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Metaphysics
597
being.
But it is impossible for the
natural
powers
of
reason to comprehend
reality in its entirety. Although God is being in the supreme degree, man is
not able to
understand
his
nature
as creator. The conceptus divinus which the
conceptus entis must include is therefore beyond human reason. Only on the
intellectual
level
of faith and mystical theology can man approach a
knowledge
of
God
which would ground the possibility
of
knowledge
and
truth
and make metaphysics possible.
Gerson knew
that
he was writing in a time of profound crisis, a time in
which
the medieval conception
of
the church and the scholastic conception
of
metaphysics with which it was so closely connected were
threatened
at
their foundations. He objected to the extreme realism with which
Wyclif
had tried to
give
his ideas of religious reform an ontological foundation
because he thought
that
the supposition
of
necessary essences in God would
limit God's supreme freedom. On the same ground he opposed Ripa's
Scotist
transpositions of abstractions into reality. He was also acquainted
with
the Parisian Lullism
of
the early fifteenth century and wrote repeatedly
against Lull's notion of necessary reasons for the articles of the faith.
Although
Gerson, along with many of his contemporaries, accepted
Anselm's
ontological conception of God, he argued against
natural
theologies
which would confuse the Christian God with the Good. Were
God
a
nature
which must diffuse itself, it would be possible to deduce the
properties
of
his
nature
—
a conclusion which is contrary to God's absolute
freedom. There is a profound unity behind the positions with which Gerson
confronted the
errors
of
his day. Appealing to Scripture, he pleaded for the
notion of God as creator and supremely free. But because of the divine
liberty, man can know of God only those things he has revealed. Because
revelation is necessary, theology cannot be equated with the secular sciences
which
are accessible to the layman. Gerson rejected Lull's theory of
necessary reasons because it implied a conception of theology, the church
and scientific endeavour itself which is not conformable to this clerical
understanding.
The
adoption
of
Lull's
ideas by Nicholas
of
Cusa
called forth a somewhat
different reaction on the
part
of
the Heidelberg professor
Johannes
Wenck.
Wenck
had been an
adherent
of
the Council
of
Basle
and stood at first on the
side of the Albertists. But when confronted with Nicholas' De docta
ignorantia, he rejected the notion of a higher,
innate
type of understanding
and
returned
to Thomas Aquinas' emphasis on the origin of all human
knowledge
in sense-perception. Thomas' epistemology also found sup-
porters
at Cologne. Gerard de Monte opposed Heimeric's
interpretation
of
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598
Metaphysics
Albertus
and tried to show the concordance of Albertus and Thomas. In
Paris the secular master of
arts
Johannes
Versor gave both form and
substance to this budding renaissance of Thomistic doctrine. Versor
composed
commentaries in the form of questions on almost all
of
the texts
in the university corpus of Aristotle's works. His questions on the
Metaphysics are based on Thomas' doctrine with some
important
precisions
reflecting
the Scotist teachings we have seen above. Metaphysics is a
universal science comprehending all types of created reality. The ens in
quantum
ens which metaphysics studies is not to be undersood as the being
common to God and creatures, but
rather
the being which is common to
created things, whether material or immaterial. Metaphysics deals therefore
with
being as it is divided into substance and accidents. God is
treated
in
metaphysics only as the cause of being. The concept of being is analogous
with
respect to its inferiors, but not with respect to God. There is no
particular science of the intelligences; they are
treated
in the universal
science
of metaphysics as created immaterial being. Corporeal things are
treated
in metaphysics sub ratione entis, and in the particular science of
physics
as corpus mobile.
Whereas the fourteenth century was quite limited in the production of
works
on metaphysics but very rich in new approaches to metaphysical
problems, in the
following
century we find the situation reversed. From the
time of the Council of Constance to
that
of Luther almost as many
commentaries on Aristotle's Metaphysics were composed as in the preceding
two
centuries taken together. In the universities the courses on physics and
mathematics lost the popularity they had enjoyed; the courses on
metaphysics and ethics became the most esteemed
—
and the most expensive.
But
at the same time an increasing tendency to
return
to the classical teachers
-
Thomas, Albertus, Duns Scotus - manifested itself. Many of the
commentaries written in this period were super-commentaries on Buridan
and Versor. In spite of humanistic ideas of interpretation, scholastic
commentaries of the fifteenth century were not exegetical, but strictly
philosophical
in character. They covered only the first twelve books of
Aristotle's
work, generally omitting book xi and occasionally book m or
even
i—in. Most
of
the commentaries were written in the form
of
questions,
allowing
an increasing independence of Aristotle's text. Fourteenth-
century problems in the theory
of
science
notwithstanding, the commenta-
tors
neglected the question of metaphysics as first philosophy. Those
authors
who took the subject-matter of metaphysics to be being as it is
divided
into substance and accidents tended to comment on Aristotle's
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Metaphysics
599
work
in conjunction with his Categories, whereas those who thought of
metaphysics primarily as the doctrine
of
God
tended to
treat
the Metaphysics
in conjunction with the Physics and De
anima
foreshadowing the later
enumeration
of
metaphysical realities: God, the world and the human soul.
A
corresponding tendency to neglect Aristotle's De caelo, De generatione et
corruptione and Meteorology can be observed; the biological works and the
works
of moral philosophy were taken up by a completely new type of
philosopher.
The
termination of the Council of Basle marked a turning-point in the
history
of
metaphysics as the science
of
being.
The victory
of
the papacy put
an end to
attempts
like those of Heimeric de Campo and the young
Nicholas
of
Cusa
to use the ideas
of
Ramon
Lull
to support the theory
of
the
supremacy
of
the Council. The distinctive
interpretation
of
the philosophy
of
Albertus Magnus which was developed by Heimeric and
Johannes
de
Nova
Domo disappeared from Paris after the Anglo-Burgundian alliance
and was able to maintain itself for a brief time only in the universities, like
Cologne
and Cracow, which adhered to the Council. The victory of the
papacy was accompanied by a
return
to the ideas
of
Thomas Aquinas. This
was
due not only to Thomas' ecclesiology, but also to his position on the
relationship between philosophy and revealed doctrine and, more funda-
mentally, to the conception
of
clerical
and lay participation in science which
could
be derived from it. Thomas had distinguished between
truths
which
can be proved by reason, like the existence of God and the immortality of
the human soul, and
truths
which are accessible only to faith, like the
doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation. For the
latter
type of
supernatural
truths
revelation is absolutely necessary, but because of the
human inclination to
error,
revelation can support reason even for some
doctrines which can be demonstrated rationally. Philosophy is autonomous
in its own realm, but philosophical doctrines which entail consequences
contrary to revealed doctrine must be rejected.
Whereas Scotism and Buridanism had been represented more or less
continuously in Paris, Thomism came to the fore only about the time when
the university was reorganised after the Council and the end
of
the Hundred
Years
War. Significantly, it was not the Dominicans, but
rather
secular
masters of
arts
like
Johannes
Versor who first espoused Thomas' doctrine.
The
liberty which the Thomist position allowed in the resolution of
philosophical questions had to appeal to teachers concerned to preserve the
independence of the
arts
faculty and sustain the progress which had been
made in
natural
philosophy during the preceding century. At the same
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Metaphysics
time, the theological faculty found Thomas' doctrine acceptable because his
conception
of
reality matched their own hierarchical
view
of
the world and
because his doctrine
of
creation avoided any emanationist understanding of
the relationship between God and the world.
Above
all, Thomas'
epistemology
offered a qualified guarantee for clerical authority. His
teaching
that
all human knowledge has its origin in sense experience
enabled the theologians to maintain
that
revelation is both necessary and
reasonable, necessary because God's essence must remain beyond man's
natural
understanding, reasonable because revelation agrees with and
supplements basic philosophical conclusions. Thomas' rejection
of
the
view
that
revealed doctrines are accessible to the layman through a type of
intellectual knowledge higher
than
reason made it possible for the clergy to
maintain its
view
of itself as the unique
interpreter
of the tradition.
Basically,
the idea
of
a Christian Aristotelianism which fifteenth-century
masters
of
arts
at Paris found adumbrated in Thomas Aquinas, the idea
of
a
philosophy autonomous in its own realm, but guided both positively and
negatively
by revelation, represented a kind
of
pragmatic sanction, defining
the powers of the clergy in its relation to science. The idea was
closely
connected with the situation after the Council of
Basle.
Just
as the papacy
had to recognise the authority of secular rulers in the temporal sphere, so
also the clergy
—
whose function had traditionally been
that
of teaching
—
had to admit the self-sufficiency of the secular sciences and to concede the
limitation
of
its role in this sphere to
that
of
surveillance.
An
important
role
in formulating the idea of such an Aristotelianism was played by the
Thomist conception of metaphysics as the science of being. On the one
hand,
Thomas'
view
enabled the theologians to recognise the autonomy of
the philosophical sciences, while continuing to maintain the scientific
character
of
their own discipline. Whereas the particular sciences, including
theology,
have their own proper principles and methods, metaphysics was,
in the Thomistic
view,
a general science of all reality and supplied the
common principles for all the sciences. On the other
hand,
the fundamental
law
both of Aristotle's
logic
and of his metaphysics understood as the
science
of being, the law of contradiction, provided the theoretical
grounding for the theologians' negative control over science, the condem-
nation of doctrines which entailed consequences contrary to revelation. It
was,
in fact, in this way
that
the
thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries had
eliminated many
of
the foreign elements
—
doctrines like
that
of
the unicity
of
the human intellect - in the Aristotelianism which the West had inherited
from Arabic thinkers. The fifteenth century continued this process.
Just
at
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Metaphysics 601
the time when in Italy many were proclaiming
that
Platonic philosophy
was
more in accord with Christianity
than
Aristotelian, the scholastics in
Paris were excluding the extreme realism of
Wy
clif,
the emanationism of
the Albertists and the idea
of
an intellectual type
of
knowledge
higher
than
reason on the ground
that
these doctrines conflicted with the divine
freedom or the notion of a gratuitous revelation.
This
scholastic Aristotelianism developed primarily in the universities of
Northern Europe. Whereas the secular masters by whom the idea was first
propounded wanted above all to assert the autonomy of the philosophical
sciences,
for the members of the mendicant orders, who subsequently
espoused it as a
part
of
their own efforts at reform, the principal concern was
to preserve the traditional conception of revelation and the hierarchical
view
of society so
closely
connected with it. Through the friars the
scholastic idea was brought to Italy around the middle of the fifteenth
century. Here it encountered a radically different form of Aristotelianism.
The
Italian faculties of
arts
were oriented less towards theology
than
to
medicine, and the Aristotelianism they taught was concerned less with the
hereafter
than
with the concerns
of
men in this world. In the University of
Padua
there
was no proper theological faculty until the middle of the
fourteenth century, and
then
it was formed not by the secular
clergy,
but by
aggregating to the university the existing theological schools of the
mendicant orders. It was only about the middle
of
the fifteenth century
that
the Dominican and Franciscan friars succeeded in having chairs erected in
the
arts
faculty for Thomist and Scotist metaphysics.
The
conflict between the two Aristotelianisms broke out almost
immediately. It concerned Aristotle's teaching with regard to the immor-
tality of the soul and, more fundamentally, his conception of metaphysics.
Scholastic
Aristotelianism had in fact included in its metaphysics of being
several
key elements which were not strictly Aristotelian. By defining the
subject-matter
of
metaphysics as being as it is divided into finite and infinite
being or into created and uncreated being, or even as the being common to
God
and creatures, the scholastics had quietly introduced the scriptural
notions of God's infinity and the world's creation into Aristotle's science.
These definitions of metaphysics implied the possibility of considering the
world
and the human soul not simply physically
—
as corpus mobile and corpus
animatum
- as in Aristotle, but also as metaphysical objects - sub ratione ends.
The
proofs both
of
God's
existence and
of
the soul's immortality had from
the very beginning formed an essential
part
of
scholastic apologetics. These
definitions made it possible to
give
metaphysical,
rather
than
simply
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602
Metaphysics
physical,
proofs of both. Even more importantly, these definitions
understood reality as graded hierarchically in a chain of being ascending
from matter to God (or, after the introduction of the theory of the latitudo
formarum,
from nothingness to God). The schemes of participation or
ontological
composition which the scholastics employed in order to
account for the various degrees of perfection in the chain served as a
metaphysical basis for the defence
of
the traditional grades in society which
were being increasingly called in question at the time.
The
definition of metaphysics as the science of created and uncreated
being
thus
betrayed the clerical interests which lay behind the notion of a
Christian philosophy. It was this conception of metaphysics which called
forth the violent reaction of the Italian Aristotelians. Most
of
these authors
rejected the scholastic metaphysics
of
degrees
of
perfection. Even those who
accepted the doctrine
of
the latitudo
formarum
denied
that
it could be applied
to a metaphysical hierarchy of perfection, refusing to admit the possibility
of
measuring perfection according as to how nearly individual things
approach the infinite perfection of God. Their position amounted to a
rejection of the hierarchical principle in general. A standard objection ran
thus: if the distance between God and created things is infinite, then each
individual thing outside
of
God
will
be at an infinite distance from him and
thus
no creature more perfect
than
another.
Although
the debate was between two divergent conceptions of reality
and, on a deeper
level,
between two divergent conceptions
of
society,
it was
carried on in terms of the correct understanding of Aristotle's doctrine.
Whereas the scholastics had introduced the notions
of
infinity and creation
into their Aristotelianism, the secular Aristotelians maintained
that
accord-
ing
to Aristotle God is finite and the world eternal. The conflict came to a
head in the celebrated controversy concerning the immortality of the soul
which
surrounded Pietro Pomponazzi, professor of philosophy in the
Universities of Padua and Bologna at the beginning of the sixteenth
century. In the year 1513 the Fifth Lateran Council condemned certain
philosophers who taught
that
at least according to philosophy it is
true
that
the human soul is mortal.
84
Pomponazzi had dealt with this subject
repeatedly in the course of his university lectures on Aristotle's De anima,
but the actual controversy began only in 1516, with the publication of his
Tractatus de immortalitate animae. Pomponazzi maintained
that
according to
Aristotle
the doctrine
of
the soul belongs to physics as a
part
of
the doctrine
84. Sacrorum conciliorum . . . collectio
1759-1962,
xxxn,
pp.
842-3.
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Metaphysics
603
dealing with corpus
animatum.
Accordingly,
if one begins with Aristotle's
principles, it is impossible to prove the immortality
of
the soul. All material
forms are generated from the potency of
matter
and therefore corruptible.
But
the soul is a material form. None of its operations are carried out
without a corporeal organ. Knowledge begins in sensation and
understand-
ing
itself depends on sensible images. Were it possible to supply a
metaphysical proof based on the idea
that
the soul is not educed from the
potency of
matter,
but
rather
directly created by God, one could possibly
hold
that
the soul is both a spiritual substance and the form
of
the body. But
Aristotle
knew nothing of creation. For him the presence of immaterial
operations in a material form is a contradiction, and the notion
of
a spiritual
substance which is also the form of the body is impossible.
The
difficulty with Pomponazzi's position was not simply
that
it denied
the possibility
of
giving
an Aristotelian
proof
of
immortality. First
of
all,
his
argument upset the theologians' naive conception of a fundamental
agreement between Aristotelian philosophy and Christian faith. They had
rejected contemporary
attempts
to enlist the Platonic conception
of
man in
the service
of
Christianity because the idea
of
the body as the
instrument
of
the soul and at the same time the source of the
evil
inclinations in man
conflicted,
in their
eyes,
with the Christian doctrines
of
the Incarnation and
the necessity
of
grace for salvation. In Aristotle's
view
of
man as a substantial
unity, they had found a
natural
basis for the doctrine
that
original sin affects
the whole man. Pomponazzi's position brought out the problems in this
view.
Moreover, his claim
that
the soul's operations do not transcend their
corporeal origins jeopardised the Thomist thesis
that
revelation is necessary
because human knowledge has its origin in sense experience. Most
seriously, Pomponazzi's position endangered the principle which provided
the warrant for clerical surveillance over doctrinal questions. Were he right
in maintaining
that
according to Aristotle the soul is mortal,
then
Aristotle's
psychology
ought to have been condemned in accordance with Aristotle's
own
metaphysical principle
of
contradiction, on the ground
that
it entailed
a conclusion contrary to revealed doctrine. Pomponazzi's assertion
that,
as a
Christian, he believed
that
the soul is immortal, while denying the
possibility of a rational demonstration, only served to increase the
theologians' apprehension. The formulation of the Lateran Council's
condemnation shows
that
the Fathers were less concerned about the
question of immortality
than
they were about the
view
that
a doctrine
could
be
true
in philosophy, but contradict a
truth
in theology. In fact, they
made it an obligation of the professors to justify by reason the assent to all
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Metaphysics
those Christian doctrines which are accessible to man's
natural
powers.
85
It was especially the traditional proponents of the notion of a Christian
philosophy, the theologians of the Dominican Order, who took up the
challenge.
Although some
of
them continued to hold
that
the abandonment
of
the Christian
interpretation
of
Aristotle
would endanger the faith, two of
the most
important
Dominican writers were prepared to make some
concessions to Pomponazzi. Cardinal Cajetan, who as General
of
the Order
was
present at the Lateran
Council,
had been one
of
Pomponazzi's colleagues
at the University of Padua. Confronted with the
latter's
naturalistic
interpretation
of
Aristotle,
he saw
himself
forced
to defend the basic principle
that
a doctrine cannot be
true
in philosophy and false in theology.
Accordingly,
he distinguished between Aristotle and the
true
principles of
philosophy. Aristotle's position cannot result from the principles of
philosophy because nothing can be concluded from
true
principles which
is
not
true,
and it is known by faith
that
Aristotle's position - at least
in Pomponazzi's
interpretation
— is false. Crisostomo Javelli, regent in
the Studium of the Order at Bologna during the time when Pomponazzi
was
professor in the university there, took the discussion a step
further.
In a
move
decisive for the sixteenth-century history of the science of being, he
argued
that,
whatever Aristotle's opinion might be, the immortality
of
the
soul is a position rationally demonstrable
—
not in physics, but
rather
in
metaphysics. Bringing the idea of creation back into the science of being
and with it Thomas Aquinas' related notion
of
a real composition
of
essence
and existence in created reality
—
a notion which had been neglected in the
Thomist School because of the increasing separation of philosophy from
theology
—
Javelli maintained
that
the soul is not generated from the
potency
of
matter.
Its existence comes to it from outside, through creation.
The
soul is the substantial form of the body it animates, but because it is
composed of essence and existence, it is a spiritual substance and
consequently immortal.
The
Pomponazzi affair
thus
had far-reaching consequences both for the
conception of metaphysics as the science of being and for the complex
interrelationships between philosophy, theology and
natural
science in the
sixteenth century. Its development had been foreshadowed by the
establishment of chairs for metaphysics in the Paduan
arts
faculty, by the
increasing tendency
of
scholastic commentators on Aristotle to concentrate
on the Metaphysics, Physics and De
anima,
by the growing number of
85. Ibid.
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605
commentaries composed on Thomas' tract De ente et essentia and by the
increasing stress on the common heritage in Albertism, Thomism and
Scotism.
Nevertheless, the controversy concerning the immortality of the
soul marks a turning-point in the history of metaphysics. By making the
human soul a metaphysical object as ens immateriale, the scholastic
philosophers brought to
full
term the evolution which had begun by the
inclusion
of
corporeal things in metaphysics sub ratione ends. By assimilating
Duns Scotus' fundamental disjunction between infinite and finite being to
the distinction between uncreated and created being, they could present a
united front behind a science of being, independent of
that
of Aristotle,
which
by the light
of
natural reason studies God as ens increatum, the world as
ens creatum materiale, and the human soul as ens creatum immateriale.
Philosophy
thus
became metaphysics, while the subject-matter which
had belonged to the Aristotelian physics was free to become natural science.
The
abandonment
of
Aristotle
by the theologians played an important
part
in the emancipation of the natural sciences from Aristotelian philosophy.
Whereas in the fourteenth century scientific developments had usually
been fitted into Aristotle's encyclopaedia, in the fifteenth century the
traditional framework was made less and less tenable by new approaches
and new materials, by new sciences and a new technology. But up until
Pomponazzi's time the Aristotelian framework had been retained because
of
the apologetic purposes of the theologians. The formulation of an
independent philosophy dealing with God, the world and man sub ratione
entis relieved the scientists of the obligation to relate their conclusions to
Aristotelian principles. It was for this reason
that
the professors in the
arts
faculties
of
the Italian universities in the late sixteenth century were reduced
to offering simply an exegesis of the Philosopher's text and
that
—
long
before
Galileo
—
natural philosophy was free to go its own way.
These developments forced scholastic authors to rethink the question of
the subject-matter of metaphysics. The difficulties due to the new
relationship between metaphysics and natural philosophy were com-
pounded by the necessity
of
explaining Aristotle's own hesitation about the
nature
of metaphysics, especially about the role which metaphysics should
play
as first philosophy. One of Pomponazzi's opponents, Antonio
Bernardi of Mirandola,
86
maintained
that
there
is one universal science
(distinct from natural science) which deals with all reality. The subject-
matter
of
this science is ens
inquantum
ens, and it includes in
itself
all
things as
86.
Concerning
Bernardi
see
Lohr
1974b,
pp.
268-9.
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Metaphysics
passions or modes or species of being. The particular sciences of physics,
mathematics and metaphysics are not independent sciences, but only
parts
of
this universal science, in the same way
that
zoology
and
biology
are
parts
of
natural science.
Another opponent of the secular Aristotelianism in Italian universities,
the Jesuit Benito Pereira, was
willing
to concede some of Pomponazzi's
points. He was ready to admit
that
Aristotle had not proved the
immortality
of
the soul and
that
elements
of
the doctrine
of
the soul had to
be taken from physics and revelation. Nevertheless, he held
that
the
doctrine
of
the soul also belonged
—
along with the doctrine
of
God
and the
intelligences
—
to metaphysics. But because this science, in accordance with
the Thomist understanding, could
treat
these types of reality only as
principles or causes, he maintained
that
another science was needed which
could
deal with them per se. Pereira therefore proposed a division of
tra-
ditional metaphysics into two specifically distinct
sciences:
one which would
deal with the most universal predicates of things and another which
would
deal with immaterial reality. The first science, which he called 'first
philosophy' or 'universal science* - it
will
later also be called 'ontology' -
would
treat
ens
inquantum
ens (as containing in itself all things), the
transcendentals (one,
true
and good, act and potency, whole and
part
and
the like) and being as it is divided into the ten categories (substance and
accidents). The second science, which he called 'divine science', 'theology',
'wisdom'
or 'metaphysics in the proper sense
of
the word', would deal with
immaterial reality
—
God, the intelligences and the human soul
—
not as
principles
of
being,
but
rather
as species
of
reality. Material reality would be
studied in first philosophy as one of the grades of being and in physics as
corpus naturale. Because the principles dealt with in first philosophy are also
encountered in material things, Pereira rejected the traditional division of
the speculative sciences according to degrees of abstraction. In his
conception only divine science deals with reality separate from
matter;
first
philosophy deals with the ultimate principles of all reality, both material
and immaterial. The former is a particular science, the latter, a universal
one.
Pereira was one of the leading professors in the
Collegio
Romano
of
the
newly
founded Jesuit Order when the work De communibus
omnium
rerum
naturalium
principiis et affectionibus
—
in which this revolutionary division of
metaphysics into two distinct sciences was first proposed - appeared at
Rome in
1576.
His colleagues had included the celebrated
Juan
Maldonado,
who
later lectured on metaphysics, the De anima and theology in the
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