The Study of Deism

Augustine, and "Augustine himself may occasionally be interpreted deistically." The deist sees matinee idol as "the primary perplex of all that occurs," either bringing about every moment or supporting the existence of every event (Bilynskyj). Bilynskyj uses the model that "A match produces a fire only because theology conserves it in existence as the sort of social occasion that can produce a flame." Thus, deism is the source of the normally voiced concept that "God is in control."

To the deist, however, God is a remote God. composition God may be a causal agent, He is non seen as a Father. In fact, He is not even seen as a Friend. God is an impersonal be who does not involve himself intimately in the affairs of man, nor is He really interested in aspect at man up close. He created the universe, set it in motion, and then withdrew from the earthly realm, leaving man unable to be intimate Him truly. In one description, this state of affairs is expressed frankincensely: "Like a great watchmaker, he designed the intricacies and viewer of creation and then, having wound it up like a hulk machine, he left it to run on its own without godlike intervention" ("God the Father" 3).

Both St. Augustine and St. Thomas doubting Thomas depart significantly from the deist view, yet they do not completely agree with one another either. Between deism and St. Augustine, a paradigm shift occurred. From the cut-a

Bilynskyj, Stephen S. "What In The World Is God Doing?"

Augustine's contribution to epistemology is to clarify the telling position of philosophy within it. Augustine sees philosophy not as the definer of truth but as the producer of "a manikin for scientific research which may take the form of a metanarrative or proto-theory" that serves as a "reference for the empirical probe of the problem of knowledge as a prerequisite to the motion into the nature of reality" ("St. Augustine's Knowledge Methodology"). Augustine's view of morals is that it is "an enquiry into the Summum Bonum: the supreme good, which provides the happiness all human beings desire" (Kent).

He sees happiness as "the enjoyment of God, a reinforcer granted in the after bread and butter for virtue in this life" and virtue as being "a gift of God, and founded on love, not on the wisdom prized by philosophers" (Kent). Augustine's notions of governance atomic number 18 rooted in the need for obedience to authority, but he sees those in authority as being servants to others rather than rulers (Pejza).

As with Augustine, a case can be made for Aquinas' being the most influential philosopher during his era. Coming after Augustine, Aquinas carried on the philosophical ideas that Augustine had originated, but he was not a clear disciple. Aquinas drew in a rich panoply of ideas from many another(prenominal) great thinkers and synthesized his own thinking on the basis of the crush ideas that he found. He was an original thinker as rise as a student of other great thinkers, and thus his own ideas influenced his contemporaries and those that came after him just as Augustine's had influenced him. It may be that Aquinas' captivity was the precise challenge he had require to solidify his earnest desire to seek God, and that from that experience came an forte and clarity of thought that few others have ever manifested. While undoubtedly there were other great thinkers in
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