PODCAST · society

Summa Theologica, Pars Prima by Saint Thomas Aquinas

by Loyal Books

More than nine hundred years after it was first written, this unfinished work of a scholar saint still has the power to move our minds and hearts and set us thinking on the really important questions of life.Summa Theologica or simply the Summa as it is known, was written some time between 1265-74. It is a work that has had a profound and enduring influence on Western thought and literature. Designed to provide answers to Catholic theologians about the teachings of the Church, Thomas Aquinas' book instead goes far beyond its stated purpose.The most famous tenet that the book contains is the Five Ways or Five Arguments for the Existence of God. This in spite of the fact that this tenet is contained in a mere five pages out of the total three thousand five hundred plus pages of the Summa! Such is the power of some of the ideas contained herein.Thomas Aquinas was a deeply learned Dominican monk, philosopher, teacher and scholar. His path-breaking ideas encompassed sources as diverse