Philosopher and theologian of the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas influenced the Christian Church’s dogma, trying to reconcile Christian faith with Aristotle’s philosophy. It is known that reason is susceptible to justification, empirically or logically; but on the other hand, revelation, pertaining to the order of faith, is not questionable, nor justified by reason. Revelation hence appears to be a new category of knowledge. In Summa Theologiae, Aquinas considers theology to be a science with reason at its service, and its foundation to be the scriptures. In order to demonstrate his arguments, he establishes a series of questions, and reinforces his answers by refuting the possible objections. Throughout the text, Aquinas establishes and justifies
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Metaphors are rooted in the perception of sensible bodies, which seems to model the corporeal on the incorporeal, and this appears to make the metaphor inappropriate to describe God, as it can mislead humans to understand God in terms related to the senses and the corporeal world. There is no benefit for science “to teach divine things by likening them to corporeal things (p.54, l.20)”. Whereas it may seem of no use as it is proper to lower disciplines, metaphor can facilitate the understanding of God even if the latter exceeds our understanding. “For God provides for everything according to the capacity of its nature. Now, it is natural to man to attain to intellectual truths through sensible objects, because all our knowledge originates from the senses (p.54, l.30)”. Sacred scripture reveals divine and spiritual truths by offering comparisons with material things, as the latter are common to humans and are the source of knowledge after abstraction. Moreover, it contributes in avoiding misunderstanding or error resulting from the human mind. “Sacred scripture teaches spiritual truths by means of the imaginary of corporeal things so that even uneducated persons may be able to understand them (p.54, l.36)”, and “as defense against the ridicule of the impious (p.55, l.12)”. Therefore, the metaphors are here to simplify …show more content…
“The literal sense of the same passage of Scripture conveys several meanings (p.56, l.19)”. Aquinas tries to account for this multiplicity of meanings by considering that with the use of metaphors, two meanings emanate from a sentence: the literal sense and the spiritual sense, and Aquinas tries to show that these two meanings are tied up and related. On the one hand, the literal sense designates the direct signification of the words, the ideas or concepts to which it refers; the reality to which they are related. “That first signification whereby words signify things belongs to the first sense, the historical or literal (p.56, l.7)”. On the other hand, the spiritual sense is based on the literal meaning, and is further extended into three categories: the allegorical, the moral, and the anagogical. It has “a threefold division (p.56, l.10)”. The allegorical aspect designates and makes reference to God, the moral one is related to what should or shouldn’t be done, and the anagogical aspect points towards God’s transcendent nature. Hence, words, with their literal signification point towards things. These things point toward the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses, which account for the spiritual signification. “This science has the distinctive property that the things signified by the words
Metaphors are rooted in the perception of sensible bodies, which seems to model the corporeal on the incorporeal, and this appears to make the metaphor inappropriate to describe God, as it can mislead humans to understand God in terms related to the senses and the corporeal world. There is no benefit for science “to teach divine things by likening them to corporeal things (p.54, l.20)”. Whereas it may seem of no use as it is proper to lower disciplines, metaphor can facilitate the understanding of God even if the latter exceeds our understanding. “For God provides for everything according to the capacity of its nature. Now, it is natural to man to attain to intellectual truths through sensible objects, because all our knowledge originates from the senses (p.54, l.30)”. Sacred scripture reveals divine and spiritual truths by offering comparisons with material things, as the latter are common to humans and are the source of knowledge after abstraction. Moreover, it contributes in avoiding misunderstanding or error resulting from the human mind. “Sacred scripture teaches spiritual truths by means of the imaginary of corporeal things so that even uneducated persons may be able to understand them (p.54, l.36)”, and “as defense against the ridicule of the impious (p.55, l.12)”. Therefore, the metaphors are here to simplify …show more content…
“The literal sense of the same passage of Scripture conveys several meanings (p.56, l.19)”. Aquinas tries to account for this multiplicity of meanings by considering that with the use of metaphors, two meanings emanate from a sentence: the literal sense and the spiritual sense, and Aquinas tries to show that these two meanings are tied up and related. On the one hand, the literal sense designates the direct signification of the words, the ideas or concepts to which it refers; the reality to which they are related. “That first signification whereby words signify things belongs to the first sense, the historical or literal (p.56, l.7)”. On the other hand, the spiritual sense is based on the literal meaning, and is further extended into three categories: the allegorical, the moral, and the anagogical. It has “a threefold division (p.56, l.10)”. The allegorical aspect designates and makes reference to God, the moral one is related to what should or shouldn’t be done, and the anagogical aspect points towards God’s transcendent nature. Hence, words, with their literal signification point towards things. These things point toward the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses, which account for the spiritual signification. “This science has the distinctive property that the things signified by the words