Thomas Aquinas: The Philosopher Saint

[Kaplok Kaplok]

Before speaking about Aquinas, it will be helpful to identify three fundamental mistakes about the relation between faith and reason.

The first is skepticism. That is the view that faith in itself is irrational or contrary to reason. Someone might say, "Well, faith cannot be proved, so it's irrational," or, "Science has disproved religion."

The second mistake is the flip side of this and we call it fideism. This view agrees that faith is opposed to reason and it says, "Well, that's not a problem. Let's just stick with faith." So a fideist might say something like, "All we really need is the Bible, so stop worrying about what reason or science might claim."

Now there's a third mistake. That's to say that faith is purely subjective. On this view, faith is only true for me. It's purely personal and interior.

Now against these three errors, St Thomas Aquinas argues first that faith and reason are never truly in conflict. This is because there is a fundamental unity of truth which is based on the order of reality. There cannot be something that is true according to faith and at the same time false according to reason or science.

And likewise, truth is not purely subjective, nor is it merely private or personal because
ultimately, the truth is based on something outside of the mind that is in reality.

 

[OrangeMoon]

I think the problem with faith, is that it is not falsifiable
Even if proven wrong, people tend to stick to tradition

 

[Kaplok Kaplok]

I think the problem with faith, is that it is not falsifiable
Even if proven wrong, people tend to stick to tradition

Weak people tends to seek for a tradition to follow because they cannot formulate a good practice on their own.

Interestingly, when weak people are born into a tradition, they tend to reject it rather than learning about the nuance.

That is how the polarized theist and atheist are created.

But on it's own tradition has a utility, it is a tool we use for our advantage until it is not useful anymore. Not something to follow "no matter what".