Lydia Schumacher has offered a wonderful account of the doctrine of divine illumination as it was classically construed by Augustine as well as its fate throughout the middle ages and into the post-Reformation era. Schumacher argues that divine illumination shapes our “intrinsic intellectual capacity” and thus cannot be construed as a divine action that “undermines the integrity of the intellect.” She argues this point convincingly by considering a wider range of Augustine’s writings before turning to his specifically epistemological discussions where he considers divine illumination explicitly. “With all this in mind, one can conclude that the illumination of Christ does not bear on cognition in any way that undermines the autonomy or integrity of the intellect but in a way that reinstates it, at least for the intellect that stokes rather than extinguishes his light through a decision to work with faith in him.” In Schumacher’s account Thomas Aquinas becomes the faithful disciple of Augustine, contrary to many standard readings that pit Thomas’s use of Aristotle against Augustine’s reliance on Plato. Thomas does not continue to use the same philosophical apparatus to describe how humans think, but he continues to hold to the fundamental theological framework (regarding God, creation, anthropology, sin, and redemption) present in Augustine’s work. Thomas does introduce Aristotelian psychology into his reflections on illumination, but he allows his reflection on theology and the nature of the divine economy to chasten their function. At the end of the day, because he shares Augustine’s commitment to a participatory epistemology wherein humans really can come to share in God’s own knowledge by the missions of his Son and Spirit, Thomas is compelled to articulate a robust account of how human reason can be operative in theology. Hence he introduces Aristotle (with all his concern for detail regarding creaturely processing) precisely because he is so committed to Augustine’s vision of participation (drawn from both the canon of Scripture and his retooling of Platonic methexis). One must be committed to the proper functioning of the mind (and, as best we can, to understanding it in terms of faculties and functions) if one believes that it really participates in God’s own wisdom by grace.

“Knowledge of God” by Michael Allen in Christian Dogmatics: Reformed Theology for the Church Catholic, edited by Michael Allen, and Scott R. Swain (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016), 25.