Analysis Of Thomas Aquinas And Maimonides

Thomas Aquinas and Maimonides are both heavily influential thinkers and philosophers in theology. They each, though, have a concept of the names of God and how it is possible to speak about the essence and being of God. While Maimonides holds a position of negative theology, that the only things that may be said of God are those which he is not because of the issues superiority of God’s being, Aquinas believes that is it possible to affirm features of God based on the nature of God and his believers. Because of this, it seems that Aquinas takes on a more agreeable perspective on the attributes of God

In Aquinas’ Summa Theologica, the question of God’s names and the ability to positively affirm his attributes versus a negative theology and

The example that Aquinas used was that medicine would therefore be called healthy, because it is the cause of health (329). But this does not seem to be correct. Yes, medicine does help improve health when it is lessened by an illness or ailment, but that does not mean is causes health. Before we take medicine, we have a certain level of health, and even before we get sick we had an even higher level of health, and medicine is used to go back to an original level of health. But this cannot be said about God. Even in the example of health, God is the cause of all things, including health. So, to say that God is like medicine is to also say that God did not have a hand in the original state of whatever he is influencing, such as good that exists in the world, for without God there would not have been God to enhance or bring back to a previous

Although I identify as agnostic and believe that there is little we would actually be able to know of God is there was on because of a lack of evidence, I also find that “militant” religion is rather intimidating and seems to defeat the purpose of faith. When it comes to religion, I’d like to think that people would be able to find comfort in their beliefs; be able to worship God and praise him in any method that they wish. This includes calling him good, wise, powerful, and merciful, and meaning it, not that he is the cause of the good, the wise, the powerful, or the merciful. Because of this, I identify more with Aquinas’ rejection of negative theology on the basis of intentions of the