Name: Ferlene Clyde P.

Capapas Date: 07 / 24 / 19
Grade & Section: BSN 1 – STEM A

Life and Works of St. Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas Aquinas was an Italian thinker and theologian from the 13th century,
famous for his belief in scholastics and for starting his own school of theology called
Thomism.
In early life and education, St. Thomas Aquinas was born in Aquino, Kingdom of
Sicily, Italy on January 28, 1225 to a noble family. His father was Count Landulph and
his mother was Theodora, Countess of Theate / Teano. He was the youngest of eight
children in the family. His family members were descendants of Emperors Frederick I
and Henry VI and were considered to be of lower nobility. His uncle, Sinibald, was abbot
of the original Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino and Aquinas was expected to
follow his uncle into that position.
At the age of 5, Aquinas began his early education at a monastery, and at the age
of 16 he continued his studies at the University of Naples. After completing his early
education, he was enrolled at the studium generale (university) recently established by
Frederick in Naples in 1239. Here he was introduced to the works of Aristotle, Averroes
and Maimonides, and was greatly influenced by their thoughts. During this time he also
became acquainted with John of St. Julian, a Dominican preacher in Naples who would
play a key role in the young man’s choice of a career. At the age of 19, Thomas decided
to join the recently founded Dominican Order, much to the chagrin of his parents. After
the intervention of Pope Innocent IV, he became a Dominican monk in 1242.
His family made several attempts to dissuade him from taking the step; they even
held him as a prisoner for about a year in the family castles at Monte San Giovanni and
Roccasecca. His brothers tried to distract Thomas by hiring a prostitute to seduce him.
But the young Thomas was determined to dedicate his life to religion and remained
steadfast in his resolve.
His mother realized that Thomas would not change his mind and helped him
escape from his imprisonment so that he could follow his heart. He first went to Naples
and then to Rome to meet Johannes von Wildeshausen, the Master General of the
Dominican Order.
In 1245, he started studying at the Faculty of the Arts at the University of Paris,
where he most likely met Dominican scholar Albertus Magnus. Soft-spoken and humble,
Thomas was often mistaken to be dumb by his fellow students. However, Albertus
recognized his potential and predicted that he would one day become a great scholar.
In later life, Thomas Aquinas was ordained in Cologne, Germany, in 1250. He
went on to teach theology at the University of Paris and also furthered his education
under the tutelage of St. Albert the Great and subsequently earned his doctorate in
theology.
He was appointed regent master in theology at Paris in 1256, a post he would hold
till 1259. During his tenure, he wrote numerous works including ‘Questiones disputatae
de veritate’ (Disputed Questions on Truth), ‘Quaestiones quodlibetales’ (Quodlibetal
Questions), and ‘Expositio super librum Boethii De trinitate’ (Commentary on Boethius's
De trinitate).
By the time his tenure ended, he had become quite famous and had gained a
reputation for being an exemplary scholar. He spent many of the ensuing years preaching,
teaching and writing, while also holding important positions, including that of a general
preacher in Naples. He produced several works for Pope Urban IV such as the liturgy for
the newly created feast of Corpus Christi and the ‘Contra errores graecorum’ (Against the
Errors of the Greeks).
In 1265, he started teaching at the studium conventuale at the Roman convent of
Santa Sabina where he taught the full range of philosophical subjects, both moral and
natural. During this time he also began working on ‘Summa Theologiae’, his most
important work.
He also wrote other important works such as like his unfinished ‘Compendium
Theologiae and Responsio ad fr. Ioannem Vercellensem de articulis 108 sumptis ex opere
Petri de Tarentasia’ (Reply to Brother John of Vercelli Regarding 108 Articles Drawn
from the Work of Peter of Tarentaise).
He went back to Paris as a regent master at the University of Paris for a second
time in 1268. He wrote two major works during this stint which lasted till 1272. One of
them was ‘De unitate intellectus, contra Averroistas’ (On the Unity of Intellect, against
the Averroists) in which he criticized the concept of "Averroism" or "radical
Aristotelianism".
In 1272, he was asked to establish a studium generale wherever he liked by the
Dominicans from his home province. Thus he took leave from the University of Paris to
start work on the project. He established the institution in Naples and became its regent
master. He had a profound religious experience in December 1273 following which he
stopped writing.
Works of St. Thomas Aquinas, he was a Christian theologian, but he was also an
Aristotelian and an Empiricist, and he substantially influenced these two streams of
Western thought. He believed that truth becomes known through both natural revelation
(certain truths are available to all people through their human nature and through correct
human reasoning) and supernatural revelation (faith-based knowledge revealed through
scripture), and he was careful to separate these two elements, which he saw as
complementary rather than contradictory in nature. Thus, although one may deduce the
existence of God and His attributes through reason, certain specifics (such as the Trinity
and the Incarnation) may be known only through special revelation and may not
otherwise be deduced.
His two great works are the "Summa Contra Gentiles" (often published in English
under the title "On the Truth of the Catholic Faith"), written between 1258 and 1264, and
the "Summa Theologica" ("Compendium of Theology"), written between 1265 and 1274.
The former is a broadly-based philosophical work directed at non-Christians; the latter is
addressed largely to Christians and is more a work of Christian theology.
Aquinas saw the raw material data of theology as the written scriptures and
traditions of the Catholic Church, which were produced by the self-revelation of God to
humans throughout history. Faith and reason are the two primary tools which are both
necessary together for processing this data in order to obtain true knowledge of God. He
believed that God reveals himself through nature, so that rational thinking and the study
of nature is also the study of God (a blend of Aristotelian Greek philosophy with
Christian doctrine).
From his consideration of what God is not, Aquinas proposed five positive
statements about the divine qualities or the nature of God:
 God is simple, without composition of parts, such as body and soul, or matter and
form.
 God is perfect, lacking nothing.
 God is infinite, and not limited in the ways that created beings are physically,
intellectually, and emotionally limited.
 God is immutable, incapable of change in respect of essence and character.
 God is one, such that God's essence is the same as God's existence.
Aquinas believed that the existence of God is neither self-evident nor beyond
proof. In the "Summa Theologica", he details five rational proofs for the existence of
God, the "quinquae viae" (or the "Five Ways"), some of which are really re-statements of
each other:
 The argument of the unmoved mover (ex motu): everything that is moved is moved
by a mover, therefore there is an unmoved mover from whom all motion proceeds,
which is God.
 The argument of the first cause (ex causa): everything that is caused is caused by
something else, therefore there must be an uncaused cause of all caused things,
which is God.
 The argument from contingency (ex contingentia): there are contingent beings in
the universe which may either exist or not exist and, as it is impossible for
everything in the universe to be contingent (as something cannot come of nothing),
so there must be a necessary being whose existence is not contingent on any other
being, which is God.
 The argument from degree (ex gradu): there are various degrees of perfection
which may be found throughout the universe, so there must be a pinnacle of
perfection from which lesser degrees of perfection derive, which is God.
 The teleological argument or argument from design (ex fine): all natural bodies in
the world (which are in themselves unintelligent) act towards ends (which is
characteristic of intelligence), therefore there must be an intelligent being that
guides all natural bodies towards their ends, which is God.
Aquinas believed that Jesus Christ was truly divine and not simply a human being
or God merely inhabiting the body of Christ. However, he held that Christ had a truly
rational human soul as well, producing a duality of natures that persisted even after the
Incarnation, and that these two natures existed simultaneously yet distinguishable in one
real human body.
Aquinas defined the four cardinal virtues as prudence, temperance, justice and
fortitude, which he held are natural (revealed in nature) and binding on everyone. In
addition, there are three theological virtues, described as faith, hope and charity, which
are supernatural and are distinct from other virtues in that their object is God.
Furthermore, he distinguished four kinds of law: eternal law (the decree of God that
governs all creation), natural law (human "participation" in eternal law, which is
discovered by reason), human law (the natural law applied by governments to societies)
and divine law (the specially revealed law in the scriptures).

For St. Thomas Aquinas, the goal of human existence is union and eternal
fellowship with God. For those who have experienced salvation and redemption through
Christ while living on earth, a beatific vision will be granted after death in which a person
experiences perfect, unending happiness through comprehending the very essence of
God. During life, an individual's will must be ordered toward right things (such as
charity, peace and holiness), which requires morality in everyday human choices, a kind
of Virtue Ethics. Aquinas was the first to identify the Principle of Double Effect in ethical
decisions, when an otherwise legitimate act (e.g. self-defense) may also cause an effect
one would normally be obliged to avoid (e.g. the death of another).