REASON AND FAITH IN SCHOLASTICISM

THE PROBLEM OF INDIGENOUS INFIDELITY

Abstract

This text discusses the problem of infidelity in medieval scholasticism and its resumption by colonial scholasticism. It starts from the discussion of the relationship between faith and reason in the scholasticism of Thomas Aquinas (c. XIII), highlighting especially the perspective of defense of the Catholic faith against other beliefs, such as Judaism and Islam, and the interpretative variants of Christianity, like that of the Cathars and Averroism Philosophy. The crowning point of this interpretive perspective is the subordination of reason to faith. Hence the unusual conclusion: infidels are those who profess beliefs other than Catholicism. Finally, a brief inventory of the justification for indigenous infidelity in the work of Antonio Ruiz de Montoya (c. XVII). We understand that the Jesuit does not attribute indigenous infidelity to the previous knowledge and subsequent abandonment of the Christian message (Involucrum thesis) by the indigenous people, which would remove them from the condition of invincible ignorant. The infidelity especially linked to the abandonment of two sacraments: baptism, in place of which the ancient practices of idolatry and anthropophagy; and monogamous marriage, without which one reverted to polygyn.