The relation between reason and revelation according to Averroes and Thomas Aquinas

The harmonisation of reason and faith was for Averroes the main scientific challenge whereby Aristotle served him as a key philosophical point of reference. Whilst Averreos followed Aristotle to a large extent, Thomas Aquinas attempts to make use of Aristotle‘s work in a different manner for his own philosophical-theological model whilst still referring to Averroes. For the two philosophers reason and revelation attain a singular synthesis which is, however, not completely tension-free. In this study Averroes is praised as a congenial thinker of scholarly topics. Thomas‘ handling of islamic-arabic philosophy proves to be an example worthy of attention of intercultural philosophical discourse which can serve contemporary Western-world philosophy projects as a valuable point of reference.

The harmonisation of reason and faith was for Averroes the main scientific challenge whereby Aristotle served him as a key philosophical point of reference. Whilst Averreos followed Aristotle to a large extent, Thomas Aquinas attempts to make use of Aristotle‘s work in a different manner for his own philosophical-theological model whilst still referring to Averroes. For the two philosophers reason and revelation attain a singular synthesis which is, however, not completely tension-free. In this study Averroes is praised as a congenial thinker of scholarly topics. Thomas‘ handling of islamic-arabic philosophy proves to be an example worthy of attention of intercultural philosophical discourse which can serve contemporary Western-world philosophy projects as a valuable point of reference.