欧宝娱乐

In the 12th century, Latin translators from Arabic rediscovered the writings of the Greek philosopher, Aristotle, which had hitherto been lost to Christendom for 600 years. Aristotle's re-emergence fired the intellectual imagination of medieval scholars, who then embarked on a project to reconcile faith with reason. This book is that story of "Aristotle鈥檚 children."

Aristotle鈥檚 grounding in the specifics of the material world (in contrast to Plato鈥檚 preference for the other-worldly Forms), his confidence in the human powers of reason, and his methods of free and open disputation, inspired the dramatic expansion of the frontiers of human thought and inquiry. Catholic theoreticians such as St. Thomas Aquinas began to employ reason to be able to understand matters that used to fall solely under the purview of revealed truths contained in sacred texts interpreted by Church authorities. This book tells the story of how this flowering of discourse unfolded over two centuries, and of how a threathened Church hierarchy, protecting its authority, reacted against this scientific spirit within its ranks, leading ultimately to the separation of faith from reason, which continues to this day.