Dr Paul Allen

Aquinas ’s Summa contra gentiles , written to combat Greco- Arabic philosophy , is the greatest apologetic work of the Middle Ages and so merits our attention. Thomas develops a framework for the relationship of faith and reason that includes the Augustinian signs of credibility. He begins by making a distinction within truths about God.  On the one hand, there are truths that completely surpass the capability of human reason, for example, the doctrine of the Trinity . On the other hand, many truths lie within the grasp of human reason, such as the existence of God. In the first three volumes of the Summa contra gentiles, Thomas attempts to prove these truths of reason, including the existence and nature of God , the orders of creation, the nature and end of man, and so forth. But when he comes to the fourth volume, in which he handles subjects like the Trinity, the incarnation, the sacraments, and the last things, he suddenly changes his method of approach. He states that t...

Image via Wikipedia Of course, like every other man besides Jesus Christ , John Calvin was imperfect. His renown is not owing to infallibility but to his relentless allegiance to the Scriptures as the Word of God in a day when the Bible had been almost swallowed up by church tradition. He was born in July 1509, in Noyon, France , and was educated at the best universities in law, theology, and classics. At the age of twenty-one, he was dramatically converted from tradition-centered medieval Catholicism to radical, biblical, evangelical faith in Christ and His Word. He said: God, by a sudden conversion subdued and brought my mind to a teachable frame, which was more hardened in such matters than might have been expected from one at my early period of life. Having thus received some taste and knowledge of true godliness, I was immediately inflamed with so intense a desire to make progress that although I did not altogether leave off other studies, I yet pursued them with less ...

Image via Wikipedia Within Protestant circles St. Thomas Aquinas has been the victim of a bad rap. “Aquinas bashing” has become a popular pastime with some Protestant scholars. Viewing Aquinas as a theological ogre may be linked to a form of “Cathlicophobia.” Since Rome claims Thomas as the “Doctor Angelicus,” his status as “the” theologian of the church makes him the target of much Protestant criticism. Aquinas & Aristotle St. Thomas made use of Aristotelian philosophy . His thought does indicate a kind of synthesis between Aristotelian philosophy and Christian theology .  Many of the categories of Aristotle’s philosophy appear in Aquinas’s reasoning. This is true not only with respect to Aquinas but more broadly throughout Roman Catholic theology . In the doctrine of transubstantiation, the miracle of the mass is formulated in Aristotelian terms when the church declares that the substance of the bread and wine is changed into the substance of the body and b...