Medieval Philosophy Midterm

Philosophy Midterm Exam

Introduction

• Ancient Thought = cosmocentric

• Medieval Thought = theocentric

• Modern Thought = Anthropocentric

• Most saw faith and reason as complimentary and synthesized them

• History of Philosophy like Tree

o Greek roots

o Medieval trunk

o Modern branches

o Contemporaries as leaves

• Augustine = Christianized Plato

• Aquinas = Christianized Aristotle

St. John the Evangelist

• Announced new kind of philosophy

• Began relationship b/t faith and reason

• Logos was a man (Jesus) but Christ was not Logos “The Logos became flesh”

St. Justin Martyr

• 1st Christian Philo

• Philo used to bring us closer to God

• 4 steps Intellectual Conversion

o seeks truth by unaided effort of reason

o disappointed

o offered truth by faith, accepted

o satisfies his reason

• cant find logos w/o Christ

St. Augustine

• Mind and heart are absolute values but heart is deeper

• 3 Crisis in Culture

o Faith

o Reason

o Marriage b/t them

• City of God all human history interpretation

o City – association of men bound by common love

o Response to fall of Rome

• 2 Cities both bound by Love

o The city of God – invisible community for all who love God as God

o City of the World – love the world and themselves as their God

o Response to identity crisis from birth

• Confessions – about own life

o Written to God

o Story of God’s search for man and vice versa

• On the Trinity

o Response to errors about the central doctrine of Christian theology

• Search for greatest good

o “Man is a living tragedy”

• perpetual wanderer looking for end/happiness/home

• 4 possible homes – nature below, self within, others around, God above

• man not home in nature (body is but soul is not)

• Christian key – God who doesn’t need us loves and saves us from ourselves

• Divine revelation

o Need faith to understand “Unless you believe, you will not understand”

• Goal = to know God, not solve issues

• Epistemology

o Skepticism

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