Thomas Aquinas
The smartest man in Europe
If you studied Western Thought or Western Philosophy and you failed to hear of Thomas Aquinas, you have either just started, or enrolled in the wrong school. This Italian theologian lived for 49 years (1225-1274), but his contributions to the Western world cannot be understated. If reputation means anything to you, he is considered one of the “Doctors” of the Roman Catholic Church, and is also known as Doctor Angelicus amd Doctor Universalis. His primary work, Summa Theologica is highly regarded among the Roman Catholic Church, and was consulted along side the Bible during the Council of Trent in 1567 (Hannam, 2011).
Why is he here? Isn’t he just a theologian?
In Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (Wilson, 1975), Harvard biologist E.O Wilson argued that human nature could be understood in evolutionary terms. Yet 700 years ago, this theologian was applying many aspects of evolutionary theory to the understanding of human beings.
In Summa Theologica, Aqunias classified humans as animals in material, something medieval scholars were reluctant to do. Yet he was no materialists, arguing that the conscience was what separated man from beast.
However, what was really evolution-like was in his lesser known work, Summa Contra Gentiles. For instance in his observationof dogs, he noted that “the male and female stay no time together after the performance of the sexual act”. In birds, he noted the contrary, that “male and female dwell together after the sexual act so long as is necessary for the rearing and training of the offspring”.
The reasoning he gave was that the more helpless the offspring at birth, the more likely the parents would stay together. Many evolutionists would recognise this reasoning to be similar to parental investment theory, where male-female pair bonding are most likely to emerge when offsrping are highly dependant.
In addition, he alludes to another evolutionary concept– parental certainity. He argued males have to stay closey to their offspring to protect them, and ensure his legacy. In the same way, evolutionists would state that mongamy benefits males in allowing them to ensure their genetic legacy.
But didn’t he make mistakes too?
Of course he did. Following Aristole, he accepted spontaneous generation (that living organisms arose from non-living things) and insisted that species were unchangeable. He was no evolutionist (considering that the theory only emerged in 1859), yet the ideas he had were revolutionary.
References
Hannam, J. (2011) God’s Philosophers
Wilson, E.O. (1975) Sociobiology: The New Synthesis
Tags: Pop!ular, theologian, Thomas Aquinas
