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Saint Thomas Aquinas "Nature and Domain of Sacred Doctrine"

Purpose of Thinking

To explain the methods employed in the scripture to reveal God's meaning to man.

Question at Issue (problem)

Specifically set out by Aquinas "In Ten Articles" to determine whether:

sacred doctrine is necessary

it is a science
it is one or many
it is speculative or practical
it can be compared to other sciences
it is wisdom
God is its subject matter
it is argumentative
it rightly employs metaphors and similes (Ninth article)
the sacred scripture of this doctrine may be expounded in different senses (tenth article and the
explanation of 4-fold typology)

Information

In the ninth and tenth articles, the most interesting points of information are Aquinas' use of Dionysius'
previous thought to explain how metaphor is used and Augustine's to expand on the idea of the two-fold
(actually four-fold) way to read scripture. These are supplemented with "proofs" and examples from the
scriptures.

Concepts

(Ninth article) The scriptural use of metaphor allows man, who understands through interpretation of the
physical world, to understand the word of God at a variety of levels. He say that "God provides for
everything according to the capacity of its nature...[and]...it is natural to man to attain intellectual truths
through sensible things, because all our knowledge originates from sense." He explains that we can't know
God at a level beyond our ability or willingness to understand, and so divine truths that we can access have
to be explained at a level we can understand. He also seems to suggest that it would be impossible for
people to understand God in any direct way--it is beyond our comprehension--so, at our level of
comprehension, "what he is not is clearer to us than what he is." Further, the truth behind the metaphors will
not be understood by those who are "unworthy". (Tenth Article) The scripture can be read two ways 1) the
literal which includes history, etiology and analogy 2) and the allegorical which includes three spiritual
senses: allegory, moral, and anagogic. The typology represents a heirarchy of meaning in which each sense
has the complete meaning and therefore no confusions or contradictions exist. The literal is the truth of fact;
the old testament prefigures the new and so is allegorical; the moral is that which "signifies" that which is
"done in Christ"; and the anagogic is allegorical to the "eternal glory," or the ultimate design of God.

Crucial Assumptions

Aquinas discusses Scripture in terms of science because of the assumption of its Truth. A further
assumption based on the form of presentation is that since it is "Truth" it can be explained. Another
assumption is that the scriptures use metaphor to reveal meaning to men and that it can be read on each of
four levels simultaneously.

Implications and consequences

Aquinas sets out the system of four-fold typology which will be used in a variety of forms by Dante, later in
the Romantic period by Coleridge and Carlyle, and in the 20th century by Northrup Frye. Also it seems as

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Comments on Saint Thomas Aquinus' "Nature and Domain of Sacred ... http://core.ecu.edu/engl/kaind/crit/aquitext.html

though in the form, Aquinas pre-figures scientific inquiry, not in subject or substance, but in form--i.e.
"proofs".

Points of View/Influences

One of the interesting things here is that Aquinas uses argumentation in the form of a series of proofs that
resemble scientific inquiry to discuss the form and meaning of scripture. He begins with a series of
objections (the Ninth article specifically dealing with the use of simile and metaphor) to a premise and them
gives a series of replies to the objection. This seems to pre-figure Descartes in the attempt to show that
somehow sacred texts and/or subjects which rest on "faith" can somehow be explored with a scientific
method. It seems more than simply a rhetorical strategy in Aquinas, but as if he really wants to somehow
see a way to prove the unprovable. It's an interesting approach given that little was known "scientifically" at
the time but that the Western impulse to order and scientific inquiry is already apparent. I see a connection
because of this move on Aquinas' part between Greek and Roman forms of argumentation and the
emergence of scientific (empirical) methods of inquiry. One interesting divergence from the Platonic ideal is
that when Aquinas speaks of the scriptural use of metaphor, he suggests that peoples' understanding of
things comes by way of the sensual world, though at different levels. This is how he explains/justifies the
scriptural use of metaphor. At the same time, while he recognizes that people understand things through the
physical world, his argument suggests that the physical world is a metaphor for the "Truth" that rests in the
mind of the Divinity. This does not privilege the world of ideas over the physical world in the same sense
that Plato does but rather puts them in a relationship of one to the other and gives an importance to the
physical world in the way that it reflects, rather than imitates, God's Truth in a way that is accessible to man.

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