Aquinas has been traditionally seen as the Christian thinker who was opposed to Platonism and predominantly influenced by the philosophy of Aristotle. In this study, Patrick Quinn argues that the most important aspects of Aquinas' theory of knowledge can only be properly understood when his Platonism is taken into account. Although he agreed with Aristotle that human knowledge is obtained from sensory-based experience, Thomas also insisted that the human mind functions at its best when it acts independently of the senses. This occurs at the most sublime level when the mind is divinely enlightened when God's essence is made visible. The Thomistic theory of knowledge thus contains two conflicting accounts of how theological knwledge is obtained, one derived from Aristotle which declares that we know certain things about God from sensory-based experience, the other providing a Platonic interpretation by claiming that God can be directly known face to face only when the mind acts independently of the senses and of the body. By using Platonism in the way he does, Aquinas is demonstrating its powerful influence on his thinking and incidentally revealing the limitations that Aristotelianism had for him.
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