See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ (Colossians 2:8).
What business do we have studying the liberal arts? The quadrivium and trivium?
Why should Christians take an interest in philosophy, in pagan authors, in the works, even in the traditions of men?
I ask this because this is what we do here at New College Franklin. We study the trivium and quadrivium with the end of ordering all knowledge unto theology. This is done in part through philosophy which, as some claim, is the handmaiden of theology. Is she a handmaiden or is philosophy only a usurper?
We ought to be ready to give an answer to every man that asks, and first and foremost, we should be able to articulate to ourselves what it is we are about.
There are many who believe we need to justify what we do here: those who think of college only as vocational training, others who consider our approach outdated. Many of these questions and critiques come from Christians.
Each generation bears the burden of remembering and rearticulating the true nature of Christian education, the complex relationship between the sacred and secular, between faith and reason.
It is with this in mind, a defense of the liberal arts, and ultimately of philosophy and reason itself, that we’ll turn to Colossians 2:8 and to Thomas Aquinas’s commentary on that text.
St. Thomas upheld a special place for reason and philosophy within the Christian life. Reason, he claimed, performs at least two tasks: tearing down false arguments and showing that what is proposed by our faith is not unreasonable. A third task he mentions is that of giving likely or helpful explanations for what we find in Scripture, particularly regarding its mysteries. In his On the Incarnation, St. Athanasius engages in all three modes of reasoning about our faith.
This means, as may surprise you, that Thomas insisted philosophy and natural reason have limits. Reason cannot prove the things of faith. He never imagined turning Scripture or Faith into a system of deductive proofs as many do today.
It is precisely in grasping the limits of philosophy and reason, that we perceive their grandeur. In recognizing these limits, reason most powerfully discloses to us traces of a greater glory, a glory which is the goal and fulfilment of all reason and of all desire.
Now to our text. Paul says in Colossians 2:8:
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ (Colossians 2:8).
Thomas, commenting on this empty deceit, says:
One who deceives another must have something which seems reasonable, and something which is not really so. So first Paul shows the basis of this seeming reasonableness. It is based on two things, the first being the authority of the philosophers. And about this he [Paul] says, according to the tradition of men.
Here we are reminded that the problem with the traditions of men is not that they come from men (the science of air conditioning is not sinful although it is from human tradition). The problem with human tradition is not its source, us, but that it can err. It is not enough to say that Aristotle, Aquinas, Jordan Peterson, or America says or does something. The question is whether or not the truth has been faithfully disclosed. The problem is not in being men, or in human reason in itself, but in reasoning badly or beyond what can safely be concluded.
The Bible actually relies on certain human traditions. The New Testament, and Christ’s ministry testify to the Words engagement with the world. The parable of the sower is nonsense without some knowledge of agriculture. Or consider these words of Jesus: “when it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but not the signs of the times” (Matt. 16:2-3). Christ and the Scriptures presuppose an awareness of human tradition.
Like Paul at the Acropolis, like Moses in Egypt, here at New College, we learn the traditions of men, their ways of interpreting, describing, and imagining things in order to learn about ourselves, the world, and God. We learn to discern between the wisdom of ‘look before you leap’ and the pseudo wisdom of “ignorance is bliss.”
Thomas continues. There is a second way of being deceived:
The second source of an apparent reasonableness are the contrivances of reason, that is, when a person wishes to measure or judge about the things of faith according to the principles of things, and not by divine wisdom. And many are deceived in this way. And so Paul says, they should not be deceived by those judging according to the elements of the world and not according to Christ.
Let me unpack this. This deception is based on a failure to observe the real distinction between revealed truth and what may be known by unaided reason. As I said, the things of faith cannot be proved or measured by reason. The truths held by faith cannot be measured by the principles of this world.
Philosophy can prove that God exists; it cannot prove that God had to become man. Philosophy can prove that God is infinite goodness and power; it cannot prove that he is Trinity. It can show why it may be likely or possible; it can tear down arguments which are obstacles here, but it cannot prove these things.
It is from this standpoint that Paul decries the so-called wisdom of this world which scoffs at the cross and the incarnation. Who are we to tell God what he may or may not do? Who are we to declare what God’s inner nature, his essence must be? How should reason measure He who is the measure of all things, including reason itself?
This is where Thomas offers a provocative analogy. Keep in mind, we have been considering principles and elements—these can be thought of as causes, sources of reality—they account for why things are the way they are. The cause of lemonade being wet is that it is made from water (the principle or cause of lemonades being wet is water). Water by the way was one of the four classical elements (water, earth, air and fire). The problem, as Paul puts it, is that we are trying to consider not the causes at work in nature, the principles or elements of the lemonade, but the principles or causes of our salvation. Thomas has this to say:
Now the higher a cause is, the more superior is its effect. And so those who wish to investigate certain effects in terms of causes that are inferior are deceived. For example, if one were to consider the movement of water in terms of the power of water, he would not be able to know the cause of the tides of the sea; to do this he would have to consider water in terms of the power of the moon. Thus, those people are even more deceived who consider the proper effects of God in terms of the elements of the world.
Some of you may have just realized how advanced the middle ages were. A science of the lunar tides was well established by then. Thomas is saying here that if we only studied water, we would never, no matter how rational or scientific we were, no matter how long we looked at it, be able to explain the tides. We might come up with what seemed reasonable, but we would be deceived.
This is because there is a higher principle at work, that is, there is a cause of the tides which is superior to the power of water. If we were to come up with some explanation of the tides only according to water, we would be judging what is higher (the moon and its effects) by what is lower, the water.*
Recall what Colossians said, that men were taken captive and judging by the elements of the world, and not according to Christ. If men were to turn from world and look up, that is, set their minds on that which is higher, they would discover the true principle. They might not understand how it worked, but they would know the true cause. Men did just this with water; they discovered that the cause elsewhere. Certainly, water has the potential to be effected by the moon, but it no more causes its own movement than I would cause my flight if an eagle were to bear me upon its wings.
The problem in Colossians is not that people are misunderstanding the cause of the tides; they are ascribing the cause of salvation to creatures.
Thomas’s illustration is an example of how we stray when we judge things according to improper principles—how reason can err. But remarkably, he has revealed erring reason by means of reason itself! His use of reason in full subordination to revealed truth is most perfectly reasonable. Knowledge of the world and its sciences, the liberal arts, the trivium, the quadrivium, are gloriously incorporated into his philosophic theology.
This is why Paul is probably not worried that the Colossians will embark on a course of study in the liberal arts. He is not worried that they might study Physics or Chemistry, or literature. Paul is concerned that those who were “enslaved to the elementary principles of the world,” will “turn back again” to them (Gal. 4:3-10).
Like the Galatians, the real problem in Colossae is a contamination of the Gospel through false religious practice—the sacrilege of subordinating what is higher to what is lower. Philosophy in Colossians primarily refers to religious theories. Paul is not worried that the Colossians or Galatians might learn something about the ocean or the moon, but that they will ascribe the power and gift of God to them or to angels.
It is in this light that the brilliance of Thomas’s analogy shines forth, as it takes its example from the very problem the epistle is confronting. The moon indeed explanatory of the tides; it is a true principle or cause. But the moon is not an object of worship. The moon, the sun, the stars, water, earth, air, and fire are all ministers of God. Paul tells the Galatians “you observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain” (Galatians 4:10-11).
To worship the creation is to worship the shadow for the substance, the effect instead of the cause. The Jewish festivals of the New moon and of the seasons were to be signs of God’s provision and of the Gospel, that the power of God rules over and can even overshadow nature. They were not, as some seemed to think, rites by which we gained divine power or approval.
Consider for a moment Luke 1 where the Spirit of God overshadows Mary. The natural cause or principle of conception, of a baby, is the marriage act. But here, in a special intervention, He who is the principle of all natural principles, the cause of all causes, brings about a child’s conception immediately, miraculously, by the Holy Spirit—He who quickens all life. Matter in this maiden responds not to a natural cause but to the Voice of her Maker which first brought her and all things into being.
God stands superior in this manner to all nature, and similarly to all natural reason. How can reason judge that which is the ground and source of all being—He who is the very ground of every rational judgment? At best, reason can recognize in such a miracle that the same voice which speaks in nature, here speaks in a distinctive and supremely authoritative manner.
Like the church in Galatia and Colossae, we often look to nature for what comes only from her Author. We attribute the power of God to his creatures. In doing so, we are more mistaken then those who think the waters of the oceans cause their own tides, for in doing so, we worship and serve “the creature rather than the Creator.”
This is why Paul says just a bit later in our chapter of Colossians:
“Therefore let no one judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a festival, a New Moon, or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the body that casts it belongs to Christ.” (Colossians 2:16-17).
Paul calls upon the Colossians to attend to the very substance of their salvation. I am suggesting that a good liberal arts education is simply the practice of this kind of attention—a means of turning and recollecting the true order of things, of distinguishing shadow from reality, of recollecting the ultimate cause and principle of things.
The Trivium and Quadrivium are after all a traditional preparation and introduction to philosophy, and philosophy, true philosophy, as I hope we have seen here, is indeed a faithful handmaiden to theology. The liberal arts thus prepare the mind to discern unity and difference, oneness and multiplicity and the harmony which binds the whole. At the same time, they train us to recognize how little it is we fully comprehend.
Thus, they fortify the soul against deception, against imbibing the sciences of this word as ultimate or sufficient.
The special glory of reason is that it sees by a light which is not wholly its own! It operates by a principle which it does not fully comprehend. Philosophy is the simultaneous acknowledgement of this fact alongside or within the context of longing, longing to behold and comprehend this source. Philosophy, as has been pointed out many times, is the love of and thus the search for wisdom. It only exists when one individual grasps his own shortcoming—for we only long for that which we do not fully possess.
Therefore, the glory of reason is a glory of anticipation. The Quadrivium and Trivium are infused with just this anticipatory hope and longing—because they are a study ordered to a whole, the whole, to the idea and contemplation of the Universe or Cosmos in all its unity and diversity. The liberal arts are ordered to a search for the ultimate ordering principles, the Word which makes one of the many. Such a Word, such unity, such simplicity is ultimately beyond human expression and comprehension.
True philosophy is therefore the first to acknowledge itself as vain, to acknowledge that she is not self-sufficient. She laughs at herself because she, as Aristotle said, refuses to think human thoughts. Through philosophy, we await a day that we will know God as we ourselves are known by him. What else can all things appear in such light but vanity?
Reason, when refined by great study, by real virtue and service, by the true principles of the Gospel, knows this and loves this truth as its end and happiness. It is by means of such ardent love that we take all things captive to Christ. In doing so, we perform a true priestly function. We imitate the Logos, Divine Reason, who took up all that is the creation, including its elemental nature when He took on real flesh, and then offered it back to his Father that it might be purified and returned to its proper order.
If it is not our business to engage in the liberal arts, to purify the sciences, to take all things captive to Christ, to philosophize, whose business is it? We have seen what happens when the job is left over to others.
Without a robust Christian education, we are all the more prone to forsake the immeasurable gifts of God—to forget that he gave us not simply the elements of the creation, but his only begotten Son.
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*the effect of the moon on water is not strictly a distinct power in the case of God and his creation for gravity is always the relation between two masses (water and the moon). But certainly water by itself does not cause the tides.
Thomas’s Commentary on Colossians from dhspirory
Same & Other 