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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Although Étienne Gilson did not change his position on Christian philosophy as defined in his 1931 Gifford Lectures, interesting modifications occur in his later formulations. Whereas Gilson's earlier formulations emphasized philosophy searching within the faith for what can become rational, his later formulations during the 1960s placed more emphasis on its Christian aspect, i.e., faith guiding reason. In the 1960s, Gilson emphasized faith and the Church as the guardians of Christian philosophy, expressed a relative indifference to the validity of rational proofs for the existence of God, and empathized with those accepting questionable philosophical approaches to understand the faith. Post-modernism with its rejection of a “pure” or “scientific” methodology in philosophy serves as an appropriate context in which to situate Gilson's later formulation of Christian philosophy.
1 See Gouhier, Henri, “Étienne Gilson et la notion de philosophie chrétienne,” Étienne Gilson, Trois Essais: Bergson, La philosophie chrétienne, L'art (Paris: Vrin, 1993), pp. 37–73Google Scholar.
2 See Émile Bréhier's, Histoire de la philosophie (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1927)Google Scholar, I, part 2, pp. 486ff. and his article “Y a-t-il une philosphie chrétienne,” La revue de métaphysique, vol. 38, n. 2 (avril-juin 1931), p. 162f. For the Gilson-Bréhier debate see, “La notion de philosophie chrétienne”, Bulletin de la Societé française de Philosophie, 31 (1931), pp. 37–93Google Scholar. According to Bréhier, Greek philosophy reached our era as a universe completely penetrated by reason devoid of mystery. Its practical wisdom was ordered by a rationalism. What was philosophical in thinkers of the Middle Ages was Greek and that remained true of more modern thinkers such as Descartes and Hegel. Bréhier considered contemporary thinkers like Maurice Blondel more as apologists for the faith than philosophers.
3 Gilson, Étienne, Le Thomisme (Paris: Vrin, 1927), p. 40Google Scholar. See Gilson, Étienne, L'esprit de la philosophie médiévale (Paris: Vrin, 1932), p. 4f.Google Scholar; The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy, trans. Downes, A. H. C. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1934), p. 5Google Scholar. “A true philosophy taken absolutely and in itself, owes all its truth to its rationality and to nothing other than its rationality” (ibid., p. 37).
4 Gilson, The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy, p. 37.
5 Gilson, Étienne, Christianisme et philosophie (Paris: Vrin, 1936), p. 100Google Scholar. The book was published in English as Christianity and Philosophy, trans. MacDonald, Ralph C.S.B., (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1939)Google Scholar; see p. 71.
6 Gilson, Étienne, Le Thomisme (Paris: Vrin, 1947)Google Scholar pp. 1, 4. Although Gilson did not use the expression in his historical expositions of Aquinas’ philosophy, he did discuss it. It appeared, for example, in his major work on Scotus (Jean Duns Scot, introduction à ses positions fondamentales (Paris: Vrin, 1952)Google Scholar and in his History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (New York: Random House, 1955)Google Scholar.
7 Gilson, Étienne, Thomism: The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, trans. Shook, Laurence K. and Maurer, Armand (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2002), pp. x, 6Google Scholar.
8 Gilson, Étienne, “What is Christian philosophy,” A Gilson Reader, ed. Pegis, Anton C. (New York: Doubleday, 1957), pp. 177–192Google Scholar. A fifty page section of the Reader entitled “The Disciple of Christian Philosophy” contained two chapters on Christian philosophy from previously published works, but Gilson seems not to have found in his published works a text completely satisfactory so he wrote one.
9 Ibid., p. 186. Aeterni Patris (also known by its subtitle, “On the Restoration of Christian Philosophy”) was issued on 4 August 1879. For Gilson's “incredible” history of the encyclical and developing his own notion of Christian philosophy in his Gifford Lectures, see Gilson, Christianisme et philosophie, p. 129f.; Christianity and Philosophy, p. 93f. In all humility, Gilson confessed that “when studying…documents relative to this notion [Christian philosophy] and coming across the encyclical Aeterni Patris which I had completely forgotten, I understood that the very idea I was trying to justify in two volumes, twenty lectures, and I don't know how many notes, was exactly what the encyclical would have sufficed to teach me, implying as it does the very interpretation of medieval philosophy that I was proposing … .The notion of Christian philosophy, which had cost me so much trouble to justify from the facts and E. Bréhier's denying its existence had been imposed on me at the end of long research, from which a little attention to the teaching of the church could have spared me.” Had Gilson read the encyclical and forgotten its contents or had he forgotten that there was such an encyclical and not read it? Years later, Gilson cleared up the ambiguity: he had not read it before preparing his lectures. See Étienne Gilson The Philosopher and Theology, trans. Cécile Gilson (New York: Random House, 1962), p. 180.
10 See, for example, Gilson, Étienne, The Elements of Christian Philosophy (New York: Doubleday, 1960), p. 5Google Scholar. “The words “Christian philosophy” do not belong to the language of St. Thomas Aquinas, but they are the name under which, in his Encyclical Letter Aeterni Patris, Pope Leo XIII designated the doctrine of the Common Doctor of the church in 1879. Such as it is described in the epoch-making document, Christian philosophy is that way of philosophizing in which the Christian faith and the human intellect join forces in a common investigation of philosophical truth.” Owens makes the important point that “Christian philosophy…as envisaged by Aeterni Patris, remains altogether theology-free … . As a philosophy it is specified only by naturally knowable aspects of the topics with which it deals … .It could hardly be fair to attribute naively to Pope Leo the self-refuting project of calling upon theological content or theological method to offer philosophic support to the faith…. Aeterni Patris does not seek a basis for its philosophical program in aspects such as holiness or awe or dread, even though it is well aware of the all-pervading order of grace … .” See Joseph Owens, “The Christian Philosophy of Aeterni Patris,” Towards a Christian Philosophy (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1990) p. 74
11 Gilson, Étienne, Langan, Thomas & Maurer, Armand, Recent Philosophy: Hegel to the Present (New York: Random House, 1966), p. 339f.Google Scholar; Gilson, The Philosopher and Theology, pp. 218, 338, 185–186, 192. As for non-believers, Gilson noted that one “would look in vain for instruction concerning the manner of philosophizing proper to minds without faith in a supernatural revelation” but this does not justify the refusal of some philosophers “to take into consideration philosophical teaching conceived in a Christian spirit. When conclusions are offered as philosophical, they should be examined as such” (ibid., p. 182). See also, Gilson's introductory remarks on the encyclical in Maritain, Jacques, St. Thomas Aquinas (New York: Meridian, 1960), pp. 179–181Google Scholar and Maurer, Armand A., “Gilson and Aeterni Patris,” Thomistic Papers: VI, ed. Knasas, John F.X. (Houston: Center for Thomistic Studies, 1994), pp. 91–105Google Scholar.
12 Gilson cited Aeterni Patris in the opening lines of his book, The Elements of Christian Philosophy and in the opening sentence of his Introduction à la philosophie Chrétienne (Paris: Vrin, 1960)Google Scholar. Gilson's important work, Gilson, Étienne, Le philosophe et la théologie (Paris: Fayard, 1960)Google Scholar contained an entire chapter on “Christian Philosophy” and a chapter on “The Future of Christian Philosophy.”
13 Henri Gouhier, “Étienne Gilson et la notion de philosohie chrétienne,” pp. 63–67. “That which characterized Gilson was a great sense of the ‘other’, which manifested itself by the freedom with which he directly voiced his disagreement with his interlocutor, without rhetorical precautions, while at the same time not holding anything against those whose disagreed with him nor attributing to them any inferiority or superiority whatsoever.” See Gouhier, Henri, “Deux Maitres: Bergson et Gilson,” Henri Gouhier se souvient… ou comment on devient historien des idées, eds. Belgioioso, Louise Gouhier et Giulia (Paris: Vrin, 2005), p. 116 (my translation)Google Scholar.
14 Gilson, The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy, p. 5.
15 Gilson, The Philosopher and Theology, p. 11.
16 Étienne Gilson, , Christian Philosophy, trans. Maurer, Armand (Winnipeg: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1993), p. 11Google Scholar.
17 Gilson, The Philosopher and Theology, p. 99f. “However far we can go in the footsteps of Aristotle, and even prolonging our explorations of the divine by means of the speculations of Plato, Plotinus and Proclus, we shall never reach the gates of sacred theology. It is not to be found at the term of metaphysics, nor above metaphysics, but outside of it; it is, so to speak, somewhere else. To enter it one should first establish oneself in faith…” (ibid., p. 213). See also, Étienne Gilson, “Wisdom and Time,” The Gilson Reader, p. 329. “Twenty centuries of philosophy, of science, and even of theology have not added or taken away an iota from the substance of hope and faith that all Christians have in the word of God.” “Faith in God precedes the acquiescence of the Christian to the truth of Scripture. Inversely neither Plato nor Aristotle nor Plotinus who created philosophy, owes anything to the Judeo-Christian revelation” (ibid., p. 333). On 21 Nov 1959, Gilson chaired a session of La semaine des intellectuals catholique at which he briefly argued that Christian mystery “does not follow reason, it precedes it, accompanies it as it proceeds; it in a way envelopes and eventually shows it beneficial perspectives which reason left to itself would never suspect possible. Theology transcends philosophy because it is founded in faith.” See Le mystère: Semaine des intellectuels Catholiques (Paris: Pierre Horay, 1960), p. 172 (my translation). According to Shook, in this summation Gilson presented his last, refined judgment on theology's relation to philosophy. Gilson “came near to saying that, for the believer, philosophy in the generally accepted sense of the word is an impossibility.” See Shook, Laurence K., Etienne Gilson (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1984), p. 349Google Scholar.
18 Étienne Gilson, L'athéisme difficile (Paris: Vrin, 1979), p. 11 (my translation).
19 Ibid., p. 12 (my translation). Gilson maintained that atheism stood in need of rational justification much more so than the spontaneous belief that there is a God—in trying to answer the main question for a philosopher: “How, without some preexisting notion, or feeling, of the divinity, did men form the concept of a cause so utterly different in nature from its observable effects… so utterly different from that of man?” Here we reach a point which Gilson considers mysterious. The idea of God is found in the minds of many men for which there is no known model in experience. This leaves us with the issue of the reality of the notion, whether or not it really exists. Even Aquinas’ “proofs” conclude with the existence of a being in a certain order of reality that “all understand is God.” So we have a notion prior to our demonstrating its existence. In his Treatise on Separate Substances, St. Thomas spoke of an innate knowledge of God, at least in the sense that whenever we have reached the notion of a first principle of all things it is natural for men to call it God. Gilson spoke of this spontaneous common notion of God as the confusedly perceived presence of God in nature and in himself in terms of the truth hidden in the notion of an anima naturaliter Christiana (ibid., pp. 53–58). Gilson located the source of the idea in the mystery of induction as set out by Aristotle in his Posterior Analytics (ibid., 64–66). See also Gilson's earlier, slightly different, English version of L'athéisme difficile published as “The Idea of God and the Difficulties of Atheism,” The Great Ideas Today (Chicago, Illinois: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1969), pp. 254–257, 264–268Google Scholar, and his God and Philosophy, p. 117f.
20 For St. Thomas, who cited Proverbs IX, 3, sacred doctrine (sacra doctrina) considered the other sciences such as philosophy as handmaids or servants. See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, q.1, art. 5.
21 Gilson, “Plaidoyer pour la servante,” L'athéisme difficile, pp. 76, 80–81 (my translation).
22 Gilson, Étienne, “On Behalf of the Handmaid,” Theology of Renewal, ed. Shook, Laurence K. (Montréal: Palm, 1968), I, p. 249Google Scholar.
23 Ibid., pp. 245, 247. As Gilson succinctly put it, “It is not in our power to make metaphysics easily accessible to the millions” (p. 249). See also Gilson, “What is Christian Philosophy?” p. 181. “ … Thomas Aquinas himself placed more hope in philosophers than we do. The reason probably is that he had not seen anything like the condition of metaphysics in our own time … .[W]e seem to consider anybody as qualified to become a metaphysician … . There is no reason to wonder what would happen to our knowledge of God if it had been entrusted to the sole care of philosophy and the philosophers. We know it, we see it, and the answer is that philosophers have simply brought the problem to a chaotic condition.” Owens acknowledged that “[t]he role of existence in demonstrating the existence of God and its role in individuating creatures still call for much probing.” But on the larger issue of the Neo-Thomistic philosophical movement, Owens expressed optimism: “Aquinas has continually had his ups and downs, with euphoria in the early fourteenth century at the time of his canonization, and later at the use made of him in the sixteenth century at the Council of Trent, and then through the Leonine encyclical in the nineteenth century. After each of these bursts of attention he receded to a much lower level of notice. There is no reason to think that this alternating history will not be continued.” See Owens, Joseph, “Neo-Thomism and Christian Philosophy,” Thomistic Papers VI, ed. Knasas, John F.X. (Houston: Center for Thomistic Studies, 1994), p. 51Google Scholar.
24 Gilson, “On Behalf of the Handmaid, pp. 242, 247 n. 6. Gilson described the greatest lesson he learned from St Thomas Aquinas, “often confirmed…by personal experience,” as follows: “I have known many more cases of philosophers converted to scholastic philosophy by the Catholic faith than of philosophers converted to the Catholic faith by scholastic philosophy. I know this is how it is; I feel infinitely grateful to St. Thomas Aquinas for having made me understand that this is how it should be. We cannot equal him in genius, and still less in holiness, but there is at least one way for us to prove his true disciples. It is, while exerting to their full limit the power of our intellects, to put our ultimate trust, for others as well as for ourselves, in Him in Whose light alone we shall see the Light.” See Gilson, “Science, Philosophy, and Religious Wisdom,” The Gilson Reader, p. 221.
25 Gouhier, “Étienne Gilson et la notion de philosophie chrétienne,” p. 72f.
26 Gouhier, “Deux Maitres: Bergson et Gilson,” Henri Gouhier se souvient, p. 83f.
27 Schmitz, Kenneth L., “Postmodernism and the Catholic Tradition,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 73, no.2 spring 1999, p. 233fCrossRefGoogle Scholar.
28 Given Gouhier's passion for the theater and his impressive work as its critic, this possibility may merit further investigation. See Gouhier, Henri, L'essence du théâtre (Paris: Plon, 1943, 2nd ed. Aubier, 1968)Google Scholar, L’œuvre théâtrale (Paris: Flammarion, 1958)Google Scholar, and Le théâtre et les arts à deux temps (Paris: Flammarion, 1989)Google Scholar. See also, Giulia Belgioioso, “Bibliographie génerale des oeuvres d’Henri Gouhier,” Henri Gouhier se souvient, pp. 157–232. While not considering himself a creator in philosophy or in the theater Gouhier recognized his talent in presenting the creations of others; he felt a certain link between the role of a director and his work as a historian of philosophy (ibid., p. 87, n. 1).
29 Owens, “Neo-Thomism and Christian Philosophy,” pp. 43–44, n. 22; 49–52. Anton Pegis, one of Gilson's early students in North America, thought that the Christian philosophy of the Middle Ages lacked the autonomous state of expression proper to a philosophy and, as a religious tool, was not a philosophy but a theology. He thought that a Christian philosophy today is possible not as the work of theologians but of philosophers closely engaged with the Christian faith and theology. According to Fr. Maurer, Gilson never disagreed with Pegis’ position. “Since Christian philosophy is not a philosophy but a way of philosophizing, Gilson thought it could take many forms. He praised Jacques Maritain and Gabriel Marcel, whose Christian existentialisms were not developed as handmaids of theology but nevertheless had close ties with faith and, at least in Maritain's case, with theology.” Maurer also indicated that Gilson's own philosophical works such as The Unity of Philosophical Experience (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999) and Being and Some Philosophers (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1949) were works of a Christian philosopher in which philosophy is not placed at the service of theology though it remained open to the influence of Christian revelation and to the guidance of theology. See Maurer, Christian Philosophy, pp. xix–xx; see, also, Aidan Nichols, O.P., Conversation of Faith and Reason: Modern Catholic Thought from Hermes to Benedict XVI (Chicago: Hillenbrand, 2009), p. 132. Collins also regarded Gilson's historical interpretation of Thomism as allowing it to remain open to a theological and philosophical reconstruction. Collins denied that a philosophy which takes advantage of every source of truth to include revelation means that while proceeding from sensible beings to God it must philosophize according to the theological order. Like Gilson, (God and Philosophy, pp. 91ff.), Collins advised contemporary Thomists not to take their guidance from Christian philosophers such as Malebranche who “assign to reasons drawn from revelation the decisive role of determining their assent to the basic propositions in philosophy.” See James Collins, “Toward a Philosophically Ordered Thomism,” Crossroads in Philosophy, pp. 294–97. Fr. Nichols has interpreted Gilson's Christian philosophy as embodying a “Chalcedonian” concept of the philosophy-theology—and hence, reason-faith relationship that “stresses the essential distinctness as well as the inseparability of the two disciplines.” According to Nichols, Pope John Paul II in Fides et ratio espoused Gilson's notion of Christian philosophy, and Pope Benedict XVI in his famous Regensburg lecture of 2008 “adopted a fully Gilsonian picture of how philosophy and theology interrelate, appealing explicitly, in fact, to Gilson's comparison with Chalcedon. They should be united ‘without confusion and without separation’.” See Aidan Nichols, Conversation of Faith and Reason, pp. 129, 188f., 204f.
30 See, for example, Knasas, John F.X., “A Heideggerian Critique of Aquinas and a Gilsonian Reply,” Post-Modernism and Christian Philosophy, ed. Ciapalo, Roman T. (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press/American Maritain Society, 1997), pp. 128–140.Google Scholar
