Blog #3

Maggie Vincent

Mrs. Wilhelmus

AP English Language

29 July 2013

A Little Sugar

      I vividly remember Mary Poppins singing about how sugar helps ease taking nasty medicine. There comes a time in every child's life when he or she feels ill and has to choke down a spoonful of "helpful" tar. This song can also serve as an analogy for more important events. Sometimes that event could be just having the chicken pox or it could be for accepting ideas not supported by one's beliefs. Back in the days of St. Augustine and Aquinas, Christianity was very powerful. Due to this, the teachings of Plato and Aristotle were falling by the wayside because they did not go with what Christianity said. This is where St. Augustine and Aquinas stepped in to help make the medicine go down more easily.

      Mary Poppins singing about taking medicine is the picture that immediately popped into my mind when Gaarder wrote about how Aquinas and St. Augustine helped Christianize Plato and Aristotle. With a large Christian population, Plato and Aristotle's teachings were no longer being well received. St. Augustine looked at Christianity and Plato's teachings and saw harmony. Christianity states that God created the world in seven days while Plato believed that the world had always existed. St. Augustine took this to mean that the world had always existed in God's mind. By making these connections, St. Augustine made it easier for Christians to open their minds to Plato and Greek philosophy.

      Aquinas' connections between Christianity and Aristotle give me more pause than what St. Augustine did. Aquinas said that Aristotle did not have complete knowledge of religion because Christianity did not exist during his lifetime. Putting this idea into play means that when Aristotle said a higher being having power over the world, he must have meant God. This idea makes me cringe because I do not think that is how it should work. Just because I say the answer is 17 and the real answer is 17 plus 3i does not make me right. If the question is, "Who dies in The Great Gatsby?" and I write Gatsby died, that is not right, two others die as well. I understand that Aquinas was trying to give Aristotle a place in the Christian world, but it still makes me cringe when I think about the logic he used.

      I do not believe Aquinas and St. Augustine lied when they Christianized the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. I do, however, think that they twisted it a little so that it would be easier for Christians to swallow. On one hand, I hate that their teachings were twisted around. On the other hand, the teachings of Plato and Aristotle could have been lost, or at least buried, for a very long time. With what Aquinas and St. Augustine did, the teachings of two great Greek philosophers remained.