Faith and Reason: Insights from St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas
St. Augustine: Faith and Reason
In Latin Patristics, a movement represented by church officials, the philosopher St. Augustine integrated the philosophy of Christianity. His objective was to establish faith in reasoning against those who exhibited faith without reason, proving that the sources of wisdom are both faith and reason. Augustine believed that faith and reason are complementary paths to discovering the only truth. Faith serves as the starting point, a prerequisite for understanding. Therefore, for St. Augustine, to understand more, one must believe, and reason helps Christians respond to the question of God. True faith and reason need each other because reason reveals the contents of faith. The Christian philosopher attempts to clarify truths of faith, which can be either understandable or incomprehensible.
St. Thomas Aquinas: Faith and Reason
St. Thomas Aquinas believed that faith and reason cannot contradict each other, as God created both. Some truths of faith appear incomprehensible, while others are understandable. However, due to human limitations, most people need divine revelation to know the truth necessary for salvation. If there is a conflict between faith and reason, it is because the reasoning is flawed or the method used exceeds the limits of reason.
Truth, Happiness, and God
St. Augustine: The Pursuit of Truth and Happiness
Augustine thought that the ultimate human goal is happiness, which is attained through true wisdom. This true knowledge leads to God, who is the ultimate truth. The search for truth is not merely the development of scientific knowledge but a spiritual journey that requires several steps:
- Overcoming Skepticism: Confirming that it is possible to know the truth.
- Accepting Sensory Knowledge is Insufficient: True knowledge is not found in the senses but in our spirit.
- Self-Transcendence: Demonstrating the existence of God through self-transcendence, a process involving intelligence and will.
- Intelligence: Our soul’s eternal ideas come from God, as truth and our final variable are from Him.
- Desire: Our desire for happiness and something beyond material things proves the existence of God, who is eternal.
Therefore, in self-transcendence, the immutable truth is expressed through God.
St. Thomas Aquinas: Proofs for the Existence of God
For Augustine, the existence of God was obvious and did not require rational demonstration. However, St. Thomas, unlike Anselm, developed a posteriori arguments (based on observation) rather than a priori ones (based on the concept of God). These are known as the “Five Ways”:
- The Argument from Motion: Everything in motion must be set in motion by something else. There cannot be an infinite chain of movers, so there must be an unmoved mover, which is God.
- The Argument from Efficient Cause: Every effect has a cause. There cannot be an infinite chain of causes, so there must be a first uncaused cause, which is God.
- The Argument from Contingency: Contingent beings exist, meaning they can either exist or not exist. There must be a necessary being that always exists and is the cause of contingent beings, and this is God.
- The Argument from Degrees of Perfection: There are degrees of perfection in the world. There must be a perfect being against which all other beings are compared, and this is God.
- The Argument from Design: The world exhibits order and purpose. This implies an intelligent designer who directs all things to their end, and this is God.