Dictionary of Philosophy of Religion

(Dana P.) #1
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AQUINAS, St. THOMAS OF

assuming a human body. Apollinarian
Christologies did not acknowledge the
full humanity of Jesus Christ.


APOLOGETICS. A defense of the truth
of a position or religion. For Christians,
apologetics names the practice of setting
forth reasons for accepting the Christian
faith.


APOLOGY. A defense. The classic model
is Socrates’ defense of himself in Plato’s
Apology. A well-known apology in the nine-
teenth century is John Henry Newman’s
Apologia pro Vita Sua (1865–1866).


APOPHATIC THEOLOGY. Also known
as negative theology, apophatic theology
emphasizes God’s radical transcendence
to the effect that only negative properties
may be attributed to God. God is not
material, not spatial, not temporal, not
finite, and so on. Some advocates of apo-
phatic theology go so far as to claim that
even “existence” cannot be attributed to
God; on this view, God may be said to
be beyond existence or being. See also
RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE.


APOSTASY. From the Greek apostasia,
meaning “a defection.” Traditionally an
apostate is someone who once professed
a traditional religious faith but has since


renounced it. The term is pejorative,
implying infidelity, betrayal, or a blame-
worthy faithlessness. For instance, it
would be hyperbolic or misleading to call
someone an apostate who was a Christian
in her youth, but rejected Christian faith
in college in the process of adopting Zen
Buddhism.

AQUINAS, St. THOMAS OF (1225–
1274). The most influential medieval
philosopher and theologian who shaped
much (but not all) of Roman Catholic
philosophy and theology. He refined the
Neoplatonic-influenced Christianity of
Augustine by way of Aristotle. So, rather
than Augustine’s clear distinction of soul
and body, Aquinas argued that the soul is
the form of the body. Although Aquinas
affirmed an individual afterlife, he asserted
that the soul and body constituted a unity
in this life (and also in the afterlife, after
the resurrection of the body). The idea
that the soul is the form of the body is
called hylomorphism.
Although Aquinas thought that we
cannot directly grasp God’s essence, he
held that there were five compelling
arguments to justify the belief that God
exists (sometimes called “the five ways”)
and that God may be known through
analogy. Aquinas developed an extensive
philosophy of the divine attributes, the
incarnation and the trinity, human action
and virtues, the atonement, sacraments,
the church, history, and politics. His chief
works include On Being and Essence
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