Contemporary Political Theory

Saint Thomas Aquinas' thought embodied the conviction that faith and reason are aspects of a single truth and cannot be in conflict with one another. According to Aquinas, "people know something when its truth is either immediately evident to them or can be made evident by appeal to immediately evident truths."(GME "Aquinas"). They believe something when they accept its truth on authority. Religious faith is the acceptance of truths on the authority of what God tells them. Despite the fact that this seems to make knowledge and faith two utterly distinct realms, Thomas held that some of the things God has revealed are in fact knowable. He called these 'preambles of faith,' including among them the existence of God and certain of his attributes, the immortality of the human soul, and some moral principles. The rest of what has been revealed he called 'mysteries of faith,' for example, the Trinity, the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, the resurrection, and so on. He then argued that, "if some of the things God has revealed can be known to be true, it is reasonable to accept the mysteries as true."(GME "Aquinas").
Saint Thomas Aquinas incorporated Aristotlianism into Catholicism. …