Thomas Aquinas philosophy

Life and Works of St Thomas Aquinas

Saint Thomas Aquinas was a 13th century Dominican Friar, philosopher and theologian. Named a Doctor of the Church and given the title "Angelic Doctor," he is the patron of Catholic universities, colleges and schools. Renowned for his proofs for the existence of God, Aquinas believed that both faith and reason discover truth; a conflict between them is impossible since they both originate in God. He was instrumental, therefore, in the assimilation of the works of Aristotle into the intellectual life of Western Christendom.

Saint Thomas was born in 1224 or 1225 to noble parents, being the youngest son of Landulf (descendent of the counts of Aquino) and Theodora, a noble woman of Naples. At the age of five, he was placed in the Monastary of Monte Cassino to be educated for a career in the Church. Because of the promise he showed in his studies, around the age of fourteen he was sent to the University of Naples to continue his education and excelled under his new masters. It was there that he was probably first exposed to the recently rediscovered natural and metaphysical works of Aristotle.

At about the age of nineteen, he joined the Dominican Order, the Order Friars Preachers. His noble family was not pleased with this choice, however, since the friars, with there the extreme poverty and itinerant lifestyle, were not held in very high esteem. When his mother set out for Naples in order to retrieve Brother Thomas from the clutches of the Dominicans, the friars sent him to Rome, but Thomas was captured by his brothers, soldiers in the Imperial Army. He was taken to a family castle and imprisoned for nearly two years as his family tried to dissuade him from carrying through his resolution to continue as a Dominican. His brothers even sent a prostitute into his cell, but Thomas drove her away with a burning brand he took from the fire. While in prison, he continued his study, and when finally released, he professed his vows in the Order of Friars Preachers. At the age of twenty, he was placed under the instruction of St. Albert the Great, first in Paris and later in Cologne. Because of his large figure and quiet nature, Thomas' fellows called him a dumb ox, but St. Albert declared that Thomas' bellows would resound throughout the world. In perfume, probably at the age of twenty-five, Thomas was ordained to the priesthood.

After a few years, Thomas was sent to Paris to teach his brethren and to earn a Doctorate in Theology from the University there. He became involved in a controversy, however, and was delayed in receiving his degree and occupying a place on the faculty. When a student was killed by the Paris guard, a dispute between the University and the city of Paris erupted. The University went on strike, but the Dominicans and Franciscans refused to join in. Consequently, St. Thomas and the Franciscan, St. Bonaventure, were refused their Doctorates in Theology. One of the Parisian professors, William of St.-Amour, even wrote a vicious attack against the friars, The Perils of the Last Times. Thomas responded by writing his own defense of the religious orders, Against Those Attacking the Worship of God and Religion. Finally, Pope Alexander IV and St. Louis IX of France resolved the dispute, and Thomas and Bonaventure received their degrees.

In the fifteen years from 1257-1273, St. Thomas was prolific in his writing, teaching and preaching. He is said to have been able to dictate several different treatises to various scribes at once. He held many academic debates at the University of Paris, far more than most other professors, and in his lifetime he wrote over 50 major works, from original philosophical works, to theological treatises, to commentaries on works of Aristotle and on Scripture. His monumental Summa Theology is a masterpiece of medieval scholasticism. He is also credited with religious poetry in praise of the Eucharist which is used by the Church for the Feast of The Body and Blood of Christ.

Philosophy and Theology

Thomas Aquinas (picture) does not accept the Averroist principle of the double truth. Philosophy and theology are distinct but not opposed, and what reason shows to be true is absolutely true in theology also. Moreover, Aquinas does not accept Augustinian illumination, the belief that the eternal truths are imparted to our soul by the Word of God. For Aquinas the intellect is able to reach concepts through abstraction. The proper object of the human intellect is this visible world, our intellect cannot penetrate the mysteries of faith. Nevertheless, the most important religious truths, such as the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, are both the object of reason and the object of faith.

Theory of Knowledge

Knowledge is obtained through two stages of operations, sensitive and intellective, which are intimately related to one another. The object of sensitive knowledge is the particular thing, while the object of the intellect is the "intelligible," which is arrived at from the particular by abstraction. The intellect has three operations: abstraction, judgment and reasoning.

Soul and body

The substantial ego, or human individual, is not a simple being, but one composed of a body and a soul. This leads us to the current definition of man: a 'rational animal' (definition by logical parts) or 'a compound of body and soul' (definition by real parts). Like the other living organisms plant or animal, unicellular or higher organism man is regarded as a compound made up of a body, which plays the part of 'matter' and of a soul, which acts as the 'substantial form.' If we recall what has been said in the previous part about matter and form, we shall understand the role of the soul and the body in man.

Conclusion

According to Thomas Aquinas, the existence of God is not a truth, which is immediately evident, but one requiring demonstration. We do not know Him in the manner in which we know, for example, the principle of contradiction or our own existence, but we have to view Him through the thick veil of the world of sense reality, which is between Him and us. Likewise, a reasoning process alone enables us to know some aspects, or attributes, of God's Infinity.