Scholasticism

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Scholasticism

• St. Thomas Aquinas

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Scholasticism

• System used by medieval intellectuals to apply
  reason or logical analysis to the Church's basic
  theological doctrines.
• Was the philosophical and theological system of
  medieval schools
• Humanists of the Renaissance and later,
  Protestant educators looked down on it.

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Scholasticism

• Primary goal was to reconcile faith and reason to
  demonstrate that what was accepted on faith was
  in harmony with what could be learned by reason
• Up until the Renaissance, it became the
  instructional mode of the universities

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How Scholasticism Emerged

• Influx of Aristotle's works into the west in the
  High Middle Ages confronted theologians with a
  new challenge How to harmonize Christian
  revelation with the work of Aristotle
• Aristotle had arrived at his conclusions by
  rational thought, not revelation and some of his
  doctrines such as the mortality of the soul,
  directly contradicted the teachings of the Church

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How the Scholastic method worked

• Method consisted of posing a question, presenting
  contradictory authorities on that question, and
  then arriving at conclusions.

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St. Thomas Aquinas 1225-1275

• Was the most famous in reconciling Aristotle with
  the doctrines of Christianity
• Summa Theologica This masterpiece was organized
  according to the scholastic method
• Aquinas first posed a question, stated objections
  to it, and then replied to the objections
• In this fashion, Aquinas raised and discussed
  some 600 articles or issues.

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St. Thomas Aquinas 1225-1275

• In Thomas' time, any reasoning about the faith
  was a form of weakness and some believed that
  Aristotle was a dangerous influence and must be
  silenced.
• Thomas' doctrine that faith could not be
  endangered by reason gave freedom to thinkers to
  go on thinking

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St. Thomas Aquinas 1225-1275

• Natural truths truths that anyone could know,
  for example that God exists
• Revealed truths truths that can be known only
  through faith in God's revelation, for example,
  the Trinity
• Thomas maintained that natural and revealed
  truths simply could not contradict one another
  because God was ultimately the source of both.