Aristotle
ARISTOTLE
Born 384 B.C.; died 322 B.C. Greek philosopher, one of history’s most influential thinkers. He left an indellible mark on Christendom; his philosophy having great influence on theologians.
The Knights of Columbus correspondence course, Lesson 10, admits that some of Aristotle’s principles are followed today in the Roman Catholic Church.
The scholastics, the greatest of whom was St. Thomas Aquinas, treated theology from a philosophical rather than a Biblical point of view. The date of revelation was organized systematically, using Aristotlian deductiuve logic; Biblical truth was harmonized with the newly discovered philosophy of Aristotle.
Aristotle’s concept of “essence” and “appearance” was used by Thomas Aquinas in his explanation of the “substance” and “accidents” of the Host in transubstantiation.