Chapter 6 The God of the Philosophers. What is Scholastic Philosophy? Answer: The Christian philosophy of the Middle Ages that combined faith and.

A HISTORY OF GOD

CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHERS

Chapter 6The God of the Philosophers

Scholastic Philosophy

What is Scholastic Philosophy? Answer: The Christian

philosophy of the Middle Ages that combined faith and reason through the use of Biblical authority and Greek philosophy, especially Aristotle.

St. Anselm Anselm of Canterbury (c.

1033 – 21 April 1109) Benedictine monk, an

Italian medieval philosopher, theologian, and church official

Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109.

St. Anselm Founder of

scholasticism. He is famous as the

originator of the ontological argument for the existence of God.

The Ontological Argument1. God is something of

which nothing greater can be thought.

2. God may exist in the understanding.

3. It is greater to exist in reality and in the understanding than just in understanding.

4. Therefore, God exists in reality.

Ontological Argument Made Simple

How to understand the ontological argument?

It is a matter of Language! The very idea of “God”

contains a validation of God’s existence because a perfect being which did not exist would be a contradiction in terms.

St. Anselm’s Ontological Argument

The Teleological Argument 1. If the universe

contains design then there must be some intelligent agent that designed it.

2. What those who reject the argument dispute, then, is not whether the design in the universe implies that there is someone who designed it, but whether the order and complexity in the universe does constitute design.

Peter Abelard

Peter Abelard (1079-1147), French philosopher and theologian, whose fame as a teacher made him one of the most celebrated figures of the 12th century.

Abelard’s Philosophy

The importance of his works lies in the fact that he advocated the use of reason and pointed out the folly of relying on authorities.

Abelard’s Philosophy

In the Sic et Non (Yes and No), Abelard showed the inconsistencies among most respected theological authorities.

Peter Abelard was a magnificent and popular lecturer. By many, he is considered the founder of the University of Paris.

Abelard’s Philosophy

Abelard looked at theology as the "handmaiden" of knowledge.

He believed that man could gain a greater knowledge of God through the use of reason.

Abelard’s Ethics His importance in ethical

theory lies in his emphasis on intentions.

Disagreed that the mere desire for what is wrong is as wrong as the act itself.

Abelard recognized that there is a problem in holding a person morally responsible for the mere existence of physical desires.

St. Thomas Aquinas

Saint Thomas Aquinas is sometimes called the Angelic Doctor and the Prince of Scholastics (1225-1274)

This Italian philosopher and theologian produced works that have made him the most important figure in Scholastic philosophy and one of the leading Roman Catholic theologians.

Aquinas’ Philosophy In the 13th Century,

Aristotle's works were 'rediscovered' in the West and translated into Latin.

These translations of 'The Philosopher' (as Aquinas called him) became an integral part of some of Aquinas' most important writings.

Aquinas: Ethics Aquinas took from

Aristotle the notion of an ultimate end, or goal—a summum bonum—at which all human action is directed

Like Aristotle, he conceived of this end as necessarily connected with happiness.

Aquinas: Ethics This conception

was Christianized, however, by the idea that happiness is to be found in the love of God.

Thus, a person seeks to know God but cannot fully succeed in doing so in this life on Earth.

Aquinas: Ethics

Short of heaven, a person can experience only a more limited form of happiness through a life of virtue and friendship, much as Aristotle had recommended.

Aquinas: Ethics Aquinas viewed

morality as deriving from human nature and the activities that are objectively suited to it.

It is a consequence of this natural law ethics that the difference between right and wrong can be appreciated by the use of reason and reflection on experience.

Aquinas: Ethics

Societies must enact laws of their own to supplement natural law and, where necessary, to coerce those who, because of their own imperfections, are liable to do what is wrong and socially destructive.

William of Ockham (c. 1285–1347/49)

An English Franciscan friar and scholastic philosopher, from Ockham, a small village in Surrey, near East Horsley.

He is considered — along with Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and the Islamic scholar Averroes — to be one of the major figures of medieval thought.

William of Ockham Ethics

Fundamental to his approach was his rejection of the central Aristotelian idea that all things have an ultimate end toward which they naturally tend.

William of Ockham Ethics

He also spurned Aquinas’s attempt to base morality on human nature and with it the idea that goodness is closely connected with happiness, which is the ultimate end of human beings.

William of Ockham Ethics

Ockham denied all standards of good and evil that are independent of God’s will.

What God wills is good; what God condemns is evil.

That is all there is to say about the matter.

This position is sometimes called a divine approbation theory, because it defines good as whatever is approved by God.