By DONALD DeMARCO
G.K. Chesterton, in his remarkably insightful book, Saint Thomas Aquinas: “The Dumb Ox,” states that it is unfortunate that “between the man in the street and the Angel of the Schools [Aquinas], there stands at this moment a very high brick wall, with spikes on the top, separating two men who in many ways stand for the same thing.”
Since that same thing is nothing other than common sense, the rift is indeed most unfortunate. There is no common ground between common sense and uncommon nonsense.
Why does such a rift exist? There are several reasons, though none of them would validate the separation of two who both embrace common sense. They are time, language, age, temperament, and form. Aquinas wrote long ago in an age that is now unfairly discredited. His works were written in a foreign language and presented in texts that are formal and uninviting. But if we are fair to the great saint and take the time to investigate what he actually said, we will find that Friar Thomas is also Brother Thomas who honors the common sense that the man in the street takes for granted.
To the fundamental question, “Is there a reality”? Aquinas says, “Yes.” If he had said “No,” he could have gone no further. It is taken as a matter of common sense by people of common sense that there is a reality that we can know, share, and within which we can make our way in life.
There is a bridge between mind and reality, one that is affirmed every day in our practical lives and continuously corroborated through scientific inquiry. The ancients distinguished between the microcosm of the mind and the macrocosm of the world. And they understood how the two were attuned to each other so that the intelligibility of the macrocosm world could register its imprint on the microcosm of the mind.
In modern imagery, it is like a radio frequency that is attuned to the radio. Man can know reality just as a radio can pick up a particular frequency. We are attuned to the world and therefore are able to make our way within it.
Someone once asked the question, “What is the difference between ignorance and apathy?” The answer was, “I don’t know and I don’t care.” This retort, however, conveys an answer that is cynical and suggestive of a prevailing attitude in which many people really don’t know and don’t care. Aquinas would have answered the question differently. He might have said, “The former represents a lack of knowledge while the latter represents a lack of love.”
The lack of knowledge that is pandemic in our present society is based on the notion that knowledge is unattainable and that people should be content with having their opinions. When someone dares to claim that he knows what he is talking about and not merely opining, he is often accused of being dogmatic, imposing his beliefs, or acting like a “know-it-all.”
Opinions are harmless assertions that make no pretense to being realistic. Yet, opinions, conjectures, speculations, hypotheses, and guesses exist because they are various attempts to reach the kingdom of knowledge. The football player is happy to gain ten yards because it is on the way to a touchdown. If there could be no touchdowns, there would be no point in gaining yardage.
Philosophically speaking, what has been referred to as the decline of medieval philosophy was really a transition from understanding man as a knower to characterizing him as a thinker. René Descartes’ celebrated statement, “I think therefore I am,” captured the modern mood in a nutshell.
Descartes regarded human beings not as knowers, but as thinkers. But his error lies in the fact that mere thinking does not gain a foothold in reality whereas knowledge does. Descartes thought he had founded a new beginning for philosophy. But the origin he believed he had discovered had no place to go since it was cut off from the outside world and remained circulating within his own mind.
The difference between thinking and knowing is akin to the difference between wishing and willing, dreaming and acting, searching and finding. It is interesting to note that St. Thomas did not have in his vocabulary a term corresponding to “a thinker.” Aquinas was in touch with reality right from the beginning and the entire edifice of his philosophy is built on man’s capacity to know. We may state that thinking is nothing other than dis-existentialized knowing. It is ruminating cut off from any real object. It is like swinging the bat in the on-deck circle before coming to the plate and hitting a pitched ball.
Albert Einstein famously asserted that what was most incomprehensible to him was that the universe is comprehensible. How did it happen that the mind and the universe were attuned to each other? That is a mystery that lies beyond the scope of science.
But it is not beyond the scope of theology. It is easy enough to believe that when God said “Let there be light” He provided man with the illumination he needed to know things. Light not only illuminated the world because of the sun; it also illuminated man’s mind so that he could know, as Aristotle said, “all things.”
The philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas is not only worth remembering but worth putting into practice. It begins and proceeds from common sense. It opposes the skepticism, cynicism, relativism, nihilism, and deconstructionism that is rampant in the present era and plants philosophy on a firm ground that can be shared by all. We need not scale the “high brick wall” to appreciate Aquinas’ contribution, but merely open the door and enter the room where common sense is the universal language.
(Dr. Donald DeMarco’s latest two books, How to Navigate Through Life and Apostles of the Culture of Life, are posted on amazon.com.)
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