Who is known for his synthesis of classical philosophy with Christian theology?

Answer 1

A short preface: Jesus warned (Matthew 7: 13-15) of many who would come to change His message before His death and resurrection. The Apostles too, noted the Ascetics (in Colosse in particular) and others who would add/subtract/modify the original teachings of Christ. Even John, the close friend and probably last surviving Apostle of the 1st Century AD, spoke of men leading the people astray and pushing the true worshippers out of local congregations (see 3 John 9-10). As time went by, centuries, people became confuse about the true teachings of Jesus because the new church was divided into hundreds of competing sects and denominations. The new religion of Christianity, founded upon its cornerstone of Jesus, is now being built on the world of shifting sand. Becoming impotent by these new, man-made teachings and other secular forces (Rome predominantly) are increasingly dictating new standards to live by.

Many of the church 'fathers' and great theologians were influenced by Greek tought. Clement of Alexandria, Origien...Augustine and many others. Bible scholars John McClintock and James Strong explain: "Towards the end of the 1st century, and during the 2d, many learned men came over both from Judaism and paganism to Christianity. These brought with them into the Christian schools of theology their Platonic ideas and phraseology" ( Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, 1891, Vol. 10, "Trinity," p. 553).

When one considers the 'core' of mainstream Christianity of the mother Roman Catholic Church, the Trinity theory, one should read the preface to historian Edward Gibbons' History of Christianity which sums up the Greek influence on the adoption of the Trinity doctrine by stating: "If Paganism was conquered by Christianity, it is equally true that Christianity was corrupted by Paganism. The pure Deism [basic religion, in this context] of the first Christians . . . was changed, by the Church of Rome, into the incomprehensible dogma of the trinity. Many of the pagan tenets, invented by the Egyptians and idealized by Plato, were retained as being worthy of belief" (1883, p. xvi). (See "How Ancient Trinitarian Gods Influenced Adoption of the Trinity," beginning on page 18.)

The link between Plato's teachings and the Trinity as adopted by the Catholic Church centuries later is so strong that Edward Gibbon, in his masterwork The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, referred to Plato as "the Athenian sage, who had thus marvelously anticipated one of the most surprising discoveries of the Christian revelation" -the Trinity (1890, Vol. 1, p. 574).

Answer 2

There are two candidates her, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Thomas Aquinas is the one you are referring to (IMHO). See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas#Philosophy