Posted on 07/14/2008 5:39:34 AM PDT by NYer
Thomas Aquinas was NOT a pantheist. You can complain that he might have borrowed too much from Greek philosophers in his writings, but to accuse him of being anything but a doctrinaire Catholic Christian is a profoundly false and unjust accusation.
What he meant, even though I am not sure specifically what quotes you are quoting, is you can discern the work of God in everything, not that everything is God.
name me one Catholic saint that practiced earth worship. just one. not including pagans who converted who at one time had worshipped nature, but became Christians.
You keep asking questions as if to pick at nits with me. I read lots of books - I research authors and subjects before spending time and money on them. ALL of them are tested in light of Scripture as I read them.
The only point in my posting to this thread is to reinforce the message that mystical, gnostic, contemplative, occult practices ARE dangerous.
actually, many of the Church fathers learned from the Apostles and their disciples in person. For example St. Ignatius of Antioch and St. Polycarp of Smyrna both learned from St. John the Evangelist, the “Disciple who Jesus loved”.
Are you starting from the premise that ALL mysticism and contemplation is gnostic, occult and dangerous?
There is also the reality that the earliest Church fathers DID NOT have the benefit of the New Testament because parts of it had not yet been written and it certainly had not been compiled as Canon.
I apologize. Thomas Aquinas apparently was not a pantheist; he was a panentheist (all-in-God) - although people in both groups claim him. In Henry Adams, Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1933), page 371: “Thomas [Aquinas] spoke of God as the primary, and the Angels the secondary cause of all visible effects, which was essentially the Gnostic teaching. Thomas was accused of Pantheism by Franciscans and Jesuits.”
I do not sit in judgment as to whether or not Aquinas was a “doctrinaire Catholic” or not (not sure what one of those is), but many of his most popular views are either pantheistic or panentheistic. Either one is heresy.
From what I've seen, a lot of creative interpretations of Scripture are misleading and false.
Aquinas lived in the 1200s - the Jesuits weren't founded until the 1500s. Is the author of this piece claiming the Jesuits later assailed the positions of the Angelic Doctor after his canonization? If so, what references does he give to support that? That is the first I've heard of it, so I'm genuinely curious.
As I’ve said earlier in this thread - defining terms is the important foundation upon which one builds a conversation.
Contemplative practices that are occult - empty your mind - rather than Biblical (such as “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”) are dangerous.
Regarding mystical, gnostic, and occult practices - yes; I consider them all dangerous, as all of these have their foundation in pagan spirituality, which is by nature hostile to Christ.
Historical review commonly takes place after an event. If you are genuinely curious, I suggest you find the book cited: “Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres” by Henry Adams, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1933).
A Google search of “Thomas Aquinas” and pantheism returns lots of sites, many of which are occult, pagan religious outfits that herald Aquinas and revere much of his teaching.
Precisely! The Jesuits would have been severely reprimanded for even suggesting that Aquinas was a heretic.
I think you completely misunderstand Thomas Aquinas-—if anything, even though they do not admit it, his version of Augustinian monergistic theology heavily influenced both Luther and Calvin.
Yes, he was condemned during his lifetime, mainly for using philosophy so heavily in his writings on natural law.
And Thomist theology/philosophy is in no way Gnostic. Have you ever read Gnostic scripture? I have the Nag Hammadi translations at home and some of them make scientology look rational.
And as far as God being the primary cause of everything, what does calvin teach? Isn’t predestination the basic tenet of Reformed theology?
I wasn’t sure if there was a handy footnote or endnote directing the reader to some scholarship supporting the claim. I just ran the cite through my library’s website, and they do not have it.
that reminds me of a certain cartoonist who says that the Jesuits created Islam, without realizing the Jesuit Order did not exist until the 1500s.
Thanks, I almost missed that whole part about the Jesuits (you know you have a serious protestant when they start seeing Jesuits under the bed at night).
That doesn’t make Aquinas a pantheist or a nature worshipper. It means people are reading things into his writing that he did not intend.
"Mont Saint Michel and Chartres" was a book that Henry Adams wrote about medieval cathedrals in France.
Here is a rather illuminating quote from the author upon whose word you reject Aquinas:
"With communism I would exist tolerably well... but in a society of Jews and brokers, a world made up of maniacs wild for gold, I have no place."
Even in the 16th century, there was a great deal of mistrust of the Jesuits even within the Church. Many saw Loyola as an agent of the king of Spain seeking to exert influence over the Church. They would have ceased to exist if they had suggested that the writings of Aquinas were heretical.
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