Thomas Aquinas
1225-1274 · Scholasticism · Household name
Aquinas was a Dominican friar of the Middle Ages. Aristotle had come back to Latin Europe through Arabic hands with a smell of godlessness about him, and Aquinas made him the frame of Christian theology instead. He held that faith and reason cannot collide, since both come from God. Philosophy climbs as far as it can, and revelation carries you the rest. God is being itself, and the moral law lies open to anyone who thinks hard about human flourishing.
Signature
The position Aquinas is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Natural Processes
- strongly leans Purposeful
- Ethics Basis
- Natural Law / Virtue
Positions on the 18 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- strongly leans Purposeful (100 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- leans Collectivism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Mind
- leans Beyond Brain (71 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- mildly leans Describable (32 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Beauty
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Universals
- mildly leans Realism (32 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Identity
- leans Unchanging (25 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- strongly leans Inherent (100 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Vertical (25 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Nature of Reality
- leans Unity (25 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Ground of Being
- strongly leans Transcendence (100 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Opposition
- leans Concurrence (75 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Polity
- leans Illiberalism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Ethics
- leans Means (75 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- War
- mildly leans Militarism (68 on a 0–100 scale from Pacifism to Militarism)
- Ignorance
- mildly leans Bondage (33 on a 0–100 scale from Bondage to Bliss)
2 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Aquinas refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Monarchy / Hybrid Regime
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Union with God
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Good Real, Evil Privative
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Division of Good and Evil
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Perception
- Direct Realism
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Grounded in God / Receptive Intellect
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Natural Law / Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Synergism
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Creation ex Nihilo
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Eschatological
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Economy
- Distributism
What is the ideal organization of economic life? - Authority
- Divine Revelation / Natural Law
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Representation
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Paradox
- Paradox as Error
What is the status of paradox? - Law
- Natural Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Judgement
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Virtue to Cultivate
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Redeemably Corrupted / Imago Dei
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- The Divine
What is your primary bond and loyalty?