Saturday, 1 May 2010

The Effect of Philosophy upon Theology

As a follow-up to the last post, I thought I'd reproduce the following little observation by Thomas Aquinas about an aspect of the relation between philosophy and theology that I recently stumbled across. (Sorry for the rough translation!)

Similiter etiam expositores sacrae Scripturae in hoc diversificati sunt, secundum quod diversorum philosophorum sectatores fuerunt, a quibus in philosophicis eruditi sunt.

"Similarly indeed, their exposition of sacred scripture has been diverse, according to which philosophical school they have been followers of, from whom they have been educated in philosophy."

Saint Thomas Aquinas, In II Sent. D. 14, q.1, a,2.


Aquinas implies that the content and quality of theology does depend upon the philosophical presuppositions that are brought to bear upon the analysis of the sources of revelation. Therefore, lousy philosophy will lead to lousy theology.

I wonder if anyone can think of any examples? ;-)

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