Other Philosophical Schools that inspire your Catholicism?

[ChineseCatholic]

Had a very interesting encounter with someone on what amounts to the “other religions” forum on CAF.

A dyed-in-wool fan of Thomas Aquinas (read the Summa, read Fesner), who eventually became a Pagan and now uses Scholasticism to support his new religion, specifically his belief in reincarnation.

I couldn’t help but laugh a little - he basically did what Thomas did to Aristotle, but reversed the outcome.

This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to the attentive Aquinian. Aristotleanism has been utilized by ancient Pagans, Jews, and Muslims in defense of their own faith systems…and usually suffered from the same type of initial anti-Aristotlean reaction.

Heck, the Commentators Aquinas utilized and made reference to were literally the greatest proponents of Aristotleanism within the Jewish and Muslim faith - Moses Maimonides and Ibn Sina.

But it did make me contemplate about Contemporary matters.

It did make me wonder, if anyone has pulled something useful from the Modern philosophical schools (aside from Analytical Logic) for use in terms of Faith?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

It did make me wonder, if anyone has pulled something useful from the Modern philosophical schools (aside from Analytical Logic) for use in terms of Faith?

Existentialism was provocative, but didn’t teach me any more than that it was wrong-headed. Camus before his premature death was apparently having second thoughts and Sartre converted on his deathbed, so perhaps existentialism also taught them that they had been wrongheaded.

 

[ChineseCatholic]

Existentialism was provocative, but didn’t teach me any more than that it was wrong-headed. Camus before his premature death was apparently having second thoughts and Sartre converted on his deathbed, so perhaps existentialism also taught them that they had been wrongheaded.

Not a fan of Transcendental Thomism i see.

I actually feel quite sorry for the Existentialists…or some of them at least - when you break down their philosophies they are at times so idiosyncratic, i think i’m dealing with less a philosophy and more a personal psychology of the writer.

In fact i actually think Camus had a lot more psychological insight about modern man than the rest of them. No weird philosophical jargon, no pretention - just an original mind struggling with the issues faced by modern man.

Sartre… I once heard a podcast about his attempt to “reform Communism” - by trying incredibly hard to get the French Communists to believe that what they meant by Communism was his version of Existentialism. Now that’s some Ego don’t ya think?

Camus wanted to organize his life and find meaning. Sartre wanted to be a lot more than what he was at the end of the day.

Any thoughts on Soren Kierkegaard? Again although we call him an “existentialist,” beyond a mere point or two he has little in common with the above two figures…