The doctrine of man in medieval philosophy. The problem of man in medieval philosophy

The “judicial thinking” of medieval man expanded beyond the boundaries of the earthly world. God, the Creator, was understood as the Judge. Moreover, if at the first stages of the Middle Ages He was endowed with the traits of balanced, stern inflexibility and paternal condescension, then at the end of this era he was already a merciless and vengeful Lord. Why? Philosophers of the late Middle Ages explained the extraordinary increase in the preaching of fear of the formidable Deity by the deep socio-psychological and religious crisis of the transition period.

God's Judgment had a dual character, for one, private, trial took place when someone died, the other. Universal, must take place at the end of the history of the human race. Naturally, this aroused great interest among philosophers in understanding the meaning of history.

The most difficult problem, sometimes incomprehensible to modern consciousness, was the problem of historical time.

Medieval man lived, as it were, outside of time, in a constant sense of eternity. He willingly endured the daily routine, noticing only the change of day and seasons. He did not need time, because it, earthly and vain, distracted him from work, which in itself was only a delay before the main event - God's Judgment.

Theologians argued for the linear flow of historical time. In the concept of sacred history (from the Latin sacer - sacred, associated with religious rites), time flows from the act of Creation through the passion of Christ to the end of the world and the Second Coming. In accordance with this scheme, they were built in the 13th century. and concepts of earthly history (for example, Vincent of Beauvais).

Philosophers tried to solve the problem of historical time and eternity. But this problem was not simple, because, like all medieval consciousness, it was also characterized by a certain dualism: the expectation of the end of history and at the same time the recognition of its eternity. On the one hand, there is an eschatological attitude (from the Greek eschatos - last, final), that is, the expectation of the end of the world, on the other hand, history was presented as a reflection of supra-temporal, supra-historical “sacred events”: “Christ was born once and cannot be born again.”

A great contribution to the development of this problem was made by Augustine the Blessed, who is often called one of the first philosophers of history. He tried to explain such categories of time as past, present and future. In his opinion, only the present is valid, the past is connected with human memory, and the future lies in hope. Everything is united once and for all in God as Absolute Eternity. This understanding of the absolute eternity of God and the real variability of the material and human world became the basis of the Christian medieval worldview for a long time.

Augustine deals with the “fate of humanity,” guided, however, by biblical historiography, which claims that what was predicted by the prophets for many centuries is coming true in established deadlines. Hence the conviction that history, even with the uniqueness of all its events, is fundamentally predictable, and, therefore, filled with meaning. The basis of this meaningfulness lies in Divine Providence, Divine care of humanity. Everything that needs to happen serves the fulfillment of the original Divine plan:

punishing people for original sin; testing their ability to resist human evil and testing their will to good; atonement for original sin; calling the best part of humanity to build a sacred community of the righteous; the separation of the righteous from the sinners and the final reward to each according to his deserts. In accordance with the objectives of this plan, history is divided into six periods (eons). Augustine, as a rule, refrains from talking about the temporal duration of each of the periods and considers all biblical eschatological periods to be purely symbolic.

In contrast to his Christian predecessors and medieval followers, Augustine is more interested not in chronology, but in the logic of history, which was the subject of his main work, “De civitafe Dei” (“On the City of God”). The book is about a global community of people, a community that is not political, but ideological, spiritual.

5. Thomas Aquinas - systematizer of medieval scholasticism

One of the most prominent representatives of mature scholasticism, the monk Thomas Aquinas (1225/26-1274), a student of the famous theologian, philosopher and naturalist Albertus Magnus (1193-1280), like his teacher, tried to substantiate the basic principles of Christian theology, relying on the teachings of Aristotle . At the same time, the latter was transformed in such a way that it did not conflict with the dogmas of the creation of the world from nothing and with the doctrine of the God-manhood of Jesus Christ.

For Thomas, the highest principle is being. By being, Thomas understands the Christian God who created the world, as it is narrated in the Old Testament. Distinguishing between being and essence, Thomas does not contrast them, but on the contrary (following Aristotle) emphasizes them common root. Entities, or substances, according to Thomas, have independent existence, in contrast to accidents (properties, qualities), which exist only thanks to substances. From here the difference between substantial and accidental forms is derived. A substantial form imparts simple existence to every thing, and therefore, when it appears, we say that something has arisen, and when it disappears, we say that something has collapsed. Accidental form is the source of certain qualities, not the existence of things. Distinguishing, following Aristotle, actual and potential states, Thomas considers being as the first of the actual states. In every thing, Thomas believes, there is as much being as there is actuality in it. On this basis, he distinguishes four levels of the existence of things depending on their degree of relevance.

1. At the lowest level of being, form, according to Thomas, constitutes only the external determination of a thing (causa formalis); this includes inorganic elements and minerals.

2. At the next stage, form appears as the final cause (causa finalis) of a thing, which therefore has an internal purposiveness, called by Aristotle the “vegetative soul,” as if forming the body from the inside. Such, according to Aristotle (and accordingly Thomas), are plants.

3. The third level is animals, here the form is the efficient cause (causa efficient), therefore the existence has within itself not only a goal, but also the beginning of activity, movement. At all three levels, form is transformed into matter in different ways, organizing and animating it.

4. At the last, fourth, stage, form no longer appears as the organizing principle of matter, but in itself, independently of matter (forma per se, forma separata). It is spirit, or mind, the rational soul, the highest of created beings. Not connected with matter, the human soul does not perish with the death of the body.

Of course, there is some logic in the model built by Thomas Aquinas, but in my opinion his views were limited by the knowledge that humanity possessed in the 13th century. For example, I am inclined to believe that there is no fundamental difference between plants and animals, at least based on knowledge of biology. Of course, there is some kind of line between them, but it is very arbitrary. There are plants that lead a very active motor lifestyle. There are known plants that instantly curl into a bud with one touch. Conversely, there are animals that are very sedentary. In this aspect, the principle of motion as an efficient cause is violated.

It has been proven by genetics (by the way, there was a period when genetics was considered a pseudoscience) that both plants and animals are built from the same building material - organics, both of them consist of cells (why not put the cell on the first stage? Probably , because nothing was known about her at that time), both have a genetic code, DNA. Based on these data, there are all the prerequisites for combining plants and animals into one class, and, in fact, so that subsequently there are no contradictions, all living things. But if you go even deeper, the living cell itself consists of organic elements, which themselves consist of atoms. Why not go down to such depth of recursion? At some time, this solution would have been simply ideal, when it was believed that the atom was an indivisible particle. However, knowledge in the field of nuclear physics indicates that the atom is not the smallest indivisible particle - it consists of even smaller particles, which at one time were called elementary, because it was believed that there was nowhere to go further. Time has passed. Science has become aware of a fairly large number of elementary particles; Then they asked the question: are elementary particles themselves really elementary? It turned out that no: there are even smaller “hyperelementary particles”. Now no one can guarantee that even more “elementary” particles will not be discovered someday. Maybe the recursion depth is eternal? Therefore, I believe that you should not stop at any specific level and designate it as the basic one. I would divide everything that exists into the following three classes:

1. Emptiness (not matter).

2. Matter (not emptiness).

3. Spirit, if it exists.

Quite recently it would have been possible to add a field here (electromagnetic, gravitational, etc.), but now it is already known that the field consists of those “elementary” particles that follow the elementary ones in terms of nesting.

Let's return to the fourth stage of classification of the existence of things. Thomas calls the rational soul “self-existent.” In contrast, the sensory souls of animals are not self-existent, and therefore they do not have actions specific to the rational soul, carried out only by the soul itself, separately from the body - thinking and excitement; all animal actions, like many human actions (except for thinking and acts of will), are carried out with the help of the body. Therefore, the souls of animals perish along with the body, while the human soul is immortal, it is the most noble thing in created nature.

Following Aristotle, Thomas considers reason as the highest among human abilities, seeing in the will itself, first of all, its rational definition, which he considers the ability to distinguish between good and evil. Like Aristotle, Thomas sees in the will practical reason, that is, reason aimed at action, and not at knowledge, guiding our actions, our life behavior, and not a theoretical attitude, not contemplation.

In Thomas's world, the truly existing are individuals. This unique personalism constitutes the specificity of both Thomist ontology and medieval natural science, the subject of which is the action of individual “hidden essences,” souls, spirits, and forces. Beginning with God, who is a pure act of being, and ending with the smallest of created entities, each being has a relative independence, which decreases as it moves down, that is, as the relevance of the existence of beings located on the hierarchical ladder decreases.

The teachings of Thomas enjoyed great influence in the Middle Ages, and the Roman Church officially recognized it. This teaching is revived in the 20th century under the name of neo-Thomism - one of the most significant movements in Western Catholic philosophy.

Conclusion

Having analyzed the main provisions of the philosophy of the Middle Ages, we can say that medieval philosophy as a whole is theocentric: all the basic concepts of medieval thinking are correlated with God and are defined through him. For all the complexity of medieval culture, it had serious shortcomings: people who knew the four rules of arithmetic were rare, because if someone knew how to divide, then he was simply considered the most educated person. This dislike, contempt for mathematics, and even arithmetic, for others natural sciences - characteristic feature throughout medieval life.

Introduction 3
1. The problem of man in medieval philosophy 4
2. Anthropological concept of St. Augustine 6
3. Concept of Thomas Aquinas 12
4. Meister Eckhart's concept 15
Conclusion 20
References 21

Introduction

This work is devoted to the consideration of human philosophy in the Middle Ages.
The Middle Ages is a whole millennium, the beginnings and ends of which have specific outlines historical events: fall of Rome (476) and fall of Byzantium (1453).
Medieval thinking, including philosophical thinking, had a number of distinctive features. Perhaps the main one is theocentrism. Everything is ultimately determined by God. Medieval thinking was also distinguished by psychological self-absorption. Psychological self-absorption manifested itself primarily in the enormous role, as it was believed, of purification and sincerity for the spiritual salvation of a person. The typological features of medieval thinking definitely include historicism, conditioned by the Christian idea of the uniqueness of events, their singularity, caused by the uniqueness of the fact of the phenomenon. The ultimate reality for medieval man was God, the closest - his Word.
The purpose of this work is to study the philosophy of man in the Middle Ages.
Work structure – this work consists of an introduction, four chapters, a conclusion and a list of references.

1. The problem of man in medieval philosophy

For the medieval consciousness, the whole meaning of human life was in three words: live, die and be judged. No matter what social and material heights a person reaches, he will appear naked before God. Therefore, one must not worry about the vanity of this world, but about the salvation of the soul. The medieval man believed that throughout his life evidence accumulated against him - sins that he committed and for which he did not confess or repent. Confession requires a duality so characteristic of the Middle Ages - a person acted simultaneously in two roles: in the role of the accused, for he was responsible for his deeds, and in the role of the accuser, since he himself had to analyze his behavior in the face of the representative of God - the confessor. The personality received its completeness only when a final assessment was given of the individual’s life and what he had done throughout it.
The “judicial thinking” of medieval man expanded beyond the boundaries of the earthly world. God, the Creator, was understood as the Judge. Moreover, if at the first stages of the Middle Ages He was endowed with the traits of balanced, stern inflexibility and paternal condescension, then at the end of this era he was already a merciless and vengeful Lord. Why? Philosophers of the late Middle Ages explained the extraordinary increase in the preaching of fear of the formidable Deity by the deep socio-psychological and religious crisis of the transition period.
God's Judgment had a dual character, for one, private, judgment took place when someone died, the other. Universal, must take place at the end of the history of the human race. Naturally, this aroused great interest among philosophers in understanding the meaning of history.
The most difficult problem, sometimes incomprehensible to modern consciousness, was the problem of historical time.
Medieval man lived, as it were, outside of time, in a constant sense of eternity. He willingly endured the daily routine, noticing only the change of day and seasons. He did not need time, because it, earthly and vain, distracted him from work, which in itself was only a delay before the main event - God's Judgment.
Theologians argued for the linear flow of historical time. In the concept of sacred history (from the Latin sacer - sacred, associated with religious rites), time flows from the act of Creation through the passion of Christ to the end of the world and the Second Coming. In accordance with this scheme, they were built in the 13th century. and concepts of earthly history (for example, Vincent of Beauvais).

In medieval philosophy, a distinction was made between being, or existence (existence), and essence (essence). For all medieval philosophers, knowledge of each thing comes down to answering four questions: 1. Does the thing exist? 2. What is she? 3. What is it like? 4. Why (or for what) is it there? The first question, as we see, requires establishing the existence, and the second and subsequent ones require the essence of a thing. Aristotle, who comprehensively studied the category of essence, had not yet made such a definite distinction between essence and existence, although some approaches to it were outlined. A clear distinction between these concepts is given by Boethius (c. 480-524), whose development of problems of logic had a decisive influence on the subsequent development of medieval scholasticism. (The term “scholasticism” comes from the Greek schole - “school”; “scholasticism” means “school philosophy”). According to Boethius, being (existence) and essence are not at all the same thing; only in God, who is simple substance, do being and essence coincide. As for created things, they are not simple, but complex, and this is primarily expressed in the fact that their being and their essence are not identical. In order for this or that entity to obtain existence, it must become involved in existence or, more simply, must be created by the divine will.

The essence of a thing is expressed in its definition, in the concept of this thing, which we comprehend with our minds. We learn about the existence of a thing from experience, that is, from direct contact with things, since existence does not arise from the mind, but from an act of the omnipotent will of the creator, and therefore is not included in the concept of a thing. Thus, the concept of existence as not belonging to the very essence of a thing is introduced to comprehend the dogma of creation.

Attitude to nature in the Middle Ages

In the Middle Ages, a new view of nature was formed. The latter is no longer something independent, as it was for the most part in antiquity. The doctrine of divine omnipotence deprives nature of independence, since God not only creates nature, but can also act contrary to the natural course of things, that is, create miracles.

In Christian doctrine, the dogma of creation, belief in miracles and the conviction that nature “is not sufficient for itself” (Augustine’s expression) and that man is called to be its master, to “command the elements” are internally interconnected. Due to all this, the attitude towards nature changed in the Middle Ages. Firstly, it ceases to be the most important subject of knowledge, as it was in antiquity (with the exception of some teachings, for example the Sophists, Socrates and others); the main focus is now on knowledge of God and the human soul. This situation changed somewhat only in the late Middle Ages - in the 13th and especially in the 14th centuries. Secondly, even if there is interest in natural phenomena, then they act mainly as symbols pointing to and referring to another, higher reality; and this is a religious and moral reality. Not a single phenomenon, not a single natural thing reveals itself here, each points to an otherworldly meaning of the empirical given, each is a certain symbol (and lesson). The world was given to medieval man not only for good, but also for instruction.

The symbolism and allegorism of medieval thinking, brought up primarily on the Holy Scriptures and its interpretations, was highly sophisticated and developed to the point of subtlety. It is clear that this kind of symbolic interpretation of nature contributed little to its scientific knowledge, and only in the late Middle Ages did interest in nature as such intensify, which gave impetus to the development of such sciences as astronomy, physics, and biology.

Man in the culture of the Middle Ages

If Greek philosophy grew out of the soil of ancient slave society, then the philosophical thought of the Middle Ages belongs to the era of feudalism (V-XV centuries). However, it would be wrong to imagine the matter in such a way that the transition from one social system to another occurred, so to speak, suddenly: in fact, the period of formation of a new type of society turns out to be very long. And although the beginning of the Middle Ages is most often associated with the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476), such dating is very arbitrary. The conquest of Rome could not overnight change either the social and economic relations, neither the way of life, nor the religious beliefs and philosophical teachings of the era in question. It would be fair to date the period of formation of medieval culture, a new type of religious faith and philosophical thinking to the 1st-4th centuries AD. e. During these several centuries, the philosophical teachings of the Stoics, Epicureans, Neoplatonists, which grew on the old, pagan soil, and the emerging centers of new faith and new thought, which later formed the basis of medieval theology and philosophy. At the same time, Christian thought often tried to assimilate the achievements of ancient philosophy, especially Neoplatonism and Stoicism, including them in a new, alien context.

Greek philosophy, as we have seen, was associated with pagan polytheism (polytheism) and, despite all the differences in the teachings that represented it, ultimately had a cosmological character, for the whole that included all things, including man, was nature.

As for philosophical thought Middle Ages, it is rooted in the religion of monotheism (monotheism). Such religions include Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and it is with them that the development of both European and Arab philosophy of the Middle Ages is associated. Medieval thinking in its essence theocentric: For him, the reality that determines everything that exists is not nature, but God.

Christian monotheism is based on two most important principles that are alien to the religious-mythological consciousness and, accordingly, to the philosophical thinking of the pagan world: the idea of creation and the idea of revelation. Both of them are closely related to each other, because they presuppose a single personal god. The idea of creation underlies medieval ontology, and the idea of revelation forms the foundation of the doctrine of knowledge. Hence the comprehensive dependence of medieval philosophy on theology, and all medieval institutions on the church. As F. Engels noted, “church dogma was the starting point and basis of all thinking. Jurisprudence, natural science, philosophy - all the content of these sciences was brought into conformity with the teachings of the church."

Man in the philosophy of the Middle Ages

To the question of what a person is, medieval thinkers gave no less numerous and varied answers than philosophers of antiquity or modern times. However, two premises of these responses tended to remain common. The first is the biblical definition of the essence of man as “the image and likeness of God” - a revelation that was not subject to doubt. The second is the understanding of man as a “rational animal” developed by Plato, Aristotle and their followers. Based on this understanding, medieval philosophers they posed the following questions: what is more in a person - the rational principle or the animal principle? Which of them is his essential property, and which one can he do without while remaining human? What is mind and what is life (animality)? The main definition of man as “the image and likeness of God” also gave rise to the question: what exactly are the properties of God that constitute the essence of human nature - after all, it is clear that neither infinity, nor beginninglessness, nor omnipotence can be ascribed to man.

The first thing that distinguishes the anthropology of the earliest Christian philosophers from the ancient, pagan one is an extremely dual assessment of man. Man not only now occupies the first place in all nature as its king - in this sense, some Greek philosophers also placed man highly - but also, as the image and likeness of God, he goes beyond the boundaries of nature in general, becomes, as it were, above it (after all God is transcendental, beyond the world he created). And in this significant difference from ancient anthropology, the two main tendencies of which - Platonism and Aristotelianism - do not remove man from the system of other beings, in fact, do not even give him absolute primacy in any system. For Platonists, who recognize the true essence in a person only as his rational soul, he is the lowest step in the longest ladder - the hierarchy of rational beings - souls, angels, demons, gods, various minds of varying degrees of “purity”, etc. For Aristotle, man first of all, an animal, that is, a living body endowed with a soul - only in people, unlike animals and insects, the soul is also rational.

For medieval philosophers, starting with the earliest ones, there was an impassable gulf between man and the rest of the Universe. A man is an alien from another world (which can be called " heavenly kingdom", "spiritual world", "paradise", "sky") and must return there again. Although, according to the Bible, he himself is made of earth and water, although he grows and eats like plants, feels and moves like an animal, he is akin not only to them, but also to God. It was within the framework of the Christian tradition that ideas emerged that later became cliches: man is the king of nature, the crown of creation, etc.

But how can we understand the thesis that man is the image and likeness of God? Which of the divine properties constitute the essence of man? This is how one of the church fathers, Gregory of Nyssa, answers this question. God is first and foremost the king and ruler of all things. Having decided to create man, he had to make him king and ruler over all creatures. And the king needs two things: firstly, freedom, independence from external influences; secondly, so that there is someone to reign over. And God endows man with reason and free will, that is, the ability to judge and distinguish between good and evil: this is the essence of man, the image of God in him. And in order for him to become a king in a world consisting of corporeal things and beings, God gives him a body and an animal soul - as a connecting link with nature, over which he is called to rule.

However, man is not only the ruler of all things, occupying first place in all nature. This is only one side of the truth. In the same Gregory, immediately after the panegyric to the royal splendor of man, dressed in the purple of virtues, the gold of reason and endowed with the highest divine gift - free will, there follows a contrite, sorrowful lament for a man who has sunk below any cattle, who is in the most shameful slavery to his passions and drives: after all, the higher the position, the worse the fall. There is a tragic split in man, inherent in his very nature.

The most important feature of medieval culture is the special role of Christian doctrine and the church. In the conditions of the general decline of culture immediately after the destruction of the Roman Empire, only the church remained the only social institution for many European states. Against the backdrop of poverty and a hard, meager life, Christianity offered people a coherent system of knowledge about the world, its structure, the forces and laws operating in it.

The picture of the world of believing villagers and townspeople was based on images and interpretations of the Bible. The starting point for the explanation of the world was the complete unconditional opposition of nature and God, heaven and earth, soul and body.

The medieval European was a deeply religious person; in his mind, the world was seen as a kind of arena of confrontation between the forces of heaven and hell, good and evil. The consciousness of people was deeply magical, everyone was absolutely confident in the possibility of miracles, they accepted everything that the Bible reported literally. The Bible was read and listened to the same way newspapers and magazines are read today.

He sought to perceive everything that the medieval man saw and experienced around him, any natural phenomena and events of his own life simultaneously in two planes: natural as phenomena and events occurring here, in the lower world, and symbolic as signs of the presence of God, manifestations of the wisdom and will of the Creator, always directed towards good, although acting in ways inscrutable to the human mind. In all spheres of medieval culture, the language of symbols and allegories is used: in architecture, painting, spiritual and secular literature, applied art; In philosophy and theology, traditions of symbolic knowledge that were formed during the period of patristics are developing.

The symbolism of the Middle Ages is the symbolism of all medieval life and culture. In the Middle Ages, people not only spoke in symbols, but also did not understand speech other than symbolic.

The world was not depicted symbolically, it was perceived as such. The earthly world is a symbol of the heavenly, the things of the first are only symbols of the objects of the second, and not because it is so intended by man, but due to the fact that the speculative subjugates the objective and controls it. A person is not involved in the process of symbolization; he can only find out what is behind the symbol. Things “not only can serve as symbols, it is not we who put symbolic content into them: they are symbols, and the task of the cognizing subject is reduced to revealing their true meaning.” The process of developing a symbol and comprehending it is endless.

The first is the biblical definition of the essence of man as “the image and likeness of God” - a revelation that cannot be doubted. The second is the understanding of man as a “rational animal” developed by Plato, Aristotle and their followers.

Based on this understanding, medieval philosophers posed the following questions: what is more in a person - the rational principle or the animal principle? Which of them is his essential property, and which one can he do without while remaining human? What is mind and what is life (animality)? The main definition of man as “the image and likeness of God” also gave rise to the question: what exactly are the properties of God that constitute the essence of human nature - after all, it is clear that neither infinity, nor beginninglessness, nor omnipotence can be ascribed to man.

The first thing that distinguishes the anthropology of the early Christian philosophers from the ancient, pagan one is an extremely dual assessment of man.

Man not only now occupies the first place in all of nature as its king - in this sense, some Greek philosophers also placed man highly - but also, as the image and likeness of God, he goes beyond the boundaries of nature in general, becomes, as it were, above it (after all, God is transcendental , beyond the world he created). And this is a significant difference from ancient anthropology, the two main tendencies of which - Platonism and Aristotelianism - do not remove man from the system of other beings, in fact, do not even give him absolute primacy in any system.

For Platonists, who recognize the only true essence in a person as his rational soul, he is the lowest step in the longest ladder - the hierarchy of rational beings - souls, demons, gods, various minds of varying degrees of “purity”, etc. For Aristotle, man is first and foremost an animal, that is,

a living body endowed with a soul - only in humans, unlike animals and insects, the soul is also intelligent.

For medieval philosophers, starting with the earliest ones, there was an impassable gulf between man and the entire Universe. Man is an alien from another world (which can be called the “heavenly kingdom”, “spiritual world”, “paradise”, “sky”) and must return there again. Although, according to the Bible, he himself is made of earth and water, although he grows and eats like plants, feels and moves like an animal, he is akin not only to them, but also to God. It was within the framework of the Christian tradition that ideas emerged that later became cliches: man is the king of nature, the crown of creation, etc.

But how to understand the thesis that man is the image and likeness of God? Which of the divine properties constitute the essence of man?

This is how one of the church fathers, Gregory of Nyssa, answers this question. God is first and foremost the king and ruler of all things. Having decided to create man, he had to make him king over all animals. But a king needs two things: firstly, freedom (if a king is deprived of freedom, then what kind of king is he?), secondly, to have someone to reign over. And God endows man with reason and free will, that is, the ability to reason and distinguish between good and evil: this is the essence of man, the image of God in him. And in order for him to become a king in a world consisting of corporeal things and beings, God gives him a body and an animal soul - as a link with nature, over which he is called to reign.

God's Judgment had a dual character, for one, private, judgment took place when someone died, the other. Universal, must take place at the end of the history of the human race. Naturally, this aroused great interest among philosophers in understanding the meaning of history.

The most difficult problem, sometimes incomprehensible to modern consciousness, was the problem of historical time.

Augustine deals with the “fate of humanity,” guided, however, by biblical historiography, which asserts that what was predicted by the prophets over many centuries comes true in due time. Hence the conviction that history, even with the uniqueness of all its events, is fundamentally predictable, and, therefore, filled with meaning. The basis of this meaningfulness lies in Divine Providence, Divine care of humanity. Everything that needs to happen serves the fulfillment of the original Divine plan:

5. Thomas Aquinas - systematizer of medieval scholasticism

For Thomas, the highest principle is being. By being, Thomas understands the Christian God who created the world, as it is narrated in the Old Testament. Distinguishing between being and essence, Thomas does not oppose them, but on the contrary (following Aristotle) emphasizes their common root. Entities, or substances, according to Thomas, have independent existence, in contrast to accidents (properties, qualities), which exist only thanks to substances. From here the difference between substantial and accidental forms is derived. A substantial form imparts simple existence to every thing, and therefore, when it appears, we say that something has arisen, and when it disappears, we say that something has collapsed. Accidental form is the source of certain qualities, not the existence of things. Distinguishing, following Aristotle, actual and potential states, Thomas considers being as the first of the actual states. In every thing, Thomas believes, there is as much being as there is actuality in it. On this basis, he distinguishes four levels of the existence of things depending on their degree of relevance.

1. At the lowest level of being, form, according to Thomas, constitutes only the external determination of a thing (causa formalis); this includes inorganic elements and minerals.

1. Emptiness (not matter).

2. Matter (not emptiness).

3. Spirit, if it exists.