Summa Theologica by Saint Thomas Aquinas
Category: Nonfiction

Hey, it’s Mischa. After the interview with Amanda Colt, I searched online to find out more about Summa Theologica by Saint Thomas Aquinas.

From Wikipedia:

The Summa Theologiæ (written 1265–1274 and also known as the Summa Theologica or simply the Summa) is the best-known work of Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274). Although unfinished, the Summa is “one of the classics of the history of philosophy and one of the most influential works of Western literature.”^[1] It was intended as an instructional guide for theology students, including seminarians and the literate laity. It was a compendium of all of the main theological teachings of the Catholic Church. It presents the reasoning for almost all points of Christian theology in the West. The Summa’s topics follow a cycle: the existence of God; Creation, Man; Man’s purpose; Christ; the Sacraments; and back to God.

This is a HUGE book at over 4,000 pages. I’ll be reading this for a while. Before the interview, I had no idea who Thomas Aquinas was. I bet you might not have heard of him either.

From Aquinas Online

Saint Thomas Aquinas was a 13th century Dominican Friar, philosopher and theologian. Named a Doctor of the Church and given the title “Angelic Doctor,” he is the patron of Catholic universities, colleges and schools. Renowned for his proofs for the existence of God, Aquinas believed that both faith and reason discover truth; a conflict between them is impossible since they both originate in God. He was instrumental, therefore, in the assimilation of the works of Aristotle into the intellectual life of Western Christendom.

There you go. A basic introduction to Saint Thomas Aquinas and his book Summa Theologica.

It’s available for free here and here. It’s also available from Amazon.com.

Have you read this book already? Let me know what you thought in the comments.