental premises, differences that would grow to magnanimous proportions. These same essential differences are evident today in the divide between religion and science in the western world.
Before differences in science and religion could emerge, a distinction between the two had to develop, a distinction that was centuries in the making. According to Taylor (1963), more than 400 years before the dawn of Christianity the natural philosophers had begun to search for a rational scientific method to answer questions of philosophy and science. Socrates (469–399) rejected the prevailing Sophist philosophy of skepticism and relativism. According to Benson (1998), he rejected the idea that the right conduct of life was a relative matter. The Sophist's pragmatic, existentialist view of life was not for him; his quest was for a moral philosophy (Benson 1998). He sought to discover absolute values, perfect truth, by a method of questioning called the dialectic. His student, Plato (429–347), adopted this method in his search for perfect truth (Macnamara 1999). Plato's quest led him to the development of a system of philosophy called Classic Idealism.
Classic Idealism is defined by basic assumptions about reality and truth. In regards to the nature of truth and knowledge, Plato believed that truth is a priori, meaning that humans are born with the knowledge of the "universal mind" within. It was the shock of birth, he claimed, that makes a person forget that first knowledge (Taylor 1963). According to Ozman and Carver (1995), Plato believed that the role of the teacher was to serve as a midwife to draw out that innate knowledge; the purpose of the individual was to search for that truth and serve the common good of the brotherhood. In regards to the nature of reality, Plato believed that only the perfect "forms," pure abstract ideas, are real; the material world is not (Macnamara 1999). For instance, an apple, no matter how unblemished, was imperfect, being part of a perishable system, and therefore not real. The senses, also a part of the perishable world, were not to be trusted (Alioto 1993). According to Ozman and Craver (1995), in order to cross the boundary of the low estate of the perishable material world to the high estate of pure ideas, Plato used the dialectic to engage his students.
Plato's most famous student, Aristotle (384–322 BC), developed a distinct philosophy called Classic Realism, which is also defined by basic assumptions about truth and reality. According to Upshur et al. (1995), in regards to reality, Aristotle rejected his mentor's premise of a fixed universal reality. He believed in a symbiotic relationship between the realm of pure ideas and the material world (Macnamara 1999). According to Alioto (1993), Aristotle believed in the duality of existence; rather than rejecting the body, he believed in a complementary relationship between mind and body. The senses could be used to investigate the material world while the operation of the mind could use that sensory information to lead one to knowledge of the world of ideas (Macnamara 1999). Ideas were the ends, investigation of matter was the means. In regard to truth, Aristotle believed that pure ideas (forms) might be free from material existence, but matter could not exist without an associated form (Furley 1998). Individual material specimens were considered manifestations of a form, or abstract idea. For instance, by examining many specimens of apples, one could induce the essence, the form, of appleness; one could distinguish it from the form of peachness. The study of particular objects could thus be used to induce the form of the matter; conversely, the form of an object could be used to deduce truth about a particular object. Observation and contemplation, sensation and abstraction, were combined in the Aristotelian method (Alioto 1993; Ozman and Carver 1995).
This method would grow into the scientific method of modern western science (Alioto 1993; Furley 1998). Although his philosophy became distinct from that of his mentor, Aristotle himself never practiced a truly inductive method of science (Alioto 1993). Aristotle continued to explain the phenomena of the physical world through inductive thought experiments rather than controlled scientific experiments (Furley 1998). For Aristotle, the a posteriori nature of knowledge came from reflection upon that which was observed. True experimental empiricism would not emerge in the western world for more than 1000 years.
Nonetheless, the seeds of an empirical science were sown by Aristotle, who 12 years after the death of Plato established his own school, the Lyceum. Aristotle fled the Lyceum upon the death of Alexander the Great, student and protector of Aristotle, and himself died a year later in 322 BC. Students of both the Academy and the Lyceum continued to nurture the seeds of empiricism in ancient Greece until the Lyceum folded about 269 AD and the Academy was closed by Justinian in 529 AD (Alioto 1993). Although many of Aristotle's manuscripts were lost over the centuries, the foundations of his philosophical system continued to grow, but not in the western world. They would be nurtured in eastern lands to return centuries later.
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Emergence of Christian Idealism |
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According to Upshur et al. (1995
), as the Roman Empire declined, the empire of the institutionalized Roman Catholic Church rose to fill the power vacuum. Efforts to codify the essential ideas of the Christian faith spawned theological debates and political intrigues; the church that had survived centuries of persecution now found its greatest enemies within. Therefore, church fathers sought to clarify church dogma and defend it from pagan heresy; the Council of Nicaea (325 AD) was an historical landmark in this move toward standardization of dogma (Alioto 1993; Upshur et al. 1995).
St Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, (354–430 AD) was a powerful figure in the intellectual development of this early European culture, and a renowned theologian of Christian doctrine. According to Emilsson (1998), Augustine's philosophy evolved from neo-Platonism, a Romanized version of Plato's system that prevailed in the 3rd to 6th century Graeco-Roman world. Augustine's Christianized version of neo-Plantonism is variously called Religious Idealism or Christian Socraticism. In fact, the secular world, even today, does not generally recognize a distinct system of philosophy called Augustinianism (Upshur et al. 1995). Such was the goodness of fit between the Augustinian church theology of the 4th century AD and Platonic Idealist philosophy of 5th century BC (Macnamara 1999).
This Bishop of Hippo encouraged the formation of monastic communal societies that practiced a rigorous discipline of the flesh, revealing a sympathy with the philosophy of Plato regarding the nature of the body and its senses (Augustine 1950; Upshur et al. 1995). In his version of Christian Socraticism, he asserted that humankind is on a quest to regain its estate in the presence of the ultimate good (Augustine 1950). To know God, to deny the flesh, to perfect the Body of Christ: these were the Christian versions of the Platonic Idealist philosophy (Ozman and Carver 1995; Emilsson 1998). In Augustinian philosophy, God was the pure spirit and ultimate good that Plato sought (Macnamara 1999). The body was part of the degenerate trinity of the world, the flesh, and the devil (Carré 1943). The soul was redeemed to take its place in the trinity of the Godhead (Augustine 1950). As in the Platonic system, the body and the soul had to be separated in the process of coming to know perfect truth (O’Daly 1998). The believer must not be individual-minded but community-minded: this was another Platonic ideal that fit well with the Christian doctrine of the Body of Christ. These elements of Platonic Idealism became institutionalized in the philosophical system of the Roman Catholic Church as well as in the political system of the Holy Roman Empire (Upshur et al. 1995). Christian Socraticism pervaded all aspects of life in the western world well into the middle ages, including politics and the curriculum of the western universities (Taton 1963; Alioto 1993).
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Aristotelian system in exile |
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The ideas of Aristotle were not stillborn in the cradle of Greek civilization. While Europe was throwing off the yoke of the great Roman Empire and donning the harness of an institutionalized monastic religion, the ideas of Aristotle were being nurtured in Jewish and Muslim lands (Jolviet 1998
; Sirat 1998). Eastern scholars preserved classic Greek writings that may have otherwise been lost during the extended reign of Socraticism in Europe (Alioto 1993). The texts were translated into Aramaic and Arabic by scholars of the Eastern lands (Sirat 1998); later, direct translations would be made from the original Greek to Latin (Jolivet 1998).
One of the most erudite of Jewish Aristotelian scholars of medieval times was Moses Ben Maimon, (Maimonides 1135–1204), a Spanish rabbi often referred to as "the Commentator." According to Upshur et al. (1995), Maimonides "wrote treatises on the empirical method that criticized the still authoritative opinions of classical Greece .... His analysis of the connection between revelation and reason was soon adopted by Christian thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas" (p. 344). Not all Jewish philosopher theologians, however, embraced the Aristotelian system. According to Sirat (1998), the Jewish community was divided between neo-Platonism and Aristotelianism. The problem arose over conflicts between faith and reason and the question as to whether or not the two could be allowed to disagree. If they were allowed to disagree this implied the possible existence of double truth, defined by Alioto (1993) as "Two incompatible assertions [that could be] held to be true at the same time" (p. 129). This problem of the double truth also played a prominent role in the position of Muslim scholars when debating the merits of the Aristotelian system.
One of the Muslim scholars who helped to preserve the Aristotelian system was Abu-I-Walid ibn Rushd (Averroes 1126–1198), an Islamic judge. Scholars vary on whether or not Averroes held to the doctrine of double truth. Alioto (1993) claimed that Averroes resolved the conflict by maintaining that faith and inductive reason (science) operate in separate realms. According to Upshur et al. (1995), however, Averroes " ... argued for the necessity of harmonizing revelation and reason" (p. 345). Regardless of whether or not Averroes compartmentalized his faith and reason, the problem of the double truth that plagued Jewish scholars was also a problem for Muslim scholars and clerics.
Aristotelianism would present no less a problem for western scholars, particularly for Christian clergy. It was through the work of Averroes, Prince of the Learned, that Christian scholars of the Roman world were re-introduced to the Aristotelian texts (Upshur et al. 1995). Aristotelians in the West were later called the Latin Averroists, a largely Christian group of thinkers whose beliefs ran counter to the prevailing Augustian thought in the western world of the high middle ages.
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Return of the Aristotelian system |
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The opportunity at last arose in the 13th century for the return of the Aristotelian system to the world of western science, then under the control of the Augustinian system that dictated the curriculum at the University of Paris. The stage was set for the conflicts that arose between Platonic and Aristotelian systems of science. Taton (1963
) neatly summarized the precipitating factors:"At the beginning of the thirteenth century, three new factors came to affect the development of medieval science. These were the founding of the universities, the rediscovery of Aristotle and the educational concerns of the mendicant orders ... Paris was the constant object of papal concern and became the theological and Dominican center of Europe." (p. 487)
Aristotle's ideas had found favor with the Latin Averroists of 13th century Europe just as the western universities were being established. So it was at the dawn of the 13th century that a shift in philosophical paradigm was occurring in Europe. The University of Paris quickly rose to be the primary center of learning, attracting many scholastics, the teaching clergy of the Roman Catholic Church. Among the scholars of the university were Augustinians who were fundamentally Christian Idealists; others were Latin Averroists, students of the Aristotelian system. Some of the scholastics were not committed to either of these schools of thought; the most renowned among them was Thomas Aquinas who held one of the Dominican Chairs at the University of Paris (De Wulf 1956). Like the Latin Averroists, Aquinas was greatly influenced by the works of Aristotle (Macnamara 1999).
Like the Jewish and Muslims scholars who had preserved Aristotle's work, Latin scholars had problems in reconciling the philosophy of classic Aristotelian Realism with their faith (Taton 1963). This new system of logic could not be readily assimilated into church theology as Platonic Idealism had been by the Augustinians. Aquinas, a powerful logical thinker, could not deny the truth he found in the ideas of Aristotle (MacIntyre 1990). Neither could this man, a faithful Dominican friar, completely accept the premises of Aristotle (Thomas 1945).
According to MacIntyre (1990), radicals among the Latin Averroists were determined to take the Aristotelian system to its rational limits. As teaching clergy under the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, however, the scholastics were not free like the Muslim Aristotelians were to treat theology and natural philosophy as separate genres (Carré 1943). Christian theology in the western world had evolved such that these two subjects, theology and natural philosophy, were indivisible when Aristotle's ideas emerged in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Paris in the 13th century (MacIntyre 1990). Yet, according to MacIntyre (1990), strict interpretation of Aristotle had led the radical Latin Averroists to deny the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, an essential Christian doctrine. This made them the enemies of the Augustinian theologians who governed the University of Paris. The Augustinians were determined to eradicate this threat of heresy (Taton 1963). Therefore, according to Taton (1963): "Inside the universities, the Faculty of Arts, receptive as it was to the new ideas, was at loggerheads with the Faculty of Theology, the guardian of orthodoxy. Theologians [Augustinians] were responsible for banishing Aristotle's natural philosophy and all commentaries on it from the University of Paris (1210-15)" (p. 488). They were unsuccessful, however, and by 1252 the Latin Averroists had again gained favor among many of the scholastics, so on waged the battle.
Conflict of Augustine versus Aristotle
MacIntyre (1990) summarized the metaphysical inconsistencies between the Augustinian Christian and the Classic Aristotelian viewpoints:
"Where Aristotle asserted the eternity of the world, Christianity assigns to it a beginning at the moment of creation; where Aristotle ruled out the separate immaterial existence of the individual soul, and where Averroes’ interpretation of the De Anima, although it left room for the resurrection of the dead, reinforced the denial of any survival of the soul apart from the body, Christianity was committed to belief in such survival." (p. 107)
These incongruities were compounded by three cardinal differences in epistemology and axiology. First was the question of how people come to know. Augustine answered: by divine revelation. The mind, he asserted, was not capable of knowing except by supply from above (Augustine 1950). Whereas, according to Aristotle, coming to know was, "... the actualization of what is already present in potentiality in the intellect" (MacIntyre 1990, p. 109). Second was the understanding of truth. Augustine spoke of truth as a substance; Aristotle spoke of truth as an attribute. According to MacIntyre (1990): "Aristotle locates truth in the relationship of the mind to its objects, Augustine locates it in the source of the relationship of finite objects to that truth which is God" (p. 110). Third was the concern about defect and error. Augustine (1950) blamed intellectual error on moral defect; a mind in union with God could not be in error (Augustine 1950). According to Catholic theology, only creatures with a free will could commit sin. MacIntyre (1990) pointed out: "Aristotle, like every other ancient pre-Christian author, had no concept of the will and there is no conceptual space in his scheme for such an alien notion in the explanation of defect and error" (p. 111). Rather, Aristotle believed that morality was a growth process; humans acquired virtue as they learned truth (Furley 1998).
The two schools of philosophy clearly operated by different standards. No compatible framework of logic existed for reconciliation of the two camps. MacIntyre (1990) interpreted the impossibility of compromise between the two ideologies thus: "There was no neutral standard since all three key areas of disagreements are part of a systematically different and incompatible conceptualization of the human intellect in its relationship to objects, to the passions, to the will, and to the virtues" (p. 111).
Each of these schools of philosophy, the Augustinian Christians and the Christian Aristotelians, was well entrenched in its own tradition. Staunch Augustinians could not reconcile the incompatible standards of evaluation and explanation they encountered in debates with consistent Aristotelians (MacIntyre 1990). In fact, the two philosophies, as separate systems, could not be reconciled so that theology and philosophy remained one organic unit (De Wulf 1956; Taton 1963). Aristotelian philosophy, if recognized at all, had to be recognized as a branch of knowledge separate from theology (De Wulf 1956). This implied that philosophy would be allowed to disagree with theology. This implication that truth was not absolute and that a double truth would be allowed to exist formed the crux of the problem. The argument was ultimately over the nature of truth and the locus of authority: What was truth if science and faith were allowed to disagree? Which would be the final authority?
Debate: faculty of arts curriculum at the University of Paris
The advances of Aristotelian ideas into studies within the Faculty of Arts at the University of Paris forced a bitter debate over the structure of the curriculum. At this time, about 1252, the undergraduate curriculum consisted of the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and the dialectic) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music theory). This program prepared students for the study of theology, the only graduate curriculum. If Aristotelian philosophy was to be included in the curriculum, where was it to be placed?
De Wulf (1956According to MacIntyre (1990"Was this a development, an offshoot from dialectic, so that all philosophy should be found in the trivium; or are all the liberal arts no more than a preparation for philosophy, which [should be inserted] ... between the quadrivium and trivium below, and theology above?" (p. 79)
), Aquinas’ position was that the seven liberal arts did not adequately divide theoretical philosophy. The conflict that arose over these debates about curriculum required a new bridge between the methods of reason and the role of faith in the quest for knowledge and truth.
Compromise: resolution of faith and reason
While caught in the midst of the curricular debate at the University of Paris, Thomas Aquinas struggled with proponents on both sides of the debate. He was positioned between the consistent Aristotelians and the die-cast Augustinians (Taton 1963). Aquinas was the most articulate of the scholastics who held to a synthetic view of the debate (DeWulf 1959). He held sympathies for both; yet neither camp had sympathy for the compromise of the scholastics that he advocated (De Wulf 1956).
In the Summa Theologica, his most famous treatise, Aquinas developed a unique organic system of philosophy that was distinctly different from both Platonic Idealism and Aristotelian Realism (Thomas 1945; De Wulf 1959). It was a blend of the two, yet with some uniquely Christian tenants. Upshur et al. (1995) likened the compromise that Aquinas built to the Gothic architecture of Medieval Europe: "It was, both physically and spiritually, an ordered unity like that of Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica ... combining several distinct but related elements into a structurally coherent whole" (p. 226). This synthesis of Idealism and Realism, Plato and Aristotle, provided the foundation upon which a resolution of the problem of the double truth was artfully constructed; a domain in which faith and reason were housed, not in segregated, but in complementary spheres of influence.
Aquinas constructed his viewpoint by examining the weakness of each competing philosophy (Grabman 1963). According to MacIntyre (1990), he judged Augustinianism by its standards; he judged Aristotelianism by its standards. He integrated the two in a way that allowed a compromise to be brokered between the two camps that were entrenched in their own traditions. There was simply no other way to reach a compromise that would allow them to agree to disagree except through a new synthesis forged by a third party, the synthesis of Thomism. MacIntyre (1990) summarized the essence of the Thomist synthesis thus: "So an Aristotelian account of nature, both theoretical and practical, was not merely harmonized with an Augustinian supernatural theology but shown to require it for its completion, if the universe is to be intelligible in the way in which parts relate to wholes" (p. 123).
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Synthesis of the philosophy of Thomism |
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What are we? According to Pegis (1948
), Aquinas found that the errors of Augustinian thought were to be traced to errors in Plato's construct of the nature of being and the nature of knowledge. Aquinas, in regard to the Plantonic position held by the Augustinians, objected to the disregard of some part of the creature, namely its body, and the treatment of the remaining creature as though the whole being consisted of one of its parts, namely the soul. He argued that the body cannot be denied as an integral part of the essence of being. In his Summa Theologica, he proved deductively that the mind, soul, and body form an integrated composite being. Humankind, he argued, was both body and soul. According to Pegis (1948), Aquinas considered it illogical to conclude that the sum of the two makes one. "Man is rather a unity in the sense that he has to act through several powers at the same time" (Pegis 1948, p. xxi). To say that a human is a composite being meant: "Though man is composed of soul and body, the body exists in and through the existence of the soul" (Pegis 1948, p. xxii).
What is truth? Thomas Aquinas (1945) resolved the issues of mind in relation to objects by separating the relationships into two kinds: The soul has a priori knowledge of God; or by way of a secular interpretation, the soul has an inherent knowledge of universal truths, the Platonic forms. In its natural state, it has the capacity to recognize, but not to encompass, perfect or universal truth (De Wulf 1959). The body has, through sensation and abstraction, a posteriori knowledge. Aquinas asserted that the soul has been endowed with the pattern by which it recognizes being. The body has been endowed with powers by which it experiences the essence of being (Pegis 1948). Being and essence, he argued, were inseparable aspects of existence. He reasoned that, if being and essence are inseparable, then so are a priori and a posteriori modes of knowing (Pegis 1948).
Thus, he argued, knowledge (truth) may be of the natural or the supernatural type. Humans come to know the world through a "twofold process of sensation and abstraction (Thomas 1945; De Wulf 1959). Human knowledge of reality moves to a greater completion by revelation of God's word in the Scriptures, tradition, and the teaching authority of the church" (Gutek 1983, p. 46). Gilson (1940, p. 251) interpreted Aquinas to say that "The soul, when separated from the body, must be capable of direct knowledge of the intelligible, he [Aquinas] adds that the state in which it then finds itself is no longer its natural state." In pursuit of knowledge the soul is capable of transcending its natural state. This state may be a higher, more noble state, "but it cannot be the soul's natural mode of knowing" (Gilson, p. 251).
How do we know? Aquinas viewed the intellect as a complement of the body-soul composite. Aquinas looked upon this relationship of intellect to body-soul as a comprehensive design. Intellect and the body-soul composite, he argued, cannot operate apart from one another. The intellect, he reasoned, needs the body-soul for its operation and vice versa. Pegis (1948) expounded upon the profound implication of Aquinas’ deductions:
"We are now standing in the presence of a philosophical decision which is unique in history. To say that man must do a spiritual work as an incarnate spirit is to say that as a knower man is a composite being. Where the Platonic knower is pure reason, and the Cartesian knower (is) a pure mind, the Thomistic knower is, as knower, the composite of soul, and body .... Man as a knower must be partly material in order to be adequately a knower .... The Thomistic man is a knower rather than a thinker, and he is a composite being rather than a mind." (p. xxiii–xxiv)
According to the Thomist synthesis, the resolution to the problem of the double truth was this: When science and religion disagree, there are three plausible explanations: either science does not yet have all the evidence, or religion has failed to accurately interpret the sacred texts, or neither science nor religion has arrived at the fullness of knowledge, perfect truth. Ultimately, when science has all the evidence and when we know God as we are known by God, science and religion must come to agree. This was the basis of a holistic approach to the separation of science and religion, allowing a temporary separation until the whole truth can become known.
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Outcomes of the Thomist synthesis in the western science |
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Thomas Aquinas through the philosophical work of his treatise, the Summa Theologica, synthesized a new philosophical system that allowed Christians within various philosophical camps to agree to disagree on the roles of faith and reason in searching for answers to questions about the natural order. It solved the problem of the double truth with which Christian, Jewish, and Muslim cultures had struggled. The outcomes of this historic compromise had immediate and far-reaching effects that were both political and personal in nature. Politically, it provided the rationale for a holistic view of science and religion that allowed the two to be temporarily compartmentalized, thus allowing science to enter the University curriculum. Individually, it allowed the devout of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian faiths to pursue an empirical science without automatic penalty of heresy.
In the mid-13th century at the University of Paris, natural philosophy was added to the curriculum of the Faculty of Arts. Metaphysics (theology) was distinguished from natural philosophy. Within the next 400 years, with the evolution of the inductive method, the natural sciences were gradually added to the quadrivium. One outcome was that the original arts liberales became the prepatory curriculum for the natural sciences of law and medicine (Taton 1963). As regards the separation of religion and science, theology gained distinction as a separate study, but lost its position as the ultimate study. The curriculum lost central coherence, but gained diversity.
Aquinas himself, however, did not get to see the harvest of his labor. Thomism was not fully accepted by the Roman Catholic Church until the 14th century (Taylor 1939). Acceptance of Thomism by the Roman Catholic Church opened the doors to Aristotelian philosophy in western universities, but by no means did it end the conflict between the roles of faith and reason in science. The basic elements of Thomism hinge upon the nature of being, the essence of truth, and the method of acquiring knowledge. The system built upon Thomist understandings of these basic elements came under attack during the Copernican Revolution of the 16th century and the ensuing Age of the Mechanical Universe rooted in the 17th century. By the 18th century, the Thomistic system was further relegated to a small circle of scholastics in the Age of Enlightenment. Today it is virtually unknown outside of Roman Catholic universities.
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Implications of the Thomist synthesis in a modern context |
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The unique synthesis of Idealism and Realism that became known as Thomism held elements of each, yet it is was more than the sum of the two. According to the Thomist view, Idealism did not give proper place to the body in the experience of being human. Realism did not give proper place to the soul in the experience of being human. Neither ideology gave proper place to the spirit in the experience of being human. Both Idealism and Realism fell short of the Thomist construct of the individual as a composite knower with both a priori and a posteriori knowledge.
This philosophical synthesis has implications for the current conflict between religion and the teaching of evolution. It explains the underlying issues regarding the origin of the separation of science and religion in the classroom. Understanding these core issues may offer a framework for bridging the gulf between science and society over this issue, but more pertinently, today it offers a framework for individual students to resolve internal conflicts. It also provides context to science faculty endeavoring to understand the internal conflict that certain theories of science, like evolution, induce in some students. Students who feel they must choose between faith and reason, between religion and science, can be introduced to another alternative, a holistic paradigm that allows the two, science and religion, to complement one another.
Bridging the divide
Understanding this historical analysis may enable individuals to bridge the divide between science and religion. Historically the Thomist synthesis opened the doors for science to be taught apart from theology. Grabman (1963) stated that, "In bringing together faith and reason, philosophy and theology, Thomas accorded to profane knowledge, philosophy, a sphere of its own, as well as its own principles and method" (p. 93). That sounds like Aquinas was espousing a compartmentalized view of science and religion, but Grabman goes on to say that, "He [Aquinas] does not share the aversion to profane study so frequently noticeable in the well-meaning but short-sighted theologians of the pre-Scholastic and early scholastic periods. A thorough study, a profound examination of creation is for him, not a hindrance to Christian views, but a powerful aid" (p. 92).
Today the holistic Thomist synthesis offers a framework for bridging the gulf between science and religion, particularly in regard to hot topics that involve the origin of mankind. Kondrick and Lovely (2005) found that many students feel they have to choose between faith and science when faced with issues such as the Theory of Evolution. They surveyed undergraduate students before and after a semester of biology or zoology that included teaching the Theory of Evolution. They discovered that questions involving issues of human origins tended to have a "wedge effect." Students who were originally undecided before the course were as likely to move away from a scientific view as toward one and a significant number of students who originally gave a correct scientific response actually shifted toward a scientifically incorrect response consistent with a creationist viewpoint. The authors concluded that when students perceive a conflict between religion and science, they may choose to ignore logical conclusions based upon scientific evidence in favor of responses consistent with a creationist viewpoint.
Yet, when asked about how they resolved the issue of final authority when faced with perceived conflicts between religion and science, Kondrick and Lovely (2005) found that these same students tended to move away from dogmatic positions where only religion, or only science, was credited with providing reliable knowledge. They moved toward either a compartmentalized view in which conflicts were perceived to arise simply because science and religion inform from different perspectives, an Aristotelian position; or toward a holistic view in which a complete picture of reality was needed to integrate both areas, a Thomist position. The difference is that the compartmentalized approach allows multiple, opposing truths to exist without a framework for eventual resolution, whereas the holistic approach allows the resolution of conflict to be deferred until such time as integration can be achieved. They found that the strongest movement was toward the holistic or Thomist position (Kondrick and Lovely 2005).
Thomas Aquinas believed that truth is not relative (De Wulf 1959). In a modern context, this means that either evolution has occurred or it has not; either life was created by an eternal omnipotent god, or it was not. According to Thomsim, there can ultimately be no disagreement between science and religion. Therefore, if there is a perceived conflict between science and religion regarding what is true, one or both of the following must be true: (1) science lacks some crucial evidence, and (2) religion has not accurately interpreted the articles of divine revelation. This Thomist solution represents a holistic rather than a compartmentalized approach to the resolution of conflict. The history narrated in this article informs science educators that this is a critical distinction for students who come from a fundamentalist religious tradition that is not tolerant of the multiple truths implied in a compartmentalized, Aristotelian resolution. For them truth must be absolute. For these individuals, a Thomist solution can allow science and religion to disagree temporarily, without the contradiction of a double truth.
Reflection on teaching practices
This study also informs future research into the development of effective practices for teaching science. It is the position of this author that teaching methods, which acknowledge the conflicts that students experience in the study of evolution will be more successful with students from fundamental religious backgrounds than will methods that ignore or dismiss the problem of the double truth. Pretending that the barrier is not there is not likely to help anyone to overcome it. Based upon the historical analysis of the present article, teaching strategies that attempt to dismiss these conflicts by offering a compartmentalized solution are not likely to be successful in opening a mind fixed upon the need for absolute truth. The compartmentalized view, espoused often by scientists, states that science and religion inform from different perspectives, implying that it is, therefore, acceptable to hold two different views of the truth. This was the Latin Averroists’ position that was so abhorrent to the Augutinians; today it is no more palatable to a religious student with fundamentalist leanings.
It is recommended that strategies be developed that enable students to resolve their own faith-based conflicts by informing them about the philosophical nature of the conflict in an historical context. Students who are looking for a way to believe both in the findings of science and in their religious faith without fear of automatic heresy may find resolution in a holistic construct. It offers them a more palatable solution than does the compartmentalized view that limits religion to one area of their lives and science to another in a manner that permits double truths. Understanding this distinction should be of value to all who teach science and encounter students who have difficulty in reconciling their conflicts between religion and science.
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Footnotes |
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From the symposium "Evolution vs. Creationism in the Classroom: Evolving Student Attitudes" presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, January 2–6, 2008, at San Antonio, Texas.
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