God, Philosophy, Universities. A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition

God, Philosophy, Universities. A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition. Alasdair MacIntyre. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009.

God, Philosophy, Universities traces the idea of God through different philosophers’ engagement on this question in the context of the university. Aimed at advanced undergraduate and first-year graduate students, this book divides the topics into 1) God, philosophy, and the university; 2) Augustine, Boethius, Islamic, and the Catholic philosophical tradition; 3) Aquinas; 4) Scholasticism to Descartes, Pascal, and Arnauld; and 5) modernity with Newman, Fides et Ratio, and other contemporary considerations of the university, philosophy, and God. While adopting a historical approach to the subject, MacIntyre provides insight and illumination about these subjects that will be of interest to Catholic and non-Catholic readers alike.

In the first section, MacIntyre spells out the problems of understanding God as ones of evil (theodicy), the independence of human beings (free will), and how does one speak meaningfully about God. He also discusses the problem of philosophy as being practice by non-philosophers, which should be encouraged but observed with caution. He also asks whether philosophy should be directed towards the common good and what should be the parameters of agreement and disagreement. To understand God, according to MacIntyre, philosophy is required, along with faith, with the university being the most suitable place for this to take palce. The problem with the modern university is that knowledge has become specialized and fragmented, including philosophy, and therefore our understanding of God is siloed in school.

In his examination of the Hellenistic philosophy and early Christian and Islamic thinkers, MacIntyre points out that philosophical inquiry by itself cannot provide us with an adequate knowledge of God or ourselves. Hence, the need for faith. As Augustine, Boethius, and Anselm show, there is no chain of philosophical reasoning or method of philosophical inquiry through which we can arrive at the truths of faith as conclusions. But once by faith we have acknowledged those truths, we are able to understand why there is good reason to acknowledge them.

Philosophy also is useful when Christians encounter non-Christian traditions and texts, whether Greek, Jewish, or Islamic, and this training prepares the Christian for a range of responses in these encounters. Aquinas is the model of this Christian response with his qualified acceptance of Aristotelianism in the name of Christianity. MacIntyre makes the point that Aquinas’ writing was addressed to his own students and therefore we should understand Aquinas communicating to the plain person of his time which took place in the university. It is also important to note that MacIntyre describes both Scotus and Ockham, two philosophers who today are sometimes accused of ushering in modernity, as Catholic thinkers whose “work has to be integral to any adequate conception of the Catholic philosophical tradition” (101). In other words, Scotus and Ockham are not a rejection of the Catholic tradition of philosophy but are essential to it and consequently should be studied accordingly.

The movement from scholasticism to skepticism culminated in Descartes’ writing of Cogito ergo sum and the success of modern science that depends upon a foundation immune to skeptical doubt. However, MacIntyre argues this skepticism should not necessarily matter to us as much as it mattered to Descartes, for “skepticism does not require an answer” (117). All knowledge, including scientific knowledge, is fallible and needs to be revised and given updated reasons. Thus, the skeptical challenge is a phantom challenge which is why it ceased to have an influence within the Catholic tradition.

In the modern period, MacIntyre focuses on Newman and Fides et Ratio. For Newman, the task of philosophy was to understand what kind of claims can be justified within each particular science and how these claims relate to one another. The purpose of the university is to cultivate good moral character, which is only possible if the university community is attentive to the moral teaching of the Catholic Church. Theology and philosophy therefore should be at the center of the university, integrating knowledge across disciplines.

In Fides et Ratio, MacIntyre observes that the encyclical opens with the observation that people ask questions not as philosophers but as plain persons. It also argues that, while philosophy and theology are intertwined with each other, philosophy is an autonomous secular enterprise in the search of the truth. Thus, those in the Church have a duty to call attention to the errors of philosophy when it strands from its teachings.

The problem confronting the contemporary university is that any sense for inquiry among disciplines and that disciplines contribute to a shared inquiry is entirely absent. Catholic universities imitating prestigious secular university only exacerbates this problem in higher education. MacIntyre calls for Catholic philosophers to reclaim their role in leading the university to a common identity which translates into rejecting what Harvard, Yale, and Stanford do. Instead of looking outwards, Catholic universities need to reflect inward on their tradition to discover what makes them distinct from the hundreds of other schools out there.