Throughout history, their has been numerous philosophical thinkers who have dedicated their teachings and works to a greater divine being. Two influential philosophical figures that have dedicated their works to the further understanding of God and how he relates with the world around us is Saint Thomas Aquinas and Augustine of Hippo. These two innovative thinkers were consistent with their principles of faith and reasoning, the existence of God, and theories of other religious ideas interpreted from a philosophical standpoint. Both these thinkers were heavily known for venturing into the depths of the Christianity faith, both raising question of the thought of the true divinity behind the most almighty being, God. Even though Augustine takes
…show more content…
His adaption of conventional thought to the teachings of Christianity has lasted a tremendous impression and influence of future traditions to come. Augustine wrote almost his entire life, particularly books and homilies, all written in Latin, writing more philosophically in earlier years compared to religious matters in the latter (The Catholic Encyclopedia). One specific work in particular that contains almost every distinctive feature that Saint Augustine cultivated in his philosophy was On Free Choice of the Will. It accumulates his theory of human accountability in order to try to reconcile our aptitude to have free will with Gods influence. This can further be translated to, how is it possible that we are given free will, in which we can commit evil, and it was granted to us by God, that he is not responsible for the evil executed in the world? In response to this conflict faced by theologians and philosophers alike, he attempts to place agency on the individual his or her self because if they have free will, then they are responsible for their said actions thus far because God granted them to do …show more content…
To answer this issue he takes an approach of a priori to establish the proof of God existence. A priori knowledge is used to denote the foundations upon which a proposition is known; specifically it is independent of any experience other than the experience of learning the language in which the proposition is expressed (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Through this way of acquiring knowledge, you make an argument from what is discovered prior, as what Augustine outlines in the second book. We must first establish the fact that God even exists before moving forward in this argumentation, because once the base is established, his theory is built upon it with a priori reasoning. First it is known that there is a hierarchy arrangement in nature where reason is at the upper point, and for anything to come above ir would have to be superior, and anything superior to reason must be God. Once God has been proven to exist, the second determinant is if all good things are from God. He breaks down the existence of living things by saying they all have form due to numbers, and take away these numbers and they will be nothing (On the Free Choice of the Will 2.15.39.154). For God is the source of form and number of all existing things, he is the
His adaption of conventional thought to the teachings of Christianity has lasted a tremendous impression and influence of future traditions to come. Augustine wrote almost his entire life, particularly books and homilies, all written in Latin, writing more philosophically in earlier years compared to religious matters in the latter (The Catholic Encyclopedia). One specific work in particular that contains almost every distinctive feature that Saint Augustine cultivated in his philosophy was On Free Choice of the Will. It accumulates his theory of human accountability in order to try to reconcile our aptitude to have free will with Gods influence. This can further be translated to, how is it possible that we are given free will, in which we can commit evil, and it was granted to us by God, that he is not responsible for the evil executed in the world? In response to this conflict faced by theologians and philosophers alike, he attempts to place agency on the individual his or her self because if they have free will, then they are responsible for their said actions thus far because God granted them to do …show more content…
To answer this issue he takes an approach of a priori to establish the proof of God existence. A priori knowledge is used to denote the foundations upon which a proposition is known; specifically it is independent of any experience other than the experience of learning the language in which the proposition is expressed (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Through this way of acquiring knowledge, you make an argument from what is discovered prior, as what Augustine outlines in the second book. We must first establish the fact that God even exists before moving forward in this argumentation, because once the base is established, his theory is built upon it with a priori reasoning. First it is known that there is a hierarchy arrangement in nature where reason is at the upper point, and for anything to come above ir would have to be superior, and anything superior to reason must be God. Once God has been proven to exist, the second determinant is if all good things are from God. He breaks down the existence of living things by saying they all have form due to numbers, and take away these numbers and they will be nothing (On the Free Choice of the Will 2.15.39.154). For God is the source of form and number of all existing things, he is the