Aquinas’ Natural Theology Flashcards
Q: What did Aquinas accept about human reason in relation to God’s divine nature?
A: Human reason could never know or understand God’s infinite divine nature.
Q: What kind of knowledge did Aquinas believe human reason could gain about God?
A: Lesser knowledge of God, including His existence, moral law, and nature by analogy.
Q: Through which arguments did Aquinas believe we could know God’s existence?
A: The teleological (design) and cosmological arguments.
Q: What does Aquinas’ natural law theory help us understand?
A: God’s moral law.
Q: How did Aquinas believe we could understand God’s nature?
A: By analogy, through the analogies of attribution and proportion.
Q: What type of natural theology did Aquinas support?
A: Natural theology through reason.
Q: Why did Aquinas think reason could not provide an absolute proof of God’s existence?
A: Because it would make faith and revelation useless.
Q: What kind of arguments did Aquinas formulate?
A: A posteriori teleological and cosmological arguments.
Q: How did Aquinas view these arguments?
A: As evidence for the Christian God that supports faith in God.
Q: Does the Bible contain reasoned arguments for God’s existence according to Aquinas?
A: No, the Bible doesn’t contain reasoned arguments for God like those formulated by Aquinas.
Q: What effect does meditating on God’s works in creation have, according to Aquinas?
A: It leads to reflecting on God’s wisdom, admiring His power, having reverence for God, and love for God’s goodness.
Q: How does the goodness, beauty, and wonder of creation influence us, according to Aquinas?
A: They delight the human mind and attract us more strongly to God’s total goodness.
Q: What can natural theology support, according to Aquinas?
A: Faith in God.
Q: Which Christian tradition typically views reason as a valid basis for supporting faith?
A: Catholicism.
Q: How did Pope John Paul II describe the relationship between faith and reason?
A: “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.”
