I just hate how 99% of discussions about catholicism is Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas. He is more quoted than the Bible or catechism, and he is not an official source.If he is right about everything in his summa theologica, that means that 99.999999% of humanity is going to hell. Postures like unbaptized babies or suicidal people are crazy.
>>18731815Why did Israel/America just declare war on the Rome Statute?
better him than Augustine
>t. guy that's jealous because he'll never become an angel doctor
I take Thomas Aquinas at his word about everything he wrote being like straw, so I haven't read anything else from him.
>>18731890kek he became a sola fide protestantcatholics btfo
>>18731815In the middle ages there were more commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard than the bible. That’s just how popery works, they don’t care about God’s word
>>18731852The Rome Statute and the illegitimate body it constitutes are evil globalism, anon
>>18731815>If he is right about everything in his summa theologicaHe wasn't right about anything. He didn't even understand the (pagan) sources he was engaging with for inspiration, when he wrote his summa theologica. Christianity acquired its mysticism in a single documented act of literary theft. At the beginning of the sixth century of the common era, an anonymous Syrian monk read the works of the pagan Neoplatonist Proclus, head of the Platonic Academy of Athens from 437 to 485 CE, along with the works of Proclus's predecessors Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. This monk copied Proclus's system, with substantial portions reproduced verbatim or with minimal paraphrase, replaced the pagan divine names with Christian terminology, attached his forgery to the name of Dionysius the Areopagite (a figure mentioned briefly in Acts 17:34 as an Athenian convert of Paul), and released the resulting corpus into Byzantine circulation.The Dominican master Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) cites "Dionysius" 1,702 times in the Summa Theologiae, ranking him immediately after Augustine as the most-cited authority after Scripture. The entire Thomistic doctrine of divine names, analogical predication, the angelic hierarchies, and the sacramental economy rests on Dionysian foundations. Aquinas believed he was engaging with a disciple of Paul. He was engaging with Proclus.The Thomistic synthesis of philosophy and theology would be impossible without the Dionysian inheritance, which in turn would be impossible without Proclus. Aquinas owes more to Proclus, mediated through Dionysius, than to any Christian source apart from Augustine. The debt is unacknowledged throughout because its acknowledgment would require recognizing that Catholic metaphysics is, in substantial part, pagan Neoplatonism.
The "Dionysius" forgery was accepted as authentic apostolic writing for the next thousand years. It shaped every subsequent Christian mystical tradition, from Maximus the Confessor to Meister Eckhart to John of the Cross. Every Catholic sacramental theology, every Byzantine liturgical commentary, every Western scholastic doctrine of the angelic hierarchies, traces back to this document.The document is a forgery. The author is pagan Proclus in Christian costume. This is not a theory. It is the unanimous conclusion of nineteenth and twentieth century scholarship, confirmed by line-by-line parallel textual analysis that any reader can verify in the critical editions. The Catholic Church itself has admitted the pseudonymity since the late nineteenth century, though it has continued to treat the corpus as theologically authoritative because removing it would dismantle most of the Christian mystical tradition.The forger added a thin decorative overlay of Christian elements: references to Jesus Christ, occasional mentions of the sacraments, a few scriptural citations, and allusions to the bishop as the culminating figure of the earthly hierarchy. These additions are not integrated into the metaphysics. They are bolted on. The philosophical machinery runs perfectly well without them and frequently contradicts the expected Christian teaching.Every Catholic seminarian since the thirteenth century has been trained in a metaphysical system whose structural backbone is the work of a pagan philosopher whose school the Catholic Church had worked three centuries to destroy. The irony is total.Thomas Aquinas was completely ignorant of what philosophy he was truly engaging with.
>>18732012everything in the summa is neoplatonism o algo
>>18731815Also he heavily drew his theology from Aristotle (who was wrong about literally everything) and the Pseudo-Dionysian Corpus, a 6th-century forgery that heavily plagiarized the works of the pagan Neoplatonist philosopher Proclus.
>>18732076>t. probably believes Epicurean garbage
>>18732076>Aristotle (who was wrong about literally everything)Virtue Ethics created by Aristotle mogs every philosophy since its creation. Any philosophy that touches on morality is an imitation of Virtue Ethics
>>18732076>Aristotle (who was wrong about literally everything)lol>>18732121This.
>>18732012It's this retard again. When is he going to understand that ultimately, regardless of source or historicity, all that matters for a religion's theology is the consistency of a particular philosophy for explaining and expanding upon religious doctrine, and said dogma is only justified in light of religious practice and ritual as practiced alone?This is the anon who thinks religions must be completely historically consistent in order to be religions. Neoplatonism was accepted regardless of source because it was consistent with Catholic and Orthodox doctrines and dogma, and in turn, their sacraments and mysteries and liturgies, not because the theologians of the Church cared about whether Dionysius was Pseudo- or not.
>>18732160Nothing he says is factually wrong lol. Platonism is inherently pagan, Christians are hypocrites for having the audacity to condemn paganism while adapting pagan metaphysics and ethics. If they wanted to utilize that philosophy, then they should have remained pagan.
>>18732182Philosophy is not defined by its source, rather by its statements and the logical consistency of said statements. Islam too, holds Plato and Neoplatonism in high regard and even goes far to say that glimpses of the divine were seen by the accomplished among the pagans. Ultimately, philosophy is far more abstract than all forms of highly specific religious dogma and ritual, so such adoption is justified.
>>18732193>Islam too, holds Plato and Neoplatonism in high regard and even goes far to say that glimpses of the divine were seen by the accomplished among the pagansSure, at least Islam gave some semblance of respect and credit where credit is due. Meanwhile Christianity copies Neoplatonism while taking credit for the philosophy, claiming it was "divinely inspired" by their biblical god. It's a bold faced lie >Ultimately, philosophy is far more abstract than all forms of highly specific religious dogma and ritual, so such adoption is justified.That's bullshit. Literary theft isn't justified because "philosophy is abstract". Christianity didn't organically merge with Neoplatonism through philosophical syncretism over time. It copied Neoplatinist metaphysics while demonizing the people who created it, in addition to closing down the ancient pagan academies where it was developed. Christians abused imperial authority to control the narrative, forcing people to accept the lie for many centuries.
>>18732263>Christianity copes NeoplatonismIslam has to give credit, and is in some sense forced to, because Muhammad existed after all the great Neoplatonic philosophers. Jesus Christ, the Apostles, and all of the Church Fathers were contemporary with Hellenization of the Levant and the heyday of Neoplatonism, so they could easily adopt ideas that were consistent with their religion that the pagans had obtained via (Greek) reason. Reason isn't necessarily specific to a single religious tradition, pagan or otherwise, and in a real Christian sense with its condemnation of folly and praise of wisdom, is also somewhat Christian and continues to justify Catholic and Lutheran philosophy to this day.>Literary theftKek, like philosophers care. See Buddhism's influence on Greek philosophy, the correlations between Islamic and Christian philosophy, the correlation of German Idealism and the availability of Eastern philosophical texts in Europe, among others.>Christianity didn't organically merge with neoplatonismThey did, according to the Christians, as the Church Fathers were contemporary with all of the Neoplatonists and were constantly in dialogue with and eventual acceptance of all the trinitarian monotheist aspects of Neoplatonism. That's good enough, for the Christians.>closed ancient pagan academiesAnd replaced them with Christian scholastic institutions that studied Christian neoplatonic theology, which later became the secular universities. Again, good enough for the Christians.>Christians used imperial authoritySo did several other religions and even secular authorities and governments today. Read Lenin.
>>18731852>defending the international clown court to own da jooz
>>18732299>Jesus Christ, the Apostles, and all of the Church Fathers were contemporary with Hellenization of the Levant and the heyday of Neoplatonism, so they could easily adopt ideas that were consistent with their religion that the pagans had obtained via (Greek) reasonWe for sure know they didn't, though. There is nothing that resembles Neoplatonism in the gospels. This is some silly cope.Jesus never preached anything about god in context of a metaphysical Neoplatonist framework, because it was Middle Platonism during that time period. Neoplatonism didn't even exist until 3rd century CE lol... The real Dionysius the Areopagite was a minor figure. Acts 17:34 mentions him in a single verse: "But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them." This is his only appearance in the New Testament. Later tradition identified him with a first-century bishop of Athens. No writings of any kind were attributed to him before the sixth century. A first-century Athenian convert of Paul could not possibly have written texts that quote Proclus, whose works were composed four hundred years later.>Kek, like philosophers care.Of course they care. Anybody who appreciates history and rejects Abrahamic propaganda would naturally be interested, and find it a little concerning. Christians lied for 13 centuries about their own theological dogma and its history. >And replaced them with Christian scholastic institutions that studied Christian neoplatonic theologyThey didn't study Neoplatonic theology. They studied the stolen Christian version of it, which never provides attribution to the pagan authors who really invented and wrote it. Christians literally invented a fake author, "Dionysius", and made up a story about him being a pagan who converted to Christianity in order to sell the lie that this philosophy was authored by Christian hands. >Again, good enough for the Christians.Who cares?
Christianity, as a religion, has no native mysticism. It inherited an apocalyptic Jewish messianism, a Pauline crucifixion theology, and a set of ethical teachings about charity and repentance. What it did not inherit from its Palestinian origins was a contemplative metaphysics. It had no doctrine of the soul's ascent through hierarchies of being. It had no analysis of divine names.It had no triadic structure of procession, rest, and return.It had no theurgic theology. It had no apophatic negation as a pathway to union with the Absolute. These doctrines did not exist in the Gospels.They did not exist in Paul. They did not exist in the Synoptic tradition. They did not exist in the rabbinic Judaism that formed Christianity's immediate background.The source of everything spiritually serious in Christian mysticism is the Ancient Gods and the philosophers who served them. The Christian reception added nothing. It renamed, it concealed, and it burned the libraries from which it had stolen. And we can't talk about this history without mentioning Proclus!Proclus Diadochus (c. 412-485 CE) was the most systematic philosophical mind of late antiquity. He served as Diadochos, Successor, of the Platonic Academy in Athens for nearly fifty years. Under his leadership the Academy produced the most sophisticated metaphysical system the ancient world had ever articulated: a fully rigorous account of the procession of all reality from the ineffable One, through the noetic hierarchies, the psychic orders, and finally into embodied material being, with a corresponding doctrine of return through purification, illumination, and union (theurgic and contemplative).
Proclus's major works include the Elements of Theology (Stoicheiosis Theologike), 211 rigorously demonstrated metaphysical propositions in the Euclidean mannerThe Platonic Theology (Peri tes kata Platona theologias), six books on the divine orders drawn from the Platonic dialoguesThe Commentary on the Parmenides, the most sustained ancient analysis of the first hypothesis of that dialogueThe Commentary on the Timaeus, a three-thousand-page cosmological expositionAnd shorter works including On Providence, On the Existence of Evils, and the hymns to the Gods.His teacher was Syrianus; his successors included Marinus (who wrote Proclus's biography, the Vita Procli) and eventually Damascius, the last Scholarch before the Academy's closure.The Academy was closed in 529 CE by the Christian Emperor Justinian I, whose legislation prohibited the teaching of pagan philosophy on pain of confiscation of property and loss of civil rights. The remaining philosophers, including Damascius and Simplicius, fled to the Sasanian court of Khosrow I before partially returning under treaty conditions. The thousand-year continuous tradition of Greek philosophical instruction at Athens, begun by Plato in 387 BCE, was extinguished by imperial Christian decree. Within a generation of the Academy's closure, the Dionysian corpus appeared. The timing is not coincidental.The corpus attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite consists of four major treatises and ten letters: On the Divine Names (De Divinis Nominibus), On the Mystical Theology (De Mystica Theologia), On the Celestial Hierarchy (De Caelesti Hierarchia), On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy (De Ecclesiastica Hierarchia), and the ten Epistles. These texts first surface in the historical record at a specific, dated moment: the Council of Constantinople held in 532 CE, just three years after Justinian closed the Academy.
>>18732331For you, Dionysius the Areopagite is the end all and be all of Neoplatonism. For me, Platonism and Neoplatonism are a continuity as far as Christianity is concerned. And as far as those two are concerned, Neoplatonism without Dionysius has a lot of writings on it, by the Fathers and otherwise, and if Platonism is included (as the Christians do), then if extends to Jesus. Jesus himself lived in undoubtedly Hellenized Judea, and did not ever clarify that he wasn't talking about the Hellenized forms of Jewish concepts whenever he spoke of the soul or virtue, but instead continued using them. The Hellenization of Judea took place more than a century before Jesus was born, so this is justified.>Of course they care, anybody who respects history and rejects Abrahamic-Kek, summarily rejected. You treat philosophy like it's a science that is determined by history. Philosophers, secular or otherwise, don't care as their discipline is above such mundane things and they know it.>They didn't study Neoplatonic philosophy, it was all fake!Ah yes, because for you Neoplatonism has no dialogue with the Church Fathers whom the medieval scholastics also reference.>Who cares?The Christians, whom you clearly care about to reply so much in this thread, you know?
At that council, convened to resolve the Christological dispute between the Chalcedonian and Monophysite parties, the Monophysite bishop Severus of Antioch and his supporters cited the Dionysian corpus as authoritative apostolic writing to support their theological position.The Chalcedonian bishop Hypatius of Ephesus immediately challenged the citation, pointing out that no Church Father before the sixth century had ever quoted these texts.No mention of them exists in Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Augustine, or Cyril of Alexandria.A corpus supposedly composed by a disciple of Paul, Hypatius noted, should have been known and cited by every subsequent Christian writer. The silence of five hundred years of patristic literature proved the corpus to be a recent fabrication.Hypatius's objection was overruled politically. The corpus was admitted as authentic and rapidly spread throughout Byzantine and then Latin Christendom.The first major Christian commentator to systematize the texts was John of Scythopolis around 540 CE, within a decade of their surfacing; his Scholia, expanded by Maximus the Confessor in the seventh century, became the standard Byzantine framework for reading the corpus.The texts were translated into Latin by John Scotus Eriugena in the ninth century at the court of Charles the Bald, introducing Dionysian theology to the Latin West, where it would become central to Aquinas, Bonaventure, and the late medieval mystical tradition.The name "Dionysius of Athens" was chosen to neutralize the otherwise obvious objection that the theology of the corpus is Athenian Neoplatonism. By making the author a converted Athenian disciple of Paul, the forger pre-empts the accusation. The depth is Athenian, the frame is apostolic, and the reader is expected not to ask questions.
>>18732345>the frame is apostolicBecause it's consistent with Christian theology. Nuff said. That's all that matters to the Christian. If Buddhism was consistent to the Christian, then the Christian would summarily adopt it. Unfortunately it isn't, but all aspects of Buddhism (such as its view of intrinsic worldly suffering) that are consistent can be summarily adopted.
>>18732344Retard. Neoplatonism didn't exist when Jesus was alive. Platonism had no significant presence or influence in Jerusalem when Jesus was alive. You have no idea what you're talking about here.>For you, Dionysius the Areopagite is the end all and be all of Neoplatonism. For me, Platonism and Neoplatonism are a continuity as far as Christianity is concerned.You could say the same thing about Judaism, which would be just as retarded and dishonest. Judaism became influenced by Neoplatonism just as much as Christianity was.
>>18732347>Platonism didn't have a significant presence in first century Second Temple Judaism despite the significant Ptolemaic and Hellenic Hasmonean kingdoms.I'll need sources.>You could say the same thing about Judaism, which is just as retardedYour personal antisemitic views don't matter to Christians, you know?
>>18732348>Platonism didn't have a significant presence in first century Second Temple Judaism despite the significant Ptolemaic and Hellenic Hasmonean kingdoms.Who are you quoting? I said when Jesus was alive. I didn't say "the whole 1st century". Do you understand that Jesus didn't live 100 years?>Your personal antisemitic views don't matter to Christians, you know?Weaponizing antisemitism to cope is pretty retarded, ya know?
>>18732354>Jesus didn't live in the 1st centuryLmao, you must be new to /his/ if such semantic bs is what you use instead of legit sources that you can't provide. Is Reddit not good enough?>Weaponizing antisemitismReddit confirmed. Go back to your subreddit Discord server, please.
>appealing to what matters to ChristiansTragically irrelevant when it comes to verifiable facts about history, I'm afraid! The bible (what Christians have a confirmation bias to believe in) isn't a source of verifiable facts about history.
>>18731815Actually there are 38 doctors of the Church.Aquinas for the most cited almost all the doctors of the Church of his time.
>>18732359>Jesus didn't live in the 1st centuryDo you do this often? Just make shit up and respond to what you manufactured yourself in your own words, instead of engaging with what the person you're replying to actually said. Worthless shitposting brainrot. I assume when people examine the history of things related to the bible you automatically devolve into this pattern of behavior. It's a coping mechanism to help your ego. You are goymaxxing right now and it's embarassing!
>>18732362Guy in that meme is mostly correct and more correct than most Christians on /his/
>>18732362>doesn't even respond, only seetheLmao, we accept your concession. 1st century AD, in case your singular braincell failed to remind you how the fucking Gregorian calendar works.
>>18731815Trvthnvke is just that most of the new converts and especially recovnerts who think they PROOOOOVE god are barely literate STEM-lords that only ever read Plato and a vulgar, rushed summary of Kant in the meager "philosophy" course at uni. When their idiotic reddit atheism beliefs implode from a cursory critique, the only answer they are left with are centuries old idealist slop they encountered earlier. They are literally mentally stunted into outdated Platonic dualist tendencies and will start breaking down like a chatbot once you bring up anything that smells the least bit of relationism, French critical theory or really just basic sociological science, stuttering about how "w-well I pragmatically choose my simpler reality that isn't weird and scary to me!".
>>18732366I agree. Christianity isn't the source of Virtue Ethics, so the ones shitposting on /his/ aren't surprising. In any case Jesus would not approve of their behavior. 9 times out of 10 there's nothing constructive or productive about the way Christians engage with posts on this board.
