St. Thomas Aquinas

2007-03-21T13:05:21Z

Sorbonnetoga:

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225?-1274) was a [[Dominican]] friar who wrote a range of philosophical, theological and polemical works. These included the [[Summa Theologica]], the Summa Contra Gentiles, various commentaries on Aristotle, commentaries on various books of the New Testament, a summary of the four Gospels known as the Catena Aurea, as well as various formal debates known as Quaestiones Disputatae or Quaestiones Quodlibetales. There are some other Opuscula or short works on various topics such as his defence of the Mendicant friars ''de Perfectione'', and his philosophical text on Being and essence ''de Ente et Essentia
''.

Many consider the ''Summa Theologiae'' to be one of the most complete summaries of Christian theology, and his followers established an entire type of Christian thought known as "Thomism", which is followed to this day. Aquinas was somewhat controversial during his life, but was quickly canonised by the [[Catholic Church]] after his death. Many of the controversies surrounding Aquinas stem from his synthesis of Aristotelian philosophy with Christian theology, causing him to break with many of the traditionally held philosophical and theological positions espoused by the dominant Augustinian synthesis of Neoplatonic philosophy and Christianity. He developed five proofs for the existence of [[God]]. The first three were "cosmological" proofs rather than the "ontological" approach of [[St. Anselm]]. A cosmological proof deals with the natural order of the universe. Aquinas' most famous cosmological argument was that whatever is in motion (for example, us) must have been put in motion by something else (our parents). They, in turn, must have been put in motion by something else (their parents). But this sequence cannot go on to infinity. There must have been a first mover. This we call "[[God]]".

St. Thomas Aquinas' maintained that the truth is one and can never contradict itself. Thus even though the human intellect is hampered by original sin and is darkened by personal sins, it can still acquire knowledge of the world, of nature and by reasoning from effect to cause, of God. Thus the existence of God can be known (cf Summa Theologiae Ia pars, Q2; de Potentia Dei, passim) by unaided reason, as can the fundamental principles of Moral Conduct (often called the Natural Law, cf Summa Theologiae, IaIIae partis, Q94). However, knowledge of the Triune nature of God - as revealed to us by Jesus Christ - cannot be known except by divine revelation. This occurred throughout the Old Testament and was completed by the God's definitive self-revelation in Christ Jesus.

Concerning the nature of God, Aquinas used the ''triplex via'' or threefold way. Thus he would begin by stating that God is good, which is after all self-evident and is logically implied by the meaning of the word 'God' itself. He then denies that same statement, on the grounds that any human reference to good cannot, in principle, do justice to divine goodness. Human and Divine goodnesses are so different in kind and degree as to be incommensurable; thus a human word like 'good' is effectively false when applied to God.

However Aquinas suggests that as we have no choice but to think and talk in human terms about God and His nature, we must use human language to do so. Thus we use human words like 'good', 'merciful' 'infinite' and so forth about God, while being constantly aware of their insufficiency; we use them not because they are the best words to use but because they are the least inadequate terms we have.

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St. Thomas Aquinas