Critique of Descartes Concerning the Relationship Between Philosophy and Theology (original) (raw)

as a Negative Rule for Philosophy. For the rationalist Descartes, theology (sacred theology or supernatural theology) is not a science, which is the opposite of the position of someone like St. Thomas Aquinas, for whom theology (sacred theology or supernatural theology), philosophy, and the particular sciences, are all sciences. "Descartes was dedicated to the proposition that all sciences are one…all sciences are one owing to the unity of their common method…" 1 (the mathematical method). "Descartes regarded philosophy as the sole science 2 of which the others were but parts…For Descartes philosophy absorbs the other sciences-is the whole of science." 3 In spite of the fact of having studied with the Jesuits at La Flèche for many years, Descartes's new rationalist philosophy rejected the traditional harmonious relationship between reason and faith, philosophy and sacred theology (supernatural theology). With Descartes there emerged a rationalist and immanentist philosophy which was to be absolutely independent from theology; sacred theology or supernatural theology would not provide anymore a negative rule for philosophy. Regarding the father of modern philosophy's pivotal role in the tragic separation, and opposition or antinomy, between faith and reason, theology and philosophy, Maritain writes: "In the seventeenth century the Cartesian reform resulted in the severance of philosophy from theology, 4 the refusal to recognize the rightful control of theology and its function as a negative rule in respect of philosophy. This was tantamount to denying that theology is a science, or anything more than a mere practical discipline, and to claiming that philosophy, or human wisdom, is the absolutely sovereign science, which admits no other superior to itself. Thus, in spite of the religious beliefs of Descartes himself, Cartesianism introduced the principle of rationalist philosophy, which denies God the right to make known by revelation truths which exceed the natural scope of reason. For if God has indeed revealed truths of this kind, human reason enlightened by faith will inevitably employ them as premises from