Philosophy operates on the basis of autonomous principles, which can be known apart from revelation, and seeks to discover truth by a strictly rational method. A true philosopher does not seek to prove what the mind cannot understand, even if the question at hand is a doctrine of faith. * * *Not much of a step from that to the antinomies. Kant's novelty would seem to be his replacement of "theology" by "practical reason."
On the question of the eternity of the world, for instance, Albert frankly confesses that as a philosopher he cannot prove creation out of nothing. At best he can offer arguments of probability. But as a theologian he knows that the world was made out of nothing, and is not eternal. What we have here is a case in which reason cannot attain truth, for the object of inquiry is beyond human reason.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Kant, the last Scholastic?
Justo Gonzalez on Albertus Magnus:
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