Prompt 3

Lexi Graves

Wilhelmus

Ap Lang.

Religion and Philosophy

Throughout the Middle Ages, Greek philosophy was rapidly increasing in popularity. Meanwhile, Christianity was on the rise in Europe. These two things were forced to meet and clashed harshly. Christians began to immediately shut down the ideas of Greek philosophy. They felt that it questioned their beliefs. Many began to try to find a connection between the two, but it seemed impossible. Christians began to build a wall between themselves and philosophers. This very well may have turned into a war against beliefs, if it weren't for St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas.

St. Augustine was a Christian. Upon learning about Plato's philosophy, he saw no conflicts with his religion. He began explaining all of the ways that his philosophy connected with Christianity. The one part of Plato's theory that I wouldn't be able to connect would be the fact that Plato believed that the world had always existed, contrary to the Christian belief that God created the earth. Augustine explained this by pointing out the fact that God has always existed, and he believed that He always had the idea of the earth in his mind, therefore you could say that the world has always existed. His ideas persuaded many Christians to accept Plato's ideas.

St. Thomas Aquinas basically did the same with Aristotle's philosophy. He did not see Christianity and philosophy as a threat to each other. He revealed that Aristotle's view on religion had not been complete. Aquinas believed that this was because he had no true knowledge of Christianity. Aristotle even had a hypothesis stating that he believed that there was some greater being or god. He didn't identify it as the God of Christianity, but Aquinas believed that since he never said otherwise, it could very well have been. His beliefs were also spread and Christians soon accepted Aristotle's philosophy.

I think that if it hadn't been for Augustine and Aquinas that there would've been a huge battle between Christians and philosophers. The connections that they made were very impressive and I'm sure it took some critical thinking. Their conclusions on how it connects are logical and I believe it saved us a lot of trouble debating about who was right and who was wrong. They kind of made a compromise so that everyone could accept it. They may have even brought some philosophers to Christianity in that way. I think it had a good outcome and made a positive impact on the way people think today.