Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas

First transcribed:Summa theologiae, c. 1265-1273 (English translation, 1911-1921)

Type of work: Philosophy

The Work

This towering edifice of thought, often called simply the Summa, stands as a bulwark against the forces of doubt and skepticism that invaded the Western world during the late Middle Ages, toward the close of which Saint Thomas Aquinas created this great summation of philosophical and theological knowledge. In it, two of the mightiest forces in the realm of human thought meet: Hellenism and Christianity. It was their first real encounter.

Simply stated, what Saint Thomas did was collect and synthesize the philosophical knowledge and thinking of previous eras and apply them to Christian theology. This was an immensely ambitious task, but Saint Thomas did accomplished it. Though unfinished, because of the divine doctor’s sudden death from illness, the Summa unites, or at least joins elements of thought from, the Greek, the Arabian, and the Asian traditions in a highly detailed fashion. Saint Thomas, therefore, became a historian of philosophy; but he was a critical historian, carefully weighing and evaluating each premise and conclusion.

The largest part of this previous thought is, as might be expected, that of the Greeks. Saint Thomas is usually given the credit for having reinterpreted the philosophy of Aristotle on a Christian basis. This statement is, however, something of an oversimplification, for the reading of Aristotle and other great Greek thinkers, including Plato, was a very special one. Saint Thomas was himself a magnificent philosopher, and the Summa is unquestionably his book. What he did, in essence, was to organize the thought of Aristotle along Christian lines, to apply it to the problems and principles of religion. For example, some philosophers had interpreted Aristotle’s Physica (Physics, 1812) as a denial of Creation. Saint Thomas, however, saw it as merely falling short of this fundamental concept.

The Summa is an exceedingly long work, running into several volumes, a necessary length in order to accomplish the goal of applying Scholasticism, the prevailing philosophical influence in the thirteenth century, to religion. In doing so, Saint Thomas gave credit for ideas and lines of thought to many earlier thinkers, and he found the seeds of much thirteenth-century belief in the works of previous philosophers. His work, then, is in the nature of a summary of past thinking on the highest subjects and a setting forth of the essential principles of Christian theology from this past material and from his own conviction and thinking.

There are three main divisions of the Summa: the first dealing with God and the divine nature of the creation of humanity and the universe; the second, often called the Moral Philosophy of Saint Thomas, treating humanity and the goal of human life and the ways of reaching that goal; the third considering Christ and his role as Savior. Within this general framework virtually every possible subject pertaining to theology is discussed, including good and evil, pleasure, knowledge, duty, and property.

The method of attacking these questions is the Socratic one. A basic question is asked and the negative side of it is enforced by a fictitious opponent. Then, Saint Thomas undertakes to resolve the problem and explain the positive side of the contrived argument. This method, besides making for more interesting reading, tends to create an atmosphere giving fairer treatment to opposing beliefs.

The opening of the Summa presents a good example. In it, Saint Thomas poses the question of “Whether, Besides the Philosophical Sciences, Any Further Doctrine Is Required?” The divine doctor’s fundamental approach can easily be seen: At the beginning of his book, he wishes first to convince the reader of the necessity for sacred doctrine. Following the question are listed two chief objections to the writing of sacred doctrine, and Saint Thomas explains the need for it and refutes each objection in turn. This tightly organized discussion is maintained throughout and is essential in a book that is so closely reasoned.

Part of the reason for this clear organization was the fact that the Summa was not primarily intended for learned divines. Instead, it was written for people whom Saint Thomas called beginners, the common people in search of the truth. Also, such an intention probably had much to do with the style of the writing. Although the Summa is extremely long, it is praised for its economy of language, with no wasted words, no useless introduction of extraneous points of logic, and no pursuit of attenuated lines of reasoning past the point of common sense. The work is encyclopedic, not tedious.

Although much of what Saint Thomas wrote in the Summa has long been accepted doctrine in the Roman Catholic Church, there is for the contemporary reader considerable material that may seem remarkably up to date, for, theology aside, this book is pivotal in the history of Western philosophy. Possibly most interesting to the modern reader will be not the ethical elements, which are fairly familiar and do not seem to mark such a sharp break with earlier Greek views, but the metaphysical and epistemological aspects of the treatise. Two particularly important issues are raised by Saint Thomas in these areas, and both are in opposition to Greek thought, especially that of Plato.

The first of these concerns the very nature of reality, which is the main point of inquiry in metaphysics. While Plato saw reality as made up of essences, largely perceived as abstractions in the mind (here the “way of knowing,” the central question of epistemology, enters in), Saint Thomas maintained that the basic statement was that something had being; that is, it had existence. This is the basis for an argument that has raged ever since among philosophers: Which is the supreme reality, essence or existence? Which is the more fundamental statement, what it is or that it is?

In his defense of the latter statement. Saint Thomas propounded principles that might be called Thomistic existentialism. Certainly the conflict created in the Summa over this question in the thirteenth century was of vital importance. Equally so was Saint Thomas’s disagreement with the Platonic belief that a person is really two separate things, a soul and a body. To Saint Thomas a person was a composite, a unity composed of soul and body, both essential to one’s nature.

This conflict connects with Saint Thomas’s convictions about the “way of knowing” that is basic to his epistemology. Since reality is fundamentally existence rather than essence, to know this reality one must have a body—one must be able to perceive reality through the senses. Certainly Saint Thomas’s statements in this area would meet with much warmer approval by most readers today than would the Greek notions concerning reality as essences, known only by abstractions in the mind. The practicality of the Thomistic viewpoint makes it appeal to scientifically minded modern thinkers.

In building this great philosophical and theological structure, Saint Thomas dealt with three of the most pressing problems in the thinking of the thirteenth century—the nature of being, of humanity, and of knowledge—and these three subjects parallel the divisions of philosophy as it is generally studied today: metaphysics, ethics, and epistemology. In approaching this skillful and subtle blending of theology and philosophy, the reader must be willing to do what nearly every philosophical writer demands: The reader must be agreeable to accepting certain general premises or principles. Without these, few philosophers can operate, and Saint Thomas is no exception. He assumes certain beliefs in his reader (the prevailing beliefs toward the close of the Middle Ages) concerning theology and religion. Granting these convictions, the reader will find in the Summa well-documented (quotations are frequent) and carefully reasoned statements on both sides of every issue involved in the Christian doctrine.

This work, which death ended as Saint Thomas was working on the article about the sacrament of Penance, has been widely translated into most modern languages and continues to be assiduously studied by all who wish to grasp the moment when, in the opinion of many, modern Christian theology began.

Bibliography

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