After Darwin (Part 3)

Thomas Aquinas on the problem of order

In the first two posts of this series, we saw examples of medieval mystics describing the multiplicity of living things in terms of mutual service and interdependence, in sharp contrast to Darwin’s vision of the struggle for existence. Now it is time to look at the reasons why the former view was eventually abandoned. This will open the door to a meaningful recovery of the valid insights in the medieval philosophy of nature, with the necessary adaptations to respond to the subsequent objections.

In fact, the most important objections are already apparent from the writings of the medieval theologians themselves, as they flesh out the full consequences of taking on their interpretation of the natural world. Today, we will examine a representative passage from the grand theological synthesis of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). The citation is taken from the chapter on the unity of God, in which Thomas gives three arguments to prove that God is one. It is the third argument that interests us here, as it takes the worldview of Hildegard and Catherine as its starting premise, and shows what follows from it:

That God is one can be demonstrated in three ways. […] Third, from the unity of the cosmos. For all things that exist are found to be ordered towards one another, with each thing serving other things. But diverse things would not come together in one order, unless they were ordered by one agent. For the many are better reduced to a single order by one agent than by many, because the one is the cause of unity per se, and the many are not the cause of unity except per accidens, insofar as they are in some way one. Since therefore that which is first is the most perfect, and acts per se and not per accidens, it is necessary that the first thing reducing all things into one order should be one alone. And this is God.¹

Here, Thomas shows that a necessary implication of his reading of nature is that everything in the cosmos, including human beings, must be governed by a single principle, who is responsible for the universal harmony. If it is true that everything serves everything else, in a single unbroken network of mutual service, there is no room for the the eternally antagonistic forces of the old mythologies. On Thomas’ view, everything finds its own identity and becomes most fully itself by faithfully carrying out its appointed role within the cosmic economy, according to the wise plan of the one God.

Reading these lines from our own cultural context, fully embedded in the modern worldview that replaced this picture, we immediately feel at least a little uncomfortable. This talk of accepting one’s appointed place smells of feudalism and guilds, slavery and misogyny. The universality (within the West) of this instinctive reaction is the result of a long and complex historical process, deriving in part from the immense fecundity of medieval European civilization itself, which ended up unleashing new intellectual, political and economic forces that chafed against the constraints of all-embracing and minutely articulated theological order. This tension could have been resolved in any number of ways, but the approach that ended up gaining the upper hand (at least through the end of the 20th century) is the one aptly summarized in Zarathustra’s famous syllogism: “But that I may open my whole heart to you, my friends: if there were gods, how could I bear not to be god? Therefore there are no gods.”²

From this starting point, which was secretly felt by many modern thinkers well before Nietzsche articulated it, Thomas’ logic runs in reverse, necessarily undermining the initial premise about the single order of mutual service. If there is no universal monarch, then the sensation of universal order can only be an illusion. Given the image of God’s rule latent in the imagination of these thinkers, the argument is strictly valid. The very fact that I cannot bear not to be god proves that the universe is not tyrannically micro-managed. If the universal monarch really were a jealous competitor against human freedom, then he simply would not allow that rebellious impulse to exist. So this impulse itself proves that there is no god of this kind. And if the unity of cosmic order is taken to depend on this sort of god, then we are forced to conclude that there is no such order, and everything must simply fend for itself against the threats arising from its neighbors.

This line of reasoning would not have surprised Aquinas. The first chapters of Genesis describe exactly this kind of suspicion of God’s intentions as the ultimate root of human evil, and the subsequent story recounted in the rest of the Bible can be read as one continuous effort on the part of God to show man that his kingdom is not like that. The Summa as a whole is essentially a systematic analysis of that story, and thus implicitly contains the answer to our conundrum. When Thomas’ “order” is understood in its original context, it is no longer stifling and oppressive, and even allows room for the rebellious angst of Zarathustra without compromising its unity.

But since Zarathustra was not part of Thomas’ original audience, it takes significant effort and patience for a modern reader to arrive at this understanding. In the absence of live examples of this kind of objection, all three of our medieval thinkers assume that their view of nature as a harmonious web of relations is a simple empirical fact, rather than a particular interpretation of an ambiguous phenomenon. The experience of modernity makes it impossible for us now to ignore the possibility of other interpretations, and plainly shows that the cosmic order — if it does exist — has not yet been brought to evident completion.

In the next installment, we will turn to a thinker whose context more closely resembles our own, and who will address the open, incomplete and progressive nature of cosmic unity head-on.

1. Summa Theologiae I q11 a 3: “Respondeo dicendum quod Deum esse unum, ex tribus demonstratur. [...] Tertio, ab unitate mundi. Omnia enim quae sunt, inveniuntur esse ordinata ad invicem, dum quaedam quibusdam deserviunt. Quae autem diversa sunt, in unum ordinem non convenirent, nisi ab aliquo uno ordinarentur. Melius enim multa reducuntur in unum ordinem per unum, quam per multa, quia per se unius unum est causa, et multa non sunt causa unius nisi per accidens, inquantum scilicet sunt aliquo modo unum. Cum igitur illud quod est primum, sit perfectissimum et per se, non per accidens, oportet quod primum reducens omnia in unum ordinem, sit unum tantum. Et hoc est Deus.”

2. F. Nietzsche, Also Sprach Zarathustra II, Auf den glückseligen Inseln: “Aber dass ich euch ganz mein Herz offenbare, ihr Freunde: wenn es Götter gäbe, wie hielte ich’s aus, kein Gott zu sein! Also giebt es keine Götter.”