Platonism/Aristotleanism - Two Major Philosophies of the Church!

[JMJ_coder]

Hello,

As far as I know, the Catholic Church is built upon two major philosophical systems - one is Platonism and the other is Aristotleanism. Platonism was the philosophical system of the undivided Church in the first millennium. It continues to play a key role in the life of the Catholic Church still today. I don’t think that the Orthodox Church every got into Aristotleanism, seeing how his works didn’t start making it back into circulation until after the Great Schism.

This thread is for discussion of the philosophies of the Latin Catholic, Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

 

[East_and_West]

The Church is not built upon any philosophical system. However, since Aristotle is quite often accurate in his metaphysics, we, at times, use his termonology to describe the mysteries of the faith. However, adopting Aristotilian metaphysics is not necessary to the faith. Even the term transubstantiation need not assume Aristotle. The doctorine of transubstantiation merely teaches that the “what” of the bread and wine becomes the “what” of Jesus, body, blood, soul and divinity. However, it continues to look and physically behave like bread and wine. We do not need Aristotilian terms to describe this; yet they are useful.

 

[Isa_Almisry]

Au contraire, without the Aristotelean distinction between substance and accidents, there would be no basis to transubstantiation as needing to explain the change.

Btw, St. John of Damascus’ “Fount of Knowledge” begins with a discussion of Aristotelean catagories, so Aristotle was far from unknown in his homeland of the East.

 

[dvdjs]

… without the Aristotelean distinction between substance and accidents, there would be no basis to transubstantiation as needing to explain the change.

I am not sure what you mean here, Isa.

But what is “explained” is not the change, which certainly remains beyond human understanding, but the lack of change in appearance. Notwithstanding the evident fact that the sacred species look and taste like bread and wine, we nevertheless assert that they are the body and blood of our savior.

Hmmm, I didn’t need to say “substance” or “accident”.

 

[Ghosty]

Both Platonism and Aristoleanism are antithetical to the Faith in and of themselves, but their languages have been adapted by various Saints to apply to theological matters.

Platonism certainly wasn’t the philosophical system of the united Church, as many of the theological arguments of the Faith were made AGAINST Platonists; the only thing is that the Platonist terminology was used so as to communicate with the Platonists who were being opposed by the Catholic theologians.

Aristotle’s terminology was used in much the same way against Aristotleans and even Aristotle himself. Neither Plato nor Aristotle were accepted as philosophical “fathers” of the Church, since their respective philosophies led to gross errors in the Faith (which is why when Aristotle became popular in the West his philosophy was significantly amended and the errors abandoned, most notably by St. Thomas Aquinas).

Peace and God bless!

 

[Ghosty]

Au contraire, without the Aristotelean distinction between substance and accidents, there would be no basis to transubstantiation as needing to explain the change.

This makes no sense, I’m afraid. Aristotle’s language was used to describe the Mystery, but it hardly introduced the issue. Rather it simply gave us new language to utilize in discussing what occurs; the question of what occurs goes back to the earliest Fathers of the Church (most notably St. Justin) who explained to their pagan neighbors that we receive the Flesh and Blood of Christ rather than bread and wine.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Isa_Almisry]

Both Platonism and Aristoleanism are antithetical to the Faith in and of themselves, but their languages have been adapted by various Saints to apply to theological matters.

Platonism certainly wasn’t the philosophical system of the united Church, as many of the theological arguments of the Faith were made AGAINST Platonists; the only thing is that the Platonist terminology was used so as to communicate with the Platonists who were being opposed by the Catholic theologians.

Aristotle’s terminology was used in much the same way against Aristotleans and even Aristotle himself. Neither Plato nor Aristotle were accepted as philosophical “fathers” of the Church, since their respective philosophies led to gross errors in the Faith (which is why when Aristotle became popular in the West his philosophy was significantly amended and the errors abandoned, most notably by St. Thomas Aquinas).

Peace and God bless!

On a number of Orthodox churches, images of Plato and Aristotle appear on the outside of the church, as percursors of the Truth.