How, according to Aquinas, can humans know God? What are some of the implications of Aquinas’s position?
St. Thomas Aquinas was from a respected and aristocratic family. Aquinas was successful in synthesizing the Christian traditions and Aristotle’s ideas and thus, his ideas became as sacred as the Bible itself.
According to St. Thomas Aquinas, humans can know God by revelation, by scriptures, through logic, reasoning, and observation of nature as well as through the inner experience of a person. Reason and faith does not conflict, said Aquinas.
He reasoned that all paths led to God. That is, to the philosopher, logical proof and careful observation verifies God’s existence and to the Christian believer, God’s existence is taken on faith and belief. Aquinas opined that each may take a different way of thinking, but will arrive at the same conclusion.
Some implications of Aquinas’s position are as follows:
Reconciliation of Faith and Logical Reasoning: Aristotle had philosophized that only reason and logic should support a belief and it should not be taken only on faith itself. Due to the works of Aquinas and other philosophers, Aristotle’s ideas gained prominence within the Christian world.
Philosophy without religion: Due to the debates regarding faith and reason, a possibility was emerging in the world of philosophy that philosophy as a subject could exist without the overtones of religion. This possibility had not existed for hundreds of years.
Argument over the Church: Aquinas’s Aristotle-influenced ideas and subsequent debates made it possible that arguments over church’s position could be done with proper reasoning and logic.
Study of Nature: The observation and inferences regarding the study of nature started to invoke interest. This was not experienced by Christian philosophers and a wide new prospect emerged, which would keep growing in the future.