Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 6 -- And Back to the Cross
Thomas Aquinas (1227-1274) saw Aristotle’s Prime
Mover as a foundation for Christian thought and
Aristotle's pragmatic world as better suited to God's
will than the hazy world of Plato.
Aquinas thus came to regard Aristotle as the
greatest of philosophers unexposed to revelation.
Aquinas sought to prove that God did not violate natural law, and thus, sensory experience.
While some aspects of reality may not be accessible to rational thought, Aquinas exuded
confidence in the ability of reason to describe observable events and thus come to an improved
understanding of God.
Aquinas used a form of medieval argument known as scholasticism, first stating the arguments
against, then for, the side he wishes to defend, and then pointing out the arguments in favor and
the weaknesses for the other side.
Aquinas' Summa Theologiae (1265-75) presented Aristotle so
formidably that subsequent scientific realizations came to be
criticized simply because they were not penned by Aristotle himself.
Less fundamental in theological/philosophical perspective, but most
pertinent to our underground river journey, would be Aquinas'
regard of the Edenic rivers,
It is supposed that since the site of Paradise is far removed from
the knowledge of men... The rivers whose sources are said to be
known have gone underground and after traversing vast
distances have issued forth in other places... That some streams
are in the habit of doing this is something that everybody knows.
Aristotle had admitted his proposition of subterranean streamflow to
be a Hellenist pass-along, not a verified fact and certainly not a
metaphysical principal. Aquinas does much the same, blithely
kicking forward the thoughts of the trusted Greek.
The concluding line, "That some streams are in the habit of doing this is something that
everybody knows," tells all. Aquinas takes the pronouncement for granted, common knowledge.
The intellect of St. Aquinas, the progressive theologian, is directed toward more lofty subjects.
The Condemnation of 1277, proclaiming divine will as sufficient explanation for all phenomena,
was the conservative's last attempt to stifle Aristotelian heresy, but for reasons both pragmatic
and intellectual -- but not what we can call scientific -- the Condemnation was repealed in 1325.
Aristotelianism provided theology a garb of objectivity and had become Vatican dogma, at least
where it didn't blatantly contradict biblical wording.
In issues of biblical wording, however, there could be but one interpretation.
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