What is the Summa?
The Summa Theologiae (written 1265–1274 and also known as the Summa Theologica or simply the Summa) is the best‐known work of Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274). Although unfinished, the Summa is "one of the classics of the history of philosophy and one of the most influential works of Western literature."[1] It was intended as an instructional guide for moderate theologians and a compendium of all of the main theological teachings of the Catholic Church. It presents the reasoning for almost all points of Christian theology in the West. The Summa's topics follow a cycle: the existence of God; Creation, Man; Man's purpose; Christ; the Sacraments; and back to God.
Among non‐scholars, the Summa is perhaps most famous for its five arguments for the existence of God known as the "five ways" .The five ways occupy one‐and‐a‐half pages of the Summa's approximately three thousand, five hundred pages.
Throughout the Summa, Aquinas cites Christian, Muslim, Hebrew, and Pagan sources including but not limited to Christian Sacred Scripture, Aristotle, Augustine of Hippo, Avicenna, Averroes, Al‐Ghazali, Boethius, John of Damascus, Paul the Apostle, Dionysius the Areopagite, Maimonides, Anselm, Plato, Cicero, and Eriugena.
The Summa is a more structured and expanded version of Aquinas's earlier Summa contra Gentiles, though these works were written for different purposes, the Summa Theologiae to explain the Christian faith to beginning theology students, and the Summa contra Gentiles to explain the Christian faith and defend it in hostile situations, with arguments adapted to the intended circumstances of its use, each article refuting a certain belief or a specific heresy.
Aquinas conceived the Summa specifically as a work suited to beginning students:
It was while teaching at the Santa Sabina studium provinciale, the forerunner of the Santa Maria sopra Minerva studium generale and College of Saint Thomas, which in the 20th century would become the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum, that Aquinas began to compose the Summa.
Who is St Thomas Aquinas?
He was an Italian Dominican friar and Catholic priest and is honored as a Doctor of the Church. Thomas is considered the Church's greatest theologian and philosopher. At the age of nineteen Thomas resolved to join the recently founded Dominican Order. Thomas's decision did not please his family. In an attempt to prevent his mother’s interference in Thomas's choice, the Dominicans arranged to move Thomas to Rome, and from Rome, to Paris. However, while on his journey to Rome, per his mother’s instructions, his brothers seized him as he was drinking from a spring and took him back to his parents at the castle of Monte San Giovanni Campano.
Thomas was held prisoner for about one year in the family castles at Monte San Giovanni and Roccasecca in an attempt to prevent him from assuming the Dominican habit and to push him into renouncing his new aspiration. Political concerns prevented the Pope from ordering Thomas's release, which had the effect of extending Thomas's detention. Thomas passed this time of trial tutoring his sisters and communicating with members of the Dominican Order. Family members became desperate to dissuade Thomas, who remained determined to join the Dominicans. At one point, two of his brothers resorted to the measure of hiring a prostitute to seduce him. According to legend Thomas drove her away wielding a fire iron. That night two angels appeared to him as he slept and strengthened his determination to remain celibate. After seeing that their efforts were futile, his family arranged for his escape and he was allowed to pursue his calling to join the Dominicans. During his formation, Thomas was noted for being a large man, but with a great, quiet humility. St. Albert the Great, a Dominican saint and scholar, reportedly said, “We call him the dumb ox, but in his teaching he will one day produce such a bellowing that it will one day be heard throughout the world.”
We will consider the Summa Theologiae I‐II question.1, articles 1 & 2
Notes on Article 1: First, in contrast to irrational animals, man has the faculty and will of reason. The will, also known as the rational appetite, seeks to achieve both its end and the good, and so all acts, being guided by the will, are for an end. ‐ ENDS IN GENERAL. We mean here by end the purpose for which a thing exists; the end of an act is the purpose for which that act is done. For instance, some may read a certain book for pleasure; others for instruction, others again to practice obedience: the act is the same, the ends are various. Every human act is done for an end.
Notes on Article 2: Man’s happiness does not consist of wealth, honor, fame, glory, power, the goods of the body, or pleasure. In fact, man’s happiness cannot consist in any created good at all, since the ultimate object of man’s will, the universal good, cannot be found in any creature but rather only in God, who is the source of all good. ‐ THE LAST END The last end, is that object in which the agent's desire rests. If in his act the agent excludes all reference to any further end, the end is positively last; if such exclusion is not made, the end is negatively last. By the absolutely last end we mean that object which, by its very nature, requires that all action be subordinated to it, and that in it all desires shall rest. The first principle of Moral Philosophy is this: God is the absolutely last end of all things