Theistic Realism and Monistic Idealism

Abstract

THEISTIC REALISM AND MONISTIC IDEAI.ISM IT HAS BECOME a common methodological device for Thomistic philosophers to emphatically distinguish their own evidentiary and logical foundations from those of modern idealism. In this way they hope to show that the antimetaphysical criticisms inspired by opposition to idealism are quite provincial and fail to deter a metaphysical effort conceived in an alternate fashion. Whether this device is fully successful or not, there do seem to be emphatic differences between the two outlooks. I wish to clarify the often misunderstood contrast betwen these two metaphysical positions, while pointing out certain similarities that are often overlooked.1 Although it is quite true that neither Thomas Aquinas nor F. H. Bradley are quite the philosophical fashion these days, they do provide excellent specimens of their respective metaphysical types. Few other theistic realists have attained the stature of Aquinas in Western philosophy, and due to the special interest he has held for subsequent Catholic scholars, no other philosopher's doctrines have been more closely examined and refined. Hence, a comparison of any other type of philosophy with that of Thomism would not suffer from any deficiency of delineation on the part of theistic realism. Bradley, furthermore, is an appropriate specimen of monistic idealism. Not only was he the leading British idealist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and as such the 1 That there are similarities is illustrated by the effort of A. E. Taylor to identify his Bradleian inspired metaphysics with that of Thomism. His effort to interpret the Absolute as the Thomistic God and the appearances as the Thomistic participations is not entirely successful, since he is unwilling to make the radical re-interpretation of evidentiary foundations that this would require. Nevertheless, it does bring to the forefront certain analogies between the systems that are often overlooked. See Taylor's Elements of Metaphysics, London: Methuen and Co. (University Paperbacks), (1903, 1909) 1961, both prefaces and dedication. 661 662 GARY L. BEDELL prototypical philosophical villain for Anglo-American empiricists , pragmatists, and analytical philosophers, but he is also more critical and skeptical than his great German mentor, Hegel. Bradley learned much from Hegel, but he always resented being called an hegelian or neo-hegelian, since the ultimate dialectical rationality of the Absolute, so dear and essential to Hegel, was what Bradley could not accept. Hence, it is possible to reject certain fundamental doctrines of Hegel's dialectical monistic idealism and yet maintain a monistic idealism akin to Bradley's. A comparison of theistic realism with Bradley's version would be, therefore, much more direct and elucidating than with Hegel's more specialized version of monistic idealism. The clarification of metaphysical types is much better served in this fashion. I. ExPERIENCE AND EXISTENCE 1. Although on the question of what it is that makes something real a realist and an idealist must part company, there is a common commitment for St. Thomas and Bradley that is easily overlooked. Both subscribe to what Whitehead was later to call the ontological principle, that is, that all real explanations must be in terms of actual entities. In Thomism this takes the form of the basic dictim that absolutely considered act is prior to potency. This means that, while in a changing being potency has a certain temporal priority to act, real causal efficacy and absolute priority resides in actuality. The world of potency and possibility exists only in abject dependency on act. Ultimately, to be is to be actual. The so-called world of possibles is neither real in itself nor some intermediate realm between actual being and nothingness. Much less is it a broader, more extensive realm conveying the primary meaning of being. Rather the possibles are defined in reference to the actual; they are possible precisely as conceivable participations THEISTIC REALISM AND MONISTIC IDEALISM 663 in the actuality of God. Hence, in one sense the primacy of existence in Thomism means the primacy of actuality. With this Bradley would quite concur. Indeed the worst philosophical sin for Bradley was to commit the fallacy of vicious abstraction. Vicious abstraction is the process of confusing the products of our own abstraction with concrete actuality. Metaphysics is the intellectual...