Thinker · Scholastics
Aquinas
1225 – 1274 · Scholastics · Faith meets reason · 1 works
The whole cathedral of his thought rises from one stubborn conviction: that the most rigorous reason and the deepest faith are two routes to a single truth, and since truth cannot contradict truth, they can never finally collide. When they seem to, somebody has reasoned badly or read scripture wrong; it is never that one of them is simply false. He spent his life building the architecture to show it, with Aristotle, newly arrived and seeming to threaten the whole faith, as his chief instrument rather than his enemy.
What changed
Before
Pagan reason is a danger to be held at arm's length
After
Pagan reason is faith's own instrument, and they reach one truth together
Inside the walk-through
The dumb ox
Two routes to one truth
The Five Ways
The law and the soul
The Summa as a machine
The straw, and after
The works
