Wisdom, Law, and Virtue: Essays in Thomistic Ethics

Chapter 21: Jacques Maritian, St. Thomas, and the Philosophy of Religion

Chapter 21 JACQUES MARITAIN, ST. THOMAS, AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION Introduction My aim here is to carry further than Jacques Maritain ever had occasion to do certain fundamental proposals of his. I treat philosophy of religion as the highest part of moral philosophy. Maritain championed the development of as autonomous a moral philosophy as is possible in the universe , the true dynamics of whose sphere of action is revealed to us in the Gospel. He argued both that moral philosophy does not yet exist and that the principles for fully developed moral philosophy are to be found in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. Accordingly, I make some suggestions concerning possible use of the treasure to be found in St. Thomas’s theological writings, with a view to developing as far as possible an autonomous moral philosophy (and I see in Ignatius Mennessier’s work the beginnings of such an endeavor for philosophy of religion). Furthermore, religion being the highest form of justice, and having its cause in our love for God, I put forward as a primary problem for the philosopher of religion (or for the metaphysician on his behalf) the explanation of the distinction between justice and friendship or love, and the presentation of the causal relation between the two (love as the cause of justice): the idea being to trace this distinction to its roots in the very nature of being. Part  A primary concern of Jacques Maritain was the autonomy of philosophy. In Le paysan de la Garonne, he accuses the disciples of St. Thomas of   Wisdom, Law, and Virtue never having presented the philosophy of St. Thomas in its properly philosophical condition, and he gives a few indications of what that condition would be like.1 We find the same point made earlier, in Court traité de l’existence et de l’existant2 and in Science et sagesse.3 This last-mentioned text is most important, for it shows us that this appeal for a philosophy ‘‘not attenuated or enlisted, but free’’ is part of the more general appeal for ‘‘integral humanism,’’ ‘‘theocentric humanism’’; that is, Maritain saw the development of philosophy in its own proper dimensions as part of the fulfillment of the human that must be a goal of Christian endeavor.4 Let us note his brief characterization of ‘‘Thomistic philosophy disengaged [from theology] for its own self and in its own nature,’’ as given in Le paysan. Having noted the philosopher’s need for teachers and tradition (though in another way than the theological requires these), he says: As regards the method he is to follow, it is clear that presentation of problems, inquiry, and discovery come before systematization. And even before direct inquiry (and the battle with things and discussion and controversy and finally the doctrinal synthesis toward which he tends, and which all together constitute his proper work) the avenue of approach most normal for him is historical investigation—and not merely historical, since he has already, of course, his idea in the back of his head and perhaps his frame of reference (and history by itself does not suffice for judging)—it is the historical and critical investigation of what has been thought before him. (There too, we can take lessons from Aristotle.) The avenue of approach in question is only an introductory avenue, but, both in inquiry and in teaching, it is altogether necessary.5 The approach of which Maritain speaks is best illustrated, in his own writings, in La philosophie morale.6 In the preface to this work he tells us that although the domain of moral philosophy has been largely elucidated by Thomas Aquinas and his commentators, he thinks that a moral philosophy conceived in the light of Thomas’s principles, and capable of clarifying our modern problems, remains to be produced. Moral philosophy, in its proper form, has not yet been brought into existence.7 If we begin now to speak of ‘‘Christian philosophy’’ and of ‘‘moral philosophy adequately taken,’’ topics much discussed by Maritain, we Jacques Maritain, St. Thomas, and the Philosophy of Religion  have not changed the subject of discussion at all. In Approches sans entraves , Maritain assures us that ‘‘Christian philosophy’’ is only ‘‘philosophy fully itself.’’8 Indeed, Science et sagesse made it quite clear that these concepts of Christian philosophy and moral philosophy adequately taken were both forged with a view to developing, in their true...