Introduction:

Saint Thomas Aquinas was a Catholic Priest in the Dominican Order and
one of the most important Medieval philosophers and theologians.
He was influenced by scholasticism and Aristotle.
 He believed "that for the knowledge of any truth whatsoever man needs
divine help, and that the intellect may be moved by God to its act."
For him, 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. Aquinas was the first
to identify the Principle of Double Effect in ethical decisions, when an
otherwise legitimate act (self-defence) may also cause an effect one would
normally be obliged to avoid (the death of another).

IN THOMISTIC PHILOSOPHY
Man is substantially body and soul.
 The soul is united with the human body because it is the substantial form
of the human body.
 It is the principle of action in the human body and the principle of life of
the body.
 But the soul however, requires the body as the material medium for its
operation particularly perception.
 Soul has operative functions which do not need a material medium; they
are the man’s intellect and will.
 Thus at death, intellection and will remain in the soul which is immortal,
simple and incorruptible.
 Body and soul before death are essentially united because the two exist
in a correlative manner.

He wrote many works of philosophy and theology throughout his life, his
two monumental works are Summa Theologica and Summa Contra
Gentiles. But his most influential work is the Summa Theologica that
extensively discusses man which consists of three parts; God , Ethics and
Christ.

MAN
 Man is the point of convergence between the corporeal and spiritual
substances.
 In other words, Man is “one substance body and soul”.
 Man is an embodied soul not a soul using a body. (as Plato claimed).
 Man is substantially body and soul. And definitely, only the soul is the
substance while the body is actual.

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.

Existence of God
 The argument of the unmoved mover-- 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: 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: 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: 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: 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

He distinguished four kinds of lawsof law:

 Eternal law is the decree of God that governs all creation.
 Natural law is the human "participation" in the eternal law and is
discovered by reason.
 Human law (the natural law applied by governments to societies)
 Divine law (the specially revealed law in the scriptures).

Jesus Christ
 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 distinguishably in one real human body.
Virtues
Thomas defined the four cardinal virtues as prudence, temperance, justice,
and fortitude. The cardinal virtues are natural and revealed in nature, and
they are binding on everyone. There are, however, three theological
virtues: faith, hope, and charity. These are somewhat supernatural and are
distinct from other virtues in their object, namely, God: