Faith and Reason
It can be said that Thomas Aquinas synthesized faith and reason to a greater extent than any other philosopher. Unlike Augustine — who had made a sharp distinction between the natural and divine world in his City of God — Aquinas made no sharp distinction between the natural and divine worlds. He thought that all of creation — natural and supernatural — and all truth, revealed or rational, emanated from God. The two sources of knowledge, reason and revelation, do not conflict. Revelation does not contradict reason.
Aquinas thought that philosophy and science both lead to the truth. In fact, he tended to equate the truths of philosophy and science with the work of “the Philosopher,” Aristotle. He believed that Aristotle's philosophical and scientific conclusions were true for the most part, and therefore must be in agreement with the revealed truths of religion; that is, with the contents of the Bible.
Theology begins with faith in God and interprets all things as God's creatures. While philosophers based their conclusions on reason, theologians base their demonstrations upon the authority of revealed knowledge. Still, philosophy and theology are two separate and independent disciplines. Wherever faith is capable of knowing something, faith, strictly speaking is unnecessary. And what faith knows through revelation cannot be known by natural reason. Both philosophy and theology deal with God, but the philosopher can only infer that God exists and cannot by reflecting upon the objects of sensation understand God's essential nature. There is a connection between both disciplines, however, since they are both concerned with truth.
Thomas Aquinas did for Aristotle what Augustine did for Plato, making the “pagan” philosopher appear to seamlessly blend right in with the teachings of the Christian Church. Aquinas is regarded by many as the thinker who overcame the discrepancy between faith and reason.
Aquinas distinguished theology from philosophy. Theology gives you knowledge through faith and revelation, and philosophy gives you knowledge through the natural powers of the intellect common to all men.
Prior to Aquinas, Plato was widely available to early medieval readers. But Aristotle's writings didn't become available until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Aristotle's philosophy served up a great system, but it was a system that contradicted Christian doctrine on some crucial matters.
First, he thought that the world was eternal and uncreated. In addition, he denied personal immortality. On both matters, reason does not point to the world being created or eternal. So Aquinas thought one must side with revelation or Scripture.
