Francisco Suárez: Biography Of This Spanish Philosopher
Francisco Suárez was a Spanish philosopher, theologian and jurist considered the greatest exponent of scholastic philosophy of the 16th century. A member of the Jesuits, he had the opportunity to study at various universities, traveling to all parts of Christendom and spreading his philosophy.
A firm defender of the Catholic faith at a time when Protestantism had just emerged and threatened the religious monopoly of the Holy See in the Western world, Suárez carried out multiple works to expand the message in defense of the ancient faith.
Below we will discover who this Spanish philosopher was and we will see some insights into his metaphysical, political and legal perspective, through a biography of Francisco Suárez
Francisco Suárez de Toledo Vázquez de Utiel y González de la Torre, Doctor Eximius or better known briefly as Francisco Suárez born on January 5, 1548 in Granada, Spanish Empire; He grew up in a wealthy family of Castilian origin who had recently taken possession of the Andalusian lands, like many other inhabitants of the Crown of Castile. In his childhood Francisco Suárez learned Latin in his own home with Juan Latino as a teacher; in this language he would write his work.
As the years went by, entering adolescence, Suárez entered the Company of Jesus of Medina del Campo in Valladolid as a novice. Later, in 1561 he enrolled at the University of Salamanca, where he studied law. In 1564, after having been rejected three times from the Society of Jesus, he was admitted as one of its members. After that, Between 1564 and 1566 he would study philosophy and during the following four years he would focus on theology
In 1571 he began his teaching activity in Segovia, working as a philosophy professor. In 1575 he was a theology intern in Segovia and Ávila and the following year he settled in Valladolid to teach theology classes for four years. In 1580 he traveled to the center of Christianity itself, Rome. There he would be welcomed as a professor of theology at the Roman College for five years but, unfortunately and due to his poor health, he was forced to return to Spain.
On his return he would practice his teaching at the University of Alcalá de Henares, a place where he would have tense and warm discussions with Father Grabriel Vázquez about legal-moral and theological issues. As a teacher Francisco Suárez departed from the norm of the time. He rejected the usual methods, considering them inadequate to arouse the interest of students. He posed new problems to his students and promoted the study of the sources he mentioned, inviting them to reflect and criticize them.
When his book “De verbo incarnato” arrived in 1590, he published “De mysteriis vitae Christi” two years later, in which he commented on some aspects of the “Summa” of Saint Thomas. In 1593 he returned to the University of Salamanca as a professor, a time in which he was preparing his “Disputationes Metaphysicae”, which would be the summit of his career and would see the light of day in 1597 in Salamanca.
In 1597 he moved to the chair of theology at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. During the year 1599 he lived in Madrid after the closure of that university and published “Opuscula theologica” in that year In it he presented certain ideas that ended up being controversial, especially that of distance confession. This made him have to give explanations to Pope Clement VIII. However, Pope Paul V would favor him, coming out in defense of his innovative ideas.
In 1612 he published “De legibus” which would be another of his important works. A year later, in the middle of the controversy started by James I of England, Francisco Suárez published his “Defensio fidei catholicae apostolicae adversus Anglicanae sectae errors” (Defense of the Catholic and apostolic faith against the errors of the Anglican sect), a commissioned work directly from the pope. In it Suárez He supported the theory of the indirect power of the pontiff in temporal matters, contrary to the idea that kings received their sovereignty by divine decision
This work advocated that the citizens were in their legitimate decision to protect themselves against a prince who became a tyrant, criticizing that if a ruler changed his faith and persecuted his people for this reason, it was fair that the people respond. The text did not sit well in England, being publicly burned in London by order of James I and, also, in Paris in the hands of the Gallican regalists.
Two years after writing his “Defense of the Catholic Faith” he would retire as a professor in Coimbra and spend his last years in Portugal. He would die on September 25, 1617 at the age of 69 in the Portuguese capital , being buried in the Church of San Roque. Throughout the 17th century, some of his works appeared posthumously, which talk about the freedom of man. The extraordinary scope of his thought was kept alive for almost two centuries in most European universities.
Francisco Suarez He is considered the last great thinker of the Renaissance scholastic school , focusing especially on metaphysics and legal and political philosophy. Knowing that scholasticism was becoming sterile, Suárez tried to broaden the philosophical horizon with new conceptions and perspectives, but without ceasing to think that philosophy should continue to be Christian and be at the service of theology.
His work “Metaphysical Disputations” is considered to draw the boundary between commentaries on Aristotle and independent studies in metaphysics. It is this work that is considered to constitute a true encyclopedia of his philosophical and religious knowledge. Because attempted to reconcile divine grace with free will There are those who see in the figure of Francisco Suárez a kind of “second Aquino.”
The metaphysics
The importance of the figure of Suárez is that he was the first to erect a systematic metaphysical body at the same time that the philosophers of his time seemed to want something more than a series of Aristotelian comments. With the work of Francisco Suárez metaphysics became epistemologically an autonomous entity, a field of knowledge with a certain theoretical independence
His book “Metaphysical Disputations” is the work that collects all of his philosophy exhaustively. Although Suárez is considered to be the last great systematizer of scholastic thought, he is, in turn, a precursor of orientations and themes that would acquire great importance in modern philosophical thought of the 17th century.
More than 200 cited authors appear in this work, making direct reference to their works. Analyzes and discusses all types of philosophical theories, always from a respectful perspective He talks about Saint Thomas Aquinas, Plato, Arab philosophy, the Thomists, the Scotists, the philosophers of the Renaissance, the teachers of Salamanca… practically no man of extensive philosophical knowledge prior to his time is omitted in Suárez’s work although Of course, all of them belong to the West or nearby cultures.
Having knowledge of all types of theories, and especially those that had been defined within scholasticism (Thomism, Scotism and Ockhamist nominalism), Suárez compiled and, in part, modernized the philosophy of his time.
Francisco Suarez He expresses his legal-political thoughts in various works, especially “De legibus” (1612) and “Defensio fidei catholicae” (1613) Broadly speaking, it is based on the thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas, but even so, the depth with which he exposes his thoughts gives it a lot of originality.
Suárez starts from the same definition as Santo Tomás when talking about the law, but sees it as excessively broad. For him, The law must be restricted to the human sphere, speaking on the one hand of the eternal law, of divine reason, and the natural law, which would be universal and human Suárez conceives the law as an aspect that must be both a product of understanding and will. It must be a common, fair and stable precept, which has consensus. The law must dictate what is fair and for a law to be fair it must meet the following three conditions:
Besides, explains ideas about the society in which the law should be applied The first social form is the family, which is considered to be an imperfect group from which a society is formed through an express, voluntary and general pact that seeks the common good. But for the law to be properly established, it is necessary that a community of authorities and subjects be established, which is why it is necessary that institutions be created that house the authority, understanding that they will never receive the power of God directly.
The delegation of political power will not mean the people’s renunciation of their primary rights and, in fact, the rulers will not be able to act against the people under any circumstances. If the prince, king or any authority turns against his subjects, the people have the right to stop him since the ruler is not because God has chosen him, but because the people have allowed it. This idea has been interpreted as a subtle criticism of the absolutist monarchies in force at the time.
