Talk:Thomas Aquinas

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Talk:Thomas Aquinas/Archive 1: March 2004 – December 2004.

[edit] Beliefs before modern science

He is a theologian who tried to tie Greek philosophy with Christian doctrines, resulting in his belief that it was a marriage of logic and scripture. Of course, he believed that observation of natural events was a justification for the Abrahamic God. And some of his beliefs regarding the nature of the the Abrahamic God and the existence of a trinity provides for contradiction. For his time, he was a great thinker - because he was a product of his time. Mind you that he lived in the 13th century, before the introduction of modern science. Today, in the light of science, his views wouldn't be considered rational. I'm not referring to an Atheistic viewpoint -I'm referring to the secular-humanism of the Greeks and a neutral scientific view. -intranetusa

[edit] Unfair exageration or extension of Thomas's disciplinary thought to support for slavery

The link that the text connects to does not say he supports slavery. It just says a lawful authority can STRIKE or punish whoever is under their authority.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.213.227.88 (talk • contribs) 1 September 2005.

I haven't read the text in question, but I know that this isn't the first time something like this has happened. The apostle Paul mentions how one should treat their slaves, and this has been wrongly construed as saying that Paul advocated slavery. He was just prescribing some ethics for the structure of the society at the time, and I can see how Aquinas could be doing the same thing without actually advocated slavery over nonslavery. FranksValli 22:06, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thomas Aquinas (whole Article, esp. biographical notes)

Hello! You may notice my Article on my home page, just as follows: http://www.geocities.com/daretoshare2004/vita_aquino.html Thank you for your respect! Greetings from Munich, Germany! Hartmut Geuder —The preceding unsigned comment was added by HGeuder (talk • contribs) 24 November 2005.

[edit] favor?

I have just added a new section to Judaism and Christianity on "love." It is just a stub of a section, hopefully others will add more about the Jewish notion. But I know that my characterization of the Christian notion is at best wildly incomplete. Perhaps among the contributors to this page there are some who could go over it and add whatever additional material, detail, nuance, explanation they think necessary. I am very concerned about not misrepresenting, or doing justice to, the Christian point of view. I also added a long quote from Maimonides to the section on Heaven and Hell; in fact, I did a rewrite a week or two ago. I know the Jewish position is well-represented but again I am concerned that in the process the Christian view may appear misrepresented or at least underrepresented. So, I'd be grateful if someone checked and made sure the Christian view(s) are accurately and sufficiently represented. Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 20:43, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Aristotle and God

What I find interesting about Aquinas is the way he combines philosophy and theology.He takes alot from Aristotle whom he referred to as " The Philosopher" and blends his teachings with theology. His Famous " Five Ways to prove God's Existence" was his way of proving God's existance based on what man can know from the world. He maintained that what God teaches will always be consistent with whatever truths man will discover. He should have perhaps been more famous during his life, and probably should be read more today.(faithnet.org) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tired dad (talk • contribs) 6 February 2006.

Thomas Aquinas is most famous for his incorrect view of the fall in Eden. He taught that only the will of man was fallen and that mans intellect was not affected. This set up an area of autonomy in the intellect of man. It also set up a humanistic framework for society visible in Catholicism. When Aquinas did this the begginings of a natural theology were set. Man no longer looked to the Bible to answer the questions of metaphysics and of morals. The philosophers also began to look for truth apart from the Bible and so the artist followed, the writer and thengeneral culture followed last of all by theology. By the time we get to Kant and Rousseau, the philosophers had given up any hope of finding a unified field of knowledge. Wilhelm Hegel arrived on the scene and he changes the way humans approached the deep questions. Prior to Hegel the Biblical oresuppositions had been the default mthodology of the known world. With the arrival of Hegel that all changed. Hegel introduced a new methodlogy called dialectical methodology or synthesis in place of the previous Biblical antithesis. In dialectical methodology you have relative truth. This means two opposites can both be right. The Biblical methodology there is either right or wrong. There is no grey areas at all. If you study Plato and Socrates you will find they both grappled witth this issue. Plato knew a moral absolute must exist for true morals to exist. Leonrdo Davinci wanted to paint the soul of a tree and not merely a tree. he never painted very much because he to could not find a unified field of knowledge. These men as a result of Aquinas' incorrect view of the space time historic fall had reached a place of despair. if you view paintings by Gauguin Van Gogh Cezanne, Picasso and Bacon to mention a few. You will see they were seeing the dissapearance of the human race and the emergence of something less than the image and likeness of the God who is there. Francis A Schaeffer's 'Trilogy' is a good starting place to understand what has occurred. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 220.101.18.201 (talk • contribs) 9 August 2006.

Don't be so dull. Your imaginary friend doesn't exist, and you need to get out more often. Maybe you can become a buddhist and worship wheels if ignorance is your bag. 83.70.219.27 01:41, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What about his philosophy and theology?

I came to this article to see examples of Aquinas's worldview and I see none. I do see a section criticizing Aquinas's writings, but I see no section summarizing his theological or philosophical perspectives. Shouldn't Wikipedia give a summary of a philosopher's views a higher priority than nitpicks? I say this as a frustrated encyclopedia user, not as a partisan in this debate, because I know little to nothing about Aquinas. --Ben Applegate 19:08, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Added section on theology. David aukerman 02:04, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there needs to be more philosophy here. The section on epistemology is woefully inadequate. Thomas' quotation given on the necessity of Divine help is followed, in the Summa, by a "but". He is very clear that God adds nothing to the "natural light" of man's reason, given to her by nature. This needs to be fixed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.249.246.163 (talk • contribs) 3 September 2006.

[edit] GA Failing

Half of this article is a list, you have two references, wild links in the article. Clean, prose, cite. Please see WP:CITE. H ig hway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 15:14, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Moved the works to a side page.

This article is looking better - no more lists, better referencing, cleaner. How close do you think we're coming to GA status? David aukerman 02:08, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Philosophy?

I second the complaint of a user above who mentions that this article has nothing on his philosophy or theology. What did the man think that makes him so important? This article is in poor condition on that basis alone. Srnec 20:06, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Added section on theology. David aukerman 02:04, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] King Louis VIII

Some kind of small mistake. There's a line in this page which says: 'During 1269 to 1271 he was again active in Paris, lecturing to the students, managing the affairs of the church and consulted by the king, Louis VIII, his kinsman, on affairs of state'.

Louis VIII died in 1223, so maybe the author here is talking about Louis IX. However, Louis IX died in 1270 (i.e. before 1271), and I don't see how a French king can be kinsman to an Italian scholar. I don't know what was intended so I can't edit this page myself. Who wrote this? -David Cleave —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.31.85.248 (talk • contribs) 3 July 2006.

Good question. It looks like User:Pwqn added the text in question on 6 November 2005. I've asked this user for a response on User_talk:Pwqn, but this person has been inactive since 20 November 2005, so I don't know if we'll get an answer. David aukerman 16:55, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Update: The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica gives this information (particularly the wording "his kinsman"). Perhaps newer resources might resolve the issue... - David aukerman ^talk 16:03, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Moved from article

Someone added this to the section on epistemology:

Aquinas believed that the purest way to find knowledge is through divine revelation. Specifically, he stressed the necessity of divine grace: "It would seem that without grace man can know no truth. . . . we cannot know truth without grace." (This is what a Wikipedia contributor claims. In fact, this statement is taken from Aquinas' objections. On the contrary, Aquinas states in the sed contra that "Therefore without grace man of himself can know truth," although he concedes that grace at times does come to the aid of man's intellectual endeavors and that man needs God's auxilio generale to attain any truth." See Prima Secundae 109.1. Of course, I would be glad for someone to take this information and put it into the Wikipedia article in the appropriate manner. Nevertheless, I found it absolutely necessary to correct this egregious error as quickly as possible!) He was also, however, an Aristotelian and an empiricist whose influence on those two streams of Western thought is substantial.

Tom Harrison ^Talk 01:13, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for moving this comment here, Tom. This person is absolutely correct! I've made the appropriate changes. - David aukerman ^talk 01:52, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA Renom

I've droped by to review that article. You all have done a good job of improving the article, but it still needs a bit of work, so I'll put it on hold. What I need to see is inline documentation of the biography sections of the article, especially the Career section, where we share what contemporaries wrote about him. Which people? When?

Not critical, but very helpful would be some style changes in language. Most readers of the English language find it hard to read long sentences, filled with passive constructions, participles ("ing" words) and semicolons. It makes the text fell fuzzy, distant and abstract. Especially in the bio sections, try shorter sentences, active constructions (Thomas served the church ... vs. the church was served by Thomas), simple word order (subject-verb-object-direct object) and periods/commas v. semicolons. I hope that helps.--CTSWyneken^(talk) 11:06, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments ... the biography information was added to this article long ago by someone who has since disappeared. Therefore, getting strong documentation for these things will be tricky, but we'll give it a shot.David aukerman 14:06, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I've rewritten the entire biography section to be more readable. Now we need some references... anyone?David aukerman 15:21, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

It's looking pretty good. All that's left is to satisfy the fact tags or comment out the details pending documentation and I'll promote the article. --CTSWyneken^(talk) 22:07, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I've tracked down sources for the remaining {{cn}} tags (at least, I think I got them all!). Most came from the 1911 EB, so I also added {{1911}} to the References section. One quote can be found in another 1911 text available online at nd.edu (link included in footnote). Let me know if I missed anything! - David aukerman ^talk 03:18, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA Passed

That does it. Congratulations! I've promoted the article to GA status. --CTSWyneken^(talk) 10:50, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Excellent! Thanks again for all your help. - David aukerman ^talk 18:35, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

You are welcome. Next step towards FA is a peer review. --CTSWyneken^(talk) 18:49, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References

This article has virtually no inline citations. Why is this? Isn't it impossible to reach FA without them? Dev920 23:46, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

See the discussion at GA Renom above. (First things first - right now we're going for GA status, not FA status.) Actually, there are plenty of citations in the Philosophy, Theology, and Modern Criticism sections - those are relatively new to the article. What are lacking are citations for the Biography section. After doing a little research, I've found that the biography text (and much of the text of some related articles) was added by User:Alan Millar on 10 December 2001 with the edit summary "(old encyc text)". That edition of the article says that the text comes from the "Schaff-Herzog Encyc of Religion." To that end, I've put the {{Schaff-Herzog}} tag on the Aquinas article. - David aukerman ^talk 13:33, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Update: I've added inline citations for all of the information taken from Schaff-Herzog. A few unreferenced comments remain in the text... - David aukerman ^talk 21:00, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Looks great! I've gone through and tried to replace all instances of Ibid. with a named reference in a good faith effort to conform with WP:CITE. Although I could find no explicit guidelines on the use of Ibid., I found an argument on the WP:CITE talk page to be persuasive, which I quote below:

“

Paper media can use tricks such as only giving the full publication information in the first footnote, or using words like ibid, but that is not suitable for Wikipedia because articles are constantly being changed, so the order of notes is also constantly changing. --Gerry Ashton 18:54, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

”

-Fadookie ^Talk 06:04, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Modern Criticism Cleanup

I have made two changes to the Modern Criticism section. The first one has been partially removed, being considered POV. My second edit has been the alteration of the sentence "Aquinas also maintained woman's subjection to man on account of her intellectual inferiority" because I feel that it represents a biased reading of the actual words of St. Thomas. Therefore, I have replaced it with a quotation from the Summa: "because in man the discretion of reason predominates." so the reader may form his/her own opinion. Anyway, I have opened this section in the talk page to prevent any edit war. Thanks --HaveAPinch 17:30, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi HaveAPinch - thanks for opening this up here. I was the one who removed your first addition to the Modern Criticism section. Here's why: I felt that the first clause ("Aquinas more polemical writings should be read as a product of its time") was more or less self-evident; this statement seems to attempt to do away with the impact of the modern criticism itself (and hence my concerns about introducing a point of view). The second clause ("many of his views, such as the case of the role of women, were exceptionally modern") is, in my mind, less questionable, but a little out of place in the context of the paragraph. Perhaps its point could be incorporated into the sentence on women exercising temporal power...?

In any case, your second change to the Modern Criticism section looks good to me. That is a helpful change. Thanks for your contributions ... and keep it up! - David aukerman ^talk 19:11, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi, David. When I first read the Modern Criticism section, I thought that the original wording of the section contained out of context references to St. Thomas and the reader was being cheated. Consider the case of the death sentence to heretics hiding the fact that lesser crimes (in Aquinas view) were already penalized with death. So I started including the original context. I acknowledge that I went too far and started including my own opinion in reference to Aquina's view of women.

When you erased this second part I understood it perfectly, but there was still that sentence in the article about Aquinas considering women as intellectually inferior to men. That's simply not what he said. But instead of including a remark in the opposite direction of the original I considered that quoting the original text would be the best choice. Had it not been for your correction, I may have not done this. So thanks a lot. --HaveAPinch 14:44, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Early Life

What castle? Parents live at castle "Roccasecca" near Frosinone, he flees, gets kidnapped and brought back to them in their castle "San Giovanni". Is that the same castle, or if not, where is that other one?--dunnhaupt 19:45, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Good question... I don't know the answer. I do know, however, that this text came from an early 20th century encyclopedia entry about Aquinas - not that that means it's necessarily accurate. For what it's worth, this entire section (Biography) is on my list of things to fix up in the near future. So hopefully this will get cleared up in good time. - David aukerman ^talk 00:15, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Peer review – suggestions for improvement

As a response to the request for peer review, I would like to make a few suggestions:

First and foremost the article needs a historical background to Thomas' philosophy: what necessitated the reconciliation of Aristotelian thought with Christian theology? This has to do with the rediscovery of classical texts (the Crusades, growth of the universities etc). This subject is absent, and needs to be explored more fully.
Early years: 'on the way to Rome...' Out of context.
Career: 'provincial' is not a helpful hyperlink.
Ethics: 'Aquinas also greatly influenced Roman Catholic understandings of mortal and venial sins.' Needs expansion.
Modern criticism: Shouldn't inline citations be used also here, for consistency? Also, the last sentence ('Many biographies of Aquinas have been written over the centuries, one of the most notable by G.K. Chesterton.') is out of context. It should either (ideally) be expanded to a short bibliography, or removed altogether.

For an example of a good article on a philosopher, I suggest looking at Søren Kierkegaard, which has good prose, good use of pictures, an up-to-date bibliography, and very pretty quotation boxes.Eixo 15:09, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your time and suggestions, Eixo. This gives us a bit to work on... -David aukerman ^talk 14:16, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

-Also, not sure how it works, but Martin Luther King Jr. should be included under influences, because he directly cites Aquinas in his Letter From a Birmingham Jail -Black Mage- 05:32, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural depictions of Thomas Aquinas

I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information. I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list. Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article. Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this approach as a model for the editors here. Regards, Durova 17:33, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Italian"

I'll remove the word "Italian" from the lead line of the article. I'm not even sure that will be controversial, but it might be a good idea to list the reasons anyway:

it's absolutely unclear what "Italian" refers to: Italy as a state did not exist, and, as far as I can find out, the term was used for a peninsula with little or no political connotations. Thomas did not write in Italian (as far as I know?), I know no evidence he considered himself to be Italian, his influence was in no way limited to the Italian peninsula, and much of his life was spent elsewhere.
if the "claim" of present-day Italians should be included, it should be included later in the article.
I think Thomas is important enough to be listed, without qualification, as a "philosopher and theologian". IMHO, the main idea of the first words of an article should be to filter out as many readers as possible who this isn't the right article for. Anyone interested in 13th-century (that's the first bit of real information in this article) philosophy or theology (and that should be the second fact) must be interested in this article, so there's no point including "Italian" that early.
Thomas was born in Naples, we say so very soon in the article, and, as far as I know, that's all the word "Italian" actually has to back it up. Quite redundant, then.

Feel free to revert and discuss, but I really think this is merely an attempt to include a formula that is considered, quite inaccurately, good style in an encyclopedia, and has nothing but imitation going for it ("person" was a "country" "profession").

RandomP 16:10, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Thomas was born in Naples. He spent his first 24 years in Italy. From his complexion and appearance we can tell that he is of southern Italian blood. Also, the concept of "Italy" and "Italian" were already in use at the time, as you can infer from Dante Alighieri's work, which comes only few decades later. There is no way you can ignore the fact that Thomas is Italian.

Caballaria 16:56, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

"From his complexion and appearance"? Sorry, I'll just not go with that sort of "but he looks Italian to me" argument. While the concept of Italy might have been around, there's a difference between saying he lived in present-day Italy (which feel free to do) and claiming he was "Italian". I'm still unconvinced that means anything.

RandomP 22:17, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

What the hell does "Italian" mean here? He was born not in Naples, but in Rocca Secca, in the KINGDOM of Naples, an independent country. He was therefore "Neapolitan," perhaps. His father, Landulph, was Count of Aquino, also in the Kingdom of Naples. Thomas was cousin to the Kings of France, Castile, Aragon and the Holy Roman Emperor. He spent most of his career at the University of Paris. It is an anachronism to claim his "nationality" was Italian, any more than one could call the HRE "German." It was, perhaps, a language group, but Neapolitans, venetians, Genoese, Florentines and Milanese were all quite happy to beat each others brains in during the furious and vicious internecine and interfamily wars of the Middle Ages.HarvardOxon 21:42, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] God and Gender

I have removed the changes by Phil Franco and gone back to the previous version by Shipmaster because, according to Aquinas' teachings, God does not have a gender. Aquinas' first point is that "God is simple, without composition of parts, such as body and soul, or matter and form." If this is the case then god certainly has no gender. Aquinas' second point is that "God is perfect, lacking nothing. That is, God is distinguished from other beings on account of His complete actuality." If god is perfect and lacks nothing then god can't be a male as then he would be lacking the feminine gender and thus not be perfect. Morgan Leigh 00:58, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] title of doctor of the church

The idea that the title of "doctor of the church" puts Thomas on a level with St Paul is completely mad. Nb. Paul is not on the list of doctors of the church given on Wikipedia. I am worried that the use - indeed extensive outright quotation - of an antiquated "religious encyclopedia" throughout the article - from which this fact is derived - may be cause for general revision. Frege1b 23:23, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

There are actually two different titles being used here. The title "Doctor of the Church" is applied to 33 people throughout history; St. Paul is not on that list, but St. Augustine is. So we shouldn't eliminate that title. I think the term you are concerned about is "Doctor Angelicus," which is (according to this article) why Aquinas is "on a level" with Paul and Augustine. I am not sure why the title "Doctor Angelicus" does this; as far as I can tell, that title always refers to Aquinas. In any case, this is what the 1953 encyclopedia (which, by the way, isn't the oldest source for this article) says. On the other hand, I do agree with you - the Biography section is in need of a sweeping revision (see previous comments on this talk page). -David aukerman ^talk 01:29, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

"Doctor angelicus" does no such thing. There grew up traditional epithets applied to the "doctors of the church." The Dominican order is sometimes referred to as "angelic" as the choir of angels supposedly regards God in the aspect of Truth, and Aquinas himself was supposedly comforted by an angel after warding off a temptation against chastity. The "aneglic heights" of his thought are also sometimes cited. St. Bonaventure, the Franciscan equiavelent of Thomas, is called "Doctor seraphicus," as the Seraphim supppsedly regard God in the aspect of Love, and a seraph supposedly appeared to St. Francis of Assisi (hence, the Franciscans are sometimes referred to as the "seraphic order"). There is no doubt that Augustine and Aquinas have been the most influential theologians in Catholic history -- either as men whose arguments are taken and built upon, or as men whose arguments must be answered by those who take a different tack. As St. Paul was the first writer whose works made it into the New Testament, and is therefore in some sense the earliest documented Christian witness and thinker, it is hard to imagine anyone attempting to equate even Thomas and Augustine combined with the influence of Paul of Tarsus as one of the original definers of Christianity.HarvardOxon 07:20, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. It is indeed hard to imagine Paul, Thomas, and Augustine on the same level. If/when this biography section gets rewritten, that statement will surely be left out. -David aukerman ^talk 18:24, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] View on Heretics

I'm removing this newly added section from the article because (a) it does not add to an encyclopedic understanding of Aquinas, (b) it almost sounds inflammatory or POV, (c) Aquinas himself used "reason" consistently, which this section seems to condemn as sinful, and (d) the material is quoted from a sketchy (at best) online book summary. If this material should be incorporated into this article, let's discuss it here before changing the article. David aukerman ^talk 17:31, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Fare enough - I'll find a better source and try and re-word this. I was just shocked that I have heard claims about Aquinas and his view on heretics being thrown around and couldn't find anything mentioning in the Wikipedia article. Also, I believe that the point Sam Harris tries to make using Aquinas is completely in line with your conclusion. In other words, the theology of Aquinas rationally requires the persecution of heretics. Aquinas was being rational and his rational conclusions, at least in this matter, should be alarming.

"it does not add to an encyclopedic understanding of Aquinas" this I disagree with, for instance, Nietzsche's philosophy was often a target of criticism due to Hitler drawing certain "rational" conclusions from his arguments and these are often attributed to him, though I in Aquinas case he actually drew these conclusions himself, I am not imposing them upon him. I do believe that the conclusions of one's philosophy, no matter the time (there were those that didn't support the persecution of heretics during Aquinas time)are quite important.

Point well made though, I typed this in haste and need to clean it up. Look forward to finding a version we can agree on.

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