Joining Philosophy With Christianity

In the “Middle Ages” chapter, Alberto explains how St. Augustine influenced Platonic ideas. St. Augustine was not the only one to attempt to Christianize philosophy as Aquinas also found truths in Aristotle’s ideas, however, kept the beliefs of Christianity. As Alberto states, “But by ‘christianizing’ these two great Greek philosophers, we only mean that they were interpreted and explained in such a way that they were no longer considered a threat to Christian dogma.” 

St. Augustine believed that there was a limit on how far philosophy could go. He did believe that God created the world whereas Greeks usually believed that the world had always existed.  St. Augustine did thoroughly believe in God and the teachings of the Bible, but he still believed in using reason for somethings. This is how he was able to combine the teachings of the Bible and Plato. However, when it came to the aspects of history that St. Augustine believed in, he did not have much of Plato’s works included in that. 

Similar to what St. Augustine had done, St. Aquinas also tried to make philosophy compatible with Christianity. Aquinas did not think that there should be any arguments between what philosophy teaches people and what faith teaches us. He believed in God, however, he did not think the only way to get to Heaven was through faith. He also believed that through reason and our senses one could get to God. Aquinas wanted to prove that both reason and faith were correct. Aristotle had ideas that were not against the ideas of Christians. Aristotle describes the animal and plant kingdoms in a similar way that they are revealed to us in the Bible. “Aristotle’s philosophy also presumed the existence or a God - or a formal cause - which sets all natural processes going.” Though he believed that, he gave no more information on God, and because of this, we rely on the teachings of the Bible to tell us more about God. Aquinas also believed that through Aristotle’s philosophy, he could prove God’s existence. 

All in all, St. Augustine and St. Aquinas were not that different from each other. Both believed in God, and both believed that philosophy could be tied into the teachings of the Bible. They took the teachings of two different philosophers and put those ideas together with a different twist.