Obvious
differences: Aquinas – born into a noble family in the castle of Aquino near
Naples; received a privileged education as a Benedictine oblate in the
Monastery of Monte Cassino; as an adolescent, studied philosophy in the Arts
Faculty of the University of Naples under Peter of Ireland; as a young
Dominican, studied theology in the University of Paris under Albert the Great,
and continued his theological education with him in Cologne; returned to Paris
to prepare to take up the chair of theology in the University of Paris as Master
in Theology. Spent all his life in teaching and writing in the University of
Paris, in the papal courts of Anagni and Orvieto, and in the Dominican House of
studies at Rome.
Don
Bosco – born into a very poor
family at Castelnuovo d’Asti in Piedmont, orphaned of father at age 2; as a
young boy, received an elementary education under Father Calosso; as an
adolescent, continued his schooling at Chieri, and joined the Seminary at
Chieri to study for the priesthood. After his ordination, spent three years at the
Convitto Ecclesiastico in Turin under the guidance of Father Joseph Cafasso and
Father John Borel. Spent all his priestly life and ministry in the education of
poor boys in the Oratory of St Francis de Sales in Valdocco, Turin; founded the
triple Salesian Family of SDB, FMA, and the Salesian Cooperators.
Some
Common Affinities: period of great turmoil in several areas
Aquinas:
In the University of Paris, the
mendicant friars (Franciscans and Dominicans) were resented for having acquired
two chairs each in the faculty of theology. The secular masters opposed their
studies and teaching in the University and raised up a bitter polemic against
them. Aquinas and Bonaventure gave their inaugural lectures in the University
under armed escort. The entire works of Aristotle were translated into Latin,
and began to be taught in the Arts Faculty of the University of Paris,
notwithstanding papal prohibitions and attempts at expurgation of the writings.
A bitter polemic rose up between the Augustinian-Franciscan school of thought,
and the Aristotelico-Averroist teaching in the Faculty of Arts of the
University. The doctrine of Aquinas inspired by Aristotle, but against the
Averroist interpretation of Siger of Brabant, came under severe attack from the
Augustinian-Franciscan school and the Averroist school. Aquinas had to face a
battle on two fronts with peril of condemnation.
Don
Bosco: political turmoil
with the unification of Italy and the dissolution of the Papal States, with
strong anticlerical sentiments, and laws that curtailed the freedom of the
Church and restricted its rights. Economic and social unrest because of the
initial industrial revolution, caused large-scale migration of the poor,
especially of young people, from rural areas to the cities, with inadequate
support systems, housing and sanitation, and increasing phenomenon of juvenile
delinquency.
A Common Mission of Re-Evangelisation of Culture
(Forming Good Christians…) and Social Engagement with Civil Society (… and
Upright Citizens) through education
Aquinas: was the first to grasp the perils of the Averroist
doctrine, and its dangers for the Christian faith. But he was also the first,
through a sustained and critical study of Aristotle, to seize the opportunity
of a much-needed correction of the Augustinian-Franciscan doctrine, and to
rethink and to work out a profoundly original synthesis of Christian theology
and philosophy. He laid the groundwork for a new re-evangelisation of culture
with direct implications for a renewed social engagement with civil society.
Perils
of the Averroist doctrine: the Averroist
doctrine of the unicity of the human intellect (one intellect for all
humankind) reduced the dignity of the human person to a glorified animal, and
endangered personal moral responsibility, and personal immortality, leading to
the risk of licentiousness in moral behaviour, and disruption of the social
order and civic society.
Inadequacies
of the Augustinian-Franciscan doctrine of the human person: this doctrine took its inspiration from the Platonic
dualism of body and soul as two distinct and separate substances united
together in action, with the consequent weakening of the unity and
substantiality of the human person, and the cohesion of his sensible and
intellectual powers. The Augustinian-Franciscan
school of thought, with its insistence on inwardness and interiority,
diminished the value of nature and natural causes at work in an interdependent
world. Augustine’s preferred process of thought was from the exterior world to
the interior world of the self, to the superior world of God. Bonaventure
merely glanced at the world and saw present in it the shadows, vestiges, signs,
and similitudes of God. The real world in itself was of no importance to him, except
in as much as it was a pointer to God.
Aquinas’s
profound rethinking of nature:
with his original understanding of creation out of nothing as a
gratuitous conferring of existence on things endowed with their proper natures
and pursuing their proper perfections, and constituting the real world made up
of interdependent, interactive and dynamic substances attaining their proper
perfections. Because the world has issued from a super-intelligent God, the
world is not chaotic but suffused with a thoroughgoing intelligibility, not
just as signs and pointers, but as revealing the intelligent design and plan of
God inscribed in their natures as rational principles and laws. Because of
this, a scientific study of the world both in the macro and micro levels is
possible and highly desirable.
Aquinas’s
profound rethinking of human nature:
with his total adherence to the hylomorphic structure of the human
composite, he ensured the strict unity in one substance of body and
soul as well as the personal immortality of the soul after death. He insisted
that all knowledge begins from the senses, while emphasising that all true
knowledge and all free choices project human beings to the Absolute. Human
beings can attain the truth and the good with certainty, for which they are
made, even though in a partial, progressive and never-ending manner. Because
they are made for the Absolute, they are truly persons, with the dignity of
being an end unto themselves, enjoying inalienable rights and corresponding
responsibilities. This makes for a committed and sustained engagement with
fellow human beings to create a humane civic society of justice, peace, and
harmony among peoples.
A
profound harmony of reason and faith: with
his rethinking of nature and human nature, Aquinas brought about an original
and complete synthesis of reason and
faith, such that reason, employing its natural resources of investigation,
opens up to the teachings of the Christian faith, and the Christian faith,
rooted in the Divine Revelation, engenders and sustains human reason. The
ensuing harmony of reason and faith embraced by Christians, results in a
profound unification and equilibrium of the human personality, ensuring a
well-balanced adherence to the whole of reality, giving meaning and
significance to human life. This is the Christian humanism of Aquinas from
which emerges a sanctity that promotes human values and inculcates the heroic
practice of Christian virtues.
Don
Bosco: he was the first to
grasp the significance of his times at the threshold of the Industrial
Revolution, and to see the need to help poor young men and women to face a new
world and a new society, and to take their place in it as active and
responsible contributors. He saw education
as the key to the transformation of the human person, and the training to skilled work as the means to engage with society
productively. At a time when his contemporaries, Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich
Engels (1820-1895) were writing the Communist
Manifesto, denouncing the evils of unbridled capitalism, and castigating
religion as the opium of the people, Don Bosco was busy opening trade schools
and technical centres preparing young people to enter the workforce to gain an
honest livelihood. His most original synthesis of a new Christian education of
young people for our times is the Oratory,
which is a happy blend of education to the Christian faith, and education
to life and the world of work, in a serene and joyful atmosphere conducive to
holiness of life. This is the Christian
humanism of St Francis de Sales, translated to cater to the needs of the
young and their development. It gives full rein to their deepest desires and
aspirations for growth to maturity as citizens of their country and at the same
time, as citizens of heaven.
Aquinas, the Common Doctor of Humanity, and Don Bosco, the Father and Teacher of
the Young, are two towering saints, separated by 600 years, but united in the
one common mission of education and evangelisation, who understood the signs of
the times, seized the moment of opportunity, and bequeathed to us an enduring
and still relevant legacy of Christian humanism for the transformation of
people.
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