Paper Topic:

Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas 's Legacy

Name

Subject

Instructor 's Name

Date of Submission Thomas Aquinas 's Legacy

The great achievement of Thomas Aquinas was that he brought together the insights of classical philosophy and Christian theology . Although he drew on classical philosophical themes from Plato and Stoicism Aquinas 's philosophy stands out for its reliance on Aristotle . Aquinas was also aware of the vast scope of thought produced by Christian as well as the contributions of Jewish and Muslim philosophers By the time he began his literary work , a large

part of Plato 's and Aristotle 's writings had become available in Western Europe (Aquinas 1945

Augustine had formulated an earlier blending of philosophy and theology by combining the Christian faith with elements of Plato 's thought , which he had discovered in the writings of the Neoplatonist Plotinus . Shortly after Augustine , in the sixth century , Boethius made a portion of Aristotles works available in Latin for the first time and thereby stimulated philosophical speculation again . From about the seventh to the thirteenth century , there were several lines of development , leading toward differences and controversies between Platonists and Aristotelians (Aquinas , 1945

This conflict continued after the thirteenth century as a controversy between Augustinians and Thomists (Aquinas 's followers , insofar as Augustine and Aquinas built their thoughts around Plato and Aristotle respectively . In these formative centuries , medieval thinkers wrestled with the problem of relating philosophy and theology , expressing this problem as the relation between faith and reason . There was also the problem of universals , which not only reflected the different viewpoints of Plato and Aristotle but also had important ramifications for the Christian faith . On all these matters , Aquinas now exerted a decisive influence by clarifying the precise questions involved , acknowledging alternative solutions offered by different authorities , and answering the major objections to his Aristotelian-Christian solutions . In this way , Aquinas perfected the scholastic method ' which is tremendously relevant in the modern times (Aquinas , 1945

The term scholasticism ' in this context is derived from the intellectual activity carried on in the medieval cathedral schools , and its proponents were called doctores scholastici . Eventually scholasticism came to refer to the dominant system of thought developed by the doctors in the schools and to the special method they utilized in teaching philosophy . Scholastic philosophy was an attempt to put together a coherent system of traditional thought rather than a pursuit of genuinely novel forms of Christian theology and Greek philosophy that of Plato and especially Aristotle (Aquinas , 1945

Most distinctive in scholasticism was its method , a process relying chiefly upon strict logical deduction , taking on the form of an intricate system and expressed in a dialectical or disputational form in which theology dominated philosophy . Again , Aquinas perfected what Boethius , the first scholastic ' established as the scholarly point of view regarding theological subjects . Boethius urged that as far as you are able , join faith to reason ' and Aquinas raised the conjunction of faith with reason to its highest form . While accepting revealed and traditional theological truths , he...

4 pages

27.0 KB

Free sing-up