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What Is Aquinas Affect The Nature Of God?

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D uring the Mediaeval Period, spanning from the 5th to the 15th Century, the Church was extremely influential, both politically and socially. Following the Great Schism (c.1054), Eastern and Western Christianity began to develop separately. In the West, multiple monastic orders formed, as well as Universities teaching theology (McGrath, 2016, p.22). The discovery of Aristotelian philosophy challenged the established Augustinian Neo-Platonism and was not always favoured (McEnhill and Newlands, 2004, p.16). Scholasticism was the theological method used in this period, which emphasised rational justification and logical presentation of beliefs (Mews, 2010, p.1132-1133). Thomas Aquinas (c.1225-74) was born into an aristocratic Italian family. …show more content…

Apophaticism, or negative theology, regards language as inadequate to describe God, fearing that it will reduce the nature of God, and what is knowledge of Him can only be expressed through what He is not (Patte, 2010, p.63). Conversely, Cataphaticism argues that positive statements can be made on the nature of God . Aquinas argues that this can be done without reducing God due to limitations of human language (McGrath, 2016, …show more content…

Firstly, analogies and images are how God reveals Himself in scripture (McGrath, 2016, p.167). Given that God is so beyond intellectual grasp, analogies are needed to aid in understanding God, which further the believer’s appreciation of Him. The relationship between God and His expression within His creation equally legitimises the use of describing God with our language (McGrath, 2016, p.166). The use of everyday words usually used for ‘finite’ things to describe an attribute of God does not reduce Him to the level of His creation, merely proclaims a likeness between the two, and God’s attributes must be understood to be more than that of humanity (McEnhill and Newlands, 2004, p.24). The words hold implications of imperfectness from creatures, which God is above (Aquinas, 1992, p.103). For example, God’s wisdom is far beyond the wisdom of a man. Aquinas draws a distinction between the univocal usage of words and the equivocal use. Univocal means a word which has the same meaning in all contexts, whereas equivocal refers to a word which has multiple meanings. When people use words to describe God, they are using them in the equivocal sense, due to the major difference between God and creatures. While univocal usage would underrepresent God’s attributes, equivocal usage does not, as it draws the distinction that God is beyond creatures (McGrath, 1995, pp.12-13). Nevertheless, the best terms

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