Week 8: Aquinas

SFV101
Karabo Maiyane
The middle ages
• It began in the 5th century and lasted for about 1000 years
• Characterised by the fall of the roman empire
• The ascendency of the Roman Catholic Church – knowledge generally limited to
literate priests and monks
• The Greek idea of philosophy as a rational examination independent of religious
doctrine sat with the rise of Christianity
• Scholasticism
• a philosophical approach that stemmed from monastic schools and was
renowned for its rigorous dialectic reasoning.
• One of Its aims was to integrate Greek philosophy into the Christian religion.
• The Middle Ages (sometimes called the ‘Dark Ages’ when referring to Medieval
Europe) was a famously uneventful stage in the history of ideas in Europe.
The middle ages
• Elsewhere Culture thrived
• China and Japan enjoyed a “Golden age” of poetry and art while traditional Eastern
philosophies coexisted happily with their religions.
• Arabic and Persian scholars preserved and translated the works of Greek
philosophers, incorporating them into Islamic culture from the 6th century onwards.
• The Crusades; were ostensibly a quest to safeguard Christian pilgrimage to
Jerusalem, but more pragmatically an attempt to unite Europe against a ’common
enemy’ – the Islamic Empire.
• The Black Death decimated the population of Eurasia from 1347-1351 CE - Estimated
deaths: 75-200 million (wipes out about half of Europe’s population in a mere four
years)
• Various parties blamed for the plague and religious persecution reached a fever-pitch
• philosophers of this time include: St Augustine, Avicenna (980-1037 CE), Averroes
(1126-1198 CE), Maimonides (1135-1204 CE), St Thomas Aquinas
St Thomas
Aquinas (1225-
1274 CE)
St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 CE)
• Born into Italian nobility near Naples
• Entered the Abbey (monastery) at the age of 5 because, at the time, Abbeys were the only
place for a decent education - education was mainly for the clergy and religious
• While studying at the University of Naples, he joined the Dominican order (order of
teachers)
• He studied at the University of Paris, where he met “Albert the Great”, who had a particular
intellectual influence on Aquinas (grounding Christian faith on reason)
• Encountered ancient, Christian, Jewish and Muslim writers
• Through Albert the Great, who considered Aristotle, the greatest philosopher, Aquinas saw
Aristotelian philosophy as a significant rational buttress for Christian theology - unlike
Albert, who was encyclopedic in his approach, Aquinas was more creative and systematic
in his work and produced a synthesis between Aristotelian thought and Christian
theology
• Aquinas led a prolific intellectual life, leaving behind a vast written legacy, including his
major works the Summa Contra Gentiles and Summa Theologica
St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 CE)
• Thomas was emphatically Aristotelian
• Adopted Aristotelian metaphysics, i.e. ideas of motion, individual substance, potentiality and
actuality, and abstraction
• The philosophical foundation of his natural philosophy (theology that is rationally
demonstrable without depending solely on faith) is built on Aristotelian philosophy.
• He made his own Aristotle's account of sense perception and intellectual knowledge.
• His moral philosophy is closely based on what he learned from Aristotle
• Aristotle was certain that the universe always existed and was home to different things. He
argued that the universe is changing and moving, which can only be caused by change
and motion. So, there could never be first change or motion: the universe must have been
moving and changing forever
• For Aquinas, the universe could have existed forever, but species such as humans and
animals have had a beginning. God created the universe.
St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 CE)
• Aquinas explained the difference between theology and philosophy:
• Philosophy begins with sense perception, moving upward to more general concepts (Aristotle's
abstraction), then moving even upper, reaching the highest principle, which is the first cause; who is
God
• Theology begins with faith in God and interprets things as creatures of God, and demonstrates the
knowledge of things based on the authority of revealed knowledge (Bible)
• Theology and philosophy are not contradictory because the philosophical discussion is important for living
a rich and informed religious life.
• The essential connection between faith and reason is that they are both concerned with the truth.
• Though philosophy discovers truths by natural reason alone, it can not discover some truths that are only
revealed by faith – ultimately, faith is superior to reason because all truth can be known by faith.
• But certain truths are discoverable by reason alone and do not require faith.
• For example, philosophy can prove the existence of God rationally but can not understand the essential
nature of God, which is reserved for revealed truth alone.
Faith and reason
• Believes reason apart from faith can discern some truths about God.
• Recognises that revealed theology and philosophy concern some of the
same topics.
• He thinks it is not possible in principle for there to be a real and significant
conflict between the truths discovered by divine faith and theology on the
one hand and the truths discerned by reason and philosophy on the
other.
• Notes that there are two kinds of truths about God, those truths that can
be apprehended by reason apart from divine revelation, for example:
• Preambles of the faith: that God exists and that there is one God
• Articles of faith: those truths about God, the apprehension of which requires a
gift of divine grace, for example, the doctrine of the Trinity.
• Although the truth of the preambles of the faith can be apprehended
without faith, Thomas thinks human beings do not have to do so
rationally.
Faith and reason
• Three awkward consequences would follow if God required all
humans to apprehend the preambles to the faith through
philosophical argumentation.
1. Very few people would come to know truths about God, and since
human flourishing requires certain knowledge of God, God wants to
be known by as many people as possible. There’s not enough time,
intelligence and passion for doing such work.
2. Of the very few who could come to know truths about God
philosophically, these would apprehend these truths with anything
close to certainty only late in their life, and Thomas thinks that
people need to apprehend truths such as the existence of God as
soon as possible.
3. Even if one does apprehend that god exists, such apprehension is
nonetheless going to be deficient, for it will not allow them to be
confident that God exists since one would be cognizant - being the
philosopher - that there is a real possibility, she has made a mistake
in her philosophical reasoning.
Faith and reason
• does it make sense to believe things about God that
exceed the natural capacity of human reason? Yes,
because
• to do so reinforces in human beings an important truth about
God, namely, that God is such that He cannot be completely
understood by way of our natural capacities. We just need faith.
• believing things about God by faith perfects the soul in a
manner that nothing else can.
quinque viae (five ways)
• Acknowledging that it is not simply sufficient to proclaim that ‘God
exists’, Aquinas seeks in his five ways to demonstrate proof for
God’s existence
• this kind of demonstration could proceed from two directions:
• from the consideration of a cause, we can infer its effect and;
• from its effect, we can infer its cause
• Example: one can infer that if we are to knock a book off a table
(cause), it will land on the floor (effect); and likewise, if we were to
come across a book on the floor, we might infer that it had been
knocked off the table.
• He begins by positing an effect and assumes divine causality.
1. The argument from motion
• We can see that at least some things
are changin. Whatever is changing is
being changed by something else. If
that by which it is changing is itself
changed, then it too is being changed
by something else. But this chain cannot
be infinitely long, so there must be
something that causes change
without itself changing. This everyone
understands to be God.
2. The argument from causation

• In the world, we can see that things are

caused. But it is not possible for something
to be the cause of itself because this would
entail that it exists prior to itself, which is a
contradiction. If that by which it is caused is
itself caused, then it too must have a cause.
But this cannot be an infinitely long chain,
so, there must be a cause which is not
itself caused by anything further. This
everyone understands to be God.
3. The argument from contingency
• In the world we see things that are
possible to be and possible not to be. In
other words, perishable things. But if
everything were contingent and thus
capable of going out of existence, then,
given infinite time, this possibility would
be realized and nothing would exist now.
But things clearly do exist now. Therefore,
there must be something that is
imperishable: a necessary being. This
everyone understands to be God.
4. The argument from perfection or degree
• We see things in the world that vary in
degrees of goodness, truth, nobility,
etc. For example, sick animals and
healthy animals, and well-drawn circles
as well as poorly drawn ones. But
judging something as being "more"
or "less" implies some standard
against which it is being judged.
Therefore, there is something which is
goodness itself, and this everyone
understands to be God.
5. The argument from Harmony or final cause
• We see various non-intelligent objects in
the world behaving in regular ways. This
cannot be due to chance since then they
would not behave with predictable results.
So their behaviour must be set. But it
cannot be set by themselves since they
are non-intelligent and have no notion of
how to set behaviour. Therefore, their
behaviour must be set by something else,
and by implication something that must
be intelligent. This everyone understands
to be God.
The four causes
• Following Aristotle, Thomas thinks the most capacious
scientific account of a physical object or event involves
mentioning its four causes: its efficient, material, formal, and
final causes.
• For any material object O, O has four causes, the material
cause (what O is made of), the formal cause (what O is), the
final cause (what the end, goal, purpose, or function of O is),
and the efficient cause (what brings—or conserves—O in(to)
being).
• One has a scientific knowledge of O (or O’s kind) only if one
knows all four causes of O or the kind to which O belongs.
Nature of Knowledge and Science
• There are different forms of knowledge:
• Non-scientific knowledge – sense perception and
knowledge of self-evident propositions. It is these forms
of knowledge that scientific knowledge relies upon.
• Scientific knowledge (Scientia) –
• Faith and Scientia are alike in being subjectively certain.
• If I believe that p by faith, then I am confident that p is
true.
• It is likewise with scientific knowledge -
Nature of Knowledge and Science
• e.g., in speaking of science as an act of inquiry - we draw certain conclusions, not
previously known, from things we already know, that is, starting from first
principles, where these principles are themselves known by way of (reflection
upon our) sense experiences, we draw out the logical implications of such
principles. This form Aims at discovering a truth not already known.
• We can contrast this with science as a speculative activity ( contemplation. ). Aims
at enjoying a truth already known.
• As an act of inquiry and contemplation, both sciences are acts
of speculative intellect, i.e., they are uses of intellect with truth as their immediate
object.
• Science as a particularly strong sort of argument, i.e. scientific demonstration
• In contrast, practical uses of intellect are acts of intellect that aim at the
production of something other than what is thought about, for example, thinking
at the service of doing the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, and so
forth, or thinking at the service of bringing about a work of art.
The soul
• While much of the work covered here either correlates
strongly to, or is heavily influenced by, the prior works of
Aristotle, one key deviation for Aquinas, was in respect of the
soul
• Aquinas believed that while the soul and body interacted with
each other, that they were constituted of different substances
• This is deviation from Aristotle's materialism, it is some sort of
dualism
• The soul can keep living after the body has died