Theological Epistemology and Trinitarian Ontology in Aquinas

Wrocławski Przegląd Teologiczny 28 (2020) 1, 85–108 Wrocław Theological Review Giulio Maspero Pontificia Università della Santa Croce, Roma, Italy ORCID: 0000-0001-6827-4436 Theological Epistemology and Trinitarian Ontology in Aquinas Epistemologia teologiczna i ontologia trynitarna u Akwinaty Abstr act: Thomas Aquinas’ theological epistemology is presented as a response to an aporia of classical metaphysical thought, which affirmed the relationality of the episteme but denied that of the First Principle. The path that led from a cause to another cause down to the ultimate cause thus remains without a true foundation. On the contrary, the Trinitarian ontology developed by the Fathers of the Church allowed Aquinas to recognize the foundation of the episteme with its immanent relationality of the triune God. This emerges from his rereading of John Damascene and from how Thomas – contrary to what happened in the thought of Boethius and Richard of Saint Victor – reworked the concept of person so that it could be applied both to man and to God. The very analysis of the act of faith and the rereading of the name Verbum in an exclusively notional sense reveal how Thomas developed a true Trinitarian epistemology as a reflection of his Trinitarian ontology. Keywords: epistemology, Thomas Aquinas, trinitarian ontology, relation, faith–reason Abstr akt: Epistemologia teologiczna Tomasza z Akwinu została przedstawiona jako odpowiedź na aporię klasycznej myśli metafizycznej, która potwierdzała relacyjność episteme, ale zaprzeczała Pierwszej Zasadzie. Droga, która prowadziła poprzez przyczyny do przyczyny ostatecznej, pozostawała bez fundamentu. W przeciwieństwie do tego, ontologia trynitarna rozwinięta przez Ojców Kościoła pozwoliła Akwinowi na uznanie fundamentu episteme wraz z jego relacyjnością w immanentnej relacji Boga Trójjedynego. Wynika to z ponownego odczytania Jana Damasceńskiego i z tego, że Tomasz – w przeciwieństwie do tego, co działo się w myśli Boecjusza i Ryszarda od św. Wiktora – zmienił pojęcie osoby tak, aby mogło być zastosowane zarówno do człowieka, jak i do Boga. Już sama analiza aktu wiary, a także ponowne odczytanie imienia Verbum w wyłącznym sensie pojęciowym ujawniają, jak Tomasz rozwinął prawdziwą trynitarną epistemologię jako odzwierciedlenie swojej trynitarnej ontologii Słowa kluczowe: epistemologia, Tomasz z Akwinu, ontologia trynitarna, relacja, rozum–wiara DOI: 10.34839/wpt.2020.28.1.85-108 © Papieski Wydział Teologiczny we Wrocławiu 86 Giulio Maspero Introduction S ince the beginning of Christian thought the epistemological dimension has been at the centre of dialogue with non-believers. It was not only a question of theoretical research, but above all it was an existential issue, as demonstrated by the works of the apologists. For them, the confrontation with the philosoph ical dimension was literally a matter of life or death. Were Christians “atheists” because they rejected the pantheon of the empire? Or polytheists because they spoke of three divine Persons? And were their angels not analogous to pagan gods? Why did their life clash radically with the religio civilis, to the extreme of martyrdom? Did faith not reduce everything to a superstition that had nothing to do with the scientific research of great metaphysicians? These questions were gradually made explicit and addressed in the dialogue – at times even dramatic – that the Fathers of the Church carried out both ad extra and ad intra. In order to understand the strength of their proposal and the legacy on which Thomas built, it is necessary to start from one observation: in Greek thought the definition of the philosophical enterprise as a reconstruction of the necessary chain which leads to the ultimate cause encountered a checkmate. In fact, the episteme is defined precisely by this research which carried out through the intellect goes back little by little from the world towards the first principle, connected in a single finite and eternal ontological order. Think of the construction of the Aristotelian motors that lead to pure divine actuality of the unmoved motor as thought of thought. The epistemological roots are already constituted in Plato and in his answer to Parmenides, formulated in the Sophist. What is not Being is not necessarily not-being because there is the possibility of being something through participation while not identifying with the metaphysical purity of Being itself. Thus, the relationship between the one and the many goes through the whole search of human thought, as it refers to the existential, and therefore also religious, question of how to be and live in fullness. The Aristotelian formulation, with its clarity, reveals an aporia. In fact, the Stagirite in his work of metaphysical purification arrives at identifying the first principle with the thought that thinks itself and, for this reason, is not related to anything, nor desires anything. It is an image of an autarchic and anorexic god, which, however, goes through a crisis precisely when confronted with the epistemic dimension. By definition science must belong to the relative because it refers to a known object and can be taught.1 Instead, thought is not relative to 1 Cf. Aristotle, Caegoriae, 6b.5. Theological Epistemology and Trinitarian Ontology in Aquinas 87 what is thought,2 just as the first principle is not relational because the relation is an accident and, therefore, cannot be a pure act. This is a constant in Greek metaphysical thought, as shown by the chain of “friends” introduced by Plato in his Lysis, where the aporetic leap is highlighted by the passage from the friend of the friend to the first friend. If I am a friend of wisdom it is because I participate in the friendship of another who is a closer friend than I am, so that I can learn from him. This greater friend of wisdom in turn will depend on the participation of another friend, from whom he has learned, and so on until the first friend who learns from no one, but only teaches. The relationality of the first friends is denied in the principle that originates with them, which, precisely because he is the first, contradicts his own name of friend. Thus, the last passage poses a discontinuity that puts in crisis the whole construction, which cannot continue indefinitely because the only metaphysical order that includes the world and God is for the Greeks finite. The epistemological consequences are serious because the first principle, although necessarily connected to man, is different, equivocal with the search of the thought. In some way the Plotinus’ outcome is here already implicit as he places the One beyond thought and the logos, precisely because the logos, which refers to a thinker or a speaker, should be intrinsically relational. The anthropological translation of the question also highlights its relevance and practicality: man has faculties and virtues, which are for him the way of accessing being, but Being it (...truncated)