Ms. Wagener
AP English Language
8 August 2013
"The Middle Ages": Christianity in Philosophy
Religion can be a scary thing to philosophers. It wasn’t an easy thing for ancient philosophers of the Middle Ages to just believe in Christianity. Some philosophers let their philosophic reason influence their belief in religion. Two major philosophers that Christianized old philosophic teachings were St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas.
St. Augustine lived from 354 to 430. He was a Christian, but his religion was largely shaped by Plato. St. Thomas Aquinas lived from 1225 to 1274. He was a Christian, but his religion was shaped by Aristotle. Both of these two men used their beliefs in God and their beliefs in old Greek philosophers and meshed them together. Doing so forever changed philosophy.
As a result of these two philosophers, God and philosophy became, more or less, one. People had always questioned religion because they couldn’t see God. Now philosophy was used to prove the existence of God. The "formal cause" as Aristotle called it was deemed to be God.
Future philosophers then went on to focus their thoughts more on Christianity like these two. This combination of philosophy and Christianity arguably went on to make more people believe in the Bible and its teachings.
Also, philosophers had more to analyze. A lot of philosophers learned not to believe in things that can’t be proven with reason. They now dedicated their lives to proving these teachings of God were true.
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