Ibn Rushd Research Paper

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One particular difference between Ibn Rushd and Aquinas is that Aquinas reconciled “Aristotle to Christ” and not “Christ to Aristotle.” While Ibn Rushd would often try to make the Qur’an line up with Aristotelian thinking, Aquinas held the Bible as the greatest source of authority. He would not compromise his Catholic orthodoxy in order to agree with Aristotle. Modern day apologists need to approach philosophy with a similar mindset. Philosophy is valuable in providing deep insight to the world, why things work the way they do, and how people think. However, no philosopher is right on every single thing, and Christians need to be able to discern the good from the bad. Christians also should learn how to take good aspects of philosophy from …show more content…

Aquinas strove to look at the Islamic view of Aristotelianism from the inside, and he did so by engaging with Islamic philosophers like Ibn Rushd. Seeing how each of the philosophers leading up to Ibn Rushd worked with Aristotle and how that affected Ibn Rushd, gives a history of Islamic philosophy. Aquinas was acquainted with this, and this gave him a foundation for how many in the Islamic world viewed philosophy, religion, and the world around them. For example, after the death of Ibn Rushd Islamic philosophy grew less popular due to a growing sense of fundamentalism. This was the cause of a growing division between the Mutazilites (philosophers) and the Asharites (the theologians). This left a lasting negative view of philosophy in the Islamic world and the neglect of reason. However, Christendom came to embrace much of the work Islamic philosophers did. This is one reason why the West seen cultivating philosophy and using it to impact society, and many countries in the Islamic world neglecting philosophy and promoting Islamic fundamentalism. This was starting to take place around Aquinas’s time. He engaged both Muslims, who were impacted by Islamic philosophy, and Christians, who were being introduced to Islamic philosophy. His understanding equipped him to defend the Christian faith to both groups. This desire and understanding even led him to write

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