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1225-1274
* He followed fundamentally the teachings of his great predecessor, Aristotle (“The Philosopher”)
* He saw and subscribed to the vision of Aristotle who relied immensely on natural powers of human
reason and experience in search for goodness and truth.
• He proclaimed the supremacy of reason and every man and maintain that man will know the
truth by the application of truth.
*Although, he emphasized that there are some truths which cannot be explained and known by
simply the human reason alone and which can be perceived only with the old of the light of divine
revelation which emanate from God, who is truth itself
CONCEPT OF GOD
by Aristotle
Man can know and validly prove God’s existence by reasoning (conclusions of Aristotle’s
arguments).Thus, by said arguments, we can arrive at the knowledge of God as the “Prime Mover”,
the “First cause”, the “Perfect Good”. The “Final cause and Good of all Things”
Aquinas upheld these arguments as valid and true and adopted these proof sin his Quinque Viae (Five
ways) to prove God’s Existence. Yet, he saw that they do not reveal the nature of God.
Philosophy of Happiness
-He taught that man naturally longs for perfection and happiness and this personal longing can be
realized with the full development of all man’s endowments – rational, moral, emotional, social,
physical and intellectual.
-He saw the highest perfection and happiness possible to man beyond his temporal life, because the
immortality of the human soul.
* The perfect happiness which all men seek can be found in God, according to St. Thomas Aquinas.
It is also implied in the First Epistle of the St. John, chapter four and verse
eight that reveals God as LOVE, then by loving we are likened to God who
is love, and if we love perfectly and constantly, we identify ourselves with
love.
Man has the unique power to change himself and the things around him
for the better indeed, in accordance with his urge to be perfect and
happy, he can improve and even perfect himself; and what is still more
marvelous is that he can even transcend himself.
TRANSCENDENTAL
– came from the Latin word transcendere, which means to transcend, go
beyond, soar above, surpass.
Thus, the universal man of Aristotle who is perfect in his own right, is still
imperfect in comparison with the transcendental man of Aquinas.
PERFECTION BY PARTICIPATION
We speak of the transcendental man as absolutely perfect but only insofar as
he participates in the Absolutely Absolute Perfection of God,
In his monumental work, The Summa Theologica. Aquinas dealt with the
question whether man or a higher being can raise man to the level of the
infinitely perfect.
He answered saying that neither man by his natural powers alone nor a
higher being such an angel can effectuate said elevation or transformation.
Between the finite creature and the infinite creator lies an infinite Gap which
can be bridged only by an infinite power, aptly called and indentified with
LOVE because it unites and bespeaks of the nature of God.
Finite
transcendental
infinite