THE INCURIOSITY OF THE LEFT:

Last Things: What Is Theology? (James V. Schall, S.J., 06/08/09, First Principles)

In a famous essay, Leo Strauss asked: “What Is Political Philosophy?” Following Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas, he advised us to pay particular attention to “what is?” questions. Thus, we have minds to ask: “What is courage?” “What is truth?” “What is man?” “What is beauty?” “What is knowledge?” If we already have the courage of Plato’s brother Glaucon, we can even ask: “What is ‘is’?”—though most good philosophers do not think “is” is a “what.”

When we have endeavored to answer such questions, we find ourselves wondering: “What is the cause or origin of all that is?” “What is the purpose of everything?” “Is the world made in justice, or something more than justice, as Aquinas surmised?” And if we complain about evil, which we cannot avoid noticing, “To whom do we complain?” Some philosophies pretend it does not exist; others, as the early Augustine, think that some evil god causes it. This view has the convenient side-effect of excusing us without changing us.

Some ancient (and modern) philosophers used to claim that no “origin” of things could be found, nor, contrary to Aristotle, was an end or purpose found in them either. Whatever is, always was. It just keeps coming around again and again. That’s why, it is said, we can understand it, anticipate it. But after we think of this “round and round” affair long enough, we still wonder: “Why does it circle in this way and not some other?” “Are not some things also new, things that have never existed before, ourselves, at our conception, for instance?”

Such wonderments bring us to the “God question” as central to the “what is?” questions. With any curiosity at all, like it or not, we must at least wonder about the “God question.” We find it odd, perhaps, in reading Exodus, a book basic to our tradition, to hear Moses ask Yahweh “Who He was?” The answer came back: “I am who am,” a version of the “what is” question. Similarly, Christ kept asking, “Who do men say that I am?” Or, “before Abraham was, I am.” (Incidentally, the spell-check on my computer, when it read the three “am’s” in the previous sentences changed them to “is.” Nothing could prove more clearly that machines do not philosophize about the highest things!)

Even if we just ask Leo Strauss’ question about political philosophy, we find that Aristotle had already asked the same question. After defining science as “knowledge through causes,” Aristotle said that politics was the highest of the “practical” sciences, of the sciences that deal with things that could be “otherwise.” Politics at its highest included a form of knowledge called “prudence,” recta ratio agibilium, the right reason of things to be done. The politically prudent statesman strove to put a final stamp of his intelligence on an act that could be otherwise. That final act, as all human acts, has to be chosen or determined to be what it is. As chosen, it could be good or evil, praised or blamed, noble or despicable. But politics was not the highest science as such.

This latter science would be the knowledge of “being as being,” generally called metaphysics, or first philosophy, or, at its peak, “theology.” Aristotle added, to make his point, that if man were the highest being, politics, not metaphysics, would be the highest science. When politics is thought to be the highest science, that is, a kind of substitute metaphysics, by its practitioners, it claims the power to do everything formerly attributed to God.