St. Thomas Aquinas: Life, Philosophy, and Theology
St. Thomas Aquinas: Life and Context
St. Thomas Aquinas, born in Naples in 1225 and died in 1274.
Historical Context
- Christianity: Attempt to unite all Europe under one single power and region.
- 12th Century: The century of the universities – institutions where the Church worked as a trainee for professional associations and teachers, with proper legislation and privileges.
- Four faculties: Arts, Theology, Canon Law, and Medicine.
- Major universities: Paris, Oxford, Bologna, Cologne, and Salamanca.
- Papacy and decline of the empire: Formation of national dynastic monarchies.
- Century of cities: The most important: Paris and the city-states of northern Italy.
Sociocultural Context
- Pre-Renaissance feudal society: Nobility, bourgeoisie, and peasantry.
- Church influence in all aspects of life.
- Century of cathedrals: The Gothic style.
- School of Translators.
Philosophical Context
- Scholastic method.
- Two major problems:
- Relations between reason and faith.
- Existence of universal Platonic ideas.
- Recovery of Aristotelian philosophy and its merger with faith: Averroes (Islam), Maimonides (Judaism), Thomas Aquinas (Christianity).
- Anti-Aristotelian university and the Church.
Aquinas’s Thought
Philosophy and Theology
For Aquinas, philosophy and theology are sciences with different objects, methods, and criteria. Each is autonomous and self-sufficient in its field. Philosophy can, by itself, find the truth in its domain. However, when covering the same subject, philosophy and theology must align. Philosophy can aid faith, and knowing the result of its investigation beforehand has advantages and disadvantages. Faith can use philosophy to better understand revelation and demonstrate that it is rational to believe.
The Existence of God
Aquinas addresses the existence of God as a primary philosophical problem. He presents five ways to demonstrate God’s existence, using two elements: the observation of deficiencies in the sensitive world that require explanation, and the assertion of a causal series that is founded on this reality and culminates in God. He also discusses the nature of God and his attributes, acknowledging the limitations of human language.
Human Nature
Aristotle’s influence is evident in Aquinas’s conception of human nature. He sees the human being as a substantial unit where the soul and body are related as form and matter. The human soul, the form, is immortal and has a relative independence from the body, the matter. Sensitive knowledge is the base for intellectual knowledge. The intellect dematerializes the sensitive and individual image and abstracts the form, leading to intellectual knowledge, which is universal. To know intellectually is to be informed.
Ethics and Natural Law
Aquinas’s ethics focus on the concept of natural law. This law is an expression of the demands of human nature and is spontaneously known by every human being. It is universal and unchanging.
Society and the State
Like Aristotle, Aquinas views human beings as social animals, naturally living in communities. The state is an institution based on human nature, and its task is to lead people to a just and virtuous life, preserving peace and welfare.