Christianization of Philosophy

Tyler White
Ms. Wagener
AP English Language
7 July 2013

Christianization of Philosophy

    In all honesty I do not entirely recall how the two philosophers really christianized Aristotle and Plato. I had to re-read that section. I did come to some conclusions, however. Two great philosophers, Aristotle and Plato, had not really been around Christianity so, they did not base their teachings and their thoughts with the fact that there could be a higher being. But, whenever St. Augustine and Aquinas came around they 'christianized' the teachings of Aristotle and Plato. 

    St. Augustine looked at Plato's teachings and agreed with them. He did, however, bring God into them. Plato believed that the world had always existed and St. Augustine knew that God had created the world in seven literal days. So, St. Augustine came to the conclusion that the 'idea' of Earth had always existed in God's thought processes. Without St. Augustine Plato's teaching would have almost all but been forgotten. Aquinas did something altogether different than what St. Augustine did with Plato's teachings. 

    Aquinas stated that Aristotle did not make the connection to Christianity because he didn't know what it was since he had not been introduced to it in his time of philosophy. Aquinas stated that whenever Aristotle mentioned a 'higher being' that surely he meant God. But, if you think about it, that makes no logical sense. In the book Sophie's World  it states that there are two ways of life. You can look at something and think it is one thing when in reality it is something completely different.
   So, for Aquinas to state that was a very bold move and on that I was very pleased with. I could look at some of today's very pronounced atheists that claim there is a higher being of some sort, and claim that they believe in God. When very Christian, Ben Stein, approached very pronounced atheist, Richard Dawkins, Richard was at a loss of words when asked about a higher being. Even Richard admitted that there is a possibility that the world could have been created by intelligent design. So for Aquinas to assume that Aristotle may have believed in a higher being, God, I would agree with his assumption.