How to access Thomas Aquinas

[callbr549]

I’m not sure if this is the right forum, but here is my question:

I’m interested in reading some of the writings of Thomas Aquinas. How would you start? I know Peter Kreeft has a book on the Summa that looks kind of like a commentary. I remember seeing once at the bookstore a “Summa of the Summa” which I think was supposed to be Aquinas’ own condensed version. I would just like some advice about where to start from someone who has done this.

 

[sweetchuck]

callbr549:

I’m not sure if this is the right forum, but here is my question:

I’m interested in reading some of the writings of Thomas Aquinas. How would you start? I know Peter Kreeft has a book on the Summa that looks kind of like a commentary. I remember seeing once at the bookstore a “Summa of the Summa” which I think was supposed to be Aquinas’ own condensed version. I would just like some advice about where to start from someone who has done this.

Apparently, not a lot of people have done this

I feel your pain…er, curiosity, er, indeciveness…whatever. I, too, am about to embark on an Aquinas journey. I think I’m going to leap head-first into Summa and see where the current takes me.

Whichever path you choose, good luck!

 

[alyssa]

NewAdvent.org

I believe they have his summa available there Used it every now and then when i don’t want to look up something manually.

 

[kmktexas]

There have been two recent threads with some good recomendations. Try.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=34283&highlight=summa and

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=36964&highlight=summa

 

[jimmy]

Here is the Summa from the internet from CCEL. This is the search page.

ccel.org/a/aquinas/summa/

Here is the index.

ccel.org/a/aquinas/summa/home.html

That is usually where I go when I want to read Aquinas.

 

[Brendan]

To be honest, I would get a good book on Aristotle first, and then pick up Aquinas.

I had a lot of difficulty reading Aquinas, then I took Begining Philiosophy as part of my diaconate classes.

After learning about what Aristotle meant by many of his terms, and having an understanding of his Philosophy, I found I could read Aquinas and really understand him.

Without learing Aristotle first, I don’t think I could have ever appreciated what profound insight Aquinas had, and what an incredible intellect!

 

[Kevin_Walker]

My approach to access St. Thomas Aquinas was through history. Since “Thomas is presented fundamentally as an Aristotelian” then I began by reviewing Aristotle’s philosophy, his syllogisms, and Aristotle’s impact on Jewish and Mohammedian scholars and theologians.

In general:

1.) "Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) lived at a critical juncture of western culture when the arrival of the Aristotelian *corpus *in Latin translation reopened the question of the relation between faith and reason, calling into question the *modus vivendi *obtained for centuries.

This crisis flared up just as universities were being founded. Thomas, after early studies at Montecassino, moved on to the University of Naples, where he met members of the new Dominican Order.

It was at Naples too that Thomas had his first extended contact with the new learning.

When he joined the Dominican Order he went North to study with Albert Magnus, author of a paraphrase of the Aristotelian *corpus. *

Thomas completed his studies at the University of Paris, which had been formed out of the monastic schools on the Left Bank and the cathedral school at Notre Dame.

In two stints as a regint master Thomas defended the mendicant orders and, or greater historical importance, countered both Averroistic interpretations of Aristotle and the Franciscan tendency to reject Greek philosophy.

The result was a new *modus vivendi *between faith and philosophy which survived until the rise of the new physics.

Thomas’s theological writings became regulative of the Catholic Church and his close textual commentaries on Aristotle represent a cultural resource which is now receiving increased recognition."

 

[Kevin_Walker]

YET:

2.) “Thomas’s teachings came under attack, largely by Franciscans, immediately after his death. Dominicans responded. This had the effect of making Dominicans Thomasts and Franciscans non-Thomasts – Bonaventurians, Scotists, Ockhamists. The Jesuits were founded after the Reformation and they tended to be Thomasts, often with a Suarezian twist.”

“Vatican II, the ecumenical council that met from 1962-1965, spelled the end of the Thomistic Revival. It was widely held that the council had dethroned Thomas in favor of unnamed contemporary philosophers. (When they were named, quarrels began).”

“In 1998 John Paul II issued an encyclical called *Fides et Ratio *which may be regarded as the character of the Thomasism of the third millenium.”

“When Aristotle rejected the Platonic Ideas or forms, accepting some of the arguments against them that Plato himself had devised in the PARAMENIDES, he did not thereby reject the notion that the telos of philosophical inquiry is a wisdom which turns on what man can know of God.”

 

[Chris_Jacobsen]

The best way is to go to the library, check out the Summa and start reading it. He is very easy to read.

 

[awalt]

I am reading “A Shorter Summa”, by Kreeft - it’s a summary of a summary. If you have not read Aquinas, it’s very diffuclt reading IMHO but very rewarding. If I master this, then I will move on the the Summa of the Summa.