THOMAS AQUINAS

Thomas Aquinas, O.P. (1225 – 7 March 1274), also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the custom of scholasticism, within which he is also recognized as the "Dumb Ox", "Angelic Doctor", "Doctor Communis", and "Doctor Universalis". "Aquinas" is the demonym of Aquino: Thomas came from one of the noblest families of the Kingdom of Naples; his parents held the titles "Count of Aquino" and "Countess of Teano." He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology, and the father of Thomism. His power on Western thought is considerable, and much of contemporary philosophy was conceived in development or refutation of his thoughts, particularly in the regions of ethics, natural law, metaphysics, and political theory.

Thomas is held in the Roman Catholic Church to be the model teacher for those learning for the priesthood, and indeed the highest expression of both natural cause and speculative theology. The revise of his works, just as to papal and magisterial documents, is a core of the required program of revise for those seeking ordination as priests or deacons, as well as for those in religious formation and for other students of the sacred disciplines (Catholic philosophy, theology, history, liturgy, and canon law). The works for which he is best-recognized are the Summa theologiae and the Summa Contra Gentiles. One of the 35 Doctors of the Church, he is measured the Church's greatest theologian and philosopher. 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."

BIOGRAPHY

Dominican (1225–1244)

Thomas was born in Roccasecca, in the Aquino county of the Kingdom of Sicily (present-day Lazio region, Italy), circa January 28, 1225. Just as to some authors, he was born in the castle of his father, Landulf of Aquino. Thomas's father didn‘t belong to the mainly powerful branch of the family and basically held the title miles, while Thomas's mother, Dame Theodora, belonged to the Rossi branch of the Neapolitan Caracciolo family. Landulf's brother Sinibald was abbot of the original Benedictine abbey at Monte Cassino. While the rest of the family's sons pursued military careers, the family planned for Thomas to follow his uncle into the abbacy; this would have been a normal career path for a younger son of southern Italian nobility.

At the age of five, Thomas began his early education at Monte Cassino but after the military disagreement that broke out flanked by the Emperor Frederick II and Pope Gregory IX spilled into the abbey in early 1239, Landulf and Theodora had Thomas enrolled at the studium generale (university) recently recognized through Frederick in Naples. It was here that Thomas was almost certainly introduced to Aristotle, Averroes and Maimonides, all of whom would power his theological philosophy. It was also throughout his revise at Naples that Thomas came under the power of John of St. Julian, a Dominican preacher in Naples, who was part of the active effort through the Dominican order to recruit devout followers. There his teacher in arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music was Petrus de Ibernia.

At age nineteen, Thomas resolved to join the Dominican Order. Thomas's change of heart did not please his family, who had expected him to become a Benedictine monk and perhaps the abbot of the powerful Montecassino Abbey close to his family's domains. In an effort to prevent Theodora's interference in Thomas's choice, the Dominicans arranged for Thomas to be removed to Rome, and from Rome, sent to Paris. Though, on his journey to Rome his brothers, per Theodora's instructions, 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 two years in the family castles at Monte San Giovanni and Roccasecca in an effort 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' 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. Just as to legend Thomas drove her absent wielding a fire iron. That night two angels appeared to him as he slept and strengthened his determination to remain celibate.

Through 1244, seeing that all of her attempts to dissuade Thomas had failed, Theodora sought to save the family's dignity, arranging for Thomas to escape at night through his window. In her mind, a secret escape from detention was less damaging than an open surrender to the Dominicans. Thomas was sent first to Naples and then to Rome to meet Johannes von Wildeshausen, the Master Common of the Dominican Order.

Paris, Cologne, Albert Magnus, and First Paris Regency (1245–1259)

In 1245, Thomas was sent to revise at the University of Paris' Faculty of Arts where he mainly likely met Dominican scholar Albertus Magnus, then the Chair of Theology at the College of St. James in Paris. When Albertus was sent through his superiors to teach at the new studium generale at Cologne in 1248, Thomas followed him, declining Pope Innocent IV's offer to appoint him abbot of Monte Cassino as a Dominican. Albertus then appointed the reluctant Thomas magister studentium. When Thomas failed his first theological disputation, Albertus prophetically exclaimed: "We call him the dumb ox, but in his teaching he will one day produce such a bellowing that it will be heard throughout the world."

Thomas taught in Cologne as an apprentice professor (baccalaureus biblicus), instructing students on the books of the Old Testament and writing Expositio super Isaiam ad litteram (Literal Commentary on Isaiah), Postilla super Ieremiam (Commentary on Jeremiah) and Postilla super Threnos (Commentary on Lamentations). Then in 1252 he returned to Paris to revise for the master's degree in theology. He lectured on the Bible as an apprentice professor, and upon becoming a baccalaureus Sententiarum (bachelor of the Sentences) devoted his final three years of revise to commenting on Peter Lombard's Sentences. In the first of his four theological syntheses, Thomas composed a huge commentary on the Sentences entitled Scriptum super libros Sententiarium (Commentary on the Sentences). Aside from his master‘s writings, he wrote De ente et essentia (On Being and Essence) for his fellow Dominicans in Paris.

In the spring of 1256, Thomas was appointed regent master in theology at Paris and one of his first works upon assuming this office was Contra impugnantes Dei cultum et religionem (Against Those Who Assail the Worship of God and Religion), defending the mendicant orders which had come under attack through William of Saint-Amour. Throughout his tenure from 1256 to 1259, Thomas wrote numerous works, including: Questiones disputatae de veritate (Disputed Questions on Truth), a collection of twenty-nine disputed questions on characteristics of faith and the human condition prepared for the public university debates he presided in excess of on Lent and Advent; Quaestiones quodlibetales (Quodlibetal Questions), a collection of his responses to questions posed to him through the academic audience; and both Expositio super librum Boethii De trinitate (Commentary on Boethius's De trinitate) and Expositio super librum Boethii De hebdomadibus (Commentary on Boethius's De hebdomadibus), commentaries on the works of 6th century philosopher Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius. Through the end of his regency, Thomas was working on one of his mainly well-known works, Summa contra Gentiles.

Naples, Orvieto, Rome (1259–1268)

In 1259 Thomas completed his first regency at the studium generale and left Paris so that others in his order could gain this teaching experience. He returned to Naples where he was appointed as common preacher through the provincial chapter of September 29, 1260. In September 1261 he was described to Orvieto as consensual lector responsible for the rustic formation of the friars unable to attend a studium generale. In Orvieto Thomas completed his Summa contra Gentiles, wrote the Catena aurea, (The Golden Chain), and produced works for Pope Urban IV such as the liturgy for the newly created feast of Corpus Christi and the Contra errores graecorum (Against the Errors of the Greeks).

In February 1265 the newly elected Pope Clement IV summoned Aquinas to Rome to serve as papal theologian. This similar year he was ordered through the Dominican Chapter of Agnani to teach at the studium conventuale at the Roman convent of Santa Sabina which had been founded some years before in 1222. The studium at Santa Sabina now became an experiment for the Dominicans, the Order's first studium provinciale, an intermediate school flanked by the studium conventuale and the studium generale. "Prior to this time the Roman Province had offered no dedicated education of any sort, no arts, no philosophy; only easy convent schools, with their vital courses in theology for resident friars, were functioning in Tuscany and the meridionale throughout the first many decades of the order's life. But the new studium at Santa Sabina was to be a school for the province," a studium provinciale. Tolomeo da Lucca, an associate and early biographer of Aquinas, tells us that at the Santa Sabina studium Aquinas taught the full range of philosophical subjects, both moral and natural.

While at the Santa Sabina studium provinciale Thomas began his mainly well-known work the Summa theologiae, which he conceived of specifically as suited to beginning students: "Because a doctor of catholic truth ought not only to teach the proficient, but to him pertains also to instruct beginners. as the Apostle says in 1 Corinthians 3: 1-2, as to infants in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not meat, our proposed intention in this work is to convey those things that pertain to the Christian religion, in a method that is fitting to the instruction of beginners." While there he also wrote a diversity of other works like his unfinished Compendium Theologiae and Responsio ad fr. Ioannem Vercellensem de articulis 108 sumptis ex opere Petri de Tarentasia (Reply to Brother John of Vercelli Concerning 108 Articles Drawn from the Work of Peter of Tarentaise). In his location as head of the studium Aquinas mannered a series of significant disputations on the power of God, which he compiled into his De potentia. Nicholas Brunacci was in the middle of Aquinas' students at the Santa Sabina studium provinciale and later at the Paris studium generale. In November 1268 he was with Aquinas and his associate and secretary Reginald of Piperno, as they left Viterbo on their method to Paris to begin the academic year. Another student of Aquinas' at the Santa Sabina studium provinciale was Blessed Tommasello da Perugia.

Aquinas remained at the studium at Santa Sabina from 1265 until he was described back to Paris in 1268 for second teaching regency. With his departure for Paris in 1268 and the passage of time the pedagogical behaviors of the studium provinciale at Santa Sabina were divided flanked by two campuses. A new convent of the Order at the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva had a modest beginning in 1255 as a society for women converts, but grew rapidly in size and importance after being given in excess of to the Dominicans friars in 1275. In 1288 the theology component of the provincial curriculum for the education of the friars was relocated from the Santa Sabina studium provinciale to the studium conventuale at Santa Maria sopra Minerva which was redesignated as a studium particularis theologiae. This studium was transformed in the 16th century into the College of Saint Thomas. In the 20th century the college was relocated to the convent of Saints Dominic and Sixtus and was transformed into the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum.

The Quarrelsome Second Paris Regency (1269–1272)

In 1268 the Dominican Order assigned Thomas to be regent master at the University of Paris for a second time, a location he held until the spring of 1272. Part of the cause for this sudden reassignment appears to have arisen from the rise of "Averroism" or "radical Aristotelianism" in the universities. In response to these perceived evils, Thomas wrote two works, one of them being De unitate intellectus, contra Averroistas (On the Unity of Intellect, against the Averroists) in which he blasts Averroism as incompatible with Christian doctrine. Throughout his second regency, he finished the second part of the Summa and wrote De virtutibus and De aeternitate mundi, the latter of which dealt with controversial Averroist and Aristotelian beginninglessness of the world. Disputes with some significant Franciscans such as Bonaventure and John Peckham conspired to create his second regency much more hard and troubled than the first. A year before Thomas re-assumed the regency at the 1266–67 Paris disputations, Franciscan master William of Baglione accused Thomas of encouraging Averroists, calling him the "blind leader of the blind". Thomas described these individuals the murmurantes (Grumblers). In reality,

Thomas was deeply disturbed through the spread of Averroism and was angered when he exposed Siger of Brabant teaching Averroistic interpretations of Aristotle to Parisian students. On 10 December 1270, the bishop of Paris, Etienne Tempier, issued an edict condemning thirteen Aristotlelian and Averroistic propositions as heretical and excommunicating anyone who sustained to support them. Several in the ecclesiastical society, the so-described Augustinians, were fearful that this introduction of Aristotelianism and the more extreme Averroism might somehow contaminate the purity of the Christian faith. In what appears to be an effort to counteract the rising fear of Aristotelian thought, Thomas mannered a series of disputations flanked by 1270 and 1272: De virtutibus in communi (On Virtues in Common), De virtutibus cardinalibus (On Cardinal Virtues), De spe (On Hope).

Final Days and “Straw” (1272–1274)

In 1272 Thomas took leave from the University of Paris when the Dominicans from his house province described upon him to set up a studium generale wherever he liked and staff it as he pleased. He chose to set up the institution in Naples, and moved there to take his post as regent master. He took his time at Naples to work on the third part of the Summa while giving lectures on several religious topics. On 6 December 1273 at the Dominican convent of Naples in the Chapel of Saint Nicholas after Matins Thomas lingered and was seen through the sacristan Domenic of Caserta to be levitating in prayer with tears before an icon of the crucified Christ. Christ said to Thomas, "You have written well of me, Thomas. What reward would you have for your labor?" Thomas responded, "Nothing but you Lord. After this exchange something happened, but Thomas never spoke of it or wrote it down. Because of what he saw, he abandoned his routine and refused to dictate to his socius Reginald of Piperno. When Reginald begged him to get back to work, Thomas replied: ―Reginald, I cannot, because all that I have written appears like straw to me (mihi videtur ut palea). What exactly triggered Thomas's change in behavior is whispered through Catholics to have been some type of supernatural experience of God. After taking to his bed, he did recover some strength.

In 1054, an extensive-lasting schism had occurred flanked by the Catholic Church and the churches in communion with the Patriarch of Constantinople, later recognized as the Eastern Orthodox. Looking to discover a method to reunite the Eastern Orthodox churches with the Catholic Church Pope Gregory X convened the Second Council of Lyon to be held on 1 May 1274 and summoned Thomas to attend. At the meeting, Thomas's work for Pope Urban IV concerning the Greeks, Contra errores graecorum, was to be presented. On his method to the Council, riding on a donkey beside the Appian Method, he struck his head on the branch of a fallen tree and became seriously ill again. He was then quickly escorted to Monte Cassino to convalesce. After resting for a while, he set out again, but stopped at the Cistercian Fossanova Abbey after again falling ill. The monks nursed him for many days, and as he received his last rites he prayed: "I receive Thee, ransom of my soul. For love of Thee have I studied and kept vigil, toiled, preached and taught...." He died on 7 March 1274 while giving commentary on the Song of Songs.

Condemnation of 1277

In 1277 Etienne Tempier, the similar bishop of Paris who had issued the condemnation of 1270, issued another more extensive condemnation. One aim of this condemnation was to clarify that God's absolute power transcended any principles of logic that Aristotle or Averroes might lay on it. More specifically, it contained a list of 219 propositions that the bishop had determined to violate the omnipotence of God, and incorporated in this list were twenty Thomistic propositions. Their inclusion badly damaged Thomas's reputation for several years.

In The Divine Comedy, Dante sees the glorified soul of Thomas in the Heaven of the Sun with the other great exemplars of religious wisdom. Dante asserts that Thomas died through poisoning, on the order of Charles of Anjou; Villani cites this belief, and the Anonimo Fiorentino describes the crime and its motive. But the historian Ludovico Antonio Muratori reproduces the explanation made through one of Thomas's friends, and this version of the story provides no hint of foul play.

Thomas's theology had begun its rise to prestige. Two centuries later, in 1567, Pope Pius V proclaimed St. Thomas Aquinas a Doctor of the Church and ranked his feast with those of the four great Latin fathers: Ambrose, Augustine of Hippo, Jerome, and Gregory. Though, in the similar era the Council of Trent still turned to Duns Scotus before Thomas as a source of arguments in defence of the Church. Even though Duns Scotus was more consulted at the Council of Trent, Thomas had the honor of having his Summa theologiae placed on the altar alongside the Bible and the Decretals.

In his encyclical of 4 August 1879, Pope Leo XIII stated that Thomas's theology was a definitive exposition of Catholic doctrine. Therefore , he directed the clergy to take the teachings of Thomas as the foundation of their theological positions. Leo XIII also decreed that all Catholic seminaries and universities necessity teach Thomas's doctrines, and where Thomas did not speak on a topic, the teachers were "urged to teach conclusions that were reconcilable with his thinking." In 1880, Saint Thomas Aquinas was declared patron of all Catholic educational establishments.

Canonization

When the devil's advocate at his canonization procedure objected that there were no miracles, one of the cardinals answered, "Tot miraculis, quot articulis"—"there are as several miracles (in his life) as articles," viz., thousands.

In a monastery at Naples, close to the cathedral of St. Januarius, a cell in which he supposedly existed is still shown to visitors. His remnants were placed in the Church of the Jacobins in Toulouse in 1369. Flanked by 1789 and 1974, they were held in Basilique de Saint-Sernin, Toulouse. In 1974, they were returned to the Church of the Jacobins, where they have remained ever since.

In the Common Roman Calendar of 1962, in the Roman Catholic Church, Thomas was commemorated on 7 March, the day of death. Though, in the Common Roman Calendar of 1969, Thomas's memorial was transferred to 28 January, the date of the translation of his leftovers to Toulouse.

Saint Thomas Aquinas is honored with a feast day in the liturgical year of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America on 28 January.

Philosophy

Thomas was a theologian and a Scholastic philosopher. Though, he never measured himself a philosopher, and criticized philosophers, whom he saw as pagans, for always "falling short of the true and proper wisdom to be establish in Christian revelation." With this in mind, Thomas did have respect for Aristotle, so much so that in the Summa, he often cites Aristotle basically as "the Philosopher." Much of his work bears upon philosophical topics, and in this sense may be characterized as philosophical. Thomas's philosophical thought has exerted enormous power on subsequent Christian theology, especially that of the Roman Catholic Church, extending to Western philosophy in common. Thomas stands as a vehicle and modifier of Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism.

Commentaries on Aristotle

Thomas wrote many significant commentaries on Aristotle's works, including On the Soul, Nicomachean Ethics and Metaphysics. His work is associated with William of Moerbeke's translations of Aristotle from Greek into Latin.

Epistemology

Thomas whispered "that for the knowledge of any truth whatsoever man needs divine help, that the intellect may be moved through God to its act." Though, he whispered that human beings have the natural capability to know several things without special divine revelation, even though such revelation occurs from time to time, "especially in regard to such (truths) as pertain to faith." But this is the light that is given to man through God just as to man's nature: "Now every form bestowed on created things through God has power for a determined act[uality], which it can bring in relation to the in proportion to its own proper endowment; and beyond which it is powerless, except through a superadded form, as water can only heat when heated through the fire. And therefore the human understanding has a form, viz. intelligible light, which of itself is enough for knowing sure intelligible things, viz. those we can come to know through the senses. "

Psychology

Aquinas maintains that a human is a single material substance. He understands the soul as the form of the body, which creates a human being the composite of the two. Therefore , only livelihood, form-matter composites can truly be described human; dead bodies are ―human‖ only analogously. One actually existing substance comes from body and soul. A human is a single material substance, but still should be understood as having an immaterial soul, which continues after bodily death.

Ultimately, humans are animals; the animal genus is body; body is material substance. When embodied, a human person is an ―individual substance in the category rational animal.‖ The body belongs to the essence of a human being. In his Summa theologiae Aquinas clearly states his location on the nature of the soul; defining it as ―the first principle of life.‖ The soul is not corporeal, or a body; it is the act of a body. Because the intellect is incorporeal, it does not use the bodily organs, as ―the operation of anything follows the mode of its being.

The human soul is perfected in the body, but does not depend on the body, because part of its nature is spiritual. In this method, the soul differs from other shapes, which are only establishing in matter, and therefore depend on matter. The soul, as form of the body, does not depend on matter in this method.

The soul is not matter, not even incorporeal or spiritual matter. If it were, it would not be able to understand universals, which are immaterial. A receiver receives things just as to the receiver‘s own nature, so in order for soul (receiver) to understand (receive) universals, it necessity have the similar nature as universals. Yet, any substance that understands universals may not be a matter-form composite. So, humans have rational souls which are abstract shapes self-governing of the body. But a human being is one existing, single material substance which comes from body and soul: that is what Thomas means when he writes that ―something one in nature can be shaped from an intellectual substance and a body, and ―a thing one in nature does not result from two permanent entities unless one has the character of substantial form and the other of matter.

The soul is a "substantial form"; it is a part of a substance, but it is not a substance through itself. Nevertheless, the soul exists separately from the body, and continues, after death, in several of the capacities we think of as human. Substantial form is what creates a thing a member of the species to which it belongs, and substantial form is also the structure or configuration that gives the substance with the abilities that create the substance what it is. For humans, those abilities are those of the rational animal.

These distinctions can be better understood in the light of Aquinas‘ understanding of matter and form, a hylomorphic ("matter/form") theory derived from Aristotle. In any given substance, matter and form are necessarily united, and each is a necessary aspect of that substance. Though, they are conceptually separable. Matter symbolizes what is changeable in relation to the substance – what is potentially something else. For instance, bronze matter is potentially a statue, or also potentially a cymbal. Matter necessity be understood as the matter of something. In contrast, form is what determines some scrupulous chunk of matter to be a specific substance and no other. When Aquinas says that the human body is only partly composed of matter, he means the material body is only potentially a human being. The soul is what actualizes that potential into an existing human being. Consequently, the information that a human body is live human tissue entails that a human soul is wholly present in each part of the human.

Theology

Thomas viewed theology, or the sacred doctrine, as a science, the raw material data of which consists of written scripture and the custom of the Catholic Church. These sources of data were produced through the self-revelation of God to individuals and groups of people throughout history. Faith and cause, while separate but related, are the two primary apparatus for processing the data of theology. Thomas whispered both were necessary — or, rather, that the confluence of both was necessary — for one to obtain true knowledge of God. Thomas blended Greek philosophy and Christian doctrine through suggesting that rational thinking and the revise of nature, like revelation, were valid methods to understand truths pertaining to God. Just as to Thomas, God reveals himself through nature, so to revise nature is to revise God. The ultimate goals of theology, in Thomas's mind, are to use cause to grasp the truth in relation to the God and to experience salvation through that truth.

Revelation

Thomas whispered that truth is recognized through cause (natural revelation) and faith (supernatural revelation). Supernatural revelation has its origin in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and is made accessible through the teaching of the prophets, summed up in Holy Scripture, and transmitted through the Magisterium, the sum of which is described "Custom". Natural revelation is the truth accessible to all people through their human nature and powers of cause. For instance, he felt this applied to rational methods to know the subsistence of God.

Though one may deduce the subsistence of God and his Attributes (Unity, Truth, Goodness, Power, Knowledge) through cause, sure specifics may be recognized only through the special revelation of God in Jesus Christ. The major theological components of Christianity, such as the Trinity and the Incarnation, are revealed in the teachings of the Church and the Scriptures and may not otherwise be deduced. Faith and cause complement rather than contradict each other, each giving dissimilar views of the similar Truth.

Creation

As a Catholic, Thomas whispered that God is the "maker of heaven and earth, of all that is visible and invisible." Like Aristotle, Thomas posited that life could form from non-livelihood material or plant life, a theory of ongoing a biogenesis recognized as spontaneous generation:

Since the generation of one thing is the corruption of another, it was not incompatible with the first formation of things, that from the corruption of the less perfect the more perfect should be generated. Hence animals generated from the corruption of inanimate things, or of plants, may have been generated then.

Additionally, Thomas measured Empedocles' theory that several mutated species appeared at the dawn of Creation. Thomas reasoned that these species were generated through mutations in animal sperm, and argued that they were not unintended through nature; rather, such species were basically not planned for perpetual subsistence. That discussion is established in his commentary on Aristotle's Physics:

The similar thing is true of those substances which Empedocles said were produced at the beginning of the world, such as the ‗ox-progeny‘, i.e., half ox and half man. For if such things were not able to arrive at some end and final state of nature so that they would be preserved in subsistence, this was not because nature did not intend this [a final state], but because they were not capable of being preserved. For they were not generated just as to nature, but through the corruption of some natural principle, as it now also happens that some monstrous offspring are generated because of the corruption of seed.

Presently War

Augustine of Hippo agreed strongly with the conventional wisdom of his time, that Christians should be pacifists philosophically, but that they should use protection as a means of preserving peace in the extensive run. For instance, he routinely argued that pacifism did not prevent the defence of innocents. In essence, the pursuit of peace might require fighting to preserve it in the extensive-term. Such a war necessity not be preemptive, but suspicious, to restore peace.

Thomas Aquinas, centuries later, used the power of Augustine's arguments in an effort to describe the circumstances under which a war could be presently. He laid these out in his historic work, Summa Theologica:

First, war necessity happen for a good and presently purpose rather than the pursuit of wealth or power.

Second, presently war necessity be waged through a properly instituted power such as the state.

Third, peace necessity be a central motive even in the midst of violence.

The School of Salamanca

The School of Salamanca expanded Aquinas' understanding of natural law and presently war. Given that war is one of the worst evils suffered through mankind, the adherents of the School reasoned that it ought to be resorted to only when it was necessary to prevent an even greater evil. A diplomatic agreement is preferable, even for the more powerful party, before a war is started. Examples of "presently war" are:

In self-protection, as extensive as there is a reasonable possibility of success. If failure is a foregone conclusion, then it is presently a wasteful spilling of blood.

Preventive war against a tyrant who is in relation to the attack.

War to punish a guilty enemy.

A war is not legitimate or illegitimate basically based on its original motivation: it necessity comply with a series of additional necessities:

The response necessity be commensurate to the evil; more violence than is strictly necessary would be unjust.

Governing authorities declare war, but their decision is not enough cause to begin a war. If the people oppose a war, then it is illegitimate. The people have a right to depose a government that is waging, or is in relation to the wage, an unjust war.

Once war has begun, there remain moral limits to action. For instance, one may not attack innocents or kill hostages.

The belligerent‘s necessity exhaust all options for dialogue and negotiation before undertaking a war; war is only legitimate as a last resort.

Under this doctrine, expansionist wars, wars of pillage, wars to convert infidels or pagans, and wars for glory are all inherently unjust.

Nature of God

Thomas whispered that the subsistence of God is self-apparent in itself, but not to us. "So I say that this proposition, "God exists," of itself is self-apparent, for the predicate is the similar as the subject.... Now because we do not know the essence of God, the proposition is not self-apparent to us; but needs to be demonstrated through things that are more recognized to us, though less recognized in their nature — namely, through effects."

Thomas whispered that the subsistence of God can be proven. In the Summa theologiae, he measured in great detail five arguments for the subsistence of God, widely recognized as the quinque viae (Five Methods).

For the original text of the five proofs:

Motion: Some things undoubtedly move, though cannot cause their own motion. Since, as Thomas whispered, there can be no infinite chain of causes of motion, there necessity be a First Mover not moved through anything else, and this is what everyone understands through God.

Causation: As in the case of motion, nothing can cause itself, and an infinite chain of causation is impossible, so there necessity be a First Cause, described God.

Subsistence of necessary and the unnecessary: Our experience comprises things certainly existing but apparently unnecessary. Not everything can be unnecessary, for then once there was nothing and there would still be nothing. So, we are compelled to suppose something that exists necessarily, having this necessity only from itself; in information itself the cause for other things to exist.

Gradation: If we can notice a gradation in things in the sense that some things are more hot, good, etc., there necessity be a superlative which is the truest and noblest thing, and so mainly fully existing. This then, we call God -->note Thomas does not ascribe actual qualities to God Himself!

Ordered tendencies of nature: A direction of actions to an end is noticed in all bodies following natural laws. Anything without awareness tends to a goal under the guidance of one who is aware. This we call God --> Note that even when we guide objects, in Thomas' view the source of all our knowledge comes from God as well.

Concerning the nature of God, Thomas felt the best approach, commonly described the via negativa, is to consider what God is not. This led him to propose five statements in relation to the divine qualities:

God is easy, without composition of parts, such as body and soul, or matter and form.

God is perfect, lacking nothing. That is, God is distinguished from other beings on explanation of God's complete actuality. Thomas defined God as the ‗Ipse Actus Essendi subsistens,‘ subsisting act of being.

God is infinite. That is, God is not finite in the methods that created beings are physically, intellectually, and emotionally limited. This infinity is to be distinguished from infinity of size and infinity of number.

God is immutable, incapable of change on the stages of God's essence and character.

God is one, without diversification within God's self. The unity of God is such that God's essence is the similar as God's subsistence. In Thomas's languages, "in itself the proposition 'God exists' is necessarily true, for in it subject and predicate are the similar."

In this approach, he is following, in the middle of others, the Jewish philosopher Maimonides.

Following St. Augustine of Hippo, Thomas defines sin as "a word, deed, or desire, contrary to the eternal law." It is significant to note the analogous nature of law in Thomas's legal philosophy. Natural law is an instance or instantiation of eternal law. Because natural law is that which human beings determine just as to their own nature (as rational beings), disobeying cause is disobeying natural law and eternal law. Therefore eternal law is logically prior to reception of either "natural law" (that determined through cause) or "divine law" (that establish in the Old and New Testaments). In other languages, God's will extends to both cause and revelation. Sin is abrogating either one's own cause, on the one hand, or revelation on the other, and is synonymous with "evil" (privation of good, or privatio boni). Thomas, like all Scholastics, usually argued that the findings of cause and data of revelation cannot disagreement, so both are a guide to God's will for human beings.

Nature of the Trinity

Thomas argued that God, while perfectly united, also is perfectly described through Three Interrelated Persons. These three persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) are constituted through their dealings within the essence of God. Thomas wrote that the term "Trinity" "does not mean the dealings themselves of the Persons, but rather the number of persons related to each other; and hence it is that the word in itself does not express regard to another." The Father generates the Son (or the Word) through the relation of self-awareness. This eternal generation then produces an eternal Spirit "who enjoys the divine nature as the Love of God, the Love of the Father for the Word."

This Trinity exists independently from the world. It transcends the created world, but the Trinity also decided to provide grace to human beings. This takes lay through the Incarnation of the Word in the person of Jesus Christ and through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within those who have experienced salvation through God; just as to Aidan Nichols.

Prima Causa – First Cause

Thomas's five proofs for the subsistence of God take some of Aristotle's assertions concerning principles of being. For Thomas, God as prima causa (first cause) comes from Aristotle's concept of the unmoved mover and asserts that God is the ultimate cause of all things.

Nature of Jesus Christ

In the Summa Theologica, Thomas begins his discussion of Jesus Christ through recounting the biblical story of Adam and Eve and through describing the negative effects of original sin. The purpose of Christ's Incarnation was to restore human nature through removing "the contamination of sin", which humans cannot do through themselves. "Divine Wisdom judged it fitting that God should become man, so that therefore one and the similar person would be able both to restore man and to offer satisfaction." Thomas argued in favor of the satisfaction view of atonement; that is, that Jesus Christ died "to satisfy for the whole human race, which was sentenced to die on explanation of sin."

Thomas argued against many specific modern and historical theologians who held differing views in relation to the Christ. In response to Photinus, Thomas stated that Jesus was truly divine and not basically a human being. Against Nestorius, who suggested that Son of God was merely conjoined to the man Christ, Thomas argued that the fullness of God was an integral part of Christ's subsistence. Though, countering Apollinaris' views, Thomas held that Christ had a truly human (rational) soul, as well. This produced a duality of natures in Christ. Thomas argued against Eutyches that this duality persisted after the Incarnation. Thomas stated that these two natures lived simultaneously yet distinguishably in one real human body, unlike the teachings of Manichaeus and Valentinus.

In short, "Christ had a real body of the similar nature of ours, a true rational soul, and, jointly with these, perfect Deity." Therefore , there is both unity (in his one hypostasis) and composition (in his two natures, human and Divine) in Christ.

I answer that, The Person or hypostasis of Christ may be viewed in two methods. First as it is in itself, and therefore it is altogether easy, even as the Nature of the Word. Secondly, in the aspect of person or hypostasis to which it belongs to subsist in a nature; and therefore the Person of Christ subsists in two natures. Hence though there is one subsisting being in Him, yet there are dissimilar characteristics of survival, and hence He is said to be a composite person, insomuch as one being subsists in two.

Echoing Athanasius of Alexandria, he said that "The only begotten Son of God...assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might create men gods."

Goal of Human Life

In Thomas's thought, the goal of human subsistence is union and eternal fellowship with God. Specifically, this goal is achieved through the beatific vision, an event in which a person experiences perfect, unending happiness through seeing the extremely essence of God. This vision, which occurs after death, is a gift from God given to those who have experienced salvation and redemption through Christ while livelihood on earth.

This ultimate goal carries implications for one's present life on earth. Thomas stated that an individual's will necessity be ordered toward right things, such as charity, peace, and holiness. He sees this as the method to happiness. Thomas orders his treatment of the moral life approximately the thought of happiness. The connection flanked by will and goal is antecedent in nature "because rectitude of the will consists in being duly ordered to the last end [that is, the beatific vision]." Those who truly seek to understand and see God will necessarily love what God loves. Such love requires morality and bears fruit in everyday human choices.

Treatment of Heretics

Thomas Aquinas belonged to the Dominican Order (formally Ordo Praedicatorum, the Order of Preachers) who began as an order dedicated to the conversion of the Albigensians and other heterodox factions, at first through peaceful means; later the Albigensians were dealt with through means of the Albigensian Crusade. In the Summa theologiae, he wrote:

With regard to heretics two points necessity be observed: one, on their own face; the other, on the face of the Church. On their own face there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the Church through excommunication, but also to be severed from the world through death. For it is a much graver matter to corrupt the faith which quickens the soul, than to forge money, which supports temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and other evil-doers are forthwith condemned to death through the secular power, much more cause is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death. On the part of the Church, though, there is mercy which looks to the conversion of the wanderer, wherefore she condemns not at once, but "after the first and second admonition," as the Apostle directs: after that, if he is yet stubborn, the Church no longer hoping for his conversion, looks to the salvation of others, through excommunicating him and separating him from the Church, and furthermore delivers him to the secular tribunal to be exterminated thereby from the world through death.

Heresy was a capital offense against the secular law of mainly European countries of the 13th century, which had a limited prison capability. Easy theft, forgery, fraud, and other such crimes were also capital offenses; Thomas' point appears to be that the gravity of this offense, which touches not only the material goods but also the spiritual goods of others, is at least the similar as forgery. Thomas's suggestion specifically demands that heretics be handed to a "secular tribunal" rather than magisterial power. That Thomas specifically says that heretics "deserve... death" is related to his theology, just as to which all sinners have no intrinsic right to life. Nevertheless, his point is clear: heretics should be executed through the state. He elaborates on his opinion concerning heresy in the after that article, when he says:

In God's tribunal, those who return are always received, because God is a searcher of hearts, and knows those who return in sincerity. But the Church cannot imitate God in this, for she presumes that those who relapse after being once received, are not sincere in their return; hence she does not debar them from the method of salvation, but neither does she protect them from the sentence of death.

The Afterlife and Resurrection

A grasp of Aquinas's psychology is essential for understanding his beliefs approximately the afterlife and resurrection. Thomas, following Church doctrine, accepts that the soul continues to exist after the death of the body. Because he accepts that the soul is the form of the body, then he also necessity consider that the human being, like all material things, is form-matter composite. Substantial form (the human soul) configures prime matter (the physical body) and is the form through which a material composite belongs to that species it does; in the case of human beings, that species is rational animal. So, a human being is a matter-form composite that is organized to be a rational animal. Matter cannot exist without being configured through form, but form can exist without matter—which allows for the separation of soul from body. Aquinas says that the soul shares in the material and spiritual worlds, and so has some characteristics of matter and other, immaterial, characteristics (such as access to universals). The human soul is dissimilar from other material and spiritual things; it is created through God, but also only comes into subsistence in the material body.

Human beings are material, but the human person can survive the death of the body through sustained subsistence of the soul, which persists. The human soul straddles the spiritual and material worlds, and is both a configured subsistent form as well as a configurer of matter into that of a livelihood, bodily human. Because it is spiritual, the human soul does not depend on matter and may exist separately. Because the human being is a soul-matter composite, the body has a part in what it is to be human. Perfected human nature consists in the human dual nature, embodied and intellecting.

Resurrection appears to require dualism, which Thomas rejects. Yet, Aquinas believes the soul persists after the death and corruption of the body, and is capable of subsistence, separated from the body flanked by the time of death and the resurrection. Aquinas believes in a dissimilar sort of dualism, one guided through Christian scripture. Aquinas knows that human beings are essentially physical, but that that physicality has a spirit capable of returning to God after life. For Aquinas, the rewards and punishment of the afterlife are not only spiritual. Because of this, resurrection is an significant part of his philosophy on the soul. The human is fulfilled and complete in the body, so the hereafter necessity take lay with souls embittered in resurrected bodies. In addition to spiritual reward, humans can expect to enjoy material and physical blessings. Because Aquinas‘s soul requires a body for its actions, throughout the afterlife, the soul will also be punished or rewarded in corporeal subsistence.

Aquinas states clearly his stance on resurrection, and uses it to back up his philosophy of justice; that is, the promise of resurrection compensates Christians who suffered in this world through a heavenly union with the divine. He says, ―If there is no resurrection of the dead, it follows that there is no good for human beings other than in this life.‖ Resurrection gives the impetus for people on earth to provide up pleasures in this life. Thomas believes the human who has prepared for the afterlife both morally and intellectually will be rewarded more greatly; though, all reward is through the grace of God. Aquinas insists beatitude will be conferred just as to merit, and will render the person better able to conceive the divine. Aquinas accordingly believes punishment is directly related to earthly, livelihood preparation and action as well. Aquinas‘s explanation of the soul focuses on epistemology and metaphysics, and because of this he believes it provides a clear explanation of the immaterial nature of the soul. Aquinas conservatively guards Christian doctrine, and therefore maintains physical and spiritual reward and punishment after death. Through accepting the essentiality of both body and soul, he allows for a heaven and hell described in scripture and church dogma.

Contemporary Power

Several contemporary ethicists both within and outside the Catholic Church (notably Philippa Foot and Alasdair MacIntyre) have recently commented on the possible use of Thomas's virtue ethics as a method of avoiding utilitarianism or Kantian "sense of duty" (described deontology). Through the work of twentieth century philosophers such as Elizabeth Anscombe (especially in her book Intention), Thomas's principle of double effect specifically and his theory of intentional action usually have been influential.

In recent years, the cognitive neuroscientist Walter Freeman proposes that Thomism is the philosophical system explaining cognition that is mainly compatible with neurodynamics, in a 2008 article in the journal Mind and Matter entitled "Nonlinear Brain Dynamics and Intention Just as to Aquinas."

Thomas's aesthetic theories, especially the concept of claritas, deeply influenced the literary practice of modernist writer James Joyce, who used to extol Thomas as being second only to Aristotle in the middle of Western philosophers. Joyce refers to Aquinas' doctrines in Elementa philosophiae ad mentem D. Thomae Aquinatis doctoris angelici (1898) of Girolamo Maria Mancini, professor of theology at, the Collegium Divi Thomae de Urbe. For instance, Mancini's Elementa is referred to in Joyce's early masterpiece Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man The power of Thomas's aesthetics also can be establish in the works of the Italian semiotician Umberto Eco, who wrote an essay on aesthetic thoughts in Thomas.

Criticism

Bertrand Russell criticized Aquinas' philosophy on the ground that He does not, like the Platonic Socrates, set out to follow wherever the argument may lead. He is not occupied in an inquiry, the result of which it is impossible to know in advance. Before he begins to philosophize, he already knows the truth; it is declared in the Catholic faith. If he can discover apparently rational arguments for some parts of the faith, so much the better; if he cannot, he require only fall back on revelation. The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading. I cannot, so, feel that he deserves to be put on a stage with the best philosophers either of Greece or of contemporary times.

This critique is illustrated on the following examples: Just as to Russell, Aquinas advocates the indissolubility of marriage "on the ground that the father is useful in the education of the children, because he is more rational than the mother, because, being stronger, he is better able to inflict physical punishment."

Even though contemporary approaches to education do not support these views, "no follower of Saint Thomas would, on that explanation, cease to consider in lifelong monogamy, because the real grounds of belief are not those which are alleged." It may be countered that the treatment of matrimony in the Summa Theologica is in the Supplements volume, which was not written through Aquinas. Moreover, Aquinas's introduction of arguments and concepts from the pagan Aristotle and Muslim Averroes was not uncontroversial within the Catholic church.

Aquinas' views of God as first cause, "depend upon the supposed impossibility of a series having no first term. Every mathematician knows that there is no such impossibility; the series of negative integers ending with minus one is an instance to the contrary." Moreover, just as to Russell, statements concerning God's essence and subsistence that are reached within the Aristotelian logic are based on "some type of syntactical confusion, without which much of the argumentation in relation to the God would lose its plausibility."

Just as to Russell, the methodology of scholasticism used through Thomas is employed for proving what is already whispered to be true. So, just as to Russell his work should be viewed perhaps as an artful, concise argument, but not a decisive proof. To the contrary, concerning Russell's criticism of Aquinas Anthony Kenny creates the following observation: "It is extraordinary that that accusation should be made through Russell, who in the book Principia Mathematica takes hundreds of pages to prove that two and two create four, which is something he had whispered all his life."

Claims of Levitation

For centuries, there have been recurring claims that Thomas had the skill to levitate. For instance, G. K. Chesterton wrote that, "His experiences incorporated well-attested cases of levitation in ecstasy; and the Blessed Virgin appeared to him, comforting him with the welcome news that he would never be a Bishop."