No, this is an impossibility for Aquinas et alia, Scott. The persons you are referring to have “scientia” (speculative or theoretical knowledge) on the mystery of the Trinity, but they have NOT “contemplated” it. Their scientiae or liberal arts have not feed and changed them into seers of the mystery. Yet this change is the ultimate end or telos of the liberal and theological arts.

This is why we shouldn’t think of “a way of knowing” as “knowledge.” Even though our modern translations say “knowledge”!!! The pesons you describe may have lots of knowledge but not have advanced very far into the scientia as a way of knowing that makes us that kind of knower.

Plato and Aristotle also have this understanding of knowing. The arts and sciences have the potentiality for a person to become one who can contemplate the Forms and become “wise,” but it is just a potentiality. So valuable, though, that it’s worth educating all the citizens in the arts just so some of them might become wise!

Scott says: “I just don’t want to equate ’smart Christian’ with a Christian who knows and has memorized most of the Summa Theologica”

Janet says: Scott, you are not hearing me. I haven’t succeeded in offering you a different way of looking at this in the slightest degree. This is why I make my readers do the whole thing on Plato’s Ion. If they have that much commitment and try that hard, they will end up with a new way of knowing that they can test on these authors to see if it illuminates them…because these authors were using it, or so it seems to me…. But I’m an old lady….

I hope this clarifies some of the ambiguity about what I mean by an account of e.g. the Trinity.

Re: your claim that nobody before the 17th c. made distinctions btwn. subjectivity and objectivity–I won’t attempt sort of historical case for this here. What I will do is say ‘perspective’ was und. given your own example from Dante. Different signs meant or counted as different things to different people. Umberto Eco tried to show in his book on Aesthetics in Aquinas that the aesthetic vision was co-constituted by the individual’s own perception of the beautiful object. So, perception played a role— but what determines the content, the perceiver (and/)or the perceived thing? In his section on the ’symbolic world’, Eco tried to show that Aquinas went against the notion that people could validate their own (subjective) claims that e.g. the three leafed leaf symbolizes the Trinity, by claiming that things have meanings in themselves (though based on divine ideas), which we can’t know in this life–at least not UNTIL the beatific vision when we shall know the divine essence (=the total Trinity). In other words, Aquinas was arguing against the common view that such spurious (subjective) experience/claims are valid, unless determined by the thing itself. So, no, I do think debates about subjectivity and objectivity occurred, even in the 13th century; even if not precisely with the words ’subjective’ and ‘objective’.

Nevertheless, the distinction btwn. binding and non-binding accounts I still maintain. Not on the basis of whether Aquinas or Scotus thought this way (no doubt they were creative interpreters of authoritative Church statements, which shows that they didn’t just submit to binding theses, but actually tried to work them out for themselves), but because I think it is a good contemporary insight into how to think about Theology. On my view, theology is done by lay people as well as professional theologians, it is just that their particular dialogue partners might be different. Some of these dialogue partners might be more or less insightful and helpful, and critiques of these are necessary and important for the flourishing of a Christian life (e.g. The Purpose Driven Life might’ve done some people actual good, for others it might’ve done actual harm–and it is the discerning minds to help those in either situation out). I just don’t want to equate ’smart Christian’ with a Christian who knows and has memorized most of the Summa Theologica (e.g. Anthony Kenny, though now an agnostic). No doubt some theological opinions are deeper and more profound than others, but this is for the individual peregrinations of Christians to sort out. Perhaps then, I am just wanting to affirm Augustine’s hermeneutics of love.

Doubtless, I would want to dispute this!! You are right.!

It absolute is NOT necessary to do this. How do I know? Because no-one before the 17th century thought like this. (you might be able to pull out little pieces that sound like this, but you have to take the thought-world as a whole and follow its main lines of force to interpret the small pieces in context.)

It is actually quite an unusual standpoint to think that we human beings “believe and act on explicit ideas in the mind.” But not on our experience and feelings? This is pure Descartes.

I believe that we must think our way back into earlier theology by putting that kind of worldview and its system of terms entirely out of your mind and letting the texts speak to you. This is where I think the literary texts can often carry us into a different thought-wrold more experientially and fully and then we can read the philosophical and discursive texts more attentively to the things that were important to them and that they were attending to. And the fiction of medieval scholars like Tolkien and Lewis helps too to enter that very different and very liberating imaginative universe or thought-world.

>The best scenario would be for a person to both have a fever >(=objective theology) and known the fever (=subjective theology).

‘Having a fever’ would be equivalent with subjective theology.
‘Knowing the fever’ would be equivalent with objective theology.

We could put this in terms of asking the question: is theology subjective or objective? Doubtless, with Heidegger to-hand you’d want to dispute this. Nevertheless, at some point it is necessary to distinguish btwn. one’s own experience and feelings, and the explicit ideas in their mind that they believe and act on. Thus far, I have been emphasizing the objective side of theology–in other words, I think it is true to say that if theologian A were contemplating the Incarnation and trying to work through a metaphysical description of it, this theologian could be in a state of sin and yet still understanding the truth and beauty of the incarnation. But if we consider the subjective side of theology (what I’ve described as spirituality), this theologian could be doing theology for his or her own good–as in contemplating the incarnation while penitent and adoring God in Christ. There can be people who do (more) orthodox theology and themselves live as pagans. There can be people who do orthodox theology and exemplify it in themselves. It would be like the difference btwn. knowing that Dan has a fever, and yourself having the fever. The best scenario would be for a person to both have a fever (=objective theology) and known the fever (=subjective theology). And furthermore, sometimes the person doing both can employ the subjective side to clarify or help the objective side, and vice versa.

if you think ’subjective/objective’ is a Cartesian thing (and therefore is anathema), then just replace it with Anselm’s consideration of something ‘in itself’ (objective) and that something ‘for oneself’ (subjective). This sort of distinction of course goes back to Aristotle when he discusses the difference btwn. theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge.

So-perhaps the real issue here is whether ‘theology in itself’ (objective theology) happens? Dan, (JT) and I once had a debate about this long ago—JT argued for the sola subjective side, and I argued for the both/and view. JT has since flopped and goes with a sola objective side view. I still maintain, along with most people, that there are two sides, or two things to consider. I wonder whether or not you construe me as holding the sola objective p.o.v. or that I think these two happen, but that there are no real connections btwn. these. I think there are real connections btwn. these, b/c people are often influenced by the ‘objective theology’ that they believe. This is why Aquinas holds that God finds it fitting to include human persons’ intellect and will in the process of sanctification. I very much agree with this. I just happen to think of the ‘real connection’ btwn. the objective and subjective sides as contingent, precisely b/c both are parts of creation. A theology is about God, but if you look at it by material supposition, theology is a bunch of qualities that inhere in a person’s intellect, and thus are created. And it is the distinctive mark of the Beatific Vision that human literally are united with God (which is what Aquinas and others mean when they say that the divine essence itself is present to the human intellect in the BV).

See, this misunderstanding here between you and me has to do with what we are thinking that thinking is. This whole notion of thinking as making a true account is post-Cartesian, I believe. I think for the medievals it was a way into knowing the Truth toward which accounts only gesture and then lose themselves in the inexhaustible richness and mystery. Thinking is a chance to growth and be made stronger in what the thinking is moving toward. In this sense, spirituality and thinking are the same thing. But growth doesn’t have to depend on thinking because the mind can be renewed in other ways. It’s just one glorious way! What’s at stake here is not Aquinas versus Scotus as the “correct” account or the one “right” propositional exposition of God wherby we must be saved. What matters is our own mind’s journey (our whole da-sein)toward what they too were journeying toward. Theology is a path that we make for one another collectively and not disjunctively as Christians. It’s power, it’s onlyl and sufficient power, is to allow the Other of thought to change us into knowers and lovers of that Other.

(Yes, because of his breaking ground with use of the alien pagan, Aristotle.)

The reason I don’t directly hitch my metaphysical explanation to salvation as such is simply b/c if I did, then I would be saying that my metaphysical acct. as such just is _the_ salvific path, and I don’t want to say that e.g. metaphysical acct. x (whoever’s) is binding on all Christians for their salvation; I would want to tie Scripture and Church life as more binding, and the metaphysical acct. is something the believer track down for a better understanding. I just don’t think that Aquinas, or Bonaventure or Scotus, or Suarez have the corner on the salvation market.

On the other hand, I do think that by studying these metaphysical accts. of doctrine, etc., that it can become for the one studying a part of their sanctification. I for one have been immensely enriched by studying medievals, AND Vanhooer’s work, and Treier’s work. After all, this concern about ‘binding’ or ‘non-binding’ accts. was given to me by Dan Treier. It is a point I have felt to be fruitful as I engage with the texts I do. I don’t want to say that if you want to love God and be a Christian, you must read X philosopohical-theologian, although, reading X may indeed be quite beneficial.

So I reject the notion that theology and spirituality are unrelated. it is just that I construe this connection in a way not yet mentioned here. Namely, God can and does use such things for the sanctification of his creatures. I just don’t think it is written into the very fabric of Christian nature that you must read X. You could read Y, Z, or B and sanctification could happen through those.

And… what do you mean by saying that Aquinas was ‘quite startingly in his day?’ Do you say this b/c of his Aristotelianism?

Are you saying Oakes makes this claim? I don’t see it in the article anywhere?