AUGUSTINE

HEIRARCHY OF BEINGS

• There is 3 levels to Augustine's heirarchy
• God
• Humans
• Natural world

CITY OF GOD

• Examines the notion of flesh
• The flesh gives us two definitions of the world
• One that is good (belonging to the city of God)
• And another that is bad (belonging to the city of man)

TALE OF TWO CITIES

• The City of God is defined by its love of a God
• The city of man is defined by the love of self
• Ordo amoris requires a heirarchical love
• Cardinal virtues are expressions of love
• Love and hapiness are linked in Augustine's political ethics

DE GENESI

• Examines the idea regarding the soul's ontological status
• De Genesi can be broken down into three sections
• The Natural Order of Things
• Pride and the Privacy of Things
• Re-establishing the Unity Once Possessed

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

FAITH AND REASON

• Heaven is a prominent theme in Aquinas
• Throughout the suma theologica he makes philosophy and religion harmonize
• Says religion is a science because it is given from a way of knowing

CONTRIBUTIONS

• Applied newly recovered philosophy of Aristotle to theology
• Challenged the theology of Augustine
• Distinguished between what can and cant be demonstrated by reason
• Gave arguments for the existence of God from the existence of the universe

5 PROOFS OF GOD

• Motion
• Nature of Efficient Cause
• Possibility and Necessity
• Gradation to be found in things
• Governance of the World

MOTION

• Our senses prove that some things are in motion
• Only am actual motion can covnert a potential motion into an actual one
• Therfore nothing can move itself
• Sequence of motion cant extend ad infinitum
• There must be a first mover,mput in motion by no other, understood to be God

EFFICIENT CAUSE

• Nothing exists prior to itself
• Therfore nothing is the efficient cause of itself
• If a previous cause doestn exist, neither does the thing that results
• If the first in a series doesnt exist, neither does the series
• Therefore there must be a first efficient cause, God

POSSIBILITY AND NECESSITY

• In nature things are possible to be and not to be
• For each being there is a time it didnt exist
• Therefore there coukd have been a time nothing existed
• Therefore nothing would exist now
• Therefore there is abeing that isn't contingent and exist from its osn necessity

GRADATION OF BEING

• There is a gradation to be found in things; soke better than others
• Predications of degree require reference to the uttermost cause
• The max in a genus is the cause of all in that genus
• Therefore there is something that all beings attribute their being to, God

DESIGN

• Natural bodies work toward some goal
• Most natural things lack knowledge
• An arrow reaches its target because of the archer
• Some intelligent being exists by whom all things are directed to their end, God

OPINION OF AUGUSTINE

• The heirarchy of existence seperates the city of God from the city of man
• It makes sense that the soul would want to be reunited with God
• The city of God is where all souls want to end up

OPINION OF AQUINAS

• Aquinas was right to harmonize philosphy and religion
• The two should be able to go hand in hand
• If things are in motion, there must be an original nonmoving being