Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution

Anchor Books, 1962, 510 pgs.

Summary: Gertrude Himmelfarb (1922 -   ) is an historian of the Victorian period. She is especially concerned with promoting the virtues of the Victorian era in the political and public square and correcting Freudian, Relativistic, and wrongheaded historical research. She and her husband Irving Kristol worked to help develop neo-conservatism in political and academic thought in America. Dr. Himmelfarb is a socially conservative Jew.

Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution is a biography of both Darwin and the Darwinian revolution. The material is laid out with great personal sympathy for Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and should be of much value for those interested in the personality, habits, and family of Darwin.

At the same time Himmelfarb is obliviously not amused by Darwin’s philosophical commitments, his persuasive methods, or the common historical narrative that an onrush of new facts caused the current acquiescence to Darwinism.

According to Himmelfarb, there are deep rational problems with Darwin’s theory. Darwin openly “‘defended the procedure’ of inventing a theory and seeing how many classes of fact the theory could explain” (157).  The correspondence to reality was secondary to explanatory power. The most accurate theory in Darwin’s conception was the one that could explain the most facts under his assumed conditions.

Darwin enframed his theory with two unprovable but compatible assumptions: continuity over catastrophism and “Natura non facit saltum” (Nature does not make leaps). Continuity is the unprovable belief that the physical processes we observe now have always existed and therefore all changes over time must be explained from currently observable phenomena. Its corollary—nature does not make leaps—requires that there is no unobserved power within or without nature that cause anything but incremental change.

These assumptions committed Darwin to progressive evolution rather than devolution. (Some ancient materialists were devolutionists.) He need to begin with the simple and build up to the complex.  Having accepted progressive presuppositions, Darwin then needed a mechanism to explain the origin of species. He landed on natural selection or survival of the fittest augmented with sex selection and environmental adaptation.

Survival of the fittest is at best a tautology: those that survive are fit and the fit are those that survive.  Without the hidden assumption of advancement, it is meaningless. Yet Himmelfarb also notes: “the fittest being presumed in some sense to survive, this itself is not sufficient to insure natural selection and evolution. The struggle for existence as readily have a retarding as an advancing effect upon the species, the fittest at the end of the struggle being less fit than those at the beginning, thus giving no opportunity for the emergence of more fit forms that will constitute new varieties or species. The most familiar example is a war which leaves both victor and vanquished enfeebled” (316).

The theory is further weakened by the constant attempt to explain “survival of the fittest” as if the greatest agent of biological change was the individual.  Yet at the same time there are obvious examples of animals that function at higher levels than the individual—for instance ants and bees produce sterile workers.  This requires Darwin to regularly shift between species survival and individual survival. But the two positions are not mutually compatible.

The same obfuscating can be seen in his understanding of adaptation:

The undisciplined nature of Darwin’s concept of adaption may be seen in his reply to those critics who objected that the same process that might be thought to account for the long neck of the giraffe might also have been expected to produce long necks in other species, the ability to browse upon the high branches of trees being of as much apparent advantage to one quadruped as to another. In a later edition of the Origin Darwin attempted to meet this objection, first by explaining that an adequate answer to this as to so many other questions was impossible because of our ignorance of all the conditions determining the number, range, size, and structure of species; and then by suggesting possible reasons why the giraffe alone developed a long neck, such as that only in that one species were all the necessary correlated variations present in precisely the right degree and at the right time. He frankly admitted that these reasons were ‘general,’ ‘vague,’ and conjectural.’ In fact they were as hypothetical as the hypothesis they were intended to support (318-319).

Himmelfarb writes of his methods and argument:

Darwin’s “essential method was neither observing nor the more prosaic mode of scientific reasoning, but a peculiarly imaginative, inventive mode of argument. It was this that Whewhell objected to in the Origin: ‘For it is assumed that the mere possibility of imagining a series of steps of transition from one condition of organs to another, is to be accepted as a reason for believing that such transition has taken place. And next, that such a possibility being thus imagined, we may assumed an unlimited number of generations for the transition to take place in, and that this indefinite time may extinguish all doubt that the transitions really have taken place.

What Darwin was doing, in effect, was creating a ‘logic of possibility.’ Unlike conventional logic, where the compound of possibilities results not in a greater possibility, or probability, but in a lesser one, the logic of the Origin was one in which possibilities were assumed to add up to probability” (333-334).

“As possibilities were promoted into probabilities, and probabilities into certainties, so ignorance itself was raised to a position only once removed from certain knowledge. When imagination exhausted itself and Darwin could devise no hypothesis to explain away a difficulty, he resorted to the blanket assurance that we were too ignorant of the ways of nature why one event occurred rather than another, and hence ignorant of the explanation that would reconcile the facts to his theory” (335).

“The difficulty with natural selection, however, is that if it explains too much, it also explains toounob little, and that the more questionable of its hypotheses lie at the heart of the thesis. Posing as a massive deduction from the evidence, it ends up as an ingenious argument from ignorance” (336).

“It was probably less the weight of the facts than the weight of the argument that was impressive. The reasoning was so subtle and complex as to flatter and disarm all but the most wary of intelligence. Only upon close inspection do the faults of the theory emerge. And this close inspection, by the nature of the case, was rarely vouchsafed. The points were so intricately argued that to follow them at all required considerable patience and concentration—an expenditure of effort which was itself conducive to acquiescence. . .More important, however, than any assets which Darwin’s theory might be thought to possess was the bankruptcy of his opponents. The only serious rival, as a general theory, was creation. . .And the theory of creation was no more satisfactory than the theory of evolution. Able to defy natural laws whenever it chose, creation was obviously not bound by the usual canons of scientific proof. Any particular hypothesis might be disproved, such as Archbishop’s Usher’s calculation that was created at 8 P.M.  on Saturday, October 22, 4004 B. C.; but the general theory of creation was at least as difficult either to prove or disprove—which comes to the same thing—as Darwin’s theory” (350-351).

Because Darwinism cannot proved or disproved, Dr. Himmelfarb explains the role that particularly evolution and natural selection play in the modern scientific community:

“And a few years ago the professor of zoology at Cambridge posed the dilemma in its sharpest form:  No amount of argument, or clever epigrams, can disguise the inherent improbability of orthodox [Darwinian] theory; but most biologist feel it is better to think in terms of improbable events than not to think at all. . . .

It is no vulgar ‘act of faith’ that is at issue here, no ignoble acquiescence in orthodoxy or submission to an establishment. What is at issue is the faith in science itself, or in what passes as the necessary logic of science. The theory of natural selection is in many respects the ideal scientific theory; it is eminently naturalistic, mechanical, objective, impersonal and economical. A maximum number of phenomena are accounted for in the simplest and most congenial way. “The desire from some such hypothesis,” as the authors of a work on zoology put it, is as powerful a fact in its perpetuation as it has been in its original acceptance. And when there is no alternative, or rather when the alternative is making do without any theory at all, the pull to Darwinism becomes very nearly irresistible. Science abhors gaps in its logical structures as it abhors leaps in nature—and for the same reason. Without the continuum of scientific theory, without the uniformity of nature, scientific knowledge, indeed science itself, feels jeopardized. Scientist cannot long—and a century is long time as the history of modern science goes—live with the unknown, particularly when the unknown resides at the heart of their subject, when it threatens to pass from transient condition of the unknown into the permanent unknowable. Tyndall was once indiscreet enough to write: ‘The logical feebleness of science is not sufficiently borne in mind. It keeps down the weed of superstition not by logic, but by slowly rendering the mental soil unfit for its cultivation.’ The more it is that the mind must be so entirely habituated to the ideas of uniformity and continuity that even in the failure of fact and logic, the faith in science would remain intact (445-446).

Further, she notes that conversion of Darwin and his cohorts from supposed Christian orthodoxy to revolutionary evolutionist was more about recognition than crisis. The philosophical, skeptical, and naturalistic groundwork had been laid several generations earlier throughout Europe.

. . . “Buffon [1707-1788, French naturatilist] planted, Erasmus Darwin [1731-1802, Charles’ grandfather and noted evolutionist] and Lamarck [1744-1829, evolutionist] watered, but it was Mr. Darwin who said “That fruit is ripe,’ and shook it into his lap.” For what they were experiencing was not the shock of discovery but rather the shock of recognition. They were so quickly converted because there was little to be converted to. And those who chose not to be converted were also as quick in their response (448).

Benefits/Detriments: Himmelfarb is eloquent writter and careful researcher, and I share her general assessment of Darwinian theory and the causes of its prominence. The basic take home of the book is that Charles Darwin was a Victorian gentleman, and there is no historical, factual, or rational necessity for Darwinism.

Besides the helpful history and rational critique of the theory, she provides the following statement:

As often happens, victory, rather than abating hostility, had only served to intensify it. [Darwin’s] cousin, Julia Wedgwood, remarked upon the curious fact that his antagonism to religion increased, “while all the apparent reasons for it were vanishing quantities.” In the same proportion, she observed, as the churches approached him in docile and even eager acceptance of his teachings, so he receded from them. “He was far more sympathetic with religion when his books were considered wicked, by the religious world, than when (as was the case for some years before he died), the dignitaries of the Church were eager to pay him the highest honor (386). [quoted from F. Juila Wedgwood to Francis Darwin, Oct. 3, 1884: Cambridge Mss.]

Recommended for high school seniors, undergraduates, and historically minded pastors.

Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity: Books I to IV

London: J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd., 1958, 429 pgs.

Summary: Richard Hooker (1554-1600) in 1584 became the master or rector of the Temple in London. The Temple was a prominent church that was Puritan friendly because of the patronage of a prominent noble and a diplomat. Prior to the coming of Hooker a simpler worship service had been allowed and maintained by Walter Travers (1548-1635). Travers’ ordination was through a continental presbyter, and he refused to be ordained under Anglican orders. He was thus disqualified by the Anglican hierarchy from becoming rector. Travers was left on as a lecturer or reader.

Hooker quickly established the worship of the main church services along the lines of the Anglican prayer book. Travers and the Puritans attempted for a time to run a parallel church service. Hooker and Travers soon began preaching against each other in opposing services leading to charges and counter charges of sin and incompetence. Archbishop Whitgift (1530-1604) silenced Travers and was supported by the Privy Council in 1586.

The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity was the fruit of the public dispute between the Puritans and the Anglican over church polity, the Book of Common of Prayer, and the entailed ceremonies. The main focus of the first four books is epistemology, hermeneutics, and inconsistencies in the Puritan/Presbyterian critique. The three issues are intermixed and the editors have provided citations of Hooker’s quotes and allusions from Travers and Thomas Cartwright’s (1535-1603) defense of Presbyterian practice and government; the critical apparatus from Keble’s Hooker’s Works is also included.

Hooker’s basic argument is that the New Testament is either silent on how the church ought to be ordered or allows modifications from the “historical” commands and examples found in the New Testament. To make this argument, he must first define what law is and how reason and revelation function together to guide the church.

In Hooker’s estimation of things law is embedded in the order of creation: “That which doth assign unto each thing the kind, that what which doth moderate the force and power, which doth appoint the form and measure, of working, the same we term a Law. So that no certain end could ever be attained, unless the actions whereby it is attained were regular; that is to say, made suitable, fit and correspondent unto their end, by some canon, rule or law” (1.2.1, pg. 150).

God lays down eternal law which is “that order which God before all ages hath set down with himself, for himself to do all things by” (1.2.6, pg. 154). The law that orders natural agents is natural law; the angels obey the Celestial law; the law of Reason binds together those that are reasonable. And that which “is not known but by special revelation from God, Divine law; Human law, that which out of the law either of reason or of God men probably gathering to be expedient, they make it a law” (3.1, pg. 155).

Human beings are born without knowledge or intuition and so we must use reason to discern what is best for us. Reason gives us insight into the purpose of the law and the application of the law.

Hooker summarizes:

A law therefore generally taken, is a directive rule unto goodness of operation. . . .The rule of voluntary agents on earth is the sentence that Reason giveth concerning the goodness of those things which they are to do. And the sentences which Reason giveth are some more some less general, before it come to define in particular actions what is good (1.8.4, pg. 177).

Reason is the determining factor in deciding what must be done and if it be good or evil by considering the different laws that we are exposed to—divine, natural, and human. The outcome of reason or the sentence tells us “what must be done; or else permissive, declaring only what may be done; or thirdly, admonitory, opening what is the most convenient for us to do” (1.8.8, pg. 181).

As powerful as reason is human laws (civil/ecclesiastical) are necessary, because we must assume “the will of man to be inwardly obstinate, rebellious, and averse from all obedience unto the sacred laws of his nature” (1.10.1, pg. 188). {This was picked up by John Locke.} Men in general desire their own good above others, and therefore, law must be devised “which all men shall be forced to obey. . .men of common capacity and but ordinary judgment are not able (for how should they?) to discern what things are fittest for each kind and state of regiment” (1.10, pg. 193).

The purpose of divine or supernatural law is to allow man to find his ultimate good in God. Or to order his life in accordance with his heavenly purpose. It is only in the Bible that we discover things “concerning that Faith, Hope, and Charity, without which there can be no salvation” ( 1.11.6, pg. 209). Without God’s law there is no knowledge of man’s ultimate end with God and the means by which it is obtained. Scripture is sufficient for the knowledge of salvation.

The church is a hybrid society, because it is both earthly and supernatural. In as much as the Bible lays down universal laws that cannot be changed, these laws must be followed from Scripture. Yet those laws which “do not always continue, but may perhaps be clean otherwise a while after, and so may require to be otherwise ordered than before; the laws of God himself which are of this nature, no man endued with common sense will ever deny to be of a different constitution from the former, in respect of the one’s constancy and the mutability of the other” (1.15.3, pgs. 221-222).

Hooker sees the main error of the Puritans as misunderstanding the difference between divine law which applies to salvation and the other laws that apply the ordering of the church in the most convenient way. Natural, human, and rational law are subsumed within divine law. “For as they rightly maintain God must be glorified in all things, and that the actions of men cannot tend unto his glory unless they be framed after his law; so it is their error to think that only law which God hath appointed unto men in that behalf is the sacred Scripture” (1.16.5, pg. 227).

In the second book Hooker deals with four texts used by the Puritans to require “that Scripture is the only rule of all things which in this life may be done by men” (Book 2—title, 233). The texts are Proverbs 2:9; 1 Corinthians 10:31; 1 Timothy 4:5, and Romans 14:23.

The primary text comes about by combining 1 Timothy 4:5, “it is made holy by the word of God and prayer,” and Romans 14:23, “For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” Because things are made holy by the word of God, if something is not contained in the word of God it cannot be of faith and is by definition sin.

Hooker responds, “I would demand of them first, forasmuch as the nature of things indifferent is neither to be commanded nor forbidden, but left free and arbitrary; how there can be any thing indifferent, if for want of faith sin be committed when any thing not commanded is done. So that of necessity they must add somewhat, and at leastwise thus set it down: in every action not commanded of God or permitted with approbation, faith is wanting, and for want of faith there is sin” (2.4.3, pg. 242).

Hooker’s frustration is that the Puritan/Presbyterian definition of indifference creates the rhetorical effect of obeying the Bible in all things, but in reality they are forced to be as arbitrary as the Anglicans. The difference is that Anglicans claim that their authority comes from wisdom, civil/church position, and the Bible, but the Puritans claim an absolute biblical.

Which point I wish they did well observe, with whom nothing is more familiar than to plead in these causes, “the law of God,” “the word of the Lord;” who notwithstanding when they come to allege what worked and what law they mean, their common ordinary practice is to quote by-speeches in some historical narration or other, and to urge them as if they were written in most exact form of law. What is to add to the law of God if this be not? When that which the word of God doth but deliver historically, we construe without any warrant as if it were legally meant, and so urge it further than we can prove that it was intended; do we not add to the laws of God, and make them in number seem more than they are? It standeth us upon to be careful in this case. For the sentence of God is heavy against them that wittingly shall presume thus to use the Scripture (3.5, pg. 3-4-305).

Continuing into the third book, the author also points out that the Jerusalem Council forbid fornication, eating meat sacrificed to idols, blood, or meat from animals strangled in Acts 15. The meat sacrificed to idols was now moot, but on the issue of eating blood or meat from strangled animals the Western church had abrogated the command. Hooker points out, “Notwithstanding, as the law of ceremonies delivered unto the Jews, so this very law which the Gentiles received from the mouth of the Holy Ghost, is in like respect abrogated by the decease of the end for which it was given” (3.10.2, pg. 330).

The basic issue is twofold. Hooker defines the church as national and the church has the right to add ceremonial laws, revealed and unrevealed, and to abrogate them based on the end of the law or the intent of the law. “But touching things which belong to discipline and outward polity, the Church hath authority to make canons, laws, and decrees, even as we read that in the Apostles’ times it did. Which kind of laws (forasmuch as they are not in themselves necessary to salvation) may after they are made be also changed as the difference of times or places shall require” (3.10.7, pg. 333).

In the fourth book, Hooker continues to point out inconsistencies in the Puritan/Presbyterian critique of Roman or Roman-like ceremonies within the Anglican ceremonies.

Benefits/Detriments: An enormously influential theological treatises for the English speaking world.

It is extremely important that modern evangelicals and fundamentalists comprehend the accuracy of Hooker’s critique of the Puritan/Presbyterian understanding of “things indifferent” in both church and everyday life. Hooker’s work is a dead letter if we don’t link the impulse of claiming rock music comes from the “pit of [noise]” (Ps. 40:2), super-fecundity from Psalm 127:5, that paddling as the only discipline to Proverbs 22:15, and so forth to this Puritan misstep.

Further, as Oliver O'Donnovan writes on Thomas Cartwright (1535-1603), the continental Reformed did not share share in this Puritan excess:

“In their opposition to external ecclesiastical forms (of liturgy, vestments, offices, and discipline) legislated by Elizabeth's parliament of 1559, Cartwright and Travers repudiated Calvin's notion of ‘things indifferent’ (adiaphora), i.e., not regulated by God's express law, which might be variably decided on other grounds by ecclesiastical authorities, including civil sovereigns. Instead they proposed the comprehensive regulation of Christian action by God's revealed commands, either by his ‘particular’ commands or, in the case of apparently free action, by his ‘general’ commands. On the principle that particular commands elicit the more perfect obedience, Cartwright argued that the church's ministries and discipline are, in all important respects, established by Christ's particular directives, given in the speech and practice of the apostles and evangelists, as recorded in Acts and the Epistles: while ‘unspecified’ details of orders and ceremony, etc., are subject to Christ's general directives delivered by St. Paul” Oliver O’Donovan and Joan Lockwood O’Donovan, From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), 703.

Hooker also pointed out rather firmly that if his guidelines for the changing of ceremonies are not followed, then consistency with both Calvin’s rule and the Puritan modification requires believers’ baptism rather than infant baptism and congregationalism rather than either a presbyter or episcopacy. Hooker’s preface was a careful argument that the Anabaptist’s principles of hermeneutics, ecclesiology, and separation are more coherent than the Puritan argument on these issues.

At the same time, Hooker makes three horrifying missteps of his own. The first is his definition of the earthly church as a national body rather than a local body. The second is to assume absolute abrogation of the ceremonial and civil law of both Old Testament and New Testament.

Thirdly, that New Testament authority exists to abrogate or modify the New Testament ceremonial law.

The examples that he gives are generally the temporary setting aside of a law to meet the overall end of the law. Such examples are not nullification. The intent of the Sabbath and the show bread law was never to weaken the anointed king of Israel and his followers. In situations where strangled slaughter, eating blood or food sacrificed to idols would confuse the gospel, the church should avoid these things. These laws were not abrogated in intention. The need for holy convocations (Lev. 23:2-4) continues (Heb. 10:25). The day of the week may change, but the intent remains the same. The law is never abolished (Matt. 5:17).

He also does not recognize that both the New Testament and Old Testament ceremonial and civil law not only organized the people but communicates particular truths about God and his people. To change a revealed ceremony or to change the revealed civil/church order is to change the truth communicated or to abandon that truth. When the congregation no longer participates in church discipline and electing elders and deacons, the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:9) is suppressed. To allow women to be pastors confuses the historical narrative of the Fall (1 Tim. 2:12-14) and the complimentary order and submission of the Godhead (1 Cor. 11:3). Taking away the cup from the laity or exchanging the bread for apple slices changes the truths communicated.

Further, the entire Old Testament law continues to function as a device to communicate God’s expected moral outcomes for his people. Paul’s casual collation of the Old Testament law in regards to women speaking authoritatively in church (1 Cor. 14:34) and moral law application of don’t “muzzle the ox” (Deut. 25:4) in 1 Corinthians 9:9 and 1 Timothy 5:18 shows that the intent of the law is not abrogated.

Exemplar Quotes:

• LoveMy desire therefore to be loved of my equals in nature as much as possible may be, imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to them-ward full the like affection. From which relation of equality between ourselves, with several rules and canons natural. Reason hath drawn for direction of life no man is ignorant; as namely, “That because we would take no harm, we must therefore do none;” “That sith we would not be in any thing extremely dealt with, we must ourselves avoid all extremity in our dealings;” “that from all violence and wrong we are utterly to abstain;” and such like. . . . 1.7.7, pg. 180

• Epistemology and DoctrineThe truth is, that the mind of man desireth evermore to know the truth according to the most infallible certainty which the nature of things can yield. The greatest assurance generally with all men is that which we have by plain aspect and intuitive beholding. Where we cannot attain unto this, there what appeareth to be true by strong and invincible demonstration, such as wherein it is not by any way possible to be deceived, thereunto the mind doth necessarily assent, neither is it in the choice thereof to do otherwise. And in case these both do fail, then which way greatest probability leadeth, thither the mind doth incline. Scripture with Christian men being received as the Word of God; that for which we have probable, yea, that which we have necessary reason for, yea, that which we see with our eyes, is not thought so sure as that which the Scripture of God teacheth; because we hold that his speech revealeth there what himself seeth, and therefore the strongest proof of all, and the most necessarily assented unto by us (which do thus receive the Scripture) is the Scripture. Now it is not required nor can be exacted at our hands, that we should yield unto any thing other assent, than such as doth answer the evidence which is to be had of that we assent unto. For which cause even in matters divine, concerning some things we may lawfully doubt and suspend our judgment, inclining neither to one side nor other; as namely touching the time of the fall both of man and angels; of some things we may very well retain an opinion that there are probable and not unlikely to be true, as when we hold that men have their souls rather by creation than propagation, or that the Mother of our Lord lived always in the state of virginity as well after his birth as before (for of these two the one, her virginity before, is a thing which of necessity we must believe; the other, her continuance in the same state always, hath more likelihood of truth than the contrary); finally in all things then our consciences best resolved, and in a most agreeable sort unto God and nature settled, when they are so far persuaded as those grounds of persuasion which are to be had will bear ( 2.7.5, 268-269)

• The OT Church Adding to the Ceremonies without Explicit CommandIf all things must be commanded of God which may be practised of his Church. I would know what commandment the Gileadites had to erect that altar which is spoken of in the book of Joshua. Did not congruity of reason induce thereunto, and suffice for defence of their fact? I would know what commandment the women of Israel had yearly to mourn and lament in the memory of Jephpthah’s daughter; what commandment the women of Israel had to celebrate their feast of Dedication, never spoken of in the law, yet their feast of Dedication, never spoken of in the law, yet solemnized even by our Saviour himself; what commandment finally they had for the ceremony of odours used about the bodies of the dead, after which custom notwithstanding (sith it was their custom) our Lord was contended that his own most percious body should be entombed. Wherefore to reject all orders of the Church which men have established, it to think worse of the laws of men in this respect, than either the judgment of wise men alloweth, of the law of God itself will bear (3.11.15, 350-351)

• Adding to the LawWhich point I wish they did well observe, with whom nothing is more familiar than to plead in these causes, “the law of God,” “the word of the Lord;” who notwithstanding why the come to allege what work and what law they meant, their common ordinary practice is to quote by-speeches in some historical narration or other, and to urge them as if they were written in most exact form of law. What is to add to the law of God if this be not? When that which the word of God doth but deliver historically, we construe without any warrant as if it were legally meant, and so urge it further than we can prove that it was intended; do we not add to the laws of God, and make them in number seem more than they are? It standeth us upon to be careful in this case. For the sentence of God is very heavy against them that wittingly shall presume thus to use the Scripture (3.5, pg.305).

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to Reflection in the Formation of a Manly Character, on the Several Grounds of Prudence, Morality, and Religion

London, G. Bell and Sons, Ltd, 1913, 381 pgs.

Summary: Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), the author of the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, recovered from his opium addiction and recorded his insights of traveling from a pantheistic Unitarian as a young man to an evangelical Anglican at the end of his life.

Coleridge’s Aids to Reflection was designed to assist young philosophically orientated pastors and lay leaders in the church of England to overcome modernity and believe and teach “the faith once handed down to the saints.” He organized the book as an unfolding series of aphorisms which introduce the necessary philosophical concepts, reinforces them, and then introduces the theological distinctions necessary for the faith and salvation.

He has four basic insights: ethics from a Christian perspective are found in an ascending chain of prudence, morality, and spiritual religion; understanding and reason are different; the human will is supernatural and therefore outside of natural chains of causation; there is an absolute difference between the material and the spiritual. The latter is the most primary insight.

There are side steps into complex meditations and explanations on understanding figurative language in the Bible, the relationship between understanding and animals, quirky and possibly accurate understanding of the New Testament Greek and how concursus functions, a roughshod critique of Hegel’s dialectic in the footnotes (I think), and at least one joke or insult for or at his reader buried in a four page long footnote (148-152).

Benefits/Detriments: It’s brilliant, witty, memorable, and as far as I can tell almost completely sound in broad outline—though please read Shedd’s warnings in Literary Essays. At the same time self-indulgent and aphoristic.

Part of the hindrance to reading Aids to Reflection is its design to unfold into theological and philosophical illumination for a particular kind of reader. There is a system, but it is based on Coleridge’s heuristic device of aphorisms. Below is my attempt to organize Coleridge into a system independent of the aphorisms. I’ve done so tempt you to become Coleridge’s reader and to justify Shedd’s and my own high praise.

W. G. T. Shedd (1820-1894) describes Coleridge as, “the first Englishman at the beginning of the century, to combat the materialism of Hartley, Priestly, and the French Encylopaedist; and at the close of the century, the distinctions which he laid down, and the positions which he maintained, are still the best answer to the revived materialism of their successors,” Literary Essays (reprint, 1999; Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1878), ix.

Aids to Reflection was first published in 1825 in England and in America in 1829 by Dr. James Marsh (1794-1842). Marsh also wrote the important “Preliminary Essay to ‘Aids to Reflection,’” introducing Samuel Coleridge’s theology to an American audience.  Dr. Marsh (1794-1842) was highly regarded by Shedd and his mentor at Vermont College. Further, Marsh reintroduced the theological posture of faith seeking understanding in the United States. In the “Preliminary Essay,” Dr. Marsh considers the basic tenants of Coleridge’s philosophical theology in a review that Shedd referred to as “thoroughly elaborated, and truly profound estimate of the philosophical opinions of Coleridge” (Literary Essays, 272).

As I concur with Marsh’s review of Coleridge’s philosophical theology, I will only note that Marsh’s purpose in publicizing the work was twofold: his first concern was over forms of fideism that required Christians to believe what they understand as irrational. Coleridge has offered a system which maintains “CHRISTIAN FAITH IS THE PERFECTION OF HUMAN REASON [sic]” (xxxi). The task of the theologian is not to allow reason (or more correctly his reasons) to teach us doctrine, but rather to show that revealed doctrine does not contradict reason.

The second propose was to deal with the interpretive presuppositions of modernity held by secularist and a school of Christian thought about the human mind. This is necessary because the mind is metaphysical, and what the reader believes about the mind then becomes his metaphysical or philosophical system, thus controlling the outcomes of his interpretation:

Those who study the Work without prejudice, and adopt its principles to any considerable extent, will understand too how deeply an age may be ensnared in the metaphysical webs of its own weaving, or entangled in the net which the speculations of a former generation have thrown over it, and yet suppose itself blessed with perfect immunity from the dreaded evils of metaphysics” (xli).

[W]riters now-a-days on such subjects will assure us, that he has nothing to do with metaphysics, but is guided only by common sense and the laws of interpretation (xl).

Marsh is here responding to the:

“doctrines of Locke and the Scotch metaphysicians respecting power, cause and effect, motives and freedom of the will, [creating] . . .no essential distinction between that which is natural, and that which is spiritual, [and] we cannot find rational grounds for the feeling of moral obligation, and the distinction between regret and remorse” (xlix).

In Marsh and Shedd’s understanding Locke and Scottish Common Sense Realism was a reductive response to Hume’s (1711-1776) skepticism. This system was grasped by many Christians to inoculate the church against the rising philosophical materialism and mysticism—in modern parlance secularism, theological liberalism, and incoherent fideism. But by rejecting or modifying traditional scholastic psychology towards materialism, Scotch metaphysicians inadvertently created a system that undermined cardinal doctrines within Christianity and opened the door to pantheism and materialism.

Dr. Marsh believed that the framework presented by Coleridge had the potential of responding to modernity without the liabilities of Locke and his cohorts.

I’ve arranged the rest of this review around Coleridge’s four basic insights: there is an absolute difference between the material and the spiritual; the human will is supernatural and therefore outside of natural chains of causation; understanding and reason are different; and ethics from a Christian perspective are found in an ascending chain of prudence, morality, and spiritual religion.

The Absolute Difference between the Spiritual and the Material

“Whatever is representable in the forms of Time and Space, is Nature. But whatever is comprehended in Time and Space is included in the Mechanism of Cause and Effect. And conversely, whatever, by whatever means, has its principle in itself, so far as to originate its actions, cannot be contemplated in any of the forms of Space and Time; it must, therefore, be considered as Spirit or Spiritual. . .” (44).

“Nature is a line in constant and continuous evolution. Its beginning is lost in the super-natural: and for our understanding, therefore, it must appear as a continuous line without beginning or end. But where there is no discontinuity there can be no origination, and every appearance of origination in nature is but a shadow of our own casting. It is a reflection from our own Will or Spirit. Herein, indeed, the Will consists. This is the essential character by which the WILL is opposed to Nature, as Spirit, and raised above Nature, as self-determining Spirit—this namely, that it is a power of originating an act or state (ftn. 1, Spiritual Aphorism X, Comment, 176).

Self-Inclination of the Human Will

“Now the Spirit in Man (that is, the Will) knows its own state in and by its Acts alone: even as in geometrical reasoning the Mind knows its constructive faculty in the act of constructing, and contemplates the act in the product (that is, the mental figure or diagram) which is inseparable from the act and co-instantaneous” (55-56).

To have a responsible will, one must not only be conscience and make individual choices but also be self-conscious or able to reflect on self as self.

“In irrational agents, namely, the brute animals, the will is hidden or absorbed in the law. The law is their nature. In the original purity of a rational agent the uncorrupted will is identical to the law. Nay, inasmuch as a Will perfectly identical with the Law is one with the divine Will, we may say, that in the unfallen rational agent the Will constitutes the Law” (201).

What Satan achieved at the temptation was to have Adam and Eve contemplate God’s will as potentially different than their will. Once Adam imagined God’s law (announced will) as exterior to himself, he could then contemplate having a will at variance with God. And when he desired this state of affairs, he inclined his will in opposition to God, and God’s law and the ability to love the Lord with all of his being exited with the desire.

To have a free will, or to be responsible for the inclination of the will towards or against God, is a necessary condition of moral responsibility and is created or identified by self-consciousness and the necessary corollary of a conscience.

“That I am conscious of something within me peremptorily commanding me to do unto others as I would they should do unto me ;—in other words, a categorical (that is, primary and unconditional) imperative;—that the maxim (regula maxima, or supreme rule) of my actions, both inward and outward, should be such as I could, without any contradiction arising therefrom, will to be the law of all moral are rational beings;—this, I say, is a fact of which I am no less conscious (though in a different way), nor less assured, than I am of any appearance presented by my outward senses. Nor is this all; but in the very act of being conscious of this in my own nature, I know that it is a fact of which all men either are or ought to be conscious;—a fact, the ignorance of which constitutes either the non-personality of the ignorant, or the guilt, in which latter case the ignorance is equivalent to the knowledge wilfully darkened. I know that I possess this knowledge as a man, and not as Samuel Taylor Coleridge; hence, knowing that consciousness of this fact is the root of all other consciousness, and the only practical contradistinction of man from the brutes, we name it the conscience; by the natural absence or presumed presence of which, the law, both divine and human, determines whether X Y Z be a thing or a person. . . .the senses being morally passive, while the conscience is essentially connected with the will, though not always, nor, indeed, in any case, except after frequent attempts and aversions of will, dependent on the choice. Thence we call the presentations of the senses impressions, those of the conscience commands or dictates. . .but in the fact of the conscience we are not only agents, but it is by this alone that we know ourselves to be such. . . “An Essay on Faith,” in Aids to Reflection in the Formation of a Manly Character, on the Several Grounds of Prudence, Morality, and Religion (London, G. Bell and Sons, Ltd, 1913), 341-342.

At the same time that man with a spiritual will is free, the effects of original sin remain: “Original Sin, needs only be carried on into its next consequence, and it will be found to imply the sense which I have given—namely, that Sin is Evil having an Origin. But in as much as it is evil, in God it cannot originate: and yet some Spirit (that is, in some supernatural power) it must. For in Nature there is no origin. Sin therefore is spiritual Evil; but the spiritual in man is the Will. Now when we do not refer to any particular sins, but to the state and constitution of the Will, which is the ground, condition, and common Cause of all Sins; and when we would further express the truth, that this corrupt nature of the Will must in some sense or other be considered as its own act, that the corruption must have been self-originated;—in this case and for this purpose we may, with no less propriety than force, entitle the dire spiritual evil and source of all evil, that is absolutely such, Original Sin. I have said, ‘the corrupt nature of the Will.’ I might add, that the admission of a nature into a spiritual essence by its own act is a corruption” (180). Sin introduced a nature, a law or bent, into the human soul that did not belong there. And because we are all in Adam, we all participated (1 Cor. 15:22) in his sin, and we all happily maintain this nature within our wills.

The Difference between the Understanding and Reason

According to Coleridge, following Bishop Leighton (1611-1684), understanding is “the faculty of judging according to sense” (144). This capacity is shared with animals. The “Judgments [sic] of the Understanding are binding only in relation to the objects of our Senses” (ibid).

Our understanding cannot address the substance of things, but rather what appears before our senses; it is therefore discursive and requires us to use our imaginations to connect ideas together in probable but not necessary explanations. Reason on the other hand, “is the Power of Universal and necessary Convictions, the Source and Substance of Truths above Sense, and having their evidence in themselves. Its presence is always marked by necessity of the position affirmed: this necessity being conditional, when a truth of Reason is applied to Facts of Experience, or to the rules and maxims of the Understanding; but absolute, when the subject matter is itself the growth or offspring of the Reason. Hence arises a distinction in the Reason itself, derived from the different mode of applying it, and from the objects to which it is directed. . .” (143).

Coleridge provides the following chart (148):

UnderstandingReason1.) Understanding is discursive.1.) Reason is fixed.2.) The Understanding in all its judgments refers to some other Faculty as its ultimate Authority.2.) The Reason in all its decisions appeals to itself, as the ground and substance of their truth. (Hebrews vi. 13.)3.) Understanding is the Faculty of Reflection.3.) Reason of Contemplation. Reason indeed is much nearer to SENSE than to Understanding: for Reason (says our great HOOKER) is a direct aspect of Truth, an inward Beholding, having a similar relation to the Intelligible or Spiritual, as SENSE has to the Material or Phenomenal.

Essentially, reason is something that we share with God and understanding is something we share with the animals. To reason, in the primary meaning of grasping the essence of something as it is, is essentially to know. We know that 2+2+4, but we understand that the car is out of gas.

Our understanding is based on correct information from our senses or the tools enhancing our senses and then correctly coordinating this information together as a description of reality. So we can know that the gas tank is empty as we look into it, but we cannot know the tank remains empty as we walk to the gas station (perhaps a friendly neighbor fills it up). We must reflect to understand, the car needs gas to run, the car is grinding as I turn the ignition, the idiot light representing an empty tank is flashing—I now understand the tank is empty.

Understanding is dependent on senses. If any of my senses provide inaccurate information, my understanding is likely untrue. But we must notice, that understanding can be accurate by accident. So for instance, the broken analog clock is accurate twice a day, so if I have accidentally coordinated my understanding with the clock at the right moment, I understand the time correctly but for the wrong grounds. The senses and the understanding can be wrong and right with and without agreement of reality.

Reason, rightly done, on the other hand lacks the possibility of error. Reason has its evidence not in the senses but within itself. And God, particularly the Son, is the Logos or the Reason of God. In as much as we are reasonable, we are like God and in as much as rely on our own understanding we are like the beasts.

There is an interplay between the understanding and reason: “The Practical Reason alone is Reason in the full and substantive sense. It is reason in its own sphere of perfect freedom; as the source of IDEAS, which Ideas, in their conversion to the responsible Will, become Ultimate Ends. On the other hand, Theoretic Reason, as the ground of the Universal and Absolute in all logical conclusions is rather the Light of Reason in the Understanding, and known to be such by its contrast with the contingency and particularity which characterize all the proper and indigenous growths of the Understanding” (ftn. 2, Appendix A, 277).

The ultimate end of man is to love God with his whole being, because of who God is and who man is. Within this sphere of freedom, man uses either reason (things necessarily true in and of themselves) or his reasons (his finite and sometimes sinful understanding) to decide if he shall love God or not.

We must also note: “[T]he imperfect human understanding can be effectually exerted only in subordination to, and in a dependent alliance with, the means and aidances supplied by the All-perfect and Supreme Reason; but that under these conditions it is not only an admissible, but a necessary, instrument of bettering both ourselves and others” (94).

These distinctions within reason and the understand work themselves out in statements like this: “By a Science I here mean any chains of Truth that are absolutely certain, or necessarily true for the human mind from the laws and constitution of the mind itself. In neither case is our conviction derived or capable of receiving any addition, from outward experience, or empirical data—i.e. matters-of-fact given to us through the medium of the Senses. . . .a connected series of conclusions ground on empirical Data, in contra-distinction from science. . . [I] denominate a Scheme” (195).

Prudence, Morals, and Spiritual Religion

Coleridge makes a helpful distinction between prudence, morals, and spiritual religion. He sees prudence as the attempt to avoid suffering in the future by prohibiting something: “Prudence is an active Principle, and implies a sacrifice of Self, though only to the same Self projected, as it were, to a distance” (22).

Prudence doesn’t save, because it is the beginning of the journey towards God: “Though prudence in itself is neither virtue nor spiritual holiness, yet without prudence, or in opposition to it, neither virtue nor holiness can exist” (33).

Prudence can be distinguished into four types (18-19): the first is an evil prudence which limits behavior not because it is sinful or displeases God, but because such behavior will or may cause suffering in the future. There is neutral or commendable prudence which if rightly motivated is useful for Christians, but is not evil.

Commendable prudence can develop into wise prudence if the user finds these activities “value in their present necessity, and their worth as . . .instruments of finally superseding, its birthplace in the world. . .” (19).

“Lastly, there is a prudence that co-exists with morality, as morality co-exists with the spiritual life: a prudence that is the organ of both, as the understanding is to the reason and the will, or as the lungs are to the heart and brain. This is A HOLY PRUDENCE. . .” (19).

Morality goes beyond the desire to avoid suffering and is the attempt to please God in a positive way: It springs from human reason and the conscience, yet at the same time morality can be acted upon without the Spirit of God. It is “the outward service [cf. James 1:26, 27] of ancient religion, the rites, ceremonies and ceremonial vestments of the old law, had morality for their substance. They were the letter, of which morality was the spirit: the enigma, of which morality was the meaning. But morality itself is the service and ceremonial (cultus exterior, qphskeia) of the Christian religion. The scheme of grace and truth that became through Jesus Christ, the faith that looks down into the perfect law of liberty, has light for its garments: it very robe is righteousness” (12-14).

Religion is the internalization of “the prefect law of liberty” into the heart of man by the Spirit of God. It is possible to participate in both prudence and morality without the indwelling Spirit of God, but with the Spirit comes salvation and true religion.

And it is here, on the grounds of spiritual religion, that Coleridge extends and pleads the gospel.

Generally helpful theological/philosophical statements

Quote of Vico (Not found in this volume, but implied.)

[The criterion and rule of the true is to have made it. Accordingly, our clear and distinct idea of the mind cannot be the criterion of the mind itself, still less of the other truths. For while the mind perceives itself, it does not make itself.]

Augustine: “Sic accipiter, ut mereamini intelligere. Fides debet praecdere intellectum, ut sit intellectus fidei praemium” (xviii) [So receive this, that you deserve to understand it. For the faith ought to precede the understanding, so that understanding may be the reward of faith]

“For if words are not THINGS, they are LIVING POWERS, by which the things of most importance to mankind are actuated, combined, and humanized” (xix).

“Again: in the world we see every where evidences of a Unity, which the components parts are so far from explaining, they necessarily pre-suppose it as the cause and condition of their existing as those parts; or even of their existing at all. This antecedent Unity, or Cause and Principle of each Union, it has since the time of Bacon and Kepler been customary to call a law” (40).

“[T]here is something in the human mind which makes it know (as soon as it is sufficiently awakened to reflect on its own thoughts and notices), that in all finite Quantity there is an Infinite, in all measures of time an Eternal; that the latter are the basis, the substance, the true and abiding reality of the former; and that as we truly are, only as far as God is with us, so neither can we truly possess (that is, enjoy) our Being or any other real Good, but by living in the sense of his holy presence” (54).

“For it is not in our power to disdain our nature, as sentient beings; but it is in our power to disclaim our nature as moral beings” (89).

“There is nothing, the absolute of which is not a Mystery. The contrary were indeed a contradiction in terms: for how can that, which is to explain all things, be susceptible of an explanation? It would be to suppose the same thing first and second at the same time” (91).

“In Wonder all Philosophy began: in Wonder it ends: and Admiration fills up the interspace. But the first Wonder is the offspring of Ignorance: the last is the parent of Adoration. The first is the birth-throe of our knowledge: the last is it euthanasy and apotheosis” (156).

Jonathan Edwards, Treatise on Grace and Other Posthumously Published Writings

James Clarke and Co. Ltd, 1971, 131 pgs.

Summary: A collection of important, but somewhat rare scholastic works of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) which tend to correct misunderstandings about Edward’s Trinitarianism and adherence to covenantal thought. These works were not included in the most available collection of Edwards’ writings.

Edited by and with an introduction by Paul Helm, but first printed and collected in the United States by E. C. Smyth in 1903. Helm’s introduction is, as always, clarifying and helpful.

The volume contains the “Treatise on Grace,” “Observations Concerning the Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption,” Appendix, and “An Essay on the Trinity.”

All of the works display Edwards’ understanding of the relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The Father thinks of himself and begets the Son, the Son and the Father love each other thus spirating the Spirit.

“Treatise on Grace”—Herein Edwards argues that common grace and saving grace differ, not in degree only, but in nature and kind. The saving work of the Spirit of God is an inward persuasion while the common grace work is an exterior work. The foundation of saving grace is the implanted love of God within the human heart through the Spirit of God: “Divine love, as it has God for its object, may be thus described. ’Tis the soul’s relish of the supreme excellency of the Divine nature, inclining the heart to God as the chief good” (49).

Common grace also comes from the Spirit of God, but is wholly different than saving grace: “There are many things in the minds of some natural men that are from the influence of the Spirit, but yet are by no means spiritual in the scriptural sense of the word. . . .and so saving grace in the heart is said to be spiritual, and therein distinguished from all other influences of the Spirit, that it is of the nature of the Spirit of God” (55-56).

Edwards goes on to argue that while God is love (1 John 4:8), the Spirit of God is particularly to be considered the person of God who provides believers access to the love of God. Further, by being indwelt by the Spirit of God, we participate in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).

“Observations Concerning the Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption”—Edwards’ argues against those who see the relationship between the Father and Son as merely caused by the plan of redemption rather than as necessary to the nature of the Godhead. He also lays out a traditional outline of covenant theology.

Appendix—Further quotes of Edwards collected by E. C. Smyth reinforcing his Reformed orthodox understanding of the Trinity and the covenants.

“An Essay on the Trinity”—Edwards argues and defends from Scripture that God the Father in being self-conscious of his own glory begat the Son or the Image of himself (Heb. 1:3; Gal. 1:13). The Father and Son in mutual adoration of their perfections then spirate the Spirit, or the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

The Godhead being thus begotten by God’s loving an idea of Himself and shewing forth in a distinct subsistence or person in that idea, there proceeds a most pure act, and an infinitely holy and sacred energy arises between the Father and Son in mutually loving and delighting in each other, for their love and joy is mutual, Prov. vii, 30,—“I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him”—This is the eternal and most perfect and essential act of the divine nature, wherein the Godhead acts to an infinite degree and in the most perfect manner possible. The Deity becomes all act, the Divine essence it self flows out and is as it were breathed forth in love and joy. So that the Godhead therin [sic] stands forth in yet another manner of subsistence, and there proceeds the third person in the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, viz. the deity in act, for there is no other act but the act of the will (108).

Benefits/Detriments: These essays serve as the background to Shedd’s understanding of the Trinity as well as much of Piper’s theological framework for Desiring God and The Pleasures of God. While the essays are speculative to a degree, it is a rich and deep mediation and conclusions that I embrace as conforming to Scripture and reason.

Frederick Copleston, Medieval Philosophy: From Augustine to Duns Scotus in A History of Philosophy, vol. 2

Image Books, 1993, 614 pgs.

Summary: Frederick Copleston (1907-1994) was a Jesuit historian and philosopher appalled by the lack of philosophical knowledge of Roman Catholic seminarians and textbooks, and so he conceived and wrote the multivolume A History of Philosophy.

Volume two briefly touches on the patristic fathers and then summarizes the teaching of Augustine (47 pages) and then purposely builds towards a summary of Thomas of Aquinas’ system (132 pages) and concludes with Duns Scotus (69 pages). On the way to Thomas, Boethius, Anselm, the Muslim Aristotelian commentators—Alfarabi, Avicenna, Averroes—, Dante’s Averroianism, Bonaventure’s modified Augustinianism (61 pages), and a cast of other philosophers and scholastic theologians are mentioned and summarized. The interrelationship between all the scholars are considered and traced.

Copleston sees the height of Christian philosophy, a philosophical system that does not contradict revelation, as being reached in the Thomist framework. Thus his historical narrative unfolds Christian philosophy as maturing into Thomism through the introduction of “new” secular sources into Christian theology.

Copleston is aware of some tensions in his narrative. The Augustinian school’s approach to philosophy “faith seeking understanding” (fides quaerens intellectum) has a different posture or habit of mind than the Thomist school. Thomas allowed a greater degree the autonomy of philosophy independent of revelation, rejects an implicit knowledge of God (cf. his Romans 1 notes in Commentary), and the necessity of illumination for the apprehension of any truth (63, 389).

Cumulatively, the Thomistic shift is a habit of mind away from God as the authority. This does not mean that Thomas rejected God as the ultimate authority, but he established the intellectual framework within Christian scholarship that allows such. Copleston writes;

If one speaks simply as a philosopher who is convinced that philosophy either stands on its own feet or is not philosophy at all, one will not admit the existence of a ‘Christian philosophy’; or, in other words, if one speaks simply as a ‘Thomist’, one will be forced to criticize any other and different conception of philosophy. But if one speaks as an historian, looking on from outside, as it were, one will recognize that there were two conceptions of philosophy, the one that of St. Bonaventure, the conception of Christian philosophy, the other that of St. Thomas and Scotus, the conception of a philosophy which could not properly be called Christian, save in the sense that it was compatible with theology (558).

The main difference between the Thomist and Augustinian is found not in their technical descriptions of God, but rather in their description of man:

In short, Augustine did not play two parts, the part of the theologian and the part of the philosopher who considers the ‘natural man’; he thought rather of man as in the concrete, fallen and redeemed mankind, man who is able indeed to attain truth but who is constantly solicited by God’s grace and who requires grace in order to appropriate the truth that saves. If there was question of convincing someone that God exists, Augustine would see the proof as a stage or an instrument in the total process of the man’s conversion and salvation: he would recognise it as in itself rational, but he would be acutely conscious, not only of the moral preparation necessary to give a real and living assent to the proof, but also the fact that, according to God’s intention for man in the concrete, recognition of God’s existence is not enough, but should lead on, under the impulse of grace, to supernatural faith in God’s revelation and to a life in accordance with Christ’s teaching. Reason has its part to play in bringing a man to faith, and once a man has the faith, reason has its part to play in penetrating the data of faith; but it is the total relation of the soul to God which primarily interests Augustine (48).

. . .[T]he Augustinian attitude . . .enjoys this advantage, that it contemplates always man as he is, man in the concrete, for de facto man has only one final end, a supernatural end, and, as far as actual existence is concerned, there is but man fallen and redeemed; there has been, is not, and never will be a purely ‘natural man’ without a supernatural vocation and end (49).

Further, he notes that the use and contemplation of Aristotle is not the cause of the shift. Different scholars were able to employ Aristotelian elements “in the service of the Augustinian tradition, so that that the resulting philosophy was one in which characteristic Augustinian themes predominated” (227).

The difference between the two postures leads to Copleston conceding: “St. Thomas’s baptism of philosophy in the person of Aristotle could not, historically speaking, arrest the development of philosophy, and in that sense his synthesis contained a latent tension” (430).

Part of the issue is that Thomas’ shift in authority was combined with reading Aristotle in what Copleston calls the in meliorem partem or in the most favorable reading or as if Aristotle intended Christian outcomes. Such a reading allows Aristotle to appear more in agreement with the faith than a reading aiming at his intent (426-427). Thomas granted Aristotle an authority and trustworthy stature in contradiction to his actual doctrine.

Copleston also exhibits the in meliorem partem reading in his discussion of “why Dante, who in the Divina Commedia places Mohammed in hell, not only placed Averroes and Avicenna in Limbo, but also placed the Latin Averroist Siger of Brabant in heaven and even went so far as to put his eulogium into the mouth of St. Thomas Aquinas, who was a doughty opponent of Siger” (199-200). His conclusion is not that Dante was an Averroist heretic, but rather Siger is the “symbol of ‘pure philosophy.’”

Benefits/Detriments: Copleston’s summary and exegesis of individual philosophers is breath taking, illuminating, and refreshing. His general tracing of the relationship of ideas and their historical place is helpful. His descriptions of the different schools are balanced.

Yet, he’s a Jesuit in both the best and worst sense. As an example: “The sect of the Waldenses, which still exists. . .was originally a sect of dualists, though it was absorbed by the Reformation and adopted anti-Romanism and anti-sacerdotalism as its chief tenets” (183). And then a footnote adding, “The sources for our knowledge of the doctrine of the Albigensians are not rich, and the history of the movement is somewhat obscure.” Somehow, he maintains a degree of academic respectability while tarring both the Waldenses and the Reformation. Yet he also corrects the Catholic Encyclopedia on Raymond Lull without footnotes (457).

Recommended for academically minded pastors and graduate students who are careful readers as long as they remain entrenched in the posture of faith seeking understanding.

Exemplar quotes:

Summary of Anselm’s ontological argument in syllogistic form:

God is that than which no greater can be thought: But that than which no greater can be thought must exist, not only mentally, in idea, but also extramentally:  Therefore God exists, not only in idea, mentally, but also extramentally.

The Major Premiss simply gives the idea of God, the idea which a man has of God, even if he denies His existence. The Minor Premiss is clear, since if that then which no greater can be thought existed only in the mind, it would not be that than which no greater can be thought. A greater could be thought, i.e. a being that existed in extramental reality as well as in idea (162).

Summary of one Richard of St. Victor’s argument for the existence of God:

It is a fact of experience that there are different and varying degrees of goodness or perfection, the rational, for example, being higher than the irrational. From this experiential fact Richard proceeds to argue that there must be a highest, than which there is no greater or better. As the rational is superior to the irrational, this supreme substance must be intellectual, and as the higher cannot receive what it possesses from the lower, from the subordinate, it must have its being and existence from itself. This necessarily means that it is eternal. Something must be eternal and a se [self-existent], as has been already been show, since otherwise nothing would exist, and experience teaches us that something does exist, and, if the higher cannot receive what it possesses from the lower, it must be the highest, the supreme Substance, which is the eternal and necessary Being (181).

An excellent reason for being Augustinian:

It is not that Alexander [of Hales] gives the impression of being a polemical writer nor that he confuses philosophy and theology, but he is chiefly concerned with the knowledge of God and of Christ. To say that, is simply to say that he was faithful to the tradition of the Augustine School (239).

Thomas’ Departs from Aristotle:

The virtuous man of Aristotle is, in a sense, the most independent of man, whereas the virtuous man of St. Thomas is, in a sense, the most dependent man, that is, the man who realises truly and fully expresses his relation of dependence on God (411).

Summary of Scotus on the possibility of horizontal eternal causality in a single set but not vertical eternal causality in sets, thus proving the existence of God:

Contingent being, the effectible, is caused by nothing or by itself. As it is impossible for it to be caused by nothing or by itself, it must be caused by another. If that other is the first, we have found what we are seeking; if not, then we must proceed further. But we cannot proceed for ever in the vertical order of dependence. Infintas autem est impossibilis in ascendendo. Nor can we supposed that contingent beings cause one another, for then we proceed in a circle, without arriving at any ultimate explanation of contingency. It is useless to say that that the world is eternal, since the eternal series of contingent beings itself requires a cause. Similarly in the order of final causality there must be a final cause which is not directed to any more ultimate final cause, while in the order of eminence there must be a most perfect being, a suprema natura. These three are one and the same being. The first efficient cause acts with a view to the final end; but nothing other than the first being itself can be its final end. Similarly, the first efficient cause is not univocal with its effect, that is, it cannot be of the same nature, but must transcend them; and as first cause, it must be the ‘most eminent’ being (523).

Kenelem Foster, tran. Aristotle’s “De Anima” in the Version of William of Moerbeke and the Commentary of St. Thomas Aquinas

Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1951, 504 pgs.

Summary: A paragraph by paragraph commentary by the theologian Thomas of Aquinas (c. 1224-1274) of the philosopher Aristotle’s (384-322) De Anima or On the Soul. The book is arranged with Aristotle’s text and then Thomas’ commentary. Differences and deficiencies in Thomas’ translation by Moerbeke are compared to other Latin translations and the Greek text.

According to Aristotle the soul is the non-material substance that provides the form of living things. Or as Thomas summarizes “the soul is a certain actuality and formal principle of that which exists accordingly, namely as potentially animate” (2.2.278).

This conception allows Aristotle and then Thomas to view the soul as neither wholly dualistic (absolutely separate physical and spiritual parts) nor monistic (only physical or only spiritual parts), but instead provides holism with internal distinctions.

It also allows Thomas and Aristotle to think of the soul as existing in plants as merely life seeking nourishment, in animals as sensitive soul, and in man as intellectual. Each higher animate creature has the faculties of the lower within its single soul. Non-animate things have no soul and receive their form from matter. The vegetative and animal faculties then exist in man. The soul is the life principle of the animate object and to take away the soul leads to the decline rather than the maintenance or growth of life. The form or the body of a plant or animal therefore dies when the soul is extinguished. The matter of the soulless body then returns to its material organization.

Benefits/Detriments: There are three basic benefits: 1.) Thomas provides helpful graduate-level lectures on the meaning of Aristotle’s work with a few asides to correct Averroes and Avicenna. 2.) Students of philosophical theology have an opportunity to study both Aristotle and Thomas’ interpretation of him. 3.) And finally, Thomas provides both a positive and negative example for considering non-Christian theology as a Christian theologian.

The example is positive in that Thomas carefully attempts to understand what Aristotle was teaching and appropriate the true elements into Christian theology.  But there is an almost complete lack of critique of Aristotle from revelation. As far as I can tell from Aristotle, he believed that the person was extinguished at physical death, but Thomas has such a charitable reading of Aristotle that the philosopher is found as believing in the continued existence of the soul.

Exemplar quotes: §841. And this deliberation requires some sort of rule or end by which to reckon what most needs to be done. Clearly, a man will ‘follow’, i.e. seek for, the better and more suitable alternative: which is always measured by some standard. We need therefore a measure for our actions, a criterion for discerning what is most worth doing. And this will be the middle term of the syllogism of the practical issuing in a choice. It follows that reason, deliberating, can form several images into unity—three, to be precise; for one object is preferred to another, and a third gives the standard of preference.

Thomas’ commentary and Aristotle’s De Anima are important for thinking through reintroducing non-material substances into the sciences particularly the concept of hylomorphism. Currently, the prevailing view is all that is is material substances. The general outline of Aristotle’s position on the soul, especially as described by Thomas, does not contradict the Bible. (Cf. Cooper and Muller reviews.) Recommended for theologically minded pastors and students of philosophy.

Peter Lombard, trans. Giulio Silano, The Sentences: Book Three—On the Incarnation of the Word

Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2010, 189 pgs.

Summary: In 3.6.3.2 (pg. 27), he quotes as Augustine (354-430) Lanfranc (1010-1089) as found in Berengar (c.1010-1080) in defense of essentially transubstantiation. Here we have simply reached the point of no return as to Peter accidentally misquoting from bad notes or quotations. Peter is correcting Augustine according to current church practice. Augustine ought to have taught the current practice of the church and so he is spoken of as if he did.

At the same time, we find that Peter is defending Augustine’s view of God’s sovereignty and man’s free will as compatible: “The work of Christ and the Father was good, because the will of Christ and the Father was good; the work of Judas and the Jews was evil, because their intention was evil. The deeds or works there differed, that is, the acts were different; but there was one thing or deed, namely the passion itself” (3.20.5.2-3, pg. 87).

Peter also follows Augustine in non-egalitarian love or ordered love: [God] loved some of them for greater goods and others for lesser goods, some for better uses and others for less good ones. For all our goods come to us from his love. And so, from all of eternity and even now, he loved and loves some of the elect more and others less, because out of his love he prepared greater goods for the first and lesser ones for the second, just as in time he confers greater goods on some and lesser ones on others, and as a result of this he is said to love these more and those less” (3.32.2.3, pg. 133). . .Yet it is not to be simply said that he loved [the reprobate], lest they be understood to be predestined, but with this qualification: he loved them insofar as they were to be his work, that is, he loved what and of what kind he was going to make them” (3.32.5, pg. 134).

And the Master of the Sentences rounds out his Augustinianism by articulating what will come to be known as limited justification or limited atonement: “He offered himself on the altar of the cross not to the devil, but to the triune God, and he did so for all with regard to the sufficiency of price, but only for the elect with regard to its efficacy, because he brought about salvation only for the predestined (3.20.5.1, pg. 86).”

There are some rather strange tensions created by Peter on the issue of the two great commandments: “But we are to love Christ as ourselves, insofar as he is man; love of him according to humanity is contained in that precept [love of neighbor]. Even insofar as he is man, we are to love him more than ourselves, but not as much as we love God because, insofar as he is man, he is less than God” (3.29.3.3, pg. 120).

The issue is that Peter believes that Jesus’ in his human nature is nothing or he allows this as a possibility (3.10.1.2, pg. 41). The ostensible purpose for making a distinction between worshiping Jesus in his human nature and in his divine nature is that to worship the “the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom. 1:25) would be an act of idolatry. And so we have this rather inflammatory line, “Christ, according to his being man, is not a person or anything else.” The technical term for this is Christological nihilism, and Peter apparently picked it up from Abelard (1079-1144).

Regardless, this creates a curious tension in the worship of the elements of the mass, which is the current Roman doctrine (CCC-1378). If “Christ, according to his being man, it not a person or anything else,” then receiving his body is also nothing. This is likely why Pope Alexander III condemned such nihilism twice.

Peter Lombard, trans. Giulio Silano, The Sentences: Book Four—On the Doctrine of Signs

Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2010, 304 pgs.

In On the Doctrine of Signs we come to the bulk of the theological conclusions that were rejected in the Reformation by Protestants and to a great degree maintained by the post-Tridentine Roman Church.

Currently, the Roman Church teaches that Jesus’ human body upon the cross “participates in the divine eternity, and so transcends all times while being made present in them all” (CCC-1085). Christ’s atemporal body is obviously an ad hoc, extra-biblical, and mildly bizarre means of explaining a problem that Peter attempted to explain this way:

As for the body, he gave [the disciples at the first Lord’s Supper] such a one as he then had, that is, a mortal one, capable of suffering. But now we receive his immortal and impassible body; yet it does not have greater efficacy (4.11. 6.1, pg. 60).

Rather than an atemporal body summed into time, Peter’s solution was three sacrifices. Jesus sacrificed his temporal body at the first Lord’s Supper, his temporal body was sacrificed on the cross, and now his “immortal and impassable” is the current sacrifice of the mass.

Both the contemporary Roman solution and Peter’s are in formal contradiction to the Bible, reason, and the Chalcedonian Creed which declares that Jesus has “a reasonable soul and body” that is “consubstantial with us.”

Peter goes on to unintentionally illustrate the outcome of merit theology combined with continuing sanctification after death with a thought experiment: two men of equal but imperfect religious merit die and go to purgatory in 4.45.4.1-2, pg. 247. The only difference between the two is that one is wealthy and the other poor: For “the rich one, special and common prayers are offered” and for the poor one only common prayers. There’s a bit of theological poking about and then this conclusion, “those several aids conferred on the rich man a quicker absolution.” Simply put—rich people get out of purgatory more quickly than poor people. Such conclusions are antithetical and irreconcilable with the Bible and the religion of Moses, Jesus, Paul, and James.

The historical process by which the roar of the Holy Spirit and James “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you,” (James 5:1) is muted to such drivel can be traced in the citations. Augustine writes in about 410 AD: “It is not inconceivable that, after this life, some of the faithful shall be saved through a kind of purgatorial fire, and some more quickly, others more slowly. . .” Augustine’s suggestion is Peter’s dogma, and this was linked to the system of penance and merit with a pagan element of a continuing interrelationship between the living and the dead.

The system of penance was so intrinsic to Peter and his contemporaries that he writes, “But the sacrament of penance, like that of marriage, existed before the time of grace, indeed from the beginning of humankind. For each of these was instituted with our first parents” (4.22.2.3, pg. 135). The modern translator provides a biblical citation for “penance in Gen. 2, 17.” “For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die,” can only be read as a penitential sacrament by reading back the developed tradition of the church into the text.

It must also be noted that Peter is not a modern or Tridentine Catholic. He writes, “It is plainly shown here that God does not follow the Church’s judgment, for sometimes the latter judges through deception and ignorance; but God always judges according to the truth (4.18.6.3, pg. 111). The pride and hubris of Trent and Vatican I remain in the future.

And though I am horrified by much of what Peter teaches, he does write this, “What is to be held? Surely, that sins are blotted out by contrition and humility of heart, even without confession by the mouth and payment of outward punishments. For from the moment when one proposes, with compunction of mind, that one will confess, God remits; because there is present confession of the heart, although not of the mouth, but which the soul is cleansed inwardly from the spot and contagion of the sin committed, and the debt of eternal death is released” (4.17.1.11, pg. 96). Here we have a rejection of penance and auricular confession as necessary for salvation.

Peter’s project was an attempt to synthesize current church practice, past church teachings, the Bible, and reason into a coherent case book of decisions and doctrine for Roman Catholic clergy. But this multitude of witnesses are not merely “various and almost contradictory” (4.27.1.2, pg. 94), they are openly contradictory on a variety of grounds.

Peter is aware of the contradictions, because he simply fakes a large number of citations from Augustine, especially on the Lord’s Supper, and purposely does not handle Augustine’s most clear rejection of the physical presence of Christ in the elements in On Christian Doctrine—a work Peter cites in Book I. It should also be noted that the mistaken citations of Augustine appear less dense, in fact rare or or historically more reasonable (Fulgentius rather than Radbertus), in Book I, The Mystery of Trinity, but are much more common in books 3-4. The wider current church practice disagreed with Augustine the bolder Peter was in misattribution.

Further, by quoting current defenders of contemporary practice as Augustine, he leaves a trail of bread crumbs for the discerning reading. The trail is left by the Master of the Sentences for a particular kind of reader—“I leave the judgment to the judicious reader” (4.22.1.11, pg. 134) and “I leave the judgment of these to the examination of the diligent reader” (2.27.8.7, pg. 138). No astute and well-read theologian is going to accept Lanfranc quotes in Berengar as Augustine. And so Peter points the discerning reader to what was likely Peter’s true theological convictions or his private beliefs.

Benefits/Detriments: The Master of the Sentences provides a helpful introduction to medieval theology. Perhaps more importantly, he exposes the necessity of the Reformation project of grounding theology in a sufficient Scripture rather than in the traditions of man—even godly and brilliant men like Peter, Augustine, and the like.

John W. Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989, 262 pgs.

Summary: A carefully written and researched defense of the traditional view of the soul over and against anthropological monism. Monism refers to the body and the soul being the same thing and dualism refers to the soul continuing to exist independently of an earthly body.

Under a variety of pressures, Christian scholars have been moving away from understanding the Bible to teach dualism in anthropology.  In some circles dualism has become the supposed cause of almost all ills. The more academically palatable view is now monism.

Among Christians who have a high view of Scripture, the pressure comes from a concern to decouple biblical theology from Platonic or philosophical influences, an unfortunate confusion about proper inference and speculation in developing theological outcomes from the Bible, and confusing the historical literalism of Augustine and the Reformation with Spinoza’s literalism.
Among liberals the theological pressure includes a similar mix but also a bias towards materialism and against the supernatural. The materialistic bias is so ambient as to influence all parties.

Dr. Cooper shows that accepting monism requires jettisoning some biblical texts, heavy-handed interpretation of other texts, creating unique ad hoc explanations of the intermediate state (including immediate recreation at death), requiring Paul to change his views on the soul midstream, or embracing doctrines openly rejected by the historical church and the Bible for instance soul sleep. The rational deficiencies of monism in coordination with a resurrection are no less troubling.

Dr. Cooper argues that both the Old and New Testament require dualism and that while Greek dualism is similar to the Bible’s doctrine it is not identical. He notes that historically theologians like Augustine and Calvin were incautious in describing the soul along Platonic lines and that as Cartesian and Kantian dualism captured the academic imagination theologians tended to minimize the Bible’s more holistic dualism. Yet none of these historical mistakes warrant rejecting dualism.

Exemplar quote:

Let me outline my version of dualism. . .If to be absent from the body for me is to be with the Lord—still “in Christ” and “living together with him” as I am already now, then I must exist between my death and the resurrection. And I must be able to enjoy fellowship with Christ in some way. . .That is all we know from the New Testament. It does not say more. It does not elaborate. It does not describe in detail. For anyone to say more than this is indeed to speculate.

But certain things necessarily follow from this modest biblical teaching. If this doctrine is true, then other things must also be true, for they are contained in or entailed by its truth. Simply put, the doctrine cannot possibly be true if these other things are not true. For example, if I am with Christ, then I—my essential selfhood or core person—must survive physical death. The being or entity who I am must continue to exist. In striking ways that being might be different from the being who now lives embodied on earth. . .But the being or thing that I am must continue to exist. Otherwise it would not be I but someone or something else that is with Christ (176-177).

Benefits/Detriments: An extremely helpful resource in considering the body/soul distinction biblically, historically, and philosophically. Suggested for pastors and college students.

Peter Lombard, trans. Giulio Silano, The Sentences: Book Two—On Creation

Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2010, 236 pgs.

Summary: Peter Lombard presents a confused understanding of Augustine’s view of creation and anthropology modified to a semi-Pelagian to almost Pelagian theology either purposely or through ignorance of Augustine’s authentic works.

According to Peter, “For there is in the rational soul a natural will, by which it naturally wills what is good, although weakly and feebly, unless grace assists. . .” (2.24.1.3, pg. 109). This free will is described as such “because, without compulsion or necessity, it is able to desire or elect what it has decreed by reason” (2.25.4.2, pg. 118). “And yet we do not deny that there are many good things which are done by man through free choice before this grace and apart from grace” (2.26.7.2, pg. 130).

And then this lovely quote which he attributes to Jerome, but since the Renaissance is now recognized as Pelagius:

Jerome teaches in his Explanation of the Catholic Faith to Pope Damascus, where he strikes at the errors of Jovinian, Manichaeus, and Pelagius, saying: “We acknowledge that choice is free so as to say that we are always in need of God’s aid; and that both those are in error who say with Manichaeus that man cannot avoid sin, and those who assert with Jovinian that man cannot sin. Each of them takes away freedom of choice. But we say that man is always able to sin and not to sin, so that we confess ourselves to be ever free in our choice. This is the faith which we learned in the Catholic Church and which we have always held.”

It’s not clear to me that Peter Lombard is unaware that he is quoting Pelagius to support conclusions that are both non-Augustinian and unbiblical. (This will be discussed more in the review on book 3 and 4.) At the same time “among the works attributed to Augustine” were sermons, letters, and writings that were not authentically Augustinian in authorship or doctrine, and so it is possible that he’s struggling to harmonize self-contradictory teachings within what he understands is Augustine’s canon. This is occurs while he attempts to harmonize the contradictory teaching of Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Bede, and so forth. There is even an effort to harmonize these diverse teachings with the Bible.

He teaches along with others before him that the “pollution which the flesh contracts in its conception from the burning of the parents’ joining and their lustful concupiscence” (2.32.6.2, pg. 156). In other words, we are born with a sin nature or original sin, because our parents or one of our parents enjoyed conceiving us. While Augustine in his authentic works lays out the framework for this sort of doctrine, the most blatant support comes from Augustine-like quotes from Fulgentius (c. 462-527).

Peter Lombard also rejects the possibility that at conception both physical and spiritual elements of parents are passed to the child. The technical term for this is traducianism: Peter rather firmly states, “But the Catholic faith utterly rejects this and condemns it as opposed to truth since, as we said above, that faith admits that flesh alone, and not souls, is transmitted. And so it is not according to the flesh, that original sin is derived from parents” (2.31.3.1, pg. 154). Augustine was certainly more open to the possibility than this quote allows and traducianism was held by other church fathers including Tertullian.

Oddly enough he provides an explanation of the pop-culture reference to an angel on one shoulder and a demon on the other: apparently this was first taught by Origen, then by Gregory of Nyssa, and popularized for posterity by Lombard (2.11.1.2, pg. 46).

He may have originated the now hoary-headed sermon illustration:

Why woman was formed from the man’s side and not from some other part of his body. But although woman was made from man for these reasons, nevertheless she was formed not from must any part of his body, but from his side, so that it should be shown that she was created for the partnership of love, lest, if perhaps she had been made from his head, she should be perceived as set over man in domination; or if from his feet, as if subject to him in servitude. Therefore since she was made neither to dominate, nor to serve man, but as his partner, she had to be produced neither from his head, nor from his feet, but from his side, so that he would know that she was to be placed beside himself whom he had learned had been taken from his side (2.28.2; pg. 77).

Benefits/Detriments: Book 2 exposes what happens when a possibly earnest attempt is made to harmonize the Bible, current church practice, and the diverse teaching of the church fathers. It’s rather a mishmash and at points incoherent.