As scholasticism became more and more a focus in the medieval period, it began to tackle many Greek philosophers. Aristotle became very important because it was thought that “Aristotelian logic was the master tool for harmonizing authorities apparently in conflict,” (Madigan, 272) and this was very important for Christian scholar. As people began to be more educated and thoughtful and required more logical reasoning to their faith. While some Christians mainly Dominicans and some more reluctant Franciscans, who were teaching lay people and those destined for a monastic order, accepted and used Aristotle’s reasoning to teach many others saw the texts as purely heretical and not to be taught to anyone. Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican who thoroughly accepted Aristotle and used his works to give logical reasoning to many parts of Christianity.

Thomas Aquinas studied Aristotle accepted his form of logic as well as many of his philosophies. It was all very influential on the way he taught and his many writings. This is especially evident in Aquinas’ Summa contra Gentiles. This work used logic rather than biblical passages to show the validity of Christian ideologies. It was meant to help monks when they tried to convert Muslims and Jews because both had been studying Aristotle for much longer than the Christians and therefore required a more logical reasoning for why they should convert. While logic was important to his Thomas Aquinas still acknowledge revelation as higher than reasoning and if something could not be logically reasoned he would defer to revelation and accept this before all else.

The Summa contra Gentiles reflects Aristotelian logic because it breaks down into pieces that get smaller and smaller. It addresses Thomas Aquinas’ question by breaking each question down into smaller parts and then for each of these parts there are even smaller pieces of an argument which are systematically refuted.

Aquinas presents the opposing view with three points. The first is that fornication with a woman if she is willing and not married is ok because she was not forced and it will not hurt any man. Second, he says that God cannot be offended because the act of fornication is not “contrary to our own good” (Rosenwein, 425). And finally, he says that it does not hurt anyone outside of the two involved. He refutes these claims saying, fornication with anyone but his own wife is not a move toward a proper end. A proper end would be fornication for the purpose of producing children, but fornication otherwise may be means to an end but not an end proper in God’s eyes. He also argues that because people should only fornicate to create life because it benefits all of mankind. He also argues that if fornication results in the birth of a child and the man has left the woman to care for the child, the child will not be moral or have good judgement because all children need their fathers to provide for them and teach them because women are too weak to do that. Aristotle’s view of women is reflected here. He believed that all women were “incomplete or deformed women” (Madigan, 275).

The Bible serves as a basis for Aquinas’ reasoning in Summa contra Gentiles. But he mainly uses reasoning because he knows that his audience will respond better to logic than bible passages. He reasons through the revelation found in the Bible which keeps with his ideal of revelation before reason.