Directed Writing Four

Philip Jahnke

Honors Program

Directed Writing Four

Thomas Aquinas, the First Principle, and the First Condition

Thomas Aquinas uses the first principle and the first condition together with his conviction of the harmony between faith and reason. To understand how Thomas Aquinas uses these things together in his writing a person must understand what he means when he says the harmony between faith and reason. Aquinas considers faith to be the supernatural order. The order consists of God, heaven, angels and other things. Most importantly this order is known through faith in God's revelation. The other order of which Thomas Aquinas speaks is the natural order. The natural order is the world in which humans live. Aquinas says that the natural order is known through reason. Thomas Aquinas also says that since God created both of these orders they must be in harmony with one another. Aquinas combines this conviction with the primary truths. The primary truths being that humans exist, the principle of non-contradiction known as the first principle, and the ability of the mind to know truth also known as the first condition.

Thomas Aquinas uses the first principle, the principle of non-contradiction, to say that since God created both orders, the natural and supernatural, they cannot be in conflict with one another. Aquinas starts out by saying that the "truth of the Christian faith" is beyond the ability of human reason to comprehend. This statement sounds contradictory, but is in fact true because the truth of the Christian faith is from the supernatural order and not the natural order, human reason. It is also true because of the first condition, the ability of the mind to know truth. Since a person's mind knows that it is true it must therefore be true. Thomas uses the first condition and his conviction of the harmony between faith and reason when he talks about a teacher teaching a disciple. He says that the "thing that the disciple's mind receives from its teacher is contained in the knowledge of the teacher." Thomas also says, "...the knowledge of naturally known principles [the primary truths] is instilled into us by God, since God himself is the author of our nature." The connection between these two statements and how Aquinas uses the first condition and the first principle together with his conviction of the harmony between faith and reason is obvious. The obvious connection is that the "knowledge of the naturally know principles" come from God. They come from God because God is both the author of human kind's nature and because God is the teacher of human kind. Since God is the teacher of humanity, he must teach sincerely or the natural knowledge that humans have would not be from him. This would be a contradiction because this author has already established that humanity's natural knowledge comes from God. Another point that can be made here is that anything that is opposed to the primary truths cannot be from God because the primary truths come from God and because of the first principle, the principle of non-contradiction. Since God is the one that made the primary truths part of a human being, Thomas Aquinas says that they, the primary truths, are also part of the "divine Wisdom." This statement again drives home the fact that if something is in conflict with the primary truths this thing cannot be from God. Another way that Thomas Aquinas proves reiterates the fact that humanity's core truths, the primary truths, come from God is when he writes, "Our intellect is stayed by contrary arguments, so that it cannot advance to the truth." He goes on to write that, "...if conflicting knowledges were instilled into us by God, our intellect would thereby be hindered from knowing the truth." This simply cannot be the case because God is the one who instilled in us the primary truths and because it would break, again, the first principle.

To talk more about the natural order, Thomas Aquinas writes that, "Things that are natural are unchangeable so long as nature remains. Therefore God does not instil into man any opinion or belief contrary to natural knowledge." Aquinas goes on to quote from the Bible Romans 10:8, which reads, "The word is nigh thee even in thy heart and in thy mouth. This is the word of faith which we preach." Many readers would conclude that because what he wrote passes reason it must not be true because it is a contradiction. This is not a contradiction because all Christians know that the Bible is the true and inspired word of God. With the belief that the Bible is the inspired word of, Thomas Aquinas concludes "that whatever arguments are alleged against the teachings of faith, they do not rightly proceed from the first self-evident principles instilled by nature." Since the arguments do not come from the primary truths, all people can conclude that these arguments have no power.