(c 1225-1274) Italian Dominican monk and theologian; wrote 1.
Summa Contra Gentiles and 2.
Contra Errores Graecorum; but his book
Summa Theologiae united
Aristotle's philosophy with Christianity to become the classic Roman Catholic theology; used allegory in his
sermons. He is noted for rational proofs for existence of God; view is called Thomism; 20th century theologians of his kind are
Neo-Thomists . Regarding his view of the theory of knowledge, he was not like
Plato who held that man knows everything
innate ly; instead he followed
Aristotle . Reason is insufficient to know God or the world. Natural reason leads one to the "porch of faith." There has to be a "given" to supplement reason. Knowledge of God needs revelation and knowledge of the world needs
experience. However, God's revelation and man's experience overlap. Therefore, in this overlapping area, man is able to know something of God through his experience. In particular, he knows the existence of God.
