laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (04/01/84)
Aquinas did not say that you cannot arrive at faith by reason. (at least in the Summa, which I just read last week). Rather, he found that Christianity was in profound accord with the logical principles of Aristotle. Indeed, he defined humanity (following Aristotle, of course) as the being with an Intellectual Will (or soul) which is characterised by the ability to reason. The proper function of man, for Aquinas, is reasoning. However, Aquinas, being no fool, discovered that *after* he had found that Christianity was in profound accord with The Philosopher (Aristotle) he was left with some inconsistencies. His faith said one thing was true and his reason said another. what would this mean? It would mean that either his faith was incorrect, or he had made a slip in his reasoning. It is hard to say that one's faith is incorrect. it is pretty well spelled out, and the opportunity for original research is remarkably small (though in anoter sense it is your full potential.) You don't derive new truths through faith in general, you merely discover old ones which were true. Therefore, it is more logical to assume that you had made a mistake in your reasoning. Therefore, Aquinas said that when faith and reason conflict, reason must bow to faith because reason can be flawed. I think that he is making a serious mistake here. I think that when reason and faith conflict you should have faith bow to reason. But this is not the same thing as saying that Aquinas said that you cannot get to faith by reason. You can not get all of Christianity by reason alone, he agrees, but his position is that if you do not get to Christianity by way of your reason then you have made a logical error. -- Laura Creighton utzoo!laura "Capitalism is a lot of fun. If you aren't having fun, then you're not doing it right." -- toad terrific
amigo@iwlc6.UUCP (John Hobson) (04/03/84)
> Aquinas did not say that you cannot arrive at faith by > reason. (at least in the Summa, which I just read last > week). Rather, he found that Christianity was in profound > accord with the logical principles of Aristotle. First, I hereby award Laura Creighton the Evelyn Woods Speedreading Prize for 1984 for her achievement in reading Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica in one week. I have an edition of the Summa, and it runs to 12 volumes of about 300-400 pages each. > However, Aquinas, being no fool, discovered that *after* he > had found that Christianity was in profound accord with The > Philosopher (Aristotle) he was left with some inconsistencies. > His faith said one thing was true and his reason said > another. what would this mean? It would mean that either > his faith was incorrect, or he had made a slip in his reasoning. > ...Therefore, Aquinas said that when faith and reason > conflict, reason must bow to faith because reason can be flawed. > > I think that he is making a serious mistake here. I think > that when reason and faith conflict you should have faith > bow to reason. My reading of what Aquinas said is that, "being no fool," he realized that neither Aristotle nor he had the last word on reason, and that human reason, being imperfect ("Now we see as in a mirror, dimly." I Corinthians 13:8), is inherently unable to grasp certain things. Augustine, in Book 2 of De Trinitate, makes much the same point. Aquinas believed that reason is a most wonderful tool, but that it can only go so far. There must be other things to back it up. This is, in fact, the major complaint against the ancient Greek scientists; that they did everything using reason, and did no experiments to check out the results of their reasoning. In the case of theology, since, as Laura points out, it is not amenable to experiment, the "back-up" is faith. One final note: at the end of his life, Aquinas underwent a mystical conversion (something like becoming "born-again"), and said that all his writings (which included, besides his Summa Theologica, a work of almost equal length on Christian apologetics, the Summa Contra Gentiles, and a large body of other books) was as worthless as if it had been so much straw. John Hobson AT&T Bell Labs--Naperville, IL ihnp4!iwlc6!amigo