Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 61:243 (Jul 1904)
Article: The Philosophy Of Aquinas
Author: James Lindsay

BSac 61:243 (July 1904) p. 483

The Philosophy Of Aquinas

Rev. James Lindsay

The vastest and most systematic genius of the Middle Ages was Saint Thomas Aquinas. His architectonic work, the “Summa Theologica,” embodies the whole philosophy of that epoch, expounded in the spirit of the time. That spirit was the spirit of Aristotle. Aquinas became the best representative of Scholasticism. Rosmini, who, in his “Teodicea,” speaks of Aquinas as chief among Italian philosophers, set himself to perfect the philosophy of Aquinas by purging it of this Aristotelian leaven, with the pantheistic-materialistic tendency it bore. Aquinas, however, had borne so great respect to the teachings of Aristotle that only when they came into tolerably clear antagonism to Christian truth did he deviate from them. It is thus easy to see why Thomism as a system lacked in logical completeness, acute and massive as it was.

But Aquinas is not to be thought of as a mere reproducer of Aristotle, as is sometimes said; rather is it true to say that, with the aid of Aristotle and the fathers, he brought forth a philosophy all his own. For such fathers as Athanasius, Basil, the Gregories, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Augustine, were all used by Aquinas, whose Aristotelianism is brightened with an effluence of Platonic elevation, and touched with the charm of Socratic method. Aquinas gave system to the teachings of the fathers, the Areopagite, and the Lombard, doing for them, in reducing them to scientific form, what Aristotle had done for the Greeks, Egyptians, and Pythagoreans.

BSac 61:243 (July 1904) p. 484

Aquinas was, as we have just indicated, conversant with Plato and Aristotle, but also with the Alexandrians and Arabians. He includes substantially the whole teaching of his great predecessor, Augustine, whose “De Civitate Dei” was, in spite of its defects, the nearest approach to the “Summa Theologica.”

The procedure of philosophy—that of a rational ascent— which Augustine had so well described, is set forth by Aquinas also. Those who come to Aquinas will, as it has been put, find “their intellectual food cooked for them.” The fullness of his contents, the fineness of his distinctions, the depth of his thought, and the sharp-sighted clearness of his judgments, —all mark him out as the great thinker he was. His aim was to shape philosophy so that its support should be gained for the upholding of Christian truth or doctrine.

As a philosopher, Aquinas sets out from a principle from which he never seems to deviate, namely, the principle of the demonstration of the infinite by means of the finite. Aquinas declares that reason can perceive and prove God through his works, for the existence of God is demonstrated by its effects— the invisible ...