St. Thomas Aquinas was born on the year 1224 or 1225 in Roccasecca in the Kingdom of Sicily, Italy, and died on March 7, 1274 in Fossanova, Latium, also located in Italy. Born to parents, his father being a Lombard and mother a Norman, under the custody of a feudal dispute between the emperor and the pope, Thomas Aquinas was an Italian Dominican theologian and a medieval scholar. Many of his philosophical works and ideas were under the influence of the Aristotelian arguments in addition to developing his theology. Aquinas was mainly focused on the metaphysics of personality, Creation and Providence. His two notable Latin theological works are the Summa Theologiae (Summary of Theology) and the Summa Contra Gentiles (On the Truth of the Catholic Faith). Not only he was a devout scholar and theologian, Aquinas was also a poet himself; he wrote hymns to the church’s liturgy as part of his practice of Roman Catholicism.
As a young child, Aquinas was put into the monastery of Monte Cassino under his family’s wishes for him to become an abbot. He stayed there for nine years until 1239. After nearly a decade of living in a religious and cultural sanctuary, Aquinas was forced to return home to his family because the emperor at that time expelled monks for being too compliant to the pope. Later, Aquinas was sent to the University of Naples where he began studying philosophical and scientific works originally translated from Greek to Arabic.
His passion for philosophy led him to join the new religious order called the Dominicans, also known as Friars, which were founded thirty years earlier; the Dominican monks departed from the paternalistic form of government so that they can become more liberated and democratic. Part of being a Dominican friar is to live a more monastic life of prayer, preaching and even teaching. This was what Aquinas became compassionate and devoted to as he studied his way of becoming both a saint and a theological philosopher and lecturer.
After his studies in the University of Naples, Aquinas moved to Paris in 1245. There, he entered the convent of Saint-Jacques, the University of the Dominicans. As he studied in the University of Paris, Aquinas became the devoted student of his mentor Albertus Magnus. Both Aquinas and Magnus studied previous works of Aristotle together. Subsequent to their mutual lecture and knowledge on Aristotelian philosophy, Aquinas and Magnus left Paris together in 1248; Magnus assumed that he and Aquinas would be able to find a new approach in the convent of Cologne, another sanctuary for the Dominicans. St. Thomas Aquinas stayed in Cologne, Germany until 1252 and afterwards he returned to Paris to resume his studies for theology to earn a master’s degree. Once he received his teaching license, or licentia docendi, in 1256, Aquinas became the lecturer of theology in two Dominican schools.
In the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, also known as Thomism, Aquinas is concerned about the distinction between reason and faith (philosophy and religion). He theorized whether if it’s decided or not that the rational thought of the world ever had a beginning and will have an end. Simultaneously, Aquinas, as a devout Catholic, also wondered if God was the creator of the world, the world always had a beginning and will have an end someday. Under the mutual idea of Aristotle, Aquinas debated that our entire rational thought and knowledge of this world is gained through sensory experience whereas our minds reflect. In other words, an individual gains reason and knowledge via visual and auditory perception; what he sees and hears will remain within his mind. A child is born with a mind that doubles as a clean state; nothing is within his or her mind yet albeit as he or she grows older, the child’s intellect which occurs when he or she perceives out of inquisitiveness will increase. Aquinas’ theory of knowledge is doable when a learning student would just sit down and become curious about whether he believes in God. He claimed that we gain knowledge through God’s creation and there is nothing possible for the reason to be against religious revelation.
Essence and existence is another topic that came to mind for St. Thomas Aquinas. According to the saint, the essence of a thing is what the thing is and it’s a separate matter from the idea or theory of whether or not it exists. In order to understand the distinction between existence and essence, one must ask two separate questions in the correct order: the first question asked is what a specific object is with a vivid description (the essence) and the second question asked is if that said object exists or not (the existence). An example of this is that a child may ask his mother what a Chimera is and with essence, the mother describes the characteristics of the Chimera: part lion, part eagle and part snake although the Chimera can be other three random animal species. Then, the child would ask if the Chimera exists and the mother would answer “it does not exist.” It’s crucial to ask the essence and existence of any mythological and imaginary creatures in separate questions. For Aquinas, if a thing is an essence, it’s doable that it may have an existence although its existence is not yet confirmed. He assumed that God created the world under his strong Catholic-Christian beliefs. Therefore, the world is the essence that aims at its existence.
St. Thomas Aquinas proclaimed that reason and faith are correlating; reason can operate within faith depending on its own laws. The concerning over the existence of God is a common topic of an active, conscious and organized explanation in which the laws of rational activity is included in faith. This could mean that religion can lead to an impact of gaining knowledge for the individual’s mind as much as science. According to the Aristotelian theory, theology is indeed a form of a science because it’s a form of knowledge that is rationally resulted from ideas that are accepted and revealed by God. Apparently, theology and philosophy both correlate to science. A theologian finds authority of science and faith acceptable as long as he uses reason whilst a philosopher relies only on the natural light of reason. St. Thomas Aquinas became the first to perceive theology as a form of science.
Aquinas’ logic of faith and reasoning required the vital accuracy of the realities of nature. Nature, known as “physis” in Greek, contained all necessary laws and its recognition of facts pave its way to the formation of science according to rational structures. St. Thomas realized that nature is something that should never be altered; nature in reality should be considered in its proper value. In other words, nature is full of truth and if changed, the truth can lead to a negative impact for every individual’s knowledge and it’s doable it can destroy the faith of Providence. That’s why nature can never be changed under any circumstances. Thomas Aquinas held the thesis of the rational preserved human liberty, meaning the right to believe in a certain subject or object, whilst admitting that determination and expectation can be found in nature.
In his theology of Providence, St. Thomas Aquinas believed and gave a lecture on a persistent idea whereas the faith of the created on the creative wisdom provides the reality of the order of nature. According to Aquinas, God motivates and manipulates everything He created. Several others have been compliant to the laws of a creative Providence that forces each human to act according to its proper nature. This self-government led to the highest realization of rationality that all humans are self-moving to their intellectual and physical reality. What they do within their minds, such as thinking and reasoning, and what they perform physically will always be the source of their existence. Without any thinking or physical actions, including the use of the five senses (sight, hearing, smell, touching and taste), then there won’t be any reality.
St. Thomas Aquinas’ theology may be one of the most convoluted philosophical theories I have learned. Despite the complexity, I agree with what Aquinas has said in regards with his principal ideas, concerns and questioning ideas. There is indeed the difference between reasoning and faith. At times, both reason and faith can correlate to one another in spite of their distinction. I also believe in Aquinas’ theory on Providence and how it manipulates to our existence.
For the distinction of reason and faith, what Aquinas was saying was that reason is more of a thinking process whereas we must use our logical skills in order to increase our intellect. Reason is not just a scientific matter, it’s also a mathematical matter. Science and mathematics are highly imperative for our intellect since they contain a high amount of truth. Nothing changes within the nature of science and mathematics; any falsity within these two subjects will negatively affect our minds. If the truth remains the same, there is no wrong knowledge. Overall, learning by perceiving what we hear and see as the unchanging accurate truth will have a positive impact for us about reality. As for faith, instead of focusing on science and mathematics, it’s focused on the devoted belief or agnostic belief of God. With faith, one would believe that all truth and nature are provided by God Himself and what He created will remain accurate to them. Some say this is accurate as well albeit what if God never existed? What if they were wrong that God is just an allusion and that He was not responsible for creating the world and its nature? Faith can have the same amount of positive impact as reason though there is a chance that it’s not entirely accurate.
Reason and faith may be distinct but there is something compatible in between them. For one reason, St. Thomas Aquinas was deciphering the idea of combining intellectual knowledge with religious beliefs. This is doable and effective in a positive way. To me, one can believe in both God and science simultaneously without having any negative aspects of reality. You can still be lectured on science and mathematics while being faithful to your religious Christian belief. However, there is this downside to this; that is you can be prone to perceiving the wrong truth such as opinions. Opinions are not always accurate and any wrong knowledge like that can decrease your intellect. Provided that opinions are omitting out of your minds and avert them for manipulating your intellect skills, there is no malignant side to knowing the concept of reality by both reason and faith.
For his theory of Providence, St. Thomas Aquinas was overall saying that those who are faithful to the Creator, in this case God, are complying with what He created and what He provided. Aquinas said God manipulated everything He created, especially controlling every human being that are part of His creations. With His Providence being in command of every nature of truth, this led to the understanding for every human individual into believing that are in their own independence of searching their intellects and being aware of our surroundings. Without any Providence by God, everyone won’t be able to think properly and without any thinking, there is no existence. One must have the ability to think and use the five senses in order to gain their nature of knowledge. God is the reason why we get so inquisitive every day since we were children; our daily inquisitiveness always led to use our senses so we can learn and perceive what we sense in front of us. That is how we exist.
St. Thomas Aquinas’ theology is effective for everyone today. As a Dominican Roman Catholic, he believed that God is the source of how we know the truth and how we were able to increase our intellects. Not only did he focus on faith and theology throughout his life, he also believed in the moderation of both philosophy and religion. Moderation of reason and faith can be the key to higher learning of reality, essence and existence. St. Thomas Aquinas may have died at a young age of 47-49 though he will remain as the Doctor of the Church for other later philosophers and us.
References:
Duignan, Brian. (Ed.) (2011). The History of Philosophy: Medieval Philosophy from 500 to 1500 CE. “The Age of the Schoolmen: Saint Thomas Aquinas.” New York, NY. Britannica Educational Publishing, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. 2011. Pg. 151-164.
Magee, Bryan. The Story of Philosophy. “Thomas Aquinas.” Dorling Kindersley Limited, London, DK Publishing, Inc, United States. 1998, 2001. Pg. 59-61.
-Written by Nicole Cheng, 2016
Special thanks to Bro. Owen Sadlier, St. Francis College