AUGUSTINE AND AQUINAS

AUGUSTINE

• Lived 354-430 AD
• Converted three times
• Defined good and evil
• Works included God and humanity
• Establish hierarchy of existence

CONTRIBUTIONS OF AUGUSTINE

• Dealt with good and evil
• Evil= absence of good
• Good comes from seeking God
• Established hierarchy of exist.
• 1st- God, 2nd- Man, 3rd- Nat World

ISSUES OF AUGUSTINE

• How to obtain happiness?
• Happiness comes from following God (hierarchy)
• Issue is highlighted in "City of God"
• State of soul?
• Issue is highlighted in "De Genesi"

CITY OF GOD

• Two cities the soul can live in
• City of God and City of Man
• Deals with the idea of flesh
• Of the flesh means seeking self over God (evil)
• Using flesh to seek God is ideal (good)

DE GENESI

• Major point: fall of soul
• Our major role is to fix the soul and reset the order
• Pride is what made our souls fall
• We need God to fix our souls and make us happy
• Goal is to reunite woth God

AQUINAS

• Lived 1224-1274
• Thought he was teacher
• Made saint 1323
• Very Aristotelian in ideas of universe

CONTRIBUTIONS

• Applied Philosophy to Theology
• Wrote Summa Theologica
• Gave us the 5 proofs of God
• Believed reason can know everything (Faith and Reason
• Proved Theology was a science

ISSUES OF AQUINAS

• Argued for God being real
• Theology as a science?
• Theology and Philosophy relationship
• How can we know God is real?
• Relationship of Grace and Nature

5 PROOFS

• 1. Argument of Motion
• 2. Nature of Efficient Cause
• 3. Possibility and Necessity
• 4. Gradation of things
• 5. Governance of World

FIRST PROOF

• Most manifest way
• Motion requires an existing object to move it
• Cannot be infinitely long, must be a first mover (UMM)
• Cannot be actual and potential must be one or the other
• Principle of Contradiction

GRACE AND NATURE

• Grace=gift from God
• Combines with nature to help us understand God
• Follows our ultimate goal
• Grace and nature=Faith and reason
• Know of God through reason, know him with faith amd reason

WATER AND WINE

• Deals with combining faith and reason
• Cannot focus on one or the other solely
• Focusing on leads to delaying God
• Combining both makes God known

FAITH AND REASON

• Reason can know all
• Faith helps understand it all
• Tops the ultimate reality pyramid
• Philosophy explains faith
• Faith explains what philosophy knows

PERSONAL THOUGHTS

• Augustine is very condemning of human soul
• Explains it has fallen
• Only certain few can find knowledge of God
• Theory of Illumination
• Not all can be saved

PERSONAL THOUGHTS CONT.

• Aquinas is much more organized
• Believes all can be saved
• Augustine and Aquinas= Medieval Plato and Aris
• Aquinas is Aris
• Augustine is Plato