Thomas Aquinas thinks of reason or intelligence in high and noble terms, and those terms are
summed up in three intellectual virtues: understanding, knowledge, and wisdom.
His explanation of these reveals the potential of the human mind to go to the height and
the depth of truth.
Human reason or intellect has a natural drive to read the world.
People gradually come to know various things: kinds of animals, seasons of the year, mathematical
truths, songs, stories, human beings, our characteristics, the list goes on and on.
As we continue studying and learning the world, both individually and collectively, we learn
and study increasingly more things about increasingly more subject matters – everything from grass
to God.
Now the learning process is not simply learning random facts, but an attempt to understand
why things are the way they are.
It is one thing to know that certain birds migrate for the winter, and another things
to know why.
Our awareness of reality may be distinguished roughly into things to be explained and the
things that do the explaining.
In the case of bird migrations, the thing to be explained is the fact that certain birds
migrate for the winter and the thing that does the explaining is the reason why they
do that, for example, they are seeking a warmer climate or a better habitat for breeding or
something similar.
In the language of Thomas Aquinas, the things that do the explaining are called principles.
When a person studies or learns a certain topic or subject matter, the person acquires
an awareness of many truths.
For example, someone who studies music learns all the notes on many scales and which notes
form harmonious chords within different keys on the musical scale.
Contained within that awareness are a great many truths about a great many notes and chords.
And all those truths would seem to be a random collection unless one grasps the reason why
behind chord formation.
Now, the quest to grasp that reason sets up the science of harmonics.
Someone who knows all the truths about various chords on a musical scale, but has not yet
grasped the explanation or reason why, has not yet acquired understanding of harmonic
principles.
But when someone grasps the principle or the reason why behind the various chord formations,
then the person has understanding.
Speaking more generally, we can say the intellectual virtue of understanding is the fixed and stable
disposition of the intellect to grasp the principle or reason why things are so in a
certain subject matter, for example, in harmonics.
Now, when someone has understanding of a principle in a subject matter, as in harmonics, one
is in a position to look at all the truths within that subject matter in light of the
principle or reason why behind them all.
For example, in harmonics one can look at all the truths about chord formations in light
of the principles of proportion of sound.
And when a person does so, the person sees all the many truths about various chords fall
into an orderly whole, an intelligible pattern.
And that orderly whole of many truths is called knowledge or science.
The intellectual virtue of knowledge or science is the fixed and stable disposition of the
intellect to see a multiplicity of truths in a certain subject matter as an orderly
whole in light of a first principle.
Both understanding and knowledge are acquired by studying things, and often over a long
period of time and addressing many questions.
The difference between understanding and knowledge is this.
Understanding is of a principle or reason why within a subject matter.
Knowledge is of all the truths within a subject matter in light of the principles.
Understanding of principles orders and provide explanation within whole branches of knowledge
or fields of science.
Newton’s Three Laws and various other principles, for example, reveal the order and provide
an explanation for all the truths within the branch of knowledge or science called classical
mechanics.
Now, there is one last intellectual virtue to consider.
If someone can grasp a principle within a specific subject matter or domain, such as
bird migration or harmonics or classical mechanics, and by grasping that principle see the explanatory
order of that whole domain of truths and arrive at knowledge or science, what would happen
if we expanded our subject matter or domain of truths as far as possible?
What if we ask about reality as a whole?
Can we grasp the first principle or explanatory factor of reality as a whole?
If one were to do so, then one would have the intellectual virtue of wisdom.
The intellectual virtue of wisdom is the fixed and stable disposition of the intellect by
which one glimpses the first principle of reality as a whole.
The ancient philosopher Aristotle thought that it was metaphysics that did just that,
and he called it wisdom.
Now, metaphysics does indeed catch a glimpse of the first principle of reality and knows
that the first principle of all things is God.
But thanks to God’s own revelation of himself, and our response of faith seeking understanding
of what God has revealed, theology knows God far better than metaphysics.
And that is why theology is traditionally called a higher wisdom.
Theology knows God revealing himself and all things in his light.
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