Perspectives of Augustine and Aquinas

¶ … Augustine and Aquinas

Saint Augustine and Aquinas are both very well-known because of their theological and philosophical explorations, with Augustine writing in late fourth to the early fifth century while Aquinas in the thirteenth century. They are both well-known for their efforts of trying to reconcile ancient philosophy and Christianity however they did these using different ways. Augustine took Platonic route while Aquinas was more focused on the Arstotelian way. We will examine their different thoughts on the human nature by looking at various sections.

Knowledge

Augustine drew much of his theory about human knowledge from Plato especially when it comes to the desire for particular knowledge as opposed to impermanent or changing knowledge. Unlike Aquinas Augustine was not an empiricist, Augustine held the belief that truth only comes from within through an illumination process and not the observation of the world of nature. Plato held the view that this type of knowledge came from a process of remembering forms from an experience they had in the past which was made possible through good illumination of a mind to remember. Augustine build up his belief from ideas by Pluto but changes them in a dramatic way. Augustine was in agreement with Plato in that true knowledge arises from within an individual but Pluto held the belief that it comes about through remembering whereas Augustine believed that it arises from illumination. Augustine believed that (Garret, 2002).

Faith and reason

The Middle Ages came with a rebirth of a new idea that religious belief did not only come up from faith but it also came about because of reason. Augustine held the belief that faith and reason had an independent relationship when it comes to the understanding of God, but also that faith is the only true way to God. On top of that faith and reason were only accessible because of God's divine Grace; this shows just how much Augustine was a Neo-Platonist. He believed that since the Platonists studied the eternal and unchanging hence these ideas were beneficial to the understanding and clarification of the Christian faith. While Augustine held the belief that the use of reason is beneficial for the illumination of Christian faith, he also believed that the use of these avenues so as to do so was only necessary if a person was not a Christian. He held the belief that Christians needed not take such recourse to philosophy since he felt that faith was a reason beyond anything when it comes to the belief of God.

Aquinas took a fairly different stance on this dichotomy of faith and reason. He did not make any clear difference between faith and reason as Augustine did. He however held the belief that all creation and truth originates from God. He did not belief that these two were in conflict with each other though to some extent it is true that reason can not achieve what faith can. he referred to this idea as a two fold thing. He believed that something can be true of faith, false when it comes to philosophy but it can never be the other way round. This two are in support of the idea that while reason can result to greater understanding of the world, it is not able to lead to attaining higher truths which can be achieved by the faith of a person. He believed that faith and reason are quite essential and they are not in contradiction to each other (Clark, 2009).

These two philosophers place so much importance on faith that an individual has to have in God through a mystical experience but they however treat sensory information in a different way. Aquinas unlike Augustine was very emphiristic since he drew his beliefs from Aristotle who was also very emphiristic. On the other hand Aquinas held the belief that senses are that through which humans can find the truth. Aquinas believed that abstraction is a process that occurs in the mind of humans' .An individual after they have seen many materials like basketball in their mind will be in a position to abstract construct the basic idea of basketball within their minds which is a process that is carried out by the active intellect. Aquinas argued that the intellect is able to understand internal copies of what they perceive through abstraction. The passive intellect on the other hand is the intellect part which is aware of material objects that Aquinas held belief in is how individuals know all objects (Garret, 2002).

Augustine and Aquinas had different views when it comes to the human ability of knowing good and doing good. Augustine asserts that God is the creator of world and he did it out of the love he had for man as part of his creation. He made man in a mortal body and a soul that is immortal. On top of that he gave man a free will to choose what is good and what is bad. With this God made man with the ability of knowing what is good and what is not good. evil comes into the world not because it was part of creation of God but due to the free will that he gave man to do know what is good and what is not.