Chapter 17 Thomas Aquinas

Questions to be addressed in this chapter 1.What was the focus of Thomas’s thought? 2.How does Thomas argue that God exists? 3.What is the relationship between reason and revelation in his thought? 4.How do reason and revelation fit into the broader nature and grace relationship? 5.What is the beatific vision?

The New Aristotelianism Aquinas was concerned to combat the influence of physical- spiritual dualism that had crept into Christianity through Gnostic and Platonic sources. Not until the late 1100s and early 1200s were Aristotle’s philosophical texts available to Christian thinkers. Aquinas ( ) achieved a new synthesis of Christian thought within the concepts of Aristotle.

Sense, Being, God Instead of beginning with reason, Aquinas begins with sense experience: the existence of things. Because we notice these things change, however, we need an explanation for how their “being” remains the same. Things can change, only if there is some other reality that makes possible the change. This is God.

Reason and revelation Reason can show us some truths about God, but not all of them. For example, we need revelation to know that God is a Trinity. We can show many things revealed to us are in accordance with reason. And we should be able to satisfactorily answer every possible objection to an article of faith through the use of reason alone.

Nature vs. grace Aquinas reacts to Augustine’s stark divide between nature and grace. According to Aquinas, the effects of original sin were not as severe as Augustine claimed: “Now sin cannot entirely take away from man the fact that he is a rational being, for then he would no longer be capable of sin. Therefore it is not possible for this good of nature to be destroyed entirely.” (p. 296) Grace perfects nature, just as the resurrection perfects the body.

Beatific vision The life of the very rational Aquinas ends with a mystical experience. Seeing God with the intellect is the greatest good. “I can write no more. I have seen things which make all my writings like straw.”

Summary of main points 1.Aquinas appropriated the thought of Aristotle in service to Christian theology. 2.Since our senses show the reality of incomplete beings, he argues that there must be a Being which is complete in itself. This is God. 3.Reason can be used to obtain some knowledge of God, but revelation is needed to supplement reason. 4.The relationship of reason and revelation is an instance of the more general relationship by which nature, in all its guises, is perfected by grace. 5.The beatific vision is an intellectual “vision” of God which is the proper goal of all people.