Thomas Aquinas and the Neo- omist Tradition: A Christian Philosophical Assessment

by Bernie Van Der Walt

An analysis of the philosophical views of Thomas Aquinas as found in his Summa Contra Gentiles, exploring his use of and dependence on Aristotle, and how this shaped and constrained his philosophical and theological views, to the detriment of his Christian profession. It also explores the way Thomas' philosophy was critiqued, modified and adapted by later Thomistic scholars, and was adopted in the Protestant universities, thus perpetuating the scholastic tradition within Protestantism. It closes with a discussion of the influence of Thomistic philosophy in Radical Orthodoxy, and gives an assessment from the perspective of Reformational philosophy in the Neo-Calvinist tradition of philosophy as developed by Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd.