Chapter 15: The Middle Ages
The Middle Ages
- Alberto compares the Middle Ages to the clock(each hour=100 years):
- Jesus was born at 12:00 a.m.
- Paul began his missionary journeys at 1:30 a.m. and died at 1:45 a.m.
- Christianity became the official religion of Rome from 4:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
St. Augustine 354-430 A.D.
- His Christianity is influenced by Platonic ideas. He believed that there were limits on how far reason will get you with religious ideas and questions. That's why we have faith.
- He believed that God created the world out of nothing, but he held the "ideas" for the world in his divine mind.
- Evil is the absense of good and comed from mankind's disobedience
- There is only a material body with a soul that only God can choose to save. God predetermined who was to be saved.
- There is a struggle between the "Kingdom of God" and the "Kingdom of the World" inside people
- "There is no salvation outside the church."
St. Thomas Aquinas 1225-1274 A.D.
- He believed that in the "natural theological truths" which can be explained by Christian Faith and by innate or natural reason
- There are two paths to God: through reason and senses, or through faith and revelation
- He "Christianized" Aristotle. He retold Aristotle's philosophy in a way that the church would accept it.
- Aquinas added angels and God to Aristotle's progressive existence.
plants => animals => humans => angels => God
- Aquinas, like Aristotle believed women to be incomplete
- women were created from a man's rib
- all characteristics come from the father
- men's and women's souls were equal in heaven