Moderate realism
| Latin | realismus moderatus; universale in re |
|---|---|
| Locus in Aquinas | Summa theologiae I, q. 85, aa. 1–2; q. 16 |
| Branch | Metaphysics |
| Controlling authority | Fides et Ratio; Humani Generis; Catechism 39–43; Thomistic synthesis |
| Doctrinal standing | Extra-mental natures and the knowability of truth are implied by Catholic faith; the threefold universal is scholastic philosophy |
| School | Thomism |
Moderate realism is the Thomistic doctrine of universals: the nature exists in individuals, is abstracted as one in the intellect, and is eternally typed in the divine ideas, without a separate world of forms.[1]
One nature in many, without a third world
Plato saved the certitude of science by positing separate ideas. Aquinas, in Summa theologiae I, question 84, article 1, and question 85, article 1, refuses that third world. The nature of man exists only in this or that man. That it is understood without individual conditions, and so as universal, occurs in the intellect. The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia's article on universals states the scholastic triad: universals before the thing in the divine ideas, in the thing as the common nature, and after the thing as the abstracted concept.[2]
Question 85, article 2, adds that humanity understood is only in this or that man, while its being abstracted and considered as universal is in the intellect. The relation of one and the same to many is a second intention, a logical universal. The metaphysical universal is the nature itself, which can be multiplied. Moderate realism is therefore neither the claim that 'man' is a puff of breath, nor the claim that Man exists in a heaven of forms beside the Father.[1]
Against nominalism and against extreme realism
If the universal were only a name, science would be a concordance of noises, and the natural law a tribal dialect. Humani Generis defends the mind's grasp of essences and of metaphysical principles. If the universal were a separate substance, the sciences of motion and matter would be impossible, and Christ would not have assumed a human nature existing in an individual. The Incarnation itself requires that a nature be real in a suppositum, not only as a label and not as a second person.[3]
Truth as adequation depends on this middle. The intellect is true when it judges of what is. What is, in corporeal things, is individual. What is known scientifically is the nature. The two meet because the nature is really in the individual and genuinely common by abstraction. Fides et Ratio later names this metaphysical realism as a requirement of a philosophy worthy of the Gospel, without canonizing every medieval dispute about formal distinction.[4]
Divine ideas and created participation
Question 84, article 5, relocates Plato's ideas into the divine mind as types according to which things are made and known. Creatures participate those types by their essences; the human intellect participates them by the intellectual light and by species taken from things. Catechism 39–43 insists that our names attain God analogically. Universals in God are not a crowd of entities alongside the simple essence. They are the one knowledge of God as exemplar of many.[5]
This also explains why mathematics and metaphysics can be true of more than one thing without floating free of being. Quantity can be considered apart from this or that substance, yet not apart from substance as subject of quantity. Being, act, and potency can be considered even apart from common intelligible matter, because they are verified in immaterial substances. Abstraction has degrees. It is not a single flight from the world.
What the Church requires of the school
The Magisterium has repeatedly refused both a despair of essences and a pantheism of one substance. Aeterni Patris restored the scholastic via media. It did not define the word 'moderate realism'. Scotists may still speak of a formal distinction on the side of the thing. Provided they confess extra-mental natures, analogical knowledge of God, and the individual substance of man, they remain within Catholic philosophy.[6]
Baptism is of this child, not of a name. Marriage joins two persons sharing a human nature. Dogma is true of God, not of vocabulary alone. Moderate realism is the school's way of saying that words can be common because things are common in nature, and that things are common in nature because they are from one Creator. That is the doctrinal fruit. The remaining questions belong to disputation.
References
- Back to citation occurrence 1.0 Back to citation occurrence 1.1 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, question 85, articles 1–2 — Primary analysis of abstraction from phantasms and of the intelligible species as that by which the intellect understands, not that which is primarily understood.
- Back to citation Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), Universals — Public-domain statement of moderate realism: the universal in the thing, after the thing in the intellect, and before the thing in the divine ideas.
- Back to citation Pius XII, Humani Generis — Encyclical defending the knowability of metaphysical principles, the value of scholastic theology, and the distinction of the natural and supernatural orders.
- Back to citation John Paul II, Fides et Ratio — Encyclical on the harmony of faith and reason, the enduring value of Aquinas, metaphysical realism, and legitimate philosophical plurality within Catholic faith.
- Back to citation Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, question 84 — Primary account of intellectual knowledge of bodies, the turn to phantasms, and the interpretation of Augustine on knowing in the eternal types.
- Back to citation Catechism of the Catholic Church, 39–43 — Authoritative teaching that purified creaturely language truly attains to God while remaining analogical and forever surpassed by the divine essence.