“God, or the mystery of the divine, seems to be at the periphery, if not the center, of every human civilization. Why is this the case? The answer has something to do with our human nature, which is capable of seeking ultimate explanations and that desires the happiness that results from resting in the most ultimate truth” (22).
(1) “Pre-philosophical questions”
Aquinas calls these intuitions of the mystery of God that arise from ordinary human existence (in both our external and internal experience) “pre-philosophical questions” of the human spirit, such as:
1. Our experience of order in the world
This order that remains within or between beings that change and that are interdependent. What is the cause of this ordered-yet-dependent set of realities? If we see order, we know there is an order-er…
2. The basic human experience of time, finitude, and contingency
which confronts us with the fundamental mutability of all things. What, if anything, remains eternally? And what is underneath all that changes?
3. Our natural striving for happiness
On a moral and voluntary level, we strive to find happiness and we naturally to gravitate toward certain goods that they think will procure happiness for them. What is our supreme happiness? Can anything really satiate the human desire for happiness?
On this point, Aquinas writes in Summa contra Gentiles [SCG] I, c. 11: “Man naturally knows God in the same way as he naturally desires God. Now, man naturally desires God in so far as he naturally desires beatitude [or happiness], which is a certain likeness of the divine goodness. On this basis, it is not necessary that God considered in Himself be naturally known to man, but only a likeness of God.”
This suggests an amazing conclusion from White: “That where there are human beings, there will be religious striving for the absolute, and, likewise, to eradicate the natural religious desire for God, one would have to eradicate the natural human desire for happiness, which is indeed impossible” (24).
4. Being and its relation to truth
Or of why things that exist do exist, and the question of their true origin: what is the explanation of all that exists, insofar as it exists? What is it that is “necessarily first” or primary in reality, the ground of all the rest? For whatever this is, it must be the “first truth,” that which is both most enduring and most explanatory with regard to everything else. The mind is animated by a kind of restless desire for understanding that cannot find rest until it reaches knowledge of this first cause.
Aquinas puts the argument this way in SCG III, c. 25: “There is naturally present in all men the desire to know the causes of whatever things are observed. Hence, because of wondering about things that were seen but whose causes were hidden, men first began to think philosophically; when they found the cause, they were satisfied. But the search did not stop until it reached the first cause, for ‘then do we think that we know perfectly, when we know the first cause’ [Metaphysics 1.3 (983a25)]. Therefore, man naturally desires, as his ultimate end, to know the first cause. . . . [So] the ultimate end of man is the knowledge of God.”
And again: “For each effect that he knows, man naturally desires to know the cause. Now the human intellect knows universal being. So, he naturally desires to know its cause, which is God alone. Now, a person has not attained his ultimate end until natural desire comes to rest. Therefore, for human happiness which is the ultimate end it is not enough to have merely any kind of intelligible knowledge; there must be divine knowledge, as an ultimate end, to terminate the natural desire. So, the ultimate end of man is the knowledge of God.” SCG III.
(2) The Paradox of Human Religiosity
In almost every case, we come to reflect upon these “pre-philosophical” questions in a culture where we are already offered answers concerning religion, God, or the absolute. “That is to say, religious rites and practices, beliefs, theological systems, and cultural symbols often contextualize and deeply condition one’s thinking about what is ultimately real” (25). These religions seek to answer our big questions in life, from how we approach God to how we deal with the drama of evil.
Yet we are in a very odd situation. On the one hand, they seem existentially compelled in spirit, both in mind and heart, to ask the question of God, and perhaps even to seek God as the greatest good in their lives. They also have examples and testimonies of religious traditions more or less proximate to them in culture, that suggest to them how they might approach God and what they might expect from him, and these explanations enjoy varying degrees of compelling rationality.
On the other hand, human religiosity seems to be fatally flawed by its ambiguities and by the practical incertitude with which it confronts us. Where might we go to find the words of eternal life? ( Jn 6:68) What is the truth concerning God, the human being, fate, evil, death, the afterlife, moral values, and sacrifice? No one seems to be in perfect agreement on these points. We live in a pluralistic world, and therefore an agnostic one, or perhaps agnosticism is the best response to the dilemma. But then, can or should we abandon the search to gain insight into the mystery of God?
(3) The Catholic Solution
“Classical Catholic Christianity offers a twofold solution to this dilemma, and it is a twofold solution that will be emphasized and developed within this book. It is the solution of the simultaneous interaction, or synergy, of the agency of divine revelation and the activity of human philosophical reason. Revelation and reason, grace and nature, always go both together, never one apart from the other, each being distinct but inseparable from the other, mutually compatible with one another, and complementary.
- Because it is a product of divine grace, Christianity provides a true, reasonable, and ethically noble approach to being religious. Divine revelation does not do away with human religious dispositions and practices, but instead draws them into itself, heals them and elevates them” (29). In Scripture, we see God enter into human history, amidst a plurality of religions, and gradually purifies human religiosity (of various intellectual and practical errors) and elevates human religious life into the sphere of divine grace.
- At the same time, God’s revelation does not call us to abandon the work of human reason but actually engage it even more, as we search for God (grounded, of course, in our knowledge of Scripture, our study of theology, our love of God, and our practice of the sacraments). St. Anselm’s famous dictums are: fides quaerens intellectum (“faith seeking understanding”), and credo ut intelligam (“I believe, that I might understand”). We might also add credo ut sperem et diligam, “I believe, that I might hope and love.”
“Catholic Christianity is the religion that is simultaneously the most reasonable and the most mystical, that is to say, it is the religion that is the most compelling for human rationality, and that at the same time presents us with a truth about God as Trinity that wholly surpasses the natural powers and acquisitions of human rationality” (31).
Prodigal Catholic 