Last Things (start at the end)
- Sometimes it is only possible to see how we got somewhere after we know where we end up
- Where does the Patristic reflection end up? (as artificially determined by Scot)
- Aquinas: re-discovery of Aristotle, synthesizes (mostly Platonic) Patristic thought with Aristotle's framework
- Neo-Scholastic (Aquinas) Catholic thought (from the mid-to-late 20th C) has come into vogue in Protestant circles (Hauerwas, etc)
- For better or worse, or otherwise, Aquinas defined the terms we use to think about these things now. We1 read earlier theology through the lens of Aquinas. We de facto let Aquinas tell us what terms mean, and thereby let him tell us what others thought. He may be right2, but we owe it to our Fathers to hear them on their own, not as St. Thomas wants us to hear them.
- I want to be cool too...
1 Western, Catholic / Mainline Protestant / Anglican—Methodist
2 academic understatement for: "I don't think he's right"