Saving Natural Theology From Thomas Aquinas

Author : Jeffrey D. Johnson
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 98 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2021-12-17
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1952599466

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Saving Natural Theology from Thomas Aquinas by Jeffrey D. Johnson Pdf

Is natural theology compatible with presuppositional apologetics? At first glance, it may seem like it's not. Natural theology is closely linked to classical apologetics, and classical apologetics, due to the influence of Thomas Aquinas, is so interwoven with Greek philosophy. And Greek philosophy has no place in presuppositionalism. Yet, a natural theology free of the influence of Greek philosophy is consistent with presuppositionalism. Presuppositionalists do not take issue with natural revelation or with the body of doctrine communicated in natural revelation; they are against pagan philosophers who have suppressed, twisted, and perverted what has been communicated in natural revelation. Greek philosophers did not confess the God of natural revelation. Far from it. They rejected what they knew in their hearts by attempting to formulate their own explanation of God. The god they created was an abstract being that is not the personal Caretaker and Judge of the universe. Such a god is not the God of natural revelation.Thomas Aquinas is the one who ruined natural theology. Not that Thomas was the first to mix Greek philosophy with theology, but he has done the most damage in syncretizing the pantheistic notions flowing out of Athens with the ontologically distinct and self-contained God who personally revealed himself in Jerusalem. Therefore, if natural theology can be saved, it must be saved from Thomas Aquinas.

Author : Jeffrey D Johnson
Publisher : New Studies in Theology Series
Page : 266 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2021-09-15
Category : Natural theology
ISBN : 1952599377

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The Failure of Natural Theology by Jeffrey D Johnson Pdf

Aristotle's cosmological argument is the foundation of Aquinas's doctrine of God. For Thomas, the cosmological argument not only speaks of God's existence but also of God's nature. By learning that the unmoved mover is behind all moving objects, we learn something true about the essence of God-principally, that God is immobile. But therein lies the problem for Thomas. The Catholic Church had already condemned Aristotle's unmoved mover because, according to Aristotle, the unmoved mover is unable to be the moving cause (i.e., Creator) and governor of the universe-or else he would cease to be immobile. By seeking to baptize Aristotle into the Catholic Church, however, Thomas gave his life to seeking to explain how God can be both immobile and the moving cause of the universe. Thomas even looked to the pantheistic philosophy of Pseudo-Dionysius for help. But even with Dionysius's aid, Thomas failed to reconcile the god of Aristotle with the Trinitarian God of the Bible. If Thomas would have rejected the natural theology of Aristotle by placing the doctrine of the Trinity, which is known only by divine revelation, at the foundation of his knowledge of God, he would have rid himself of the irresolvable tension that permeates his philosophical theology. Thomas could have realized that the Trinity alone allows for God to be the only self-moving being-because the Trinity is the only being not moved by anything outside himself but freely capable of creating and controlling contingent things in motion.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Fig
Page : 57 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2024-06-27
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9781621543213

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Nature and Scripture by Anonim Pdf

Author : Thomas Joseph White
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Natural theology
ISBN : 1932589554

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Wisdom in the Face of Modernity by Thomas Joseph White Pdf

This book considers the merits of Thomas Aquinas's arguments for the existence of God. Aquinas portrays philosophical reason as a form of wisdom that can attain to true knowledge of God. Should his views matter for contemporary Christian theology? What are the Aristotelian presuppositions required for these arguments to make sense, and are such presuppositions rationally defensible today? Particularly, should the modern Kantian and Heideggerian objections to any possible philosophical approach to God (as onto-theology) apply to the arguments of Aquinas? The author argues robustly in favor of the recovery of a sapiential conception of Thomistic philosophy.

Author : John Goyette,Mark S. Latkovic,Richard S. Myers
Publisher : CUA Press
Page : 337 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2004-09
Category : Law
ISBN : 9780813213996

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St. Thomas Aquinas and the Natural Law Tradition by John Goyette,Mark S. Latkovic,Richard S. Myers Pdf

To explore and evaluate the current revival, this volume brings together many of the foremost scholars on natural law. They examine the relation between Thomistic natural law and the larger philosophical and theological tradition. Furthermore, they assess the contemporary relevance of St. Thomas's natural law doctrine to current legal and political philosophy.

Author : Victor Preller
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
Page : 289 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2005-05-17
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781725213975

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Divine Science and the Science of God by Victor Preller Pdf

In this book, Victor Preller examines the logical status of religious language in the light of recent developments in American analytic philosophy. The problem inherent in religious language is presented in terms of the referential status of the word God. The author argues that the significance of any referential term is dependent upon the ability of that term to play a significant role 'within' a unified conceptual system. The problem is shown to transcend the epistemological dogmas of Positivism and Conceptual Empiricism and to be inherent in any intelligible epistemology, including that of Thomas Aquinas, whose theological treatises serve as a model of religious language for the thesis of this book. According to Professor Preller, Divine Science (Aquinas' term for what we now call Natural Theology) results from a reflection upon the limitations encountered by the intellect in its attempt to render intelligible the objects of human experience. In the Science of God (Aquinas' term for that mode of knowing engendered by faith), the unknown meta-empirical referent of Divine Science becomes the object of the human intellect. While this study develops out of the discussions inaugurated by Flew and McIntyre in 'New Essays in Philosophical Theology', it rejects the excessively empirical approach of most other studies in that tradition. It applies post-positivistic analysis to specifically Catholic theological language, but it obviously applies to the theological language involved in any form of theism.

Author : Norman Kretzmann
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 302 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2001
Category : Electronic
ISBN : OCLC:1131956639

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The Metaphysics of Theism by Norman Kretzmann Pdf

Author : Maurice R. Holloway
Publisher : New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts [1959]
Page : 528 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 1959
Category : Religion
ISBN : UVA:X001870327

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An Introduction to Natural Theology by Maurice R. Holloway Pdf

Author : Alex Hall
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 200 pages
File Size : 40,7 Mb
Release : 2007-04-05
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0826485898

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Thomas Aquinas & John Duns Scotus by Alex Hall Pdf

A philosophical/historical examination of natural theology in the 'Golden Age' of scholastic philosophy, involving fundamental issues in metaphysics, the philosophy of language and the philosophy of religion.

Author : St. Thomas Aquinas
Publisher : University of Notre Dame Pess
Page : 501 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 1975-01-01
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780268074821

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Summa Contra Gentiles, 4 by St. Thomas Aquinas Pdf

The Summa Contra Gentiles is not merely the only complete summary of Christian doctrine that St. Thomas has written, but also a creative and even revolutionary work of Christian apologetics composed at the precise moment when Christian thought needed to be intellectually creative in order to master and assimilate the intelligence and wisdom of the Greeks and the Arabs. In the Summa Aquinas works to save and purify the thought of the Greeks and the Arabs in the higher light of Christian Revelation, confident that all that had been rational in the ancient philosophers and their followers would become more rational within Christianity. This exposition and defense of divine truth has two main parts: the consideration of that truth that faith professes and reason investigates, and the consideration of the truth that faith professes and reason is not competent to investigate. The exposition of truths accessible to natural reason occupies Aquinas in the first three books of the Summa. His method is to bring forward demonstrative and probable arguments, some of which are drawn from the philosophers, to convince the skeptic. In the fourth book of the Summa St. Thomas appeals to the authority of the Sacred Scripture for those divine truths that surpass the capacity of reason. The present volume is a study of what God has revealed through scripture, specifically the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the end of the world. Book 1 of the Summa deals with God; Book 2, Creation; and Book 3, Providence.

Author : Saint Thomas Aquinas
Publisher : Gateway Editions
Page : 148 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 1997-06
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : NWU:35556035812080

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An Introduction to the Metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas by Saint Thomas Aquinas Pdf

An accessible and solid entry into the metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Author : Roberto Di Ceglie
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 185 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2022-03-27
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781000567816

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Aquinas on Faith, Reason, and Charity by Roberto Di Ceglie Pdf

This book offers a new reading of Aquinas’s views on faith. The author argues that the theological nature of faith is crucial to Aquinas’s thought, and that it gives rise to a particular and otherwise incomprehensible relationship with reason. The first part of the book examines various modern and contemporary accounts of the relationship between faith and reason in Aquinas’s thought. The author shows that these accounts are unconvincing because they exhibit what he calls a Lockean view of faith and reason, which maintains that the relationship between faith and reason should be treated only by way of evidence. In other words, the Lockean view ignores the specific nature of the Christian faith and the equally specific way it needs to relate to reason. The second part offers a comprehensive account of Aquinas’s view of faith. It focuses on the way the divine grace and charity shape the relationship between evidence and human will. The final part of the book ties these ideas together to show how Christian faith, with its specifically theological nature, is perfectly compatible with rational debate. It also argues that employing the specificity of faith may constitute the best way to promote autonomous and successful rational investigations. Aquinas on Faith, Reason, and Charity will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working on Aquinas, philosophy of religion, Christian theology, and medieval philosophy.

Author : Norman Kretzmann
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 315 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2001
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780199246533

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The Metaphysics of Theism by Norman Kretzmann Pdf

Norman Kretzmann expounds and criticises Aquinas' theology of creation, which is natural (or philosophical) in that Aquinas developed it without depending on the data of Scripture.

Author : Eugene Thomas Long
Publisher : CUA Press
Page : 251 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2018-03-02
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780813230665

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Prospects for Natural Theology by Eugene Thomas Long Pdf

Natural theology, which suffered significantly in the eighteenth century as a result of the criticisms of David Hume and Immanuel Kant, appeared to be a terminal patient in the mid-twentieth century in the 1960s, however philosophers and theologians began

Author : Francis Beckwith
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2019
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 148130724X

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Never Doubt Thomas by Francis Beckwith Pdf

Theologian, philosopher, teacher. There are few religious figures more Catholic than Saint Thomas Aquinas, a man credited with helping to shape Catholicism of the second millennium. In Never Doubt Thomas, Francis J. Beckwith employs his own spiritual journey from Catholicism to Evangelicalism and then back to Catholicism to reveal the signal importance of Aquinas not only for Catholics but also for Protestants. Beckwith begins by outlining Aquinas' history and philosophy, noting misconceptions and inaccurate caricatures of Thomist traditions. He explores the legitimacy of a "Protestant" Aquinas by examining Aquinas' views on natural law and natural theology in light of several Protestant critiques. Not only did Aquinas' presentation of natural law assume some of the very inadequacies Protestant critics have leveled against it, Aquinas did not, as is often supposed, believe that one must first prove God's existence through human reasoning before having faith in God. Rather, Aquinas held that one may know God through reason and employ it to understand more fully the truths of faith. Beckwith also uses Aquinas' preambles of faith--what a person can know about God before fully believing in Him--to argue for a pluralist Aquinas, explaining how followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam can all worship the same God, yet adhere to different faiths. Beckwith turns to Aquinas' doctrine of creation to question theories of Intelligent Design, before, finally, coming to the heart of the matter: in what sense can Aquinas be considered an Evangelical? Aquinas' views on justification are often depicted by some Evangelicals as discontinuous with those articulated in the Council of Trent. Beckwith counters this assessment, revealing not only that Aquinas' doctrine fully aligns with the tenets laid out by the Council, but also that this doctrine is more Evangelical than critics care to admit. Beckwith's careful reading makes it hard to doubt that Thomas Aquinas is a theologian, philosopher, and teacher for the universal church--Catholic, Protestant, and Evangelical.