Everything about Francisco Suarez totally explained
Fr. Francisco Suárez, S.J. (
5 January 1548–
25 September 1617) was a
Spanish philosopher and
theologian, generally regarded as having been the greatest
scholastic after
Thomas Aquinas.
Life and career
Suárez was born in the Spanish city of
Granada. At the age of sixteen he entered the
Society of Jesus at
Salamanca, and he studied philosophy and theology there for five years from
1565 to
1570. It appears that he wasn't a promising student at first; indeed, he nearly gave up his thoughts of study after twice failing the entrance exam. After passing the exam at the third attempt, however, things changed, and he completed his course of study in philosophy with distinction, going on to study theology, then to teach philosophy at
Ávila and
Segovia. He was
ordained in
1572, and taught theology at Ávila and Segovia (
1575),
Valladolid (
1576),
Rome (
1580–
85),
Alcalá (1585–
92), Salamanca (1592–
97), and
Coimbra (1597–
1616).
He wrote on a wide variety of subjects, producing a vast amount of work (his complete works in
Latin amount to twenty-six volumes). Suárez writings include treatises on
law, the relationship between church and state,
metaphysics, and
theology. He is considered the father of international law and his
Disputationes metaphysicae were widely read in Europe during the seventeenth century.
Suárez was regarded during his lifetime as being the greatest living philosopher and theologian, and given the
nickname Doctor Eximius et Pius;
Pope Gregory XIII attended his first lecture in Rome.
Pope Paul V invited him to refute the errors of
James I of England, and wished to retain him near his person, to profit by his knowledge.
Philip II of Spain sent him to the
University of Coimbra in order to give it prestige, and when Suárez visited the
University of Barcelona, the
doctors of the university went out to meet him wearing the
insignia of their
faculties.
After his death in
Portugal (in either
Lisbon or
Coimbra) his reputation grew still greater, and he'd a direct influence on such leading philosophers as
Hugo Grotius,
René Descartes, and
Gottfried Leibniz.
In 1679
Pope Innocent XI publicly condemned sixty-five
casuist propositions, taken chiefly from the writings of
Escobar, Suárez and others, mostly
Jesuit, theologians as
propositiones laxorum moralistarum and forbade anyone to teach them under penalty of
excommunication.
Philosophical thought
His most important philosophical achievements were in metaphysics and the philosophy of law. Suárez may be considered almost the last eminent representative of
scholasticism. He adhered to a moderate form of
Thomism and developed metaphysics as a systematic enquiry.
Metaphysics
For Suárez, metaphysics was the science of real essences (and existence); it was mostly concerned with real being rather than conceptual being, and with immaterial rather than with material being. He held (along with earlier scholastics) that essence and existence are the same in the case of God (see
ontological argument), but disagreed with Aquinas and others that the essence and existence of finite beings are really distinct. He argued that in fact they’re merely
conceptually distinct; rather than being able to exist separately, they're conceivable separately. That is, rather than being really separable, existence and essence are epistemically separable.
On the vexed subject of
universals, he endeavored to steer a middle course between the
realism of
Duns Scotus and the
nominalism of
William of Occam. His position is a little bit closer to nominalism than that of
Thomas Aquinas. Sometimes he's classified as a
moderate nominalist nominalist, but his admitting of
objective precision (
praecisio obiectiva) ranks him with moderate realists. The only veritable and real unity in the world of existences is the individual; to assert that the universal exists separately
ex parte rei would be to reduce individuals to mere accidents of one indivisible form. Suárez maintains that, though the humanity of Socrates doesn't differ from that of Plato, yet they don't constitute realiter one and the same humanity; there are as many "formal unities" (in this case, humanities) as there are individuals, and these individuals don't constitute a factual, but only an essential or ideal unity ("ita ut plura individua, quae dicuntur esse ejusdem naturae, non sint unum quid vera entitate quae sit in rebus, sed solum fundamentaliter vel per intellectum"). The formal unity, however, isn't an arbitrary creation of the mind, but exists "in natura rei ante omnem operationem intellectus."
His metaphysical work, giving a remarkable effort of systematisation, is a real history of medieval thought, combining the three schools available at that time:
Thomism,
Scotism and
Nominalism. He is also a deep commentator of Arabic or high medieval works. He enjoyed the reputation of being the greatest metaphysician of his time. He thus founded a school of his own,
Suarezianism, the chief characteristic principles of which are: the principle of individuation by the proper concrete entity of beings; the rejection of pure potentiality of matter; the singular as the object of direct intellectual cognition; a
distinctio rationis ratiocinatae between the essence and the existence of created beings; the possibility of spiritual substance only numerically distinct from one another; ambition for the hypostatic union as the sin of the fallen angels; the Incarnation of the Word, even if Adam hadn't sinned; the solemnity of the vow only in ecclesiastical law; the system of Congruism that modifies
Molinism by the introduction of subjective circumstances, as well as of place and of time, propitious to the action of efficacious grace, and with predestination ante praevisa merita; possibility of holding one and the same truth by both science and faith; belief in Divine authority contained in an act of faith; production of the body and blood of Christ by
transubstantiation as constituting the Eucharistic sacrifice; the final grace of the
Blessed Virgin Mary superior to that of the angels and saints combined.
Theology
In theology, Suárez attached himself to the doctrine of
Luis Molina, the celebrated Jesuit professor of Evora. Molina tried to reconcile the doctrine of
predestination with the freedom of the human will and the predestarian teachings of the
Dominicans by saying that the predestination is consequent upon God's foreknowledge of the free determination of man's will, which is therefore in no way affected by the fact of such predestination. Suárez endeavoured to reconcile this view with the more orthodox doctrines of the efficacy of grace and special election, maintaining that, though all share in an absolutely sufficient grace, there's granted to the elect a grace which is so adapted to their peculiar dispositions and circumstances that they infallibly, though at the same time quite freely, yield themselves to its influence. This mediatizing system was known by the name of "congruism."
Philosophy of law
Here Suárez' main importance stems probably from his work on
natural law, and from his arguments concerning
positive law and the status of a
monarch. In his extensive work
Tractatus de legibus ac deo legislatore (reprinted, London, 1679) he's to some extent the precursor of
Grotius and
Samuel Pufendorf, in making an important distinction between natural law and international law, which he saw as based on custom. Though his method is throughout scholastic, he covers the same ground, and Grotius speaks of him in terms of high respect. The fundamental position of the work is that all legislative as well as all paternal power is derived from God, and that the authority of every law resolves itself into His. Suárez refutes the patriarchal theory of government and the divine right of kings founded upon it---doctrines popular at that time in England and to some extent on the Continent. He argued against the sort of
social-contract theory that became dominant among early-modern
political philosophers such as
Thomas Hobbes and
John Locke, but some of his thinking found echoes in the more liberal, Lockean contract theorists.
Human beings, argued Suárez, have a natural social nature bestowed upon them by God, and this includes the potential to make laws. When a political society is formed, therefore, its nature is chosen by the people involved, and they give their natural legislative power to their ruler. Because they gave this power, they've the right to take it back, to revolt against a ruler — but only if the ruler behaves badly towards them, and they're obliged to act moderately and justly. In particular, the people must refrain from killing the ruler, no matter how tyrannical he may have become. If a government is imposed on people, on the other hand, they not only have the right to defend themselves by revolting against it, they're entitled to kill the tyrannical ruler.
In 1613, at the instigation of
Pope Paul V, Suárez wrote a treatise dedicated to the Christian princes of Europe, entitled
Defensio catholicae fidei contra anglicanae sectae errores. This was directed against the
oath of allegiance which
James I required from his subjects. James caused it to be burned by the common hangman, and forbade its perusal under the 'severest penalties, complaining bitterly at the same time to
Philip III that he should harbour in his dominions a declared enemy of the throne and majesty of kings.
Works
The
Disputationes Metaphysicae (1597) were published in the Seventeenth Century by the Portugal Jesuits. In the Eighteen Century, the Venice edition in 23 volumes in folio (1740-1757) appeared, followed by the Parisian Vivès edition, 28 volumes (1856-1861); in 1965 the Vivés edition of the
Disputationes Metaphysicae was reprinted by Georg Olms, Hildesheim. No modern edition of Suárez's complete works is yet available.
Further Information
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