1. St. Thomas Aquinas
Sarah Allen

2. Overview
 An Italian-born monk who taught at the University of
Paris
 Born: January 28th, 1225 in Roccasecca, Sicily
 Died: March 7th, 1274 in Fossanova, Sicily
 Taught that faith came first and greatly expanded the
scope of reason
 Major figure in scholasticism

3. Aquinas’ Life
 At age five, he was sent to Monte Cassino to begin
preparation for a career in abbacy
 Due to nearby violence, his parents moved him to the
studium generale recently established by Frederick in
Naples
 Came under the influence of a Dominican preacher named
John of St. Julian
 By age ninteen, he was committed to joining the Dominican
Order (a Catholic order famed for its intellectual
excellence)
 His parents were furious with this, as they had wanted him
to become a Benedictine monk

4. Aquinas’ Life cont’d
 The Dominicans attempted to protect him from his parents by
moving him immediately to Rome, and then to Paris
 His mother, Theodora, found out and his brothers (on her orders)
captured him en route to Rome
 He was returned to his parents’ castle where he was held for two
years
 However, he spent the time tutoring his younger sisters in
Dominican ideas and secretly communicating with other
Dominicans
 Finally, in 1244, Theodora – in an attempt to save the family’s
honor and realizing that Aquinas would never relinquish his beliefs
– helped him escape

5. The Nature of God
 Aquinas developed a list of the five divine qualities:
 God is simple, without composition of parts, such as body and soul, or
matter and form.
 God is perfect, lacking nothing. That is, God is distinguished from other
beings on account of God's complete actuality. Thomas defined God as
the ‘Ipse Actus Essendi subsistens,’ subsisting act of being.
 God is infinite. That is, God is not finite in the ways that created beings
are physically, intellectually, and emotionally limited. This infinity is to be
distinguished from infinity of size and infinity of number.
 God is immutable, incapable of change on the levels of God's essence
and character.
 God is one, without diversification within God's self. The unity of God is
such that God's essence is the same as God's existence. In Thomas's
words, "in itself the proposition 'God exists' is necessarily true, for in it
subject and predicate are the same.”

6. Scholasticism
 A system of theology and philosophy popular among
medieval European scholars based on Aristotelian
logic and the writings of the early Church Fathers and
featuring a strong emphasis on Catholic tradition and
dogma
 Particularly with Aquinas, it demonstrated an unusual
confidence in the logical orderliness of knowledge and
in human ability to know

7. Reason
 Aquinas retained the basic belief while studying
reason
 He believed that:
 Humans could – through reason alone – know much of
the natural order, moral law, and the nature of God
 All essential knowledge could be organized coherently
 Wrote a series of Summas (highest works) that
employed careful logic to counter any possible
objections to truth as revealed by reason and faith

8. Summas
 Summa Theologica: Most well-known and best work of
Aquinas
 Intended as a sort of introduction to theology and the main
theological points of Church doctrine
 Three parts:
 Part One: God’s existence, the creation of the world, angels,
and the nature of man
 Part Two: Morality (general and specific)
 Part Three: Christ, the Sacraments, and the end of the world

9. Ethics
 Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Temperance, Justice,
and Fortitude
 Three Theological Virtues: Faith, Hope, and Charity
 Four types of Law:
 Eternal: direct word of God, governs all Creation
 Natural: human adherence to eternal law, discovered by
reason
 Human: positive law (natural law applied to human
government and society)
 Divine: the law as defined in the scriptures

10. Works Cited
 Anonymous. "Thomas Aquinas (1225—1274)."
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2009. Web.
<http://www.iep.utm.edu/aquinas/>.
 Stearns, Peter N. "Theology: Assimilating Faith and
Reason." World Civilizations: The Global Experience.
5. Pearson Education, Inc., 2007. Print.
 "Thomas Aquinas." n. pag. Wikipedia. Web. 9 Nov
2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas