Britannica
Sources used in this answer
- Scholasticism - Maturity of Scholasticism
- Western philosophy - Thomas Aquinas
- philosophy of religion - Medieval traditions
- Western philosophy - Averroists
- St. Thomas Aquinas - Last years at Naples of St. Thomas Aquinas
- Aristotelianism - From the late 13th century through the 15th century
- Aristotelianism - From the Byzantine renaissance to the 15th century
- Thomism - Decline and revival through the mid-20th century
- Thomism - The 14th and 15th centuries
Why did some medieval theologians oppose Thomas Aquinasās use of Aristotelian philosophy?
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Thomism
St. Thomas Aquinas Enthroned Between the Doctors of the Old and New Testaments, with Personifications of the Virtues, Sciences, and Liberal Arts, fresco by Andrea da Firenze, c. 1365; in the Spanish Chapel of the Church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence.
Some medieval theologians opposed Thomas Aquinasās use of Aristotelian philosophy primarily because they feared that integrating pagan and Islamic thought would undermine Christian doctrine and tradition.123
The opposition stemmed from several key concerns:
- Threat to Tradition: Many theologians were rooted in the Augustinian and Platonic tradition. They believed that adopting Aristotleās worldviewāwhich emphasized natural reality and human cognitive powersāthreatened to shatter the continuity of Christian truth and encroach upon the rights of God.14
- Association with Heterodoxy: Aristotleās works arrived in the West accompanied by interpretations from Arabic commentators like AverroĆ«s and Avicenna. Some scholars, known as "Latin Averroists," used these texts to promote rationalist doctrines that contradicted faith, such as the eternity of the world or the oneness of the intellect.1536
- Fear of Secularism: Traditionalists, including St. Bonaventure, were alarmed by the growing secularism in universities. They mistrusted the capacity of natural reason to address theological matters, fearing that an over-reliance on philosophy would lead to heresy.346
These tensions culminated in 1277, when ecclesiastical authorities in Paris and Oxford condemned several propositions, including some of Aquinasās own Aristotelian-influenced doctrines, as part of a broader reaction against rationalism and naturalism.345