Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

  Thomas Aquinas (1225-74)

 

He is the most important of the medieval thinkers, his philosophy dominated the thought of the RC church

He produced synthesis between Christianity and Aristotle.

Aquinas is also deeply influenced by ne-Platonism, esp. through Pseudo-Dionysius.

 

Faith and Reason

·         Natural reason, operating apart from revelation, is able to discover not only about the natural world, but even about G (his existence and major attributes).

·         Other things are known only by revelation and received only by faith (the trinity, creation ex nihilo, etc.)

·         Some things are both provable by natural reason and also revealed, so that those unable to prove them may nevertheless know them.

-> This distinction makes reason autonomous within its own sphere, although faith has a "veto power" when reason contradicts something revealed. Thus, Thomas develops his basic metaphysical scheme out of Aristotle and fits the data of Scripture into that scheme (reductionistic)

 

Epistemology

a.     As with Aristotle, forms are found in things, together with matter, not in some separate world.

b.     Knowledge is a matter of abstracting the embedded forms from the things.

c.     All knowledge, then, begins in sense experience' but it is not genuine knowledge until the intellect determines the essential or universal properties (forms) of the things it investigates.

d.     Since we have no sense experience of G (or angels), we can know of them only by revelation or through their effects.

e.     Language about G

 

 

Holy

What God is(in essence) - G is cause of holiness

 

 

Catholic - God is simple being. - Aquinas said so, Neoplatonic emphasis on si`mplicity