Neo-Thomism

The Relationship Between Faith and Reason, Science and Religion in the Process of Knowledge

It is important to note that Neo-Thomism inherits yet another issue from medieval philosophy, namely, the relationship between faith and reason, and between science and religion in the quest for knowledge (ideally, the knowledge of God). In his time, Thomas Aquinas evaluated previous attempts to resolve this dilemma (faith versus reason) and concluded that they were unsatisfactory, necessitating the formulation of a new concept. The principle of harmony between faith and reason, proposed by Aquinas and his followers, posits that religious faith and knowledge are different paths to understanding God, who reveals Himself both naturally through the created world comprehensible to reason and supernaturally through Revelation, the Divine Word.

According to Neo-Thomism, there are three forms of grasping truth: science, philosophy, and theology. The lowest of these is science, which records phenomena and establishes causal relationships between them. However, this only reveals immediate and proximate causes, beyond which science does not venture. Philosophy represents a higher degree of rational knowledge. Its primary task is to understand God as the first cause and ultimate purpose of all things. Neo-Thomists particularly highlight two positions regarding the functions of philosophy: as a science of higher causes, it simultaneously teaches about the primacy of the highest cause and, in this regard, intersects with theology. Through its arguments and conceptual framework, philosophy should serve theology.

Rational knowledge is valuable, according to theologians, because it allows for a fuller understanding of the truths of Revelation. Through the "light of reason," Neo-Thomism seeks to justify dogmas such as the existence of God and the immortality of the human soul. However, there are dogmas where the limitations of philosophy, and even more so of science, become evident. These include the dogmas of the Incarnation, Resurrection, and the Trinity, which can only be grasped through Divine Revelation. In this sense, theology is simultaneously the pinnacle of rational knowledge accessible to humanity and a non-rational, supra-rational knowledge that is identical to faith.

Neo-Thomist understanding of the relationship between science and philosophy, on one hand, and theology, on the other, is closely linked to their comprehension of the relationship between faith and knowledge. The principle of harmony between faith and knowledge can be summarized as follows: the truths of faith cannot contradict the truths of reason, for God is the creator of both Revelation and reason. God cannot contradict Himself.

Currently, Catholic philosophical and theological thought is renewing the traditional framework of the relationship between faith and knowledge by selectively incorporating theoretical advancements from the natural sciences and idealist philosophy. The main elements of this renewal include justifying the position of a "new" face of the natural sciences, which now recognizes the limitations of its methods for understanding nature, and acknowledging the existence of "border questions" among theology, philosophy, and the natural sciences. Efforts are focused on substantiating the possibility of integrating theoretical achievements of science into a cohesive religious worldview.

A particularly intriguing aspect of contemporary Catholic philosophy is its sustained interest in modern science. This distinguishes Catholicism from other Christian confessions. If, from the perspective of the Neo-Thomist theologian, God can only be known through the mediation of His creations, it follows that all scientific knowledge about the created world can be useful and even necessary for the quest of understanding God.

This leads to ongoing attempts by Catholic theologians to utilize the achievements of modern science to confirm the foundational tenets of Catholic doctrine. For instance, the fact of the "expansion of the universe" prompts contemporary physicists and cosmologists to theorize about the "Big Bang," suggesting that our universe emerged "from nothing" (from a physical vacuum) approximately 15 billion years ago. Neo-Thomists view this theory as scientific confirmation of the Christian dogma of creation by God "from nothing at some distant moment in the past." Thus, both modern science and Christian doctrine affirm that the world emerged "from nothing" and that it has an end in time and space.

The very act of the world's inception is inexplicable in terms of physical laws; there is no physical force capable of producing an event such as the "Big Bang." Consequently, the creation of the universe appears as something supernatural, a cosmic "miracle."

One can also explore other parallels between the traditional Thomistic worldview and contemporary science. For example, an important place in Thomistic ontology is occupied by the teaching on time and eternity, borrowed from the Platonists. St. Thomas viewed time in a Platonic spirit as "the moving image of eternity." Accordingly, eternity is perceived as "the immutable archetype of time"—a pure temporal length devoid of becoming. It is as if it were infinitely stretched toward the past and future present—"the frozen now," as St. Thomas defined it.

However, we find a similar notion of "space-like" time, devoid of becoming, in contemporary physics—specifically, in the theory of relativity. Since, according to the theory of relativity, the space-time continuum cannot be unequivocally divided into temporal and spatial continua, we are compelled to conceive of time as something akin to space—namely, as something already established, complete, devoid of motion and becoming. In other words, the space-time continuum appears entirely analogous to the eternity described by Aquinas. This observation is emphasized by modern Neo-Thomists.

One of the main and persistent targets of criticism by Neo-Thomists is Darwinian evolutionary theory. This critique is, it must be acknowledged, quite solidly grounded in scientific argumentation. It is worth noting that over the 140 years since the first publication of "On the Origin of Species," sufficient scientific data confirming the existence of Darwinian mechanisms of evolution have yet to be gathered. According to Neo-Thomists, the "transitional forms" anticipated by Darwin, which would connect existing species of animals and plants and thus demonstrate how one species arises from another, have not been found. (According to Darwin's theory, a vast multitude of such transitional forms should exist, and therefore, they should consistently appear among fossils.)

Paleontological research results indicate that although species of animals and plants did not emerge simultaneously, each species appears as something already complete, fully formed, and thereafter undergoes virtually no changes.

Neo-Thomists also find the concept of animals as ancestors of humans to be highly dubious. Studies show that anatomically modern humans coexisted with nearly all their presumed "ancestors" and, thus, cannot have descended from them. These "ancestors" turn out to be either extinct species of primates or extinct human races—either significantly different from humans or exhibiting differences no greater than those that exist among contemporary human races.

All attempts to produce one species of animals or plants from another through artificial selection and the stimulation of mutagenesis have also failed. Mutations lead only to the birth of deformities; they do not create the new genetic material necessary for the formation of a new species. Artificial selection (which served as a model for Darwin's theory of natural selection) can practically only produce breeds within the same species, but never transcends the boundaries of that original species—meaning that variations do not arise that would not interbreed with the original species and produce viable offspring.

Moreover, religious philosophers assert that there is no evidence that life could spontaneously emerge from the non-living through random combinations of molecules. Research indicates that even the simplest single-celled organism is such a complex structure that it could not arise purely by chance, even over billions of years in the most favorable conditions. Furthermore, calculations demonstrate that even individual protein molecules cannot arise by chance.

Summarizing these investigations, MacWilliam writes in the "Catholic Encyclopedia" that there is not a shadow of evidence for the origin of life from the non-living, nor for animal life from plant life, nor for the human organism from lower animals. This implies that we must arrive at a reasonable conclusion regarding the influence of a Creator, at least at each of these levels.