Rev. Jim Wallis wrote a very moving piece called, “What I Learned by Marrying a Priest,” (Sojourners, April 2014). Unfortunately, we in the Roman Catholic Church are not likely to have this experience any time soon. However, the importance of this question cannot be overstated because of its impact on ecumenical relations. Jews ordain women rabbis. The Episcopal Church ordains women as deacons, priests, and bishops. The Lutheran Church ordains women clergy. So, the question is important for Christian unity. I believe that if St. Thomas Aquinas were alive today, he would support the ordination of women to the Roman Catholic priesthood.
The Angelic doctor of the Church, Thomas of Aquinas is absolutely correct in stating that God is the Supreme Truth. That is to say, that God is the Supreme Reality. In his view a lie–a deliberate falsehood–is a grievous sin against the First Commandment: “I am the Lord your God; you shall not have strange gods before me.” Any deliberate denial of reality is a denial of God. Had St. Thomas had access to today’s biological knowledge, he would certainly challenge the Church’s prohibition against women’s ordination.
Bishop Dana Reynolds, left, is a member of Roman Catholic Womenpriests (RCWP), an Independent Catholic international group that asserts a connection to the Catholic Church.
Records pertinent to the life of St. Thomas are rare. Thomas’s date of birth is not known with certainty; he was born sometime between 1220 and 1227 C.E., in the family castle at Roccasecca. The site was within the kingdom of Sicily ruled by Emperor Frederick II, and on the southern boundary of the Papal States, controlled at the time by Pope Honorius III (1216-1227) and Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241.)
When assigned to teach in Paris, Thomas was only 31 years old. The minimum age requirement for occupying a professorship at the University of Paris was 35. However, through a dispensation granted by Pope Innocent IV, Thomas was made a Master of Theology. This, combined with his popularity, accounts for some of the personal attacks against him. The fact that he belonged to a religious order, which was not welcome by the secular clergy who dominated this University, accounts for much of the bitterness towards him and his fellow religious, the Franciscan Friar Boneventure. The seculars sought to have them removed from their chairs of Theology, and, thus, the first battle for academic freedom ensued.
It did not help that Thomas was using ideas from the pagan Aristotle. Anonymous tracts attributed to the seculars circulated through the University, accusing Thomas of heresy. This conflict became so heated that it had to be resolved by the Popes of Rome, under whose license the University operated. Innocent IV first ruled in favor of the Orders, then reversed himself. He was succeeded by Pope Alexander IV, who promptly annulled his predecessor’s bull and restored the Orders to their privileges. The seculars responded with a threat to quit teaching and close the University. Thomas successfully defended the Orders.
The incident is important to the question of the ordination of women, because it aptly illustrates how a pope can change his mind and how a subsequent pope can reverse the ruling of a previous pope. Therefore, Pope Francis can, should he choose to do so, declare the ordination of women to the priesthood open for debate. There is no good reason to consider this a settled matter, and many good reasons suggest otherwise.
In understanding the mentality of St. Thomas, it is important to keep in mind that he had been discriminated against.
- He belonged to one of the “hippie groups” of his time.
- He was unorthodox in his use of Aristotle.
- The “Establishment” tried to throw him out.
- He and his fellow Franciscans–the other hippie group–fought the first battle for academic freedom in the history of Western universities.
- They ultimately won.
This is not the usual picture today’s scholars and students hold of St. Thomas. To understand St. Thomas, one must erase the picture of a fat monk arguing cleverly to defend the establishment in a period of conformity of thought.
It is important to note that, in an age where it was most common to argue a point by citing authorities, St. Thomas insisted that the argument from authority was the weakest argument of all! It can be seen that in keeping with the conventions of his time, he did cite authorities, but he never rested his argument solely or even primarily on authority. While he seems to have regarded authorities as useful, he never regarded them as sufficient.
The many biographers of St. Thomas are unanimous in their agreement concerning his personality. Thomas bore many personal attacks placidly. Never did he defend his person, and in defense of his positions, never did he indulge in ad hominems. There is also agreement concerning his temperament; seldom, twice only in a lifetime, did Thomas show anger. One incident concerned a dispute with Siger of Brabant. It is this incident that merits our attention because of the importance of the position taken. Because of his use of Aristotle, Aquinas laid himself open to attackers on two fronts.
Church conservatives saw his reliance on Aristotle as an attack on Augustine and the other Church fathers, and on the strains of Neo-Platonism, which they had intermingled, to the point of having lost their source.
From Aquinas’s point of view, the second source of attack was the crucial one. It came in the form in what seemed to be agreement with him–but actually did the opposite. His opponents were Aristotelians. Siger of Brabant, their leader, followed to some extent the interpretation of Aristotle by Averroes. This taught that nous–defined as the intelligence that is necessary for understanding what is real/true–was separable. But in the individual, it was conjoined with a ‘material intellect,’ with both nous and material intellect being necessary for thinking. Since the material intellect was corruptible, this prevented personal immortality. Matter existed from eternity. The impersonal nous, after leaving the matter of the body, became part of a universal and common intelligence.
Irrespective of one’s own interpretation of Aristotle’s views about personal immortality and the exact nature of nous, it is possible to take the position of Aquinas and argue for the soul’s immortality. The views of the Averroists…concerning the eternity of matter…disagreed with the teaching of the Church on creation on all three counts. The position of the Averroists was incompatible with Catholic doctrine. When this was called to their attention, Siger and his followers agreed that, perhaps, these teachings of Aristotle did contradict the teaching of faith. So, ostensibly in the interest of defending reason and faith, Siger suggested the compromise known as “the doctrine of two truths.”
This “doctrine of the two truths” had originally been advanced by Averroes himself, under much the same circumstances. He had been called on to reconcile these teachings with orthodox Islamic theology. Siger argued that there were two truths: the truth on the material world and the truth of the supernatural world. He argued that, when being naturalistic, one may hold in abeyance the other truth; on turning to religion, one accepts this truth.
Aquinas, too, followed Averroes in separating faith from reason. To Aquinas, Siger said in effect, “You speak of reason and faith as both giving truth; so, too, do we, but with only this difference, one does not need to trouble about reconciling the two truths. This fine distinction,” Siger said, “is all that divides us.”
This doctrine, seeming so near and yet actually being so far from what he was teaching, was a flat contradiction to all that Aquinas stood for. To Aquinas the doctrine was a mere subterfuge. For the second time in his life he was aroused in anger. Such expressions as “puffed up with false knowledge,” “if he dares,” and “false teaching” were used in his reply to Siger, instead of his usual temperate and balanced style.
It is to his eternal credit that he also opposed the reverse form of error. It is thoroughly unsound, Aquinas held, to believe views about other matters are irrelevant–so long as one’s religious attitude is correct.
What Aquinas represented was the doctrine of “the one truth.” There were two paths to the same truth, not two truths. Nothing that was philosophically demonstrated would ever contradict, or ever be contradicted by, anything taught to man through revelation. This position of Aquinas may be made clearer if we deal more specifically with the issue of reason and faith as he saw it. That truth in reason and faith (in science and religion) are one, is so important to him, that it is on this theme that he opens the Summa.
Aquinas decisively defeated Siger of Brabant in this great controversy of 1302 C.E. He had won his battle for a wider scope of philosophy and science. He had cleared the ground for a general understanding about faith and enquiry; an understanding that has generally been observed by Catholics, and certainly never deserted without disaster. It was this idea that the scientist should go on exploring and experimenting freely, so long as he did not claim infallibility and finality, which it was against his own principles to claim. Meanwhile the Church should go on developing and defining about supernatural things, so long as she did not claim a right to alter the deposit of faith, which it was against her own principles to claim.
After Thomas said this, Siger of Brabant got up and said something so horribly like it, and so horribly unlike it, that…he might have deceived the elect. Siger of Brabant said this: the Church must be right theologically, but she can be wrong scientifically. There are two truths: the truth of the supernatural world, and the truth of the natural world, which contradicts the supernatural world. While we are being naturalist, we can suppose that Christianity is all nonsense. But, then, when we remember that we are Christians, we must admit that Christianity is true, even if it is nonsense.
In other words, Siger of Brabant split the human head in two (a foreshadowing of Descarte’s dualism.) He declared that a man has two minds, one of which he must entirely believe, and with the other he may utterly disbelieve. To many this would at least seem like a parody of Thomism. It was not two ways of finding the same truth; it was an untruthful way of pretending that there are two truths.
And it is extraordinarily interesting to note that this is the one occasion when the Dumb Ox came out like a wild bull. When he stood up to answer Siger of Brabant, Thomas was altogether transfigured. The very style of his sentences, which is like the tone of a man’s voice, is suddenly altered. He had never been angry with any of the enemies who disagreed with him. But these enemies had attempted the worst treachery. They had made him agree with them.
Those who complain that theologians draw fine distinctions could hardly find a better example of their own folly. In fact, a fine distinction can be a flat contradiction. It was notably so in this case. St. Thomas was willing to allow the one truth to be approached by two paths, precisely because he was sure there was only one truth. Because the Faith was the one truth, nothing discovered in Nature could ultimately contradict the Faith. Because Faith was the one truth, nothing really deduced from the Faith could ultimately contradict the facts. It was in truth a curiously daring confidence in the reality of his religion.
The importance of this squabble can scarcely be overstated….Since the Supreme Being is the author of all that has being/exists, then truth must be one. Whether truth is arrived at through empirical sciences, philosophy, or revelation, it is still being or truth. St. Thomas has maintained that there can be no contradiction between the truths of religion and science. To say that there can be, as Siger did, is to say that being is not being.
St. Thomas was a bold, imaginative, industrious seeker of the truth. There is no indication that he ever aspired to honors. Scholars can search his writings in vain for a reference to himself. It is easy for us today to look back upon St. Thomas and laugh at some of the beliefs he held. For instance, Thomas, quite in keeping with the common belief of the age, thought women were inferior to men. “The woman is subject to the man on account of the weakness of her nature, both of mind and body” (9 St. Th. 1xxxi, 3.) However, if it could be empirically shown to him that women were not inferior by nature in mind and body, it would be safe to say that he would adjust his thinking and respond accordingly.
It was not until Anton van Leeuwenhook (1632-1723) invented the microscope, that scientists discovered that women ovulate. Prior to this time, it was known that men produced semen, which was thought to be the only matter that enabled human reproduction. The man had the seed. The woman was only the possessor of the fertile soil to plant the seed. Hence, the superiority of the man over the woman.
Today we know this is nonsense. Thomas’ view of women was based on a faulty understanding of biology. Had he known what we know today, he would definitely support equal rights for women and, very likely, the ordination of women to holy orders.