Exploring the Thomistic Concept of History

Dispelling Misconceptions About Thomistic Theology

In an article in the April 1946 issue of Études [1], Cardinal Jean Daniélou launched a grave accusation against Thomas Aquinas's thought, claiming it "ignored the notion of history." Nearly eighty years have passed since then, yet some people would still share this accusation today.

Certainly, Aquinas does not give us a concept of history or a definition of its essence. However, he possesses a profound comprehension of the essence of history and its importance as a reality created and guided by God for the purposes He has set for historical development.

I do not deny that in the scholastic Thomism following Aquinas, up to the French Thomism of the last century, the philosophical and theological reflection on the Christian sense of history has been lacking due to an overly exclusive focus on dogmatic theology. Meanwhile, Protestants have shown greater attention to history, facilitated by their devotion to Scripture, where the historical narratives and the literary genres of parables and mythological or parenetic tales provide ample material for moral and sapiential reflection.

Nevertheless, in his philosophy, theology, and commentaries on Scripture, Aquinas exhibits a profound grasp of the wisdom and moral lessons derived from history as humanity's journey under divine Providence's guidance and as the gradual unfolding of the divine plan concerning humanity's destiny over the centuries.

Aquinas does not contend that history should be the subject of philosophy, nor does he propose a philosophical definition of it. This task was undertaken by Hegel [2], who philosophically conceived history as the progressive realization of divine reason within humanity over time and the movement of the Spirit in becoming self-aware through time. Hegel views history as the effect of the Spirit's immanent progress within humanity over time.

Aquinas would certainly have accepted this concept within these limits. This is evident in how he considers the intelligibility of both sacred and secular history of humanity and thought in his works. Thus, within these limits, we find in Hegel an explication of the Thomistic concept of history, even though such an explication in Hegel is certainly unintentional, given his almost complete insensitivity to Saint Thomas's thought according to the Lutheran tradition.

Moreover, it should be noted that Hegel's vision also contains a pantheistic element that Aquinas would have rejected. A Thomist philosopher who presents the philosophical conception of history derived from Saint Thomas's principles, and from the unreflected practice of this philosophy found in his works, is Maritain in his work Per una filosofia della storia (For a Philosophy of History) published in 1955, an excellent response to Daniélou's false accusation.

In this fundamentally important work, an example of post-conciliar Thomism, though written a few years before the Council, the great philosopher, and theologian Maritain critically examines Hegel's concept of history, recognizing its originality and merit—a judgment that Aquinas would certainly have shared—while simultaneously highlighting the gnostic foundation of an idealistic and historicist concept of God and truth, which Aquinas would certainly not have accepted.

Maritain, as a faithful Thomist, makes us understand, even without explicitly saying so, that if Aquinas had known Hegel's vision, he would have recognized the kernel of truth within it while excluding the Hegelian conception of God's immanence in history.

It is known that for Aquinas, the pinnacle of philosophy is not cosmology, the horizon of history, but metaphysics and theology, the horizon of the immutable, supra-historical being, although Aquinas is keenly aware of the mutability and thus the historicity of the human spirit.

However, this does not mean that Aquinas lacked an understanding or appreciation of history through the lenses of reason and faith, nor does it suggest that he was disinterested in it as a philosopher and theologian, not of course as a historian. He was well aware, from the teachings of the Church Fathers and Saint Augustine, that Scripture provides us with a divine revelation on the sapiential meaning of history, its relationship with God, and the destinies of humankind.

Certainly, Thomas Aquinas was not a historian. However, to philosophically understand what history is and its value, it is sufficient for a philosopher to draw their historical knowledge from historians themselves, which Aquinas conscientiously did, about the historical knowledge available in his time.

Aquinas was fully informed that history is an intelligible reality, of utmost importance for our lives and to its ultimate end. Although history presents many obscure aspects that are not scientifically manageable, he nonetheless knew that history, the result of human action by beings endowed with reason, can be investigated and explained by reason. It must be an expression of human reason and, above all, of divine reason that guides it through the succession of times and centuries until the final fullness of the Kingdom of God. Even if history itself is not an object of science, from it one can derive the science of human and divine actions in time and space. One learns to distinguish good from evil and to see the triumph of good over evil.

Aquinas knew very well that in the vast array of past and present events and facts, our reason is capable of identifying and discerning certain trends, recurring motifs, constant data, values, and more or less significant facts with humanity's journey toward a better realization of the goals of human life.

He knew perfectly well that although history provides us only with existential and concrete data, and not pure essences and causes as objects of science, this does not mean that essences and causes are not present in the concrete facts of history, provided that we can recognize them at the heart of events, disregarding insignificant and accidental elements.

Then, we will discover the unfolding over time of a marvelous divine plan of mercy, justice, and salvation for humanity, a profound and mysterious plan that can be analyzed through reason and philosophy, enlightened by faith, and thus examined through theological inquiry.

Naturally, Aquinas knows what history is, but he does not aim to define it. He knows what history is because he understands Scripture, which tells how, over time, God has guided, guides, and will guide humanity towards the ends that correspond to His will of love, justice, and mercy.

Although Aquinas does not provide us with an explicit notion of history, it is not impossible to derive a definition based on Aquinas's principles. Quite the contrary, as we see in this article. This does not detract from the merit of modern philosophy in giving us a philosophical concept of history.

Certainly, in the time of Saint Thomas, no one suspected that history could be a subject of philosophy. If science has for its object the universal, while history is the succession of singular events and things in time, how could history be an object of science? If history is the theater of the actions of human free will, how could there be demonstrable or predictable realities in history based on a principle of logical necessity? How could there be stringent demonstrations propter quid?

In the time of Saint Thomas, it was clear that history was a succession of events and that the problem and interest of history was the narration of these events. That is, the historical matter was simply the historian's domain. Yet, from the times of ancient Israel and then of the Church Fathers, contact with Scripture had made philosophers, moralists, theologians, and sages understand that within history and the events narrated in Scripture, there was ample material for meditation and learning for the philosopher, the moralist, and the theologian, provided they could read them with the understanding that within the event, the human endeavor, the vicissitudes of peoples and nations, and the lives of great historical figures, there is always, for the philosopher and the theologian, some trace, sign, imprint, or warning of higher truths, the dynamics of the spirit, divine providence, the will of God, the works of reason, and the plans of an intelligence.

Theologically, history as historiography is the narration of the workings of divine Providence over time in favor of humanity. It is history as guided by God, who directs human action, and it is the divine action itself in fact and in time, along with the respective favorable human reaction under the impulse of the Holy Spirit or the contrary reaction of humans and demonic forces.

Thus, the Apocalypse presents the history of humanity as the struggle of the Church, guided by Christ, against demonic forces throughout the centuries, culminating in the final victory of Christ. In this sense, Thomas would agree with Bruno Forte in speaking of narrative theology alongside the inductive-deductive theology that forms dogmatic theology.

Hence the famous and very true saying, historia magistra vitae (history is the teacher of life), although the knowledge of the eternal and the immutable indeed remains the privileged domain of metaphysics and dogmatics above historical data. The latter, despite containing elements of the eternal and immutable, is always something in progress and evolving, not yet having reached its end or fullness.

Nevertheless, philosophy, the product of reason, concerns not only reason itself but also the temporal progression of reason in its speculative works. Thus, we have the history of philosophy and practical reason, the great actions, the res gestae, the historical actions of great men, historical figures, and history sic et simpliciter.

Theoretical and moral philosophy, alongside dogmatic theology, reveal the development of human and moral values over time, culminating in their ultimate maturity and perfection. Only through this lens of ideal and ultimate perfection can one truly grasp the purpose and significance of humanity's historical progression toward the Kingdom of God.

Otherwise, one falls into the myopic, sterile, and frustrating view of historicism—a continuous, inconclusive, and exasperating cyclical movement, a historical becoming for its own sake, which prevents the spirit from rising to the level of the eternal. Instead of ascending to heaven, one remains on earth or even descends into hell. Instead of being nourished by the bread of angels, one eats the husks of swine.

How, then, can history be a matter of philosophical interest? How can history be a philosophical subject? How can it interest philosophy? Philosophy investigates the primary causes and reasons and the ultimate ends of reality. History observes the actual action of these forces and principles of humanity in time and space.

God and History

Thomas makes a very clear differentiation between the mutable and the immutable. He adheres to Aristotle's fundamental principle that if there were no unmoved mover, there would be no movement because movement is the transition from one point to another, which must be fixed; otherwise, measurement and therefore the existence of movement itself would be impossible.

If there were no first cause and ultimate end of the world's becoming in time, if there were no cause and end free from becoming and time, there would be neither becoming nor time, for becoming and time transition from a beginning to an end.

Thomas has a rich concept of becoming in all its forms, species, and degrees, derived from Aristotle's physics. This concept utilizes the fundamental categories of matter and form, substance and accident: transformation, movement, alteration, generation, corruption, increase, decrease, dissolution, integration, privation, completion, flux, emanation, unification, dispersion, evolution, explication, development, clarification, and obscuration.

The realist epistemology that Thomas derives from Aristotle allows him to have a clear perception of the dignity of the sensible, concrete, material, and temporal reality, both human and cosmological, and therefore historical. He understands perfectly well that this reality is not self-sufficient and would not exist if it were not founded on a higher and supreme reality that is purely intelligible and spiritual, unshakeable and solid, free from matter and time, that is, God.

Against Hegel, Thomas would say that history is not the entirety of reality. When Hegel absolutizes becoming and time, he believes he is exalting the Spirit but fails to realize he is being a materialist. And while it is true that the human spirit acts in time, the products of the spirit, that is, thought, are immaterial, transcend time, and are placed on the horizon of the eternal.

Conversely, Thomas is well aware that history is not God but a contingent creation of God, who, in His absolute necessity, immutability, and supratemporal, transcends and governs history, although by incarnating, He has chosen to enter history. Therefore, beyond the reality of history, that is, of creation, there exists the Creator God.

If we want to speak of totality, this totality is God. The world is the totality of created entities. But this is a totality of a multitude, implying parts outside of parts. The true totality is, to use an expression of Soloviev, but perfectly conforming to the Thomistic concept, uni-totality, an attribute exclusive to God.

Thomas knows that history has its ontological consistency, its truth, and certainty, and is not mere appearance, provisionality, or semblance. It is not an illusion in the manner of Plato or Brahmanism. Historical certainty does not have the rigor of scientific certainty, but when well-attested or established, it still informs us of what happened and why.

Thomas understood very well, against Plato and in line with Aristotle, the modern principle of Hegelian origin and ultimately Christian, that we must not free ourselves from history but within history, because we are historical beings in our materiality and supratemporal in our spirituality.

However, history is indeed reality as being by participation, but precisely for this reason, it belongs to the category of part, of passage from one part to another. It lacks entirety, absolute essence, and being in its essence. Yet, the part allows us to understand that the whole exists.

Thomas knows well that the divine essence, coinciding with its act of being, unlike any other essence, is already complete in itself in its immutability. It has no need to be completed or integrated by time, becoming, and history. God can exist even without the world.

History adds nothing to God because it is not being that sums up to being but it consists of a participative being that partakes of being by essence. Divine reality is infinitely more real than the reality of the world.

The idea that history is the totality of reality because God himself becomes and is temporal is the error of the Hegelian conception of history and God himself. It must be remembered that history is a created and temporal reality, even though spiritual agents and God himself are present and active within it.

The metaphysical foundation of this distinction between God and history is given in Saint Thomas by his distinction between the act of being and being in potency. God is a pure act of being, the very act of subsistent being, and for this reason, He is eternal and immutable, above time and becoming.

He does not pass away and is not corrupted. He is immortal. God is likened to the image of a rock: stable yet dynamic, an embodiment of strength and energy, moving all yet moved by none. The world becomes in time, has a history, and passes from potency to act. God has no history but is a pure being, contrary to what Hegel says.

Passing from potency to act means moving from the imperfect to the perfect. History is the world's passage from imperfection to perfection through humanity's work under God's guidance and motion.

In God, essence coincides with existence. God is His being. History, however, involves beings in which existence is an act of essence, an act that may or may not be present. Essence can move to the act of being or lose it.

The God of Saint Thomas, therefore, has no history, not because He belongs to the world of pure abstractions, as the historicists and modernists slanderously claim, but because His being is so real, intense, rich, and concrete that it is already complete and has no need for historical becoming. Such becoming would add nothing to His being; on the contrary, by being added, it would finitize His being and render Him an idol of this world.

Human Progress

Moreover, Saint Thomas has a very clear concept of progress, a notice much loved by modernity but often spoiled by Hegelian historicism. The crux of the matter is always this: the imperative to differentiate human nature from the divine one (Bold Mine, Ed.). For in Hegel, it is God Himself who progresses because, for him, God is a man not in the Christian sense of the divine Word assuming human nature, but in the sense that divine nature itself is not complete except in unity with human nature.

This is why, for Hegel, the biblical transition from the Old Testament God before the Incarnation to the New Testament incarnate God does not represent the free choice of a God who, even if He had not made this choice, would lack nothing of His essence. Instead, for Hegel, the biblical narrative of this transition figuratively signifies the ontological process by which, in history and time, God—essentially temporal and mutable in essence—completes His essence, transitioning, through the dialectical process of self-negation and self-reintegration, from the "abstract," "heavenly," transcendent God, the God of the "beyond" and without flesh, to the "concrete" and incarnate God, that is, humanized and historicized, the immanent God of the "here and now." This corresponds to what Hegel sees as the shift from ancient realist epistemology, where being is outside thought, to modern Cartesian and idealistic epistemology, where being is in thought.

Thomas conceives history as humanity's journey in time toward the Kingdom of God. History has a cause, a reason for being, a beginning, an origin, a course, a way of proceeding, and a final goal. Guided by Providence, it undergoes a continuous process of development, growth, and improvement either by moving from potency to act or by triumphing over adverse forces.

For Thomas, history is the progressive victory of knowledge over ignorance, truth over falsehood, good over evil, virtue over vice, and life over death. It is the transition from the imperfect to the perfect, from good to better, until reaching the best.

Human progress, paid for with many efforts, temporary failures, and sufferings, is the result of human will supported by grace. In this sense, it is unstoppable, though not necessary, and by divine will, it is destined to reach its end: the establishment of the Kingdom of God.

Thomas knows that human progress involves a temporal work of restoring lost innocence, repairing the damages caused by sin, healing the bad tendencies resulting from sin, practicing virtues ascetically, opening to the novelties of the Spirit in anticipation of its first fruits, abandoning outdated and useless things, preserving the Word of truth in a continuous deepening of its salvific and beatifying meaning, and growing in charity and all virtues.

Thomas acknowledges that progress is opposed by satanic forces, which, through the power of the Holy Spirit, are always defeated by the elect until their final victory. Even the forces that oppose progress ultimately favor it because they offer the chosen ones the chance to overcome the rebels. and those who do not want Christ's Kingdom in Christ.

Thomas demonstrates his keen sense of history and human progress based on his real metaphysical distinction between essence and being as applied to human history. For him, the essence of a thing is one thing, and its existence or actualization in reality is another. Essence is a simple mental thinkable that remains so even if no real individual of that species exists.

The essence of man would be thinkable, conceivable, and intelligible even if God had not created any man or if no man existed in reality, even if human essence did not possess being. One can conceive of something that does not exist. For this reason, the real man is not yet, as Hegel believed, the concept of man. The thing is not the concept of the thing. The rational is not necessarily the real, but it can be a simple possible; it is, in any case, the thing in the mind regardless of its actual existence outside the mind.

The only instance where the concept aligns perfectly with reality is the Divine Word, a truly infinite divine person. and substance. The Son is the Concept of the Father identical to the Person of the Son. But our concepts cannot claim to identify with things, although they can reflect or represent their truth.

Thus, Thomas distinguishes between the essence of man or human nature, taking Aristotle’s definition—man as man—and the human condition, that is, the different existential, factual, and historical states of human nature as presented by Christian revelation: the state of innocence, the state of fallen nature, the state of redeemed nature, and the final state of glorious nature.

Moreover, Thomas distinguishes different forms of human progress: philosophical progress, which is the transition from the original materialism of the ancient naturalist philosophers to the discovery of spirit in Anaxagoras and of being as such in Aristotle; moral progress, which is the transition from the Old to the New Covenant, that is, from the observance of Mosaic law to the practice of the new evangelical law of charity or the law of the Holy Spirit; spiritual progress, which is the transition from the simple deliberate exercise of virtues to the readiness to be guided by the Spirit.

Finally, Thomas deeply lived this progressive and prophetic conception of history typical of Christianity in his personal spiritual life and academic activity, making an epochal turn in the history of theology by completing Plato with Aristotle in interpreting divine revelation. This advantage helped us better understand the meaning of the Word of God and the Christian significance of the sense of history.

P. Giovanni Cavalcoli OP

Fontanellato, June 13, 2024

source: https://padrecavalcoli.blogspot.com/p/sul-concetto-tomista-della-storia.html

Notes

[1] Les orientations présents de la pensée réligieuse. (The current orientations of religious thought.)

[2]Lezioni sulla filosofia della storia, Laterza Publishers, Bari 2005, pp. 9-34.

[3] Morcelliana Publishing House, Brescia 1967.