Francisco Suárez: biography of this Spanish philosopher

Francisco Suárez was a Spanish philosopher, theologian and jurist considered the greatest exponent of 16th century scholastic philosophy. A member of the Jesuits, he had the opportunity to study at various universities, traveling to all parts of Christendom and spreading his philosophy.

Staunch 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 spread the message in defense of the old faith.

Next we will discover who this Spanish philosopher was and we will see some brushstrokes to the metaphysical, political and legal perspective of him, through a biography of Francisco Suárez.

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Brief 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 He was born on January 5, 1548 in Granada, Spanish Empire; he grew up in a wealthy family of Castilian origin

that recently it had taken possession like so many other inhabitants of the Crown of Castile of the Andalusian lands. In his childhood, Francisco Suárez learned Latin in his own house with Juan Latino as a teacher; in this language he would write his work.

With the passing of the years, Suárez entered his adolescence as a novice in the Society of Jesus of Medina del Campo in Valladolid. Later, in 1561 he enrolled at the University of Salamanca, where he studied law. In 1564, after being 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 for the next four years he would focus on theology.

In 1571 he began his activity as a teacher in Segovia working as a professor of philosophy. 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 exercise his teaching at the University of Alcalá de Henares, a place where he would maintain tense and heated discussions with Father Grabriel Vázquez on legal-moral issues and theological. As a professor, Francisco Suárez deviated from the norm of the time. He refused the usual methods, considering them inadequate to arouse the interest of the students. He posed new problems for his students and promoted the study of the sources he mentioned, inviting reflection and criticism.

Arrived in 1590 his book “De verbo incarnato” saw the light and, two years later, he published “De mysteriis vitae Christi”, in which he commented on some aspects of the “Summa” of Santo Tomás. In 1593 he returned to the University of Salamanca as a teacher, at which time he was preparing his "Disputationes Metaphysicae", which would be the peak 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 in that year "Opuscula theologica". In it he exposed certain ideas that ended up being controversial, especially that of confession from a distance. 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 work commissioned directly by Pope. In it Suarez he upheld the theory of the indirect power of the pontiff in temporal affairs, contradicting the idea that kings received their sovereignty by divine decision.

This work made an apology that the citizens were in their legitimate decision to protect themselves against a prince who became 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 Jacobo I and, also, in Paris in the hands of the Gallican royalists.

Two years after having written his "Defense of the Catholic Faith" he would retire as a professor in Coimbra and spend his last years in Portugal. He died on September 25, 1617 at the age of 69 in the Portuguese capital., being buried in the Church of San Roque. Throughout the seventeenth century some of his works appeared posthumously, which speak about the freedom of man. The extraordinary scope of his thinking was kept alive for almost two centuries in most European universities.

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The philosophy of Francisco Suárez

Francisco Suarez is considered the last great thinker of the Renaissance scholastic school, focusing above all 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 remain Christian and be at the service of theology.

His work on the "Metaphysical Disputations" is considered to draw the boundary between comments to Aristotle and independent studies on metaphysics. It is this work that is considered to constitute a true encyclopedia of his philosophical and religious knowledge. Because he tried to reconcile divine grace with free will There are those who see in the figure of Francisco Suárez a kind of “second Aquino”.

Metaphysics

The importance of the figure of Suárez is that he was the first to erect a systematic metaphysical body while the philosophers of his day seemed to want more than a series of comments Aristotelians. With the work of Francisco Suárez metaphysics epistemologically became an autonomous entity, a field of knowledge with a certain theoretical independence.

His book "Metaphysical Disputations" is the work that collects all his philosophy exhaustively. Although it is considered that Suárez was the last great systematizer of scholastic thought, he is, in turn, precursor of orientations and themes that would acquire great importance in the modern philosophical thought of the XVII century.

In this work there are more than 200 authors cited, making direct reference to his works. He analyzes and discusses all kinds of philosophical theories, always from a respectful perspective. Talk about Saint Thomas of Aquino, Plato, Arab philosophy, the Thomists, the Scotists, the Renaissance philosophers, the masters 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 kinds of theories, and especially those that had been defined within the Scholasticism (Thomism, Scotism and Ockhamist nominalism) Suárez compiles and, in part, modernizes the philosophy of his time.

Politics and law

Francisco Suarez expresses his legal-political thought 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 of Santo Tomás when talking about the law, but he sees it as excessively broad. For him, the law must be restricted to the sphere of the human, speaking on the one hand of the eternal law, of divine reason, and the natural law, which would be universal and human. Suárez conceives of the law as an aspect that must be both a product of the understanding and of the will. It must be a common, fair and stable precept that has consensus. The law must dictate what is fair and for a law to be fair it must meet the following three conditions:

• Let it be enacted for the common good
• That it be promulgated among all those over whom the legislator has authority
• That distributes the loads fairly

What's more, he explains ideas about the society in which the law should be applied. The first social form is the family, which he considers to be an imperfect grouping from which passes to the formation of a society by means of an express, voluntary and general pact that seeks the good common. But for the law to be established properly it is necessary that a community of authorities and subjects be established, for It is necessary to create institutions that house authority, understanding that they will never receive the power of God in a way direct.

The delegation of political power will not mean the resignation of the people of their primordial 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. feet since the ruler is not so because God has chosen him, but because the people have allowed him to do so. This idea has been interpreted as a subtle criticism of the absolutist monarchies in force in his time.

Bibliographic references:

• Ferrater Mora, J. (1953). Suárez and modern philosophy. Journal of the History of Ideas, 14 (4), pp. 528 - 547.
• Rábade Romeo, S. (1997). Francisco Suarez: (1548-1617) ([1st. ed.] ed.). Madrid: Editions of the Orto.
• Bergadá, M. M. (1950). Francisco Suárez's contribution to modern philosophy. (pp. 1921-1926). Buenos Aires: National University of Cuyo.