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The Tension Between Faith And Reason In Thomas Aquinas And Blaise Pascal

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The presence of a sort of tension between faith and reason has been innate to humans since people first started to question what the true purpose of life is. The existence of this separation could be clearly viewed by looking comparing Athens and Jerusalem, with Athens representing truth through reason and philosophy and Jerusalem representing truth through insights of revelation and purity of soul. Therefore, faith and reason have always posed tension by their proximity and their constantly juxtaposing views. Many view these two concepts as complete opposites, that reason is proven by fact and that faith cannot be proven. However, some philosophers have described how faith and reason can actually come together to come to the truth and how faith can be an extension of the reason that works to reach a higher truth. Two major figures who participated in the search for the truth between these two concepts were Thomas Aquinas and Blaise Pascal. Both of these immensely influential theologians worked to act through knowledge to achieve a higher truth. Even though Thomas Aquinas was a theologian during the Medieval Era of Christianity and Blaise Pascal was during the Early Modern Era, both had very similar aspirations and experiences revolving …show more content…
This relationship between philosophy and theology stood out drastically to how Christianity had been viewed previously because Aquinas wanted to find a way to connect Catholicism and faith with Aristotle and knowledge. One major argument in Thomas Aquinas’ “Summa Contra Gentiles that Aquinas has relating to faith and reason is that everyone is born with innate reason so everyone has the capacity to have faith. In order to unpack this assertion, one must understand how Aquinas defines faith and reason. Aquinas believes that human reason is limited and that some things transcend the power of human reason,

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