according to Thomas of Aquinas (St. Thomas) what are the two paths to God?

Answer 1

Is one of them "follow the yellow brick road"?

Answer 2

The question seems well answered. I don't think reason without revelation does the whole trick though. Reason might get one to intuition. I feel intuition would be the revelation. The two work so much better together that I would think one would use all they know. It sure took all I had. A good explanation would probably been a real short cut, a mentor, a preacher. Some are born with intuition or regard that intuition is the only word I can think of, or have that revelation and some seem to develop it, probably in conjunction with the intuition. God can talk to us when the soil, mind is perpared somehow. Willingness to listen or reason and knowledge. Just my experience. Actually I think I got it from study and applying well one scripture. Judge not. I guess he was talking about two paths to the path. Reason, though, might not lead you to Chritianity if you never heard of Christianity, or where raised Budhist or something.

Answer 3

According to Thomas of Aquinas ( and i deliberately accentuate on that) the two paths to God are: Philosophical Science ( the use of human reason applied with out experiences of the world) and Sacred Science ( the use of human reason in understanding God's revelation ) and that can be of course elaborated.

Answer 4

Let's keep it simple, Mike -OK?

Acquinas, ever the observer of man, nature and God that he was, believed that ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, we'll all get to God, meaning, come to the conclusion that there must be God.

One way I'll refer to as "revelation in faith," which basically means you buy in to the whole God thing without specific, independently verified evidence. You learn about God in Sunday school, you go to mass or worship, you see and hear other people acting in relationship with God -so, you figure, its the real deal. Part and parcel of this is reading scripture and having an "Aha!" sensation about it. Lets' cut to the chase. Paul (or Saul) of Tarsus in going along the road to Damascus one day when all of a sudden -BANG!- he "get's it." Now, whether wrought of long-term exposure or a sudden jolt, we're talking about, fundamentally, a perceived truth of something that just makes sense. That's one path.

The other is more "scientific." In this one, you don't deal with God directly, as God, but rather with creation and what you observe in the world around you. Asking the age-old question, "Where did all THIS come from?" you figure out that there just HAD to be a prime mover behind the whole thing.

Thomas realized, he said, that not everyone is going to "buy into" scripture; that some will need to figure it out. And so, what I'll call "roll your own," became his second path.

A great deal of what Tom had to say about this came from his own understanding that not everyone accepted Holy Scripture for what it claimed itself to be -the revealed and inspired Word of God. No, they nedded more. And so Thomas came up with a bunch of arguments to answer these doubts. For example: "J'ever notice how the organization of nature tends to repeat itself when you scale up or down? This pattern strongly suggests that SOMEBODY'S in charge, here." Or so Thomas thought. Falls into the "if it smells like a duck, sounds like a duck, walks like a duck, then it MUST be a duck" school of thought. Read Descartes to see how a relatively modern day Catholic put himself through the process, starting with the question, "How do I know I even exist?" The same question asked by commuters on the DC beltway every weekday morning.

I've redacted the whole thought process significantly in an effort to get at the core of the matter, and mean no disrespect to anyone by my glib reply. I hope it is helpful to you.

Now, here's something interesting that I'm sure other devout psychiatric cases such as myself have noticed: Thomas Acquinas, who took seriously the capacity of people to ask for verification, was named after -guess who? St. Thomas, as in "doubting Thomas." Makes sense to me!

Answer 5

The Creator and Natural Law.

Answer 6

really there is only one way to GOD.............
no one come to the Father buy by me.....
that's what JESUS said to his disciples....

Answer 7

Faith illumined by revelation and reason illumined by faith.

Answer 8

village's expectation and the stupid church's expectations!