In 1943, in his lecture entitled Humanism and theology, the great Hellenist Werner Jaeger (1888-1961) made the following observation about the medieval roots of modern rationality:
"But in some respects the rationalism of the pre-Renaissance of the time of St. Thomas was more powerful and unified in its effects on the life of that highly theological period and it laid the foundations for any further rational development, both religious and profane. Without it the Renaissance of the 15th century certainly would not have been what it was."
Twenty three years earlier, the medievalist Etienne Gilson (1884-1978) had reached the same conclusion:
"My conclusion, the one that became increasingly obvious to me from Roger Bacon onwards, is that modern philosophy did not have to conquer the rights of reason against the Middle Ages, but that on the contrary the Middle Ages conquered the rights of reason for modern thought." (Letter from Étienne Gilson to Léon Brunschvicg, November 5th, 1920).
In the French university of the early twentieth century, where secularism reigned unchallenged, Gilson's historical work consisted in bringing to light the unexploited intellectual riches of a virtually unexplored continent: that of medieval philosophy. Prior to his work, his colleagues at the Sorbonne regarded this period as a kind of historical 'black hole' where the light of reason had been absorbed by the terrifying density of faith, only to be rescued from this dark abyss by the relentless work of modern rationalism.
It was a time when people dreamed aloud of having extinguished in the sky stars that would never be relit (according a Socialist MP named Viviani who declared, referring to the law on “laïcité” recently voted But the French Parliament: “nous avons éteint dans le ciel des étoiles qu'on ne rallumera plus”). A time when sociologists modestly thought they could replace Jesus Christ with a short handbook of civic morality. A time where it was firmly believed, in scientific circles won over by scientism, that the last mysteries of the world were about to dissolve at the bottom of a beaker (on this last point, see Gérald Bronner, Croyances et imaginaires contemporains, 2013, p. 15)
Gilson did not always believe, however, that the relationship between the Middle Ages and modernity was, so importantly, one of continuity. In a text from 1932, he recounts how, as a young student, medieval scholasticism repulsed him:
"the truth is that instead of attaching myself to scholasticism because it served Catholicism, I had to make, for years, the most painful efforts not to detach myself from Catholicism because of what I thought scholasticism was. I went against it, not only as a philosopher, but as a believer. It was doubly an obstacle to me.”
It was when he devoted his doctoral thesis, at the invitation of Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, to the medieval sources of Descartes' philosophy, a thesis completed in 1913, that Gilson changed his mind and completely reversed his perspectives.
On the one hand, he discovered how much Descartes owed to the medieval thinkers, despite his "tabula rasa" rhetoric. On the other hand, if Gilson noted that there is an obvious continuity, he could not but regret that this continuity was not more complete, since it became clear to him that with Cartesian thought, the history of philosophy has been impoverished.
Gilson knew to what extent his thesis went against the philosophical vulgate conveyed by the very rationalistic Sorbonne mindset. In his intellectual autobiography, The Philosopher and Theology (1960), he confided:
"I distinctly remember the feeling of fear I experienced the day when, holding back my pen for a long time, I ended up writing this simple sentence: 'On all these points, Cartesian thought marks, in relation to the sources from which it derives, much less an advance than an impoverishment.'"
Throughout his career, Gilson never ceased to reaffirm these two ideas: that of the profound continuity between the periods of Western intellectual history, and that of a richness to be found upstream of modern thought, in the medieval scholasticism, and more precisely in Saint Thomas Aquinas, of whom Gilson became one of the most eminent specialists.
To the idea of cultural continuity, Gilson even devoted an entire course in 1939: The Continuity of Classical Culture from Cicero to Erasmus, the unpublished manuscript of which (nearly 400 pages) is in the archives of Saint Michael's College in Toronto. As for the presentation and explanation of scholastic philosophy, he devoted himself to it for half a century, writing an impressive number of works, among them Thomism. The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, the first edition of which dates from 1919 and the sixth and last from 1964.
It is up to us to keep in mind the essential discoveries of Gilson and of the many Thomists who, during the 20th century, kept alive the heritage of rational thought as it developed in its articulation with faith, in the Middle Ages. For our Church is obviously called to rely on faith, but a faith that grows and unfolds within and from the rational faculties of the human mind, as it happened at the time of Thomas Aquinas.
"But in some respects the rationalism of the pre-Renaissance of the time of St. Thomas was more powerful and unified in its effects on the life of that highly theological period and it laid the foundations for any further rational development, both religious and profane. Without it the Renaissance of the 15th century certainly would not have been what it was."
Twenty three years earlier, the medievalist Etienne Gilson (1884-1978) had reached the same conclusion:
"My conclusion, the one that became increasingly obvious to me from Roger Bacon onwards, is that modern philosophy did not have to conquer the rights of reason against the Middle Ages, but that on the contrary the Middle Ages conquered the rights of reason for modern thought." (Letter from Étienne Gilson to Léon Brunschvicg, November 5th, 1920).
In the French university of the early twentieth century, where secularism reigned unchallenged, Gilson's historical work consisted in bringing to light the unexploited intellectual riches of a virtually unexplored continent: that of medieval philosophy. Prior to his work, his colleagues at the Sorbonne regarded this period as a kind of historical 'black hole' where the light of reason had been absorbed by the terrifying density of faith, only to be rescued from this dark abyss by the relentless work of modern rationalism.
It was a time when people dreamed aloud of having extinguished in the sky stars that would never be relit (according a Socialist MP named Viviani who declared, referring to the law on “laïcité” recently voted But the French Parliament: “nous avons éteint dans le ciel des étoiles qu'on ne rallumera plus”). A time when sociologists modestly thought they could replace Jesus Christ with a short handbook of civic morality. A time where it was firmly believed, in scientific circles won over by scientism, that the last mysteries of the world were about to dissolve at the bottom of a beaker (on this last point, see Gérald Bronner, Croyances et imaginaires contemporains, 2013, p. 15)
Gilson did not always believe, however, that the relationship between the Middle Ages and modernity was, so importantly, one of continuity. In a text from 1932, he recounts how, as a young student, medieval scholasticism repulsed him:
"the truth is that instead of attaching myself to scholasticism because it served Catholicism, I had to make, for years, the most painful efforts not to detach myself from Catholicism because of what I thought scholasticism was. I went against it, not only as a philosopher, but as a believer. It was doubly an obstacle to me.”
It was when he devoted his doctoral thesis, at the invitation of Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, to the medieval sources of Descartes' philosophy, a thesis completed in 1913, that Gilson changed his mind and completely reversed his perspectives.
On the one hand, he discovered how much Descartes owed to the medieval thinkers, despite his "tabula rasa" rhetoric. On the other hand, if Gilson noted that there is an obvious continuity, he could not but regret that this continuity was not more complete, since it became clear to him that with Cartesian thought, the history of philosophy has been impoverished.
Gilson knew to what extent his thesis went against the philosophical vulgate conveyed by the very rationalistic Sorbonne mindset. In his intellectual autobiography, The Philosopher and Theology (1960), he confided:
"I distinctly remember the feeling of fear I experienced the day when, holding back my pen for a long time, I ended up writing this simple sentence: 'On all these points, Cartesian thought marks, in relation to the sources from which it derives, much less an advance than an impoverishment.'"
Throughout his career, Gilson never ceased to reaffirm these two ideas: that of the profound continuity between the periods of Western intellectual history, and that of a richness to be found upstream of modern thought, in the medieval scholasticism, and more precisely in Saint Thomas Aquinas, of whom Gilson became one of the most eminent specialists.
To the idea of cultural continuity, Gilson even devoted an entire course in 1939: The Continuity of Classical Culture from Cicero to Erasmus, the unpublished manuscript of which (nearly 400 pages) is in the archives of Saint Michael's College in Toronto. As for the presentation and explanation of scholastic philosophy, he devoted himself to it for half a century, writing an impressive number of works, among them Thomism. The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, the first edition of which dates from 1919 and the sixth and last from 1964.
It is up to us to keep in mind the essential discoveries of Gilson and of the many Thomists who, during the 20th century, kept alive the heritage of rational thought as it developed in its articulation with faith, in the Middle Ages. For our Church is obviously called to rely on faith, but a faith that grows and unfolds within and from the rational faculties of the human mind, as it happened at the time of Thomas Aquinas.