Nikolai Gibbons

Mountains and Peep Holes

 

The Universal Issue

 

                St. Thomas Aquinas argued that faith and reason must complement each other in his work Summa Contra Gentiles.  His work was written in the mid 13^th century, and his arguments have equal significance in the 21^st century, exposing the same universal controversies.  A modern American understands the conflict of faith and logic equally as much as a 13^th century Italian.  He argues that Aristotle's rational methods of understanding and religion's claims to faith could in fact coexist, despite the objection of other thinkers.  Since Aristotle was a secular figure it further divided the idea of faith and reason being remotely compatible.  Not only could they coexist, argues Thomas, but the two groups of understanding even complement each other.  Thomas endeavors to mend the contradicting issue of faith and reason.  This paper will discuss how Thomas Aquinas used the primary ways of knowing truth to connect faith and reason.

 

God Makes Knowledge Accessible

                St. Thomas makes a powerful argument in the beginning of Chapter VII of Summa Contra Gentiles that God gave revelations to humankind, and those revelations are understood with natural reason.  His third sentence of the chapter reads "Nor is it lawful to deem false that which is held by faith, since it is so evidently confirmed by God" (333).  Thomas states that faith is "evidently confirmed" by God in the tangible ideas and physical objects of this world.  If God indeed made the world then the human understanding of the world cannot possible contradict the understanding of God.  In order to understand faith, reason and the ultimate truth, it is important to accept that the mind has the ability to process and remember truth.  St. Thomas contends that the human mind understands complex ideas by breaking them down to natural reason.  "Therefore God does not instill into man any opinion or belief contrary to natural knowledge" (334).  Thus "...since God himself is the author of our nature.  Therefore the divine Wisdom also contains these principles." (334). God makes his divine knowledge accessible in rational ways, and if either the revealed idea or the rational understanding contradict each other then the idea cannot possibly be true.  Thomas utilizes the common situation of a teacher and a student to help understand of the situation.  He claims that if God gave contradicting truth in his physical creation, he would be corrupt, and God cannot possibly be corrupt.  This argument would not work as well in modern American society since there is not the established cultural authority that God is just, or even that there is a God.  For Thomas Aquinas, the argument that God's knowledge is true as God is true would have made quite the impact for his audience in a theologically steeped society.

 

 Mountains and Peep Holes

                Faith goes beyond reason, but reason cannot contradict faith.   Reason gives a glimpse of the wonderment of faith.  Reason provides a confirming hint for the banquet of faith that humanity cannot fully taste.  It fails to fully explain the vastness of God but gives a small testimony to the larger picture.  Imagine looking at the picture of a mountain range.  From a distance and without any obstructions the whole picture is fully visible.  God is the mountain range understood by faith, and only God can see the entire picture.  Now imagine a paper covering the photograph allowing the audience to see through a dime-sized hole.  This limited view of the mountains can be a good analogy for tangible, finite, human reason.  The audience, through faith, can trust that there is an entire mountain range despite their limited view.  Likewise, using rational thinking, people can choose to accept the greater truth of who God has revealed himself to be.

Parallel to Thomas' argument that faith and reason cannot contradict is this following scenario.  If the image through the peep hole was a beach, then obviously that would be giving a false account of what really lies behind the rest of the paper.  Likewise if reason does not agree with faith then it is giving a false testament to the whole picture of truth.  Thomas stresses and even exhorts that reason cannot contradict faith or that would render one of the two false, and it has to be human reason that is false.  God is truth and thus contradicting faith in God means disagreeing with ultimate truth.  Analyzing further, reason cannot explain all of God's being but it does point to it in comprehensible human ways.

 

God's Truth and Human Reason

                Thomas uses the primary ideas of truth to make the argument that faith and reason must agree with each other.  He uses the first principle of non-contradiction to show that if one or the other conflicts then there is a flaw in the whole understanding of truth.  Therefore since God is truth they must agree, either that or human reason, not faith, must be at fault.  Then Thomas applies the condition of the mind's ability to know truth to explain that God reveals himself to his creation in natural ways of understanding.  St. Thomas uses the principles of truth to make his argument that faith and reason can and do compliment each other.

This writing was done in class based on the following poem.  We had to answer:
1) What is the "startling truth" of which Angelou writes?
2) Do you agree? How do you know?

A Brave and Startling Truth
By Maya Angelou, American Poet, Author and Actress

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth

And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms

When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil

When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze

When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse

When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world

When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.

Directed Writing 3

What is the "startling truth" of which Angelou writes?

 

            In order to understand what the "startling truth" of what Angelou writes I have to decide what she means by truth.  Angelou could be referring to a subjective truth that only applies to her or she could be referring to a provable truth or possibly an absolute truth that applies to everyone. Based on the first stanza of the poem I gathered she was talking about an absolute truth.  This thought was reinforced by the title itself.  Angelou would not call this truth startling if it was not an absolute truth.  The truth would not startle people if it did not apply to them and likewise if they could tangibly prove the truth they wouldn't be startled. 

 

            Maya struggles throughout the poem with the faults of humanity.  She cites examples of death, war, corrupt or fanatical religion and self gratifying actions.  At the same time she contrasts the terrible facets of humanity with the beautiful things that we do.  People have made peace with fellow people, built legendary and awe striking monuments showing human ingenuity, we labor in care for others and people do give up their pride for the greater cause.  As I progressed through the poem I realized Angelou is juxtaposing the good and bad to emphasize the truth she is writing about.  Many of the stanzas start with wicked directions humanity has taken then contrast how we have used the same means to bring peace and beauty.  The startling truth must be that humanity has the ability to live in harmony but lacks the permanent will.

 

            Maya struggles with the postmodern thought that although we know the universe and how it works that does little for the gross injustice committed daily by human kind.  The startling truth which Angelou references is that humanity is the "wonder of this world" and we will eventually come to peace.  Based on the last two stanzas I realized Angelou's startling truth is that humanity must accept what can and should happen, then make it happen. 

 

Do you agree? How do you know?

            Based on Maya's last two lines of the poem I completely disagree with her fantasy that humankind can restore itself to peace.  The lines read:

            That is when, and only when

            We come to it.

The key word is "We."  Angelou believes that humankind can lift itself up.  Unfortunately history repeats itself and not just once but over and over.  Over the recorded history of human kind we have neither completely restored ourselves even for an instant, much less permanently.  Humanity has done great and terrible things, but we cannot make peace permanently.  I disagree based on the fact that we have never been able to restore this creation in the past, thus how can we in the future. 

This Paper Serves No Logical Purpose

 

 

"This sentence serves no logical purpose."

 

                Before analyzing the text prompt "This sentence serves no logical purpose" under the constraints of postmodernism it is important to understand what facets of postmodernism this sentence confronts.  Likewise addressing how the same sentence not only confronts but conforms to the patterns of postmodernism.

 

Definition of Postmodernism

                Postmodernism in theory can't be defined.  Trying to summarize postmodernism in a definition would undermine the very idea of postmodernism.  The word embodies the most recent cultural movement.  It is based on a horizontal hierarchy of gaining knowledge and the push toward more comprehensive thinking.  Horizontally structured knowledge is a way of stating there is less weight put on who is giving the information and their credentials.   Instead postmodern thought gives equal credibility and authority to everyone.  Before the Postmodern movement there was the modernist movement.   Modernism gave the highest priority of determining truth to empirical knowledge.  Science was the end of the argument in modernist social groups.  Society regarded its purpose and goals based on indisputable fact.  In a postmodern society people find that knowing facts and hard data gives little comfort to our higher purpose on this earth and in this universe.  Postmodern thinking attacks issues from many viewpoints and doesn't allow for any overarching truths, since every individual has his own application of truth.  All of the information is essentially relative.  One individual's opinion is just that, an individual opinion.  A person has no obligation to consider another argument for truth in so much they let it.  As the sentence is unpacked in the next section keep in mind the overriding themes of postmodernism; horizontal credibility and comprehensive thinking, all from the aspect of relative communication between individuals.

The Sentence

                The point of writing sentences, paragraphs, essays and stories is to communicate individual opinions to the masses.  The crucial questions for any work of writing: Is this idea important?  Who says it's important?  Why should the idea be shared?  With the postmodern frame of mind the importances of ideas individually and corporately rival each other.  The individual has absolute authority and other outside influences have no authority.  Individual ideas are regarded with utmost importance.  For instance, someone might believe that there is a God and another might claim there is no God.  To each individual their view is of highest significance, when they communicate their idea about God there is no regard for the opposing view.  The progression of knowledge is individually selected.  If understanding is mostly level in a postmodern viewpoint then naturally; who decides in the end what in important and what is not? 

"You may have two degrees, but I read an article on Wikipedia once" (Sherill, 2008).  As this quote illustrates postmodernism doesn't give authority to one person's opinion over another, despite the years of traditional schooling or similar credibility this person may have acquired.  This brings into the debate not only does this sentence serve a logical purpose, but who says what is logical and what a legitimate purpose is?  To a certain individual it may serve a great purpose, even if that purpose is to make logic out of something illogical.  To another individual the sentence may have no significance and thus be a waste of words on a page.  The problem is no one can give more authoritative influence to end the stale-mate of opinions.  There are no points for applying scholarly and universal thinking; just having an opinion is good enough for Postmodernism. 

Finally bypassing the questions of importance; why should the idea even be shared?  The purpose for sharing ideas, and arguably the reason for language, is to change the opinion of both the audience and the artist.  This interaction between individuals and society creates a natural evolution of thought and truth.