AUGUSTINE/AQUINAS

MAJOR THEMES OF AUGUSTINES

• Desire
• Knowledge
• Evil
• Inward turn
• Religion

MANICHAEN

• Two material forces : light(God) or dark(evil)
• Goal was to seperate these forces
• Humans would not be responsible for evil

DE GENISI

CITY OF GOD

• Two worlds: good and bad
• Bad is the City of Man(physical world)
• Good is the City of God(non-physical world)
• Flesh is not of the body. It is evil and sinful

FIRST PROOF : MOTION

• Our senses prove that some things are in motion.
• Objects have to be put in motion by something that is already moving (God)
• Motion comes from an original source which then moves
• Nothing can be at once in both actuality and potentiality in the same respect (i.e., if both actual and potential, it is actual in one respect and potential in another).

PROOF 2: EFFICIENT CAUSE

• We perceive a series of efficient causes of things in the world.
• Nothing exists prior to itself.
• Therefore nothing is the efficient cause of itself.
• If a previous efficient cause does not exist, neither does the thing that results.

PROOF 3: POSSIBILITY AND NECESSITY

• We find in nature things that are possible to be and not to be, that come into being and go out of being i.e., contingent beings.
• Assume that every being is a contingent being.
• For each contingent being, there is a time it does not exist.
• Therefore it is impossible for these always to exist.

PROOF 4: GRADATION

• There is a gradation to be found in things: some are better or worse than others.
• Predications of degree require reference to the “uttermost” case (e.g., a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest).
• The maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus.
• Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.

PROOF 5: GOVERNANCE

• We see that natural bodies work toward some goal, and do not do so by chance.
• Most natural things lack knowledge.
• But as an arrow reaches its target because it is directed by an archer, what lacks intelligence achieves goals by being directed by something intelligence.
• intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.

FAITH AND REASON

• Theology - faith & reason
• Valid in their own realms

REASON AND REVELATION

• Must be revealed by knowledge
• Ends of God surpass reason and humans must know what these are
• And what can be known through reason might be known only to a few