Lesson 55 report

Thomas Aquinas was a Christian philosopher who sought out to apply Aristotelian logic to theology .
Thomas Aquinas was born in Italy in 1225 to a Count and Countess. He began his education when he was only five years old at a university in Naples. There he was influenced by the writings of Aristotle and by the new order of monks, the Dominicans. And so, at the age of nineteen, he joined the Dominican order. His parents were not pleased at all with this act because their other sons were great warriors, not monks. They were so mad that they even kidnapped Thomas from school for two years! Eventually, Thomas’s mother realized that Thomas would become a monk again no matter how hard they convinced him not to so, she helped him escape without the public (And her family) knowing. After he “escaped,” he rejoined the monks just like his mother thought he would.
Awhile after Thomas rejoined, he decided to write about Christion theology in a systematic way using Aristotelian logic and thinking. His most famous work of these writings is “Summa Theologica” which, he never got around to finish it. Another thing that Aquinas is known for is how he greatly influenced the church by using Aristotle’s logic to study scripture. He had also taught a new connection between science and theology, for example, he had argued that, based solely on the evidence in nature, man can logically prove that there is a Father.
Thomas Aquinas was one day hit by a tree limb and fell ill. Soon after, he died while reciting Song of Solomon in 1274.
The work of Thomas Aquinas influenced much of the thinking we have today. For example, philosophers began promoting the idea that logic and man’s senses could tell him what he needed which, was a distortion of Aquinas’s ideas. The focus on man’s thinking continued into the time of the Renaissance and, is still continued today.