At first you might think that faith is the opposite of rational thought, or with other words religion is the opposite of philosophy. Today I will introduce Thomas Aquinas to demonstrate that this contrast is not as obvious as it seems. Aquinas was the most famous thinker of the late Middle Ages, born in 1224. He is an important authority in the catholic church, but his ideas are also highly appreciated amongst modern philosophers. He was broadly educated in subjects ranging from physics to ethics. He also wrote a lot of theological works, including his most famous book summa theologiae. In this blog I will take a closer look at this literal work and how we can apply it to todays society.
Aquinas tried to make a clear distinction between theology and philosophy, but concluded that both are not as different as we might think. He writes that philosophy is based on truths that everyone can gain by reflection upon the world. From these truths we can logically distract new thoughts. Theology, however, is based upon truths from scriptures, thus truths gained from revelations and teachings from Christ. Aquinas tried to demonstrate that this does not mean that philosophy is more rational than theology. He is pointing out that not only theology requires some kind of faith, but philosophy also requires faith. For Theology this faith means believing in God, while for philosophy this means believing in important philosophers that came before us.
To make Aquinas his theory clearer we can, for example, apply it on the Corona crisis we are facing today. Many people claim that the scientists that are basically ruling our country are telling the truths. However, we rarely ask for their extensive research papers containing empirical prove. Applying Aquinas’ theory, we just take the scientists truths and decisions for granted, because we have faith in them. In stead of having faith in God and his truths, we have faith in scientists and their truths. In both cases we don’t have empirical evidence ourselves, but simply believe that others are truthful.
Medieval philosophy Lecture 1 