St. Thomas Aquinas Confirms essays

St. Thomas Aquinas Confirms essays Through out the Middle Ages, Theology was considered the most important science and because of this greatly scrutinized. Although people accepted their beliefs, they wanted something to both explain and augment their faith. At this time, many of Aristotles writings were translated from Greek and Arabic into Latin, making them a great deal more accessible to people. This broadened knowledge profoundly influenced the people, who began to ask the question of what relationship existed between Christian revelation and Greek philosophy. St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest and most significant philosopher of this time period, tried to make Aristotles philosophy compatible with Christianity by interpreting and explaining it in a way that they were no longer viewed as a threat to Christian beliefs (Garrder 180). St. Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican monk and lived an active life of listening to the people and teaching. When asked by the people, Whether God exists? he felt responsible to answer. The outcome of this attempt is known as Article 3. of the Suma Theologica, Whether God Exists?, in which he provided two objections to Gods existence, his Five Ways that prove the existence of God, and finally his replies to the fore mentioned objections. Aquinas begins with two objections to Gods existence. The first objection provides reason for claming that God does not exist and states that if one of two opposites were omnipresent, the other would be completely annihilated. Due to the fact that God is defined as He who is infinite goodness, if God existed there would be no evil in the world. There is evil in the world, and therefore God does not exist (Aquinas 1). The second objection states that there is no reason to conclude that a God does exist, for everything present in the world can be explained for by reasons other then God, for natural things can be reduced to the principle of nature while volunta...