ng, was adopted by Aquinas as he developed the discipline of scholasticism. The scholastic method, which among other things sought to reason toward a synthesis of conceptions of the abstract and material, in Aquinas's hands "posed questions and quoted contrary opinions . . . and then offered resolutions of the contradictions for each question."3 Scholasticism was applied to both theological and philosophical questions, with the theological questions (consistent with the temper of the times) assuming priority with commentators.
The single most prevalent preoccupation of medieval commentators who were contemporaries of Aquinas was the problem of being as a philosophical concept, with the points of view of Plato and Aristotle as regards being competing for dominance. "Philosophy," comments Freemantle in this regard, "is concerned with the whole problem of what being is, of whether the universe is caused or is self explanatory, and with the totality of phenomena, in so far as they contribute to explain such fundamental problems."4 Aquinas's entry into this realm of activity is discussed more specifically vis a vis the extent to which he challenged the Platonic notion of "the purity of intelligible essences"5 as the ultimate reality. On this view, unlike Plato, who separates essence from existence and saw existence as an imperfect imitation of essence, Aquinas proposes to synthesize essence and existence in the material world, especially in the existence of man. In particular, Aquinas uses Aristotle's view of reality to explain what becomes orthodox Christian doctrine. The nature of being (indeed the whole of the natural world) can be reasoned, at least to the point at which faith or revelation must account specifically for those things that cannot be reasoned. But Aquinas does not ascribe to the ideal "reality" of the incorporeal world the actual nature of anything; in this, he specifically departs from Platonist notions of existenc...