Jacques Maritain was one of the greatest thinkers in this century. A French philosopher and convert to the Church, he taught in Europe and at Columbia and Princeton universities. The documents of Vatican II, Maritain wrote, made the human person, his dignity, and his rights their central theme, and all who care for man and the future of civilization cheered. But then many writers gave their peculiar interpretation to all this, and, after getting the car out of the ditch on one side, they pushed so hard it went into the ditch on the other side of the road.
Mortimer Adler, another Thomistic philosopher, but not a Catholic, writes that the thinking of Aristotle is the “common sense philosophy.” Ordinary people follow Aristotle, whether they know it or not, because their minds are “unspoiled by the sophistication and specialization of academic thought.” Adler suggests some people have been educated out of their common sense. Others, living in artificial urban communities, think in an artificial manner. Still others are sophists or utilitarians. All around us we have proof that how we think is how we act.
To think correctly there is no better guide than Aristotle. Plato raised all the questions, Adler states, and Aristotle answered them. Plato taught Aristotle how to think so well that Aristotle thought more clearly than his teacher.
Maritain would have agreed with Adler. There must be more common sense in the Church–that was his position. He argued that “The Church cannot kneel to the world; it cannot adapt itself to the world.” He noted with alarm that current writers often fail to distinguish, which is a difficult and fatiguing task. It seems to be too painful for many of them, but without distinctions nothing is clear.
He said that man, thwarted by the wounds of sin, is far from the spiritual self-sufficiency some authors would like us to believe he has. Since many people think little and in a confused manner (a bad combination), they accept much nonsense; there is talk of the blossoming of wonderful human nature while the newspapers are full of crime.
Maritain wrote, “Some speak as if justice and peace on earth were the only work of the Church. This temporal vocation is vital, but earthly social activity is not the only reality. Saving souls is even more important. And our temporal duties are only effective if the life of grace and prayer make natural energies more pure and upright.” In other words, there is more than this earth. This is just common sense.
In general the crowd is not following the Christians, but the Christians are following the crowd. Even the Christian prophets of the avant-garde, who think their whole duty is to this world, cannot understand Christ-like people, because they do not think with Christ.
The world has become absorbed in itself–what Maritain called “the insane mistake.” A world that is self-centered thinks it hasn’t the slightest need to be saved from above. A person, we are told, must fulfill himself here; he must be exalted on earth. This is the attitude of modern society. Such an illusory attitude has no place for God and obviously sees no reason to be interested in the words of the apologist.