The Summa Theologica, Volume II
Overview
The makers of Encyclopaedia Britannica bring you one of the Great Books of the Western World. This text captures major ideas, stories, and discoveries that helped shape Western culture.
Top Highlights
“Lastly, God is the efficient cause of infused virtue, to which this definition applies; and this is expressed in the words ‘which God works in us without us.’” (Page 29)
“a nation is a body of men united together by consent to the law and by community of welfare.’” (Page 311)
“For when the mode is suitable to the thing’s nature, it has the aspect of good, and when it is unsuitable, it has the aspect of evil. And since nature is the first object of consideration in anything, for this reason habit is counted as the first species of quality.” (Page 3)
“Consequently an intellectual virtue is needed in the reason, to perfect the reason, and make it suitably disposed towards things ordered to the end; and this virtue is prudence. Consequently prudence is a virtue necessary to lead a good life.” (Page 39)
“On the other hand, beauty is in the moral virtues by participation, in so far that is as they share the order of reason; and above all is it in temperance, which restrains the concupiscences which especially darken the light of reason.” (Page 609)
- Title: The Summa Theologica, Volume II
- Author: Thomas Aquinas
- Edition: Second Edition
- Series: Great Books of the Western World
- Volume: 18
- Publishers: Robert P. Gwinn, Encyclopedia Britannica
- Print Publication Date: 1990
- Logos Release Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Catholic Church › Doctrines; Catholic Church; Theology, doctrinal
- ISBNs: 0852295316, 9780852295311
- Resource ID: LLS:GBWW18
- Resource Type: Systematic Theology
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-25T19:51:52Z
Thomas Aquinas (1225–7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, Catholic priest, and Doctor of the Church. An immensely influential philosopher, theologian, and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism, he is also known within the latter as the Doctor Angelicus and the Doctor Communis. He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology and he argued that reason is found in God. His influence on Western thought is considerable, and much of modern philosophy developed or opposed his ideas, particularly in the areas of ethics, natural law, metaphysics, and political theory.
Unlike many currents in the Church of the time, Aquinas embraced the philosophy of Aristotle—whom he called “the Philosopher”—and attempted to synthesize Aristotelian philosophy with the principles of Christianity.
His best-known works are the Disputed Questions on Truth (1256–1259), the Summa contra Gentiles (1259–1265), and the unfinished but massively influential Summa Theologica (1265–1274). His commentaries on Scripture and on Aristotle also form an important part of his body of work. Furthermore, Thomas is distinguished for his eucharistic hymns, which form a part of the Church’s liturgy. The Catholic Church honors Thomas Aquinas as a saint and regards him as the model teacher for those studying for the priesthood, and indeed the highest expression of both natural reason and speculative theology. In modern times, under papal directives, the study of his works was long used as a core of the required program of study for those seeking ordination as priests or deacons, as well as for those in religious formation and for other students of the sacred disciplines (philosophy, Catholic theology, church history, liturgy, and canon law).
Thomas Aquinas is considered one of the Catholic Church’s greatest theologians and philosophers. Pope Benedict XV declared: “This (Dominican) Order . . . acquired new luster when the Church declared the teaching of Thomas to be her own and that Doctor, honored with the special praises of the Pontiffs, the master and patron of Catholic schools.”