Aquinas and the Medieval intellectual honesty

 

Aquinas holds that if someone gives a bad argument for God, we shouldn't act as if everything is ok because 'at least they are on the right team.' We should shoot the argument down, Aquinas says, lest people think that belief in God is based on this bad reason.

—Michael Gorman (Thomistic Institute)

This is a ‘Medieval’ thought-provoking idea; it could be surprising for many of us contemporary people, but Aquinas, and Thomists in general, have always tried to be intellectually honest as much as possible. One could dare to say even more than the average contemporary thinker.

My initial idea of Aquinas, and other Medieval philosophers, was a ridiculous and irrational caricature influenced by the modern thinkers, who might have never read his works at all. The notable Thomist philosopher, Edward Feser, has been arguing the same thing, for years.

I learned a little about this two years ago, when I began reading Aquinas’ Prima Pars of Summa Theologica; I was simply astonished.

He’s among of the rarest thinkers who have genuinely searched for the best arguments, pro, and contra, on the questions that he raised and answered.

Unfortunately, we rarely do it. Stereotypically, the postmodern people rather aim to demonize and ‘cancel’ those who might hold different views—in a worse irrational way that Enlightenment and New Atheists imagine[d] the Medieval discourse./AlbertBikaj