6 ms·

Not OP, but from what I understand Aquinas seems to have had a fixed lens he allowed himself to view the world through and seemingly based the fundamentals of h

Not OP, but from what I understand Aquinas seems to have had a fixed lens he allowed himself to view the world through and seemingly based the fundamentals of his philosophy on. Not even Aristotle could be properly studied without a Christian lens. He's generally viewed as a net positive since Christiandom ruled the western world and Aquinas reconciled some Aristotelian and Neoplatonic views with the Catholic Church ("Nothing comes from nothing", "cause and effect", etc) But to Aquinas, those Neoplatonists from whom he derived his cosmology and philosophy were nothing better than pagans lining up to be burned in the good lord's holy fires—even though they figured the same thing about the way things appear to work.

alentist 5y ago
> a fixed lens he allowed himself to view the world through That's true of any philosopher. > to Aquinas, those Neoplatonists from whom he derived his cosmology and philosophy were nothing better than pagans Ahistorical nonsense. https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com//mobile/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199589371.001.0001/acprof-9780199589371-chapter-4 https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com//mobile/view/1... https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvqsf13g https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvqsf13g
- danielam 5y ago
  Specifically, I'd add that Aquinas had enormous regard for Aristotle and the pagan philosophers, to the point that he referred to Aristotle with the honorific "the Philosopher".
  - mdiesel 5y ago
    The Name of the Rose is a great read, that to me summarises the relationship nicely.
  - 52-6F-62 5y ago
    I'd be wary of misinterpreting endearment as honorific. Morally, he couldn't exalt a Pagan. He only brought himself to say that they essentially "weren't all bad", and beautifully illustrated. He was right, of course, about them—but ultimately he looked down upon them from a moral and ethical standpoint.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      The Medieval church's philosophy was called Neoplatonism, after Plato, a 'pagan'. IIRC, they would have loved to have Aristotle's works too, and they were finally discovered in the time of Aquinas.
      - 52-6F-62 5y ago
        Common cosmological and philosophical threads run through all religions, but some tenets of Neoplatonism and related Hermetic mystical foundations made their way into Catholicism through two means: early Christian cults and sects before an organized central church ruled on all tenets, and later through Augustine and Aquinas saying "these guys aren't so bad, they figured out why we know there's a god at all and now we can prove it". Neoplatonism well predates the church. It's beautiful, though.
    - lambdaphagy 5y ago
      Aquinas acknowledged heavy philosophical debts to Maimonides and Averroes while critiquing them in particulars. And as for the theology, I don't see how you get "looked down on" from: https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~ST.II-II.Q10 https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~ST.II-II.Q10. To say that Aquinas "looked down on" pagans seems like an almost maximally uncharitable summary of the man's actual views. Where are you seeing this?
- 52-6F-62 5y ago
  It's a fundamental tenet of the Catholic belief system. If you're not Catholic christian, then you're Pagan, and it follows if you're not adhering to Catholic Christianity then you are doomed. Not Christianity in all its forms, sure, but Catholicism absolutely. Just because Aquinas questioned if "pagans" could be virtuous in spite of their beliefs, does not mean he didn't believe they were destined for exclusion from God. He might have written more positively about them than his counterparts and colleagues in the church, but he was looking down his nose at them. I don't consider adherents to a dogma reaching out in "charity" to be a relationship of equitable footing. It reminds me of that old English nonsense of "noble savages". Just because they called them "noble"... edit: Happy to remove my personal opinions. I'm not making up these perspectives; this is dogma according to the Catholic Encyclopedia: https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/paganism https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/paganism. And it's literally in the abstract of the first paper linked to. Aquinas, as a function of his adherence to that dogma, presumed all Pagans to be doomed as a function of their not adhering to the same dogma. He considered them possibly capable of virtue, but morally inferior.
  - slumdev 5y ago
    > If you're not Catholic christian, then you're Pagan Pagan is only one category of unbeliever. There are also: 1. Heretics (bad Catholics and all Protestants) 2. Schismatics (the Eastern Orthodox and splinter groups) 3. Infidels (Muslims and anyone else who acknowledges the Abrahamic God but denies Christ) 4. Jews (for having been God's chosen people and having denied the Messiah), see #3 5. Heathens ("spiritual but not religious") 6. Atheists > if you're not adhering to Catholic Christianity then you are doomed Strive to enter by the narrow gate.
    - 52-6F-62 5y ago
      I'm just pulling the usage from the Catholic Encylopedia, via Catholic Answers so that I can't be accused of misconstruing anything: https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/paganism https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/paganism
      - 5y ago
xamuel 5y ago
>Aquinas reconciled some Aristotelian and Neoplatonic views with the Catholic Church I wonder if you might be mistaking Aquinas for Augustine? Augustine introduced huge amounts of Neoplatonism into Christianity very early---little more than a century after the original Neoplatonist, Plotinus himself. It's also worth noting that Plotinus was a disciple of the mysterious Ammonius Saccas, one of whose other disciples was none other than Origen, a very influential early Christian writer (albeit later considered a heretic).
- wolverine876 5y ago
  My understanding, which was never great and is imperfectly recalled: Augustine was the foundation of Neoplatonism in the Medieval church, which was it's guiding philosophy (to some great extent) for centuries. The works of Aristotle were lost to them. They knew of Aristotle but didn't have his writings. Around the time of Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle's works were rediscovered, having been preserved in the Muslim world. Aquinas' great task was reconciling them with the existing church.
  - xamuel 5y ago
    Augustine does explicitly reference Aristotle's "Categories" in his Confessions, I believe. Not sure what other material of Aristotle's was available to Augustine, I'm not a scholar on the subject. Of course, even to us today, many of Aristotle's works are STILL lost, so...
- AquinasCoder 5y ago
  It's fair to say Augustine did more reconciling with Neoplatonism. Aquinas did some. I think Aquinas was more wary of relying too heavily upon a philosophy that he saw as incomplete. Even "the philosopher" could not provide a comprehensive framework for Christian philosophy. When Neoplatonism was useful, he would take parts here and there, but he was under no illusion that Neoplatonism provided a sufficient framework for understanding the world. The early Italian renaissance philosophers were far more taken with Plato and the Neoplatonists. Marsilio Ficino, for example, probably went too far trying to reconcile parts that were (arguably) fundamentally incompatible with Christianity.

alentist 5y ago

> a fixed lens he allowed himself to view the world through That's true of any philosopher. > to Aquinas, those Neoplatonists from whom he derived his cosmology and philosophy were nothing better than pagans Ahistorical nonsense. https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com//mobile/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199589371.001.0001/acprof-9780199589371-chapter-4 https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com//mobile/view/1... https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvqsf13g https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvqsf13g

danielam 5y ago
Specifically, I'd add that Aquinas had enormous regard for Aristotle and the pagan philosophers, to the point that he referred to Aristotle with the honorific "the Philosopher".
- mdiesel 5y ago
  The Name of the Rose is a great read, that to me summarises the relationship nicely.
- 52-6F-62 5y ago
  I'd be wary of misinterpreting endearment as honorific. Morally, he couldn't exalt a Pagan. He only brought himself to say that they essentially "weren't all bad", and beautifully illustrated. He was right, of course, about them—but ultimately he looked down upon them from a moral and ethical standpoint.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    The Medieval church's philosophy was called Neoplatonism, after Plato, a 'pagan'. IIRC, they would have loved to have Aristotle's works too, and they were finally discovered in the time of Aquinas.
    - 52-6F-62 5y ago
      Common cosmological and philosophical threads run through all religions, but some tenets of Neoplatonism and related Hermetic mystical foundations made their way into Catholicism through two means: early Christian cults and sects before an organized central church ruled on all tenets, and later through Augustine and Aquinas saying "these guys aren't so bad, they figured out why we know there's a god at all and now we can prove it". Neoplatonism well predates the church. It's beautiful, though.
  - lambdaphagy 5y ago
    Aquinas acknowledged heavy philosophical debts to Maimonides and Averroes while critiquing them in particulars. And as for the theology, I don't see how you get "looked down on" from: https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~ST.II-II.Q10 https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~ST.II-II.Q10. To say that Aquinas "looked down on" pagans seems like an almost maximally uncharitable summary of the man's actual views. Where are you seeing this?
52-6F-62 5y ago
It's a fundamental tenet of the Catholic belief system. If you're not Catholic christian, then you're Pagan, and it follows if you're not adhering to Catholic Christianity then you are doomed. Not Christianity in all its forms, sure, but Catholicism absolutely. Just because Aquinas questioned if "pagans" could be virtuous in spite of their beliefs, does not mean he didn't believe they were destined for exclusion from God. He might have written more positively about them than his counterparts and colleagues in the church, but he was looking down his nose at them. I don't consider adherents to a dogma reaching out in "charity" to be a relationship of equitable footing. It reminds me of that old English nonsense of "noble savages". Just because they called them "noble"... edit: Happy to remove my personal opinions. I'm not making up these perspectives; this is dogma according to the Catholic Encyclopedia: https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/paganism https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/paganism. And it's literally in the abstract of the first paper linked to. Aquinas, as a function of his adherence to that dogma, presumed all Pagans to be doomed as a function of their not adhering to the same dogma. He considered them possibly capable of virtue, but morally inferior.
- slumdev 5y ago
  > If you're not Catholic christian, then you're Pagan Pagan is only one category of unbeliever. There are also: 1. Heretics (bad Catholics and all Protestants) 2. Schismatics (the Eastern Orthodox and splinter groups) 3. Infidels (Muslims and anyone else who acknowledges the Abrahamic God but denies Christ) 4. Jews (for having been God's chosen people and having denied the Messiah), see #3 5. Heathens ("spiritual but not religious") 6. Atheists > if you're not adhering to Catholic Christianity then you are doomed Strive to enter by the narrow gate.
  - 52-6F-62 5y ago
    I'm just pulling the usage from the Catholic Encylopedia, via Catholic Answers so that I can't be accused of misconstruing anything: https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/paganism https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/paganism
    - 5y ago

xamuel 5y ago

>Aquinas reconciled some Aristotelian and Neoplatonic views with the Catholic Church I wonder if you might be mistaking Aquinas for Augustine? Augustine introduced huge amounts of Neoplatonism into Christianity very early---little more than a century after the original Neoplatonist, Plotinus himself. It's also worth noting that Plotinus was a disciple of the mysterious Ammonius Saccas, one of whose other disciples was none other than Origen, a very influential early Christian writer (albeit later considered a heretic).

wolverine876 5y ago
My understanding, which was never great and is imperfectly recalled: Augustine was the foundation of Neoplatonism in the Medieval church, which was it's guiding philosophy (to some great extent) for centuries. The works of Aristotle were lost to them. They knew of Aristotle but didn't have his writings. Around the time of Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle's works were rediscovered, having been preserved in the Muslim world. Aquinas' great task was reconciling them with the existing church.
- xamuel 5y ago
  Augustine does explicitly reference Aristotle's "Categories" in his Confessions, I believe. Not sure what other material of Aristotle's was available to Augustine, I'm not a scholar on the subject. Of course, even to us today, many of Aristotle's works are STILL lost, so...
AquinasCoder 5y ago
It's fair to say Augustine did more reconciling with Neoplatonism. Aquinas did some. I think Aquinas was more wary of relying too heavily upon a philosophy that he saw as incomplete. Even "the philosopher" could not provide a comprehensive framework for Christian philosophy. When Neoplatonism was useful, he would take parts here and there, but he was under no illusion that Neoplatonism provided a sufficient framework for understanding the world. The early Italian renaissance philosophers were far more taken with Plato and the Neoplatonists. Marsilio Ficino, for example, probably went too far trying to reconcile parts that were (arguably) fundamentally incompatible with Christianity.