Jaarboek Thomas Instituut 1997 - Thomas Instituut te Utrecht

AQUINAS AND INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 33
indeed".
In the final chapter of his prologue, Aquinas draws his
conclusions for how to talk to strangers regarding theological matters.
It is remarkable that he is on the one hand very confident of the
convincing power of rational argumentation, but on the other hand
very much aware of the limited value of reason in theological matters.
According to the twofold way of investigating the truth in religious
matters, as distinguished in the third chapter, Aquinas says that human
beings are so created that they must use two approaches in considering
the truth of God.
The first approach belongs to the realm of reason. This is the
first level of apologetics or interreligious communication, in which the
adversary should be convinced by demonstrative argumentation. The
second approach belongs to the realm of faith. On this level, human
reasoning cannot have the function of convincing the adversary,
because the power of reason is too weak with respect to God's
revelation. It is even dangerous on this level to try to convince others
by rational argumentation alone, because the other might think that our
faith rests on such weak arguments. In this realm of faith, the use of
rational arguments is not as important as the role of the authority of
Scripture, because the testimony of Scripture confirmed by miracles is
the only way to convince the opponent. Rational argumentation has a
more modest task: it may dismantle the arguments used by the
adversary. Apart from that, reasons of probability" may be employed
as well, though not in order to convince the adversary, but only to
76 ScG I, cap.7: "Ex quo evidenter colligitur, quaecumque argumenta
contra fidei documenta ponantur, haec ex principiis primis naturae inditis per
se notis non recte procedere. Unde nee demonstrationis vim habent, sed vel
sunt rationes probabiles vel sophisticae. Et sic ad ea solvenda locus
relinquitur" (ibid., p. 19).
77 Hoping, o.c., pp. 113-117 equates rationes probabiles (cap. 7) with
rationes verisimiles (cap. 9), and translates these words as "dialektische
Argumente", and "Wahrscheinlichkeitsgründe". They are not as strong as
rationes necessariae or rationes demonstrativae, translated as "demonstrative
Argumente" .