St. Thomas Aquinas: His Philosophical and Historical Context
Historico-Philosophical Context of St. Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas was born north of Naples. He attended college in Roccasecca and entered the Dominican Order. He held a chair in Paris and returned to Italy to engage in teaching. He returned to Paris after Orvieto to reorganize the School of Philosophy and reread the works of Aristotle. He died in 1274 while traveling to the Council of Lyons. His most outstanding works include Summa Theologica, earning him the title of Angelic Doctor.
Socio-Economic and Political Context
In the socio-economic sphere, society was divided into three classes: the clergy, the nobility, and the common people. The latter supported the other two through their labor in the fields. Wars between feudal lords were frequent, forcing peasants to join the armies. Hunger and epidemics decimated the population. Monasteries were significant centers of power. Politically, there were clashes between the Church and the State, although they eventually reached agreements and partnerships that benefited both parties. Culturally, there was a period of decline and stagnation. From Charlemagne’s time, many monasteries had schools (led by scholastics). The resurgence of culture occurred with the emergence of the first universities.
Philosophical Context: Scholasticism
The philosophical context was primarily scholastic. Scholastic thinkers shared the acceptance of two types of knowledge: that provided by faith and that obtained through reason and the senses. The central themes of theological-philosophical discussions were:
- Relations between reason and faith.
- Nature of universals.
- Difference between essence and existence.
- Relationship between God (creator) and beings (creatures).
Scholasticism encompassed different tendencies, including Platonic, Augustinian, and Aristotelian, with the latter two being the most influential on Thomas Aquinas.
Comparison with Other Authors
St. Thomas Aquinas vs. St. Augustine
We can compare the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas to that of St. Augustine. Both were believers who affirmed the assertions of the Christian faith and rejected the idea of a double truth. However, they differed in their theory of knowledge. St. Augustine, like Plato, believed that ideas are immutable and necessary, originating not in the human soul but in the divine mind, in God. Internalization is the starting point that leads man beyond himself. This is self-transcendence, which has two steps. First, humanity finds immutable truths, ideas that are superior to it. Second, man transcends to the absolute truth beyond himself, since ideas are contained in the divine intelligence, God, the immutable absolute reality and truth. St. Thomas Aquinas, on the other hand, based his theory on Aristotelian principles, starting with the senses. Knowledge originates from the data provided by sensory experiences. The object presented to our understanding is the sensible material reality, not the intangible. This leads to two consequences: philosophy must be built from the bottom up, based on knowledge of sensible realities, and one can only reach God imperfectly and analogously, based on comparisons with limited and imperfect realities. Our natural knowledge of God has limits within which reason is more or less successful, beyond which faith is presented as something added to human reason that perfects it. Thus, unlike St. Augustine, St. Thomas viewed faith and reason as two different sources of knowledge that provide assistance and are complementary. St. Thomas Aquinas stated that reason does not give us a positive vision of the essence of God, so faith is necessary.