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Life's Ultimate Questions “Aquinas”

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Life's Ultimate Questions “Aquinas” Life’s Ultimate Questions “Aquinas” Christopher Ullman, Instructor Christian Life College 1 Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) • Known as the greatest • He stands at the top of the Christian medieval group of thinkers known as theologian-philosopher, he Scholastics single-handedly stemmed the tide of Islamic • At age 48 he suddenly Aristotelianism into Europe stopped writing • Maybe he suffered a brain • His friends playfully called hemorrhage him “the dumb ox” • Maybe he had a vision that • He produced over ninety academic learning was not the works in a little over two most important thing decades • “All that I have written seems • Summa Theologica like straw to me,” he told a • Summa Contra Gentiles friend • The Ways of God: For • A year later, he died on the Meditation and Prayer road to a church council 2 Followers and Critics of Aquinas • Philosophers who follow • Frances Schaeffer joins Aquinas’ teachings are Ronald Nash in being a known as Thomists critic of some aspects of • Pope John Paul II ( Fides et Ratio ) Aquinas’ philosophy • Etienne Gilson ( The Spirit of • “In Aquinas’ view the will Medieval Philosophy and The of man was fallen, but Christian Philosophy of St. the intellect was not. Thomas Aquinas ) Out of this, as time • Norman Geisler ( Baker Encyclopedia of Christian passed, man’s intellect Apologetics, and over 50 other was seen as books) autonomous.” – Escape • Catholic hospitals follow from Reason, p. 211 Aquinas’ ethics 3 Aquinas’ works and methods •“The study of philosophy is not done in order to • His greatest works: know what men have • Summa Contra Gentiles thought, but rather to (an apologetic refuting the know how truth herself influence of Islamic stands.” teachings in Europe) •He was objective to a • Summa Theologica (a fault, and obsessively statement of Christian thorough in his analyses doctrine, in the light of •Received truth wherever Scripture, church tradition, he found it and philosophy) •Believed that faith and reason can never conflict4 Aristotle, Averroes, and Aquinas • The Islamic philosopher Averroes (Ib’n Rushd) had •Aquinas took on the tailored Aristotle’s teachings task of studying so that the beliefs in Aristotle for himself, creation, the immortality of the soul, and the unity of and building a truth were discarded Christian worldview to • Averroes influenced many in counter that of the Christian academia Averroists 5 Scholasticism the method and manner of dialectical philosophizing (question and answers) taught in the schools the period from 9th century CE, when new schools arose in Europe to spread Patristic faith disciplined by dialectic methods of thinking Christian Rationalism, as distinct from Augustinian Intuitionism reason applied to nature, human nature and supernatural truth 6 The Major Scholastic Thinkers St. Anselm (1033-1109) first to incorporate Aristotelian rationalism into Christian theology; rational proofs for existence of God in Monologium and Proslogium Peter Abelard (1079-1142) Sic et non, collection of contradictory sayings from Scripture and Church Fathers, introduces method of resolving contradictions, lays foundation for scholastic method Peter Lombard (c.1100 - c.1160) Sentences, compilation of early theological opinions, becomes central text of scholastic theological instruction 7 The Major Scholastic Thinkers St. Albertus Magnus (1193/1206 - 1280) from Averroes, introduces Aristotle’s treatises and method; his Summa theologiae disputes Averroes and reconciles Aristotle and Christianity Roger Bacon (1212-1294) Franciscan, first great Scholastic empiricist St. Bonaventure (1221-1274) Franciscan, reconciles Aristotle with Augustine; reason subservient to faith John Duns Scotus (1266-1308) Franciscan, greatest opponent of Thomism William of Occam (1285-1349) Franciscan, scientific empiricist; disputed self- evident principles in Thomism, denying 8 competence of reason re faith St. Thomas Aquinas St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) Italian, born near Naples Dominican, student of Albertus Magnus, professor of theology at Paris, papal advisor Century of Dispute The 13th Century is torn between Augustinians who make truth a matter of faith and Averroists, led by Siger de Brabant ( ? - 1277), who separate truth from faith St. Thomas advances a middle ground reason and faith constitute two harmonious realms faith complements reason reason has autonomy of its own 9 St. Thomas Aquinas Thomist Philosophy systematic application of Aristotelian methods and distinctions repeated Avicenna’s position on Universals which becomes standard Scholastic view Aquinas’ Works Commentary of the Sentences (public lectures 1254-56) seven quaestiones disputatae (public debates 1256-72) commentaries on several of Aristotle’s works Summa contra Gentiles (1258-60) Summa theologica (1267-73) 10 Scholastic Process “Through doubting we come to inquiry, and through inquiry we perceive the truth.” - Peter Abelard 11 Knowing or Believing (the separation of reason and faith) • Knowing applies to the domain of reason • Any truth humans gain apart from divine revelation is acquired by the unaided light of the intellect • Philosophy, natural science, mathematics, psychology are examples • Believing applies to the domain of revelation • Truths of the faith are acquired by believing the authoritative word of God • Theology is the example • Knowledge of God is the one exception 12 The Five Ways (how philosophy can support the belief that God exists) 1. The Argument from Change to a Prime Mover 2. The Argument from Cause and Effect to a First Cause 3. The Argument from Contingent Beings to a Necessary Being 4. The Argument from Degrees of Perfection to a Perfect Being 5. The Argument from Design in the Cosmos to a Designer of the Cosmos 13 The Five Ways Summed Up • Logic is employed in each to show that the cosmos as we know it depends in different ways upon the existence of God • God is the sufficient answer to the “why” questions • God is the one necessary being upon which all the existences of all other beings depends logically • Only the existence of God can make sense of the facts of existence 14 Aquinas the Empiricist • Denial of innate ideas means that sensed experience is the trigger or catalyst of all knowledge Only then can my A Sensed particular passive intellect thing Experience become aware of it Only then can my active intellect analyze and categorize it as one of many of a universal kind 15 Knowing God God is not perceived through the senses, but 1. We can know what God is not (the way of negation) • Focuses on God’s absence of limitations • The Jewish philosopher Maimonides also taught the way of negation • Arguments based on universal negatives (“ No X is Y” ) are always deductive (their conclusions are believed to be necessarily true) • Does the certainty of negative knowledge depend on some positive knowledge? • How can I say, “God is not ____,” if I have no idea of what God is ? 16 Knowing God God is not perceived through the senses, but 2. We can know what God is like (the way of analogy ) • Focuses on the similarities between particular things and God • Knowledge that X is similar to Y assumes that they share some attribute in common, and that each possesses some attribute the other does not • Arguments from analogy are always inductive (their conclusions are only probably true) • Since Aquinas believes we have no innate ideas, the way of analogy cannot escape the charges that • It depends on anthropomorphism (human nature is the point of reference: “God is like us”) or • It commits equivocation (a fallacy in which one term is used in two different ways) 17 Knowing God 1. The way of negation and the way of analogy are useful means of ascertaining who God is if and only if • We have innate ideas • One of those innate ideas is the idea that God exists 2. Aquinas’ empiricism makes no place for innate ideas, so neither way is effective 3. Augustine’s emphasis on imago Dei makes the two ways usable 4. The starting point must be the divine nature, not human nature FROM TO US GOD 18 What Happens After Death? 1. Aquinas agreed with Aristotle that the soul exists in union with the body, giving the body its “form” 2. He affirmed that the soul survived the death of the body, because God willed that it should 3. This stance requires a setting aside of • Aquinas’ empiricism • Aristotle’s soul-body union 19 What is the right thing to do? What is the right way to live? • Right is that which corresponds to a thing’s nature • It is our nature to seek happiness (fulfillment) • This is attainable only in heaven • Moving toward this good goal is the standard for judgment • We are capable of right acting and right living because of virtues and laws 20 Virtues: Guidance from the Inside Cardinal virtues are part of the created nature of all humans and are knowable through reason • Aquinas affirms • Plato’s doctrine of four virtues (prudence, courage, temperance and justice) and • Aristotle’s doctrine of the golden mean ( virtue is somewhere between the deficiency and the excess ) Theological virtues are attainable only by grace through faith • Faith : leads our minds to see truth and our wills to assent to truth • Hope : makes us willing to seek God’s help in attaining happiness • Love : is the divine gift that inclines us to seek God’s friendship 21 Law: Guidance from the Outside Four different kinds of law • Eternal law: both moral and physical principles governing all of God’s creation • Natural law: the part of eternal law that applies to humans, knowable through reason • Human (positive) law: humans trying to make practical laws based on natural law • Divine law: God’s law knowable through the Bible (Refer to Figure 7.2 on p. 185) 22 Natural Law • Aquinas takes insights present in Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics (such as Epictetus and Cicero) • He then sifts them through a Christian filter • The result is a powerful tool for coaxing non- Christians to an awareness of objective moral standards • Natural law shows up in our Declaration of Independence, the Civil Rights Movement, and the ethical positions of the Catholic Church 23 Some Tenets of Natural Law 1.
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