I would never have thought that I would ever refer back to my old 'medieval philosophy class' that I took years ago in college. Reading Chesterton's 'St Thomas Aquinas', however, the whole discussion about platonism and Aristotle's philosophy came back. The interesting thing is that I never before even asked myself the question if Aquinas was right with his view of Aristotle; I just took the information for granted. Chesterton, however, makes a compelling argument that St. Thomas brought Christianity back to itself by his adaptation of Aristotle.
Platonism, he argues, is focused too much on the spirit. In the dark ages, this caused Christians to overlook the fact that the central issue of the Incarnation connects body and spirit. With a healthy dose of Aristotle, St Thomas brought back this idea to the foreground.
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