St. Thomas Aquinas: Philosophy, Theology & Influence
St. Thomas Aquinas
Main Ideas
The route of St. Thomas Aquinas is characterized by the willingness of management and reform of theological and philosophical studies of the time. He found his mission in demonstrating methods that a direct reading of Aristotle was not incompatible with Christian faith. The quality of his argument, the depth of faith, and the value of this synthesis have made the intellectual project of St. Thomas Aquinas a reference point for all training centers, schools, and universities.
Rational Order of Creation (Metaphysics)
The work of St. Thomas Aquinas is the result of an immense effort to reach the truth order. It begins by distinguishing sharply between the order of being (what things are in themselves) and the order of knowledge (the way our reason discovers). Since there can be only one truth, both orders coincide provided that it is reasoned flawlessly.
Outline of Argument on the 5-Way on God:
- Senses (experience)
- Metaphysical principle: movement (power -> act)
- No is possible to reduce
- Conclusion infinitum: there must be an engine that is motionless, God.
The Order of Being:
In his metaphysics, St. Thomas Aquinas proposes a strict return to Aristotelianism, resuming their distinctions: Essence/existence, Subject/way, act/potency. God is defined as an act pure, no power can not even be done. After the order of creation is the angelic intelligence, can be distinguished in them than they are in the act of what they are in power. Man occupies an intermediate position between material and immaterial beings. These are always composed of matter and form. The species are the efficient cause of material beings and also its final cause: show the order that God has created in the universe, which is theological, has a purpose and meaning.
Theory of Knowledge
To our knowledge, St. Thomas Aquinas advances in reverse order to being. The starting point is always the sensible experience: “There is nothing in the intellect that has not previously been in the senses” became a classic statement of the Thomistic theory of knowledge. From the sensible data understanding by abstraction, comes to knowledge itself, and by analogy, knows the immaterial ways (the soul, God).
The Human Being Between the Natural Order and the Supernatural Order (Anthropology)
Human life cannot be explained in solely natural terms. In this case, only natural we would be first served basis. The life of man as being created in the image and likeness of God is more complex because we must consider also the supernatural order. This does not mean neglecting the natural environment, for then fall into fideism. Between these extremes is the rationalism of St. Thomas Aquinas, who argues that human nature has perfected skills to rise and eventually reach the kingdom that has more than natural. The soul is the body form and matter and between them forming a single being. St. Thomas Aquinas is one way to inextricably linked wing body matter. The soul is incorporeal and spiritual, the soul makes the body what it is, and time, it sets off towards the end the same. Soul and body are, therefore, a single substance. Thus, charges a full sense of the New Testament’s assertion that the dead will be resurrected in body and soul.
Ethics: The Moral
Human life unfolds in a moral order that opens a passage between the natural and supernatural order. St. Thomas Aquinas adapts Aristotle’s ethics analysis, deepening it.
- The supreme aim of ethics is happiness. Happiness is in practice so we will get closer to God.
- To the moral and intellectual virtues, St. Thomas Aquinas added the theological virtues. Human nature cannot itself acquire these theological virtues, which are a gift given by grace.
Concept of Law
In his few thoughts on society, St. Thomas Aquinas assumes that the same sort of reason is with a view to some end. Essentially, the law must be rational. We can distinguish the following concepts of law:
- Eternal law: expression of the will of God, is valid universally. The eternal law is manifested in our reason and given the name of natural law (what was later called moral law).
- Divine law: precepts that God has given to man through revelation to achieve salvation. Among them, the parallel is human law, i.e., the existing rules in the states.
The Two Powers
The central political problem for Christian thought was that of relations between church and state, between temporal and spiritual power. St. Thomas Aquinas follows Aristotle’s political theory, which asserts that man necessarily lives in communities, which must be the rule, but now the ultimate aim of society is the eternal salvation of souls. St. Thomas Aquinas’s stance on the relationship between temporal and spiritual power is characterized by rationalism. If salvation is the ultimate goal of human life, the State is subordinate to the Church, provided that the purposes that temporary addresses have spiritual implications. Now, when civil cases are not directly concerned with the salvation, St. Thomas Aquinas also recognizes the right of States to govern and administer them.
Historical Framework
St. Thomas Aquinas belongs to the historical epoch known as the Middle Ages. After several centuries of material shortage and social rigidity, Europe is considered stronger and more powerful. The expansion of the first centuries of the Middle Ages had its engine been progress in agriculture, improved diet, and increased the population. The crisis erupted in the last decades of the eighteenth century when they were appearing man, plague, and war. In the era of expansion began to take shape the modern European states. Christianity began to crumble. In politics, the Christian sees two broad powers, the Pope and the Emperor. The conflict broke out between Henry IV, emperor of Germany, and Pope Gregory VII in the hope that both recognize their supremacy within Christianity. The collapse of the Empire and the Papacy, hereditary monarchies gained momentum, giving rise to the idea of a nation. There were also city-states.
Sociocultural Framework
Perhaps the most important feature of the late Middle Ages was the resurgence of urban life. The main industry was textiles. The most important social group was the noble, dedicated primarily to defending the people of war. The nobility was hierarchical. Along with the bourgeois, the other important social group was that of the peasants, who formed the majority of the population. They were grouped in villages. The last group consisted of social outsiders. There were frequent social conflicts over the distribution of wealth and power. The approach to the problem of natural law represents an attempt to establish a level playing field among members of society based on Christian ideas of brotherhood among men and dependence on one God. This equality would be at the theoretical level and is framed in a probation by a preponderance of the religious element.
Philosophical Framework
Life was steeped citizen of Christianity in all its facets. Within the Church emerged new ways of living religion, appearing monasteries. In the intellectual sphere are the Dominicans, an order to which St. Thomas Aquinas belonged, and the Franciscans, initially preachers of love of nature and poverty. The Franciscans provided the basis on which, over time, it would appear the thoughts of Galileo, Newton, and Descartes. Against heresy, the Church reacted with both the preaching and with the Crusades and the Inquisition. The ancient monastic schools were replaced by the universities that met the curiosity and the desire to know of many citizens. The universities were groups of school teachers and dirges for a chancellor and then by a Rector. The thought of this era was called the Scholastic and was mainly theological and philosophical in nature. It consisted of a common core of ideas that were developing different thinkers. The texts that served as the basis for teaching were the Blibia Scholastica and the writings of the Church Fathers and philosophers from different eras. This activity arose several works, among which the Summa, sort of compendium of acquired knowledge. The most famous was the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas. The problems we dealt with were basically theological scholasticism. Medieval philosophy thus acquired a style and contents than those who had developed the Greek philosophy. Greek philosophy had come to the Christian philosophy of cutting some Platonic writings. One of the challenges posed to Christianity the philosophy of Aristotle was that it not be reduced to a mere collection of concepts or logical procedures, but identified constituted essentially a metaphysics, a philosophy generated in a different intellectual realm of Christianity and whose acceptance creates deep problems.
Influences Received by St. Thomas Aquinas
The major sources of St. Thomas Aquinas are Christian thought and Aristotle. St. Thomas Aquinas will use the translations of Aristotle made directly from the Greek by William of Moerbeke, who also translated works will provide some commentators AristotElices as Alexander of Aphrodisias and Simplicio. St. Thomas Aquinas knew the thought of St. Augustine, which will take some concepts, especially in ethics and theory of knowledge. He was also influenced by thinking of some Stoic philosophers, the Pseudo-Dionysius, St. Isidore of Seville, of Abelard, which will take some ideas to develop his philosophy of law and the law, Averroes, Boethius, one of the greatest thinkers medieval, and San Buenaventura.
Duration and Impact the Thinking of St. Thomas Aquinas
The thought of St. Thomas Aquinas constitutes a radical innovation of scholasticism. The Aristotle’s approach to the traditional approach, inspired by Plato and St. Augustine, rebelled. Scholastic hierarchy itself condemned some Thomist theses, which occurred in Paris and Oxford. Thomism ended up being accepted and defended by the Church, which in 1323 rose to Aquinas to the altars. Until the seventeenth century, ideas of St. Thomas Aquinas exerted great influence on the thought-edgedOfico and ecclesiastical. After losing importance until in the nineteenth century neo-Thomist philosophy was revived by the hand of the Church. The most important focus was more important Loviana University. Outstanding thinkers as Jacques Maritain, Marechal, and Gilson. In this day still holds true that much of the official thinking of the Church is substantiated in Thomistic ideas.