The Sacred Doctrine - Part 1

When you start the Summa Theologica, St. Thomas takes us straight to understanding the need for the "Sacred Doctrine" or scripture. Question one of Prima Pars is "The nature and extent of the holy doctrine." In truth his questions seem more like talking points and the articles more like questions. This is broken down into ten articles from there.

He starts with questioning the need to go past human reason? Basically, is our Holy Bible needed apart from what we understand from philosophy and science. The first objection stating we have no reason to go beyond reason and theology is part of the philosophical sciences, so why is anything further needed. The reason Aquinas gives is that, yes, there are limits to human reason, but we can have a better understanding from our reasoning with divine revelation. It is necessary that God reveal more to us than what can be discovered through reason, why? Salvation. There is necessity for our salvation that He gives us an ideas beyond our reason. Now the rebuttal of the first objection plays here in that yes, we do not have the reason of God, but we do have the capability of faith. Faith is not there because there is not reason behind everything behind the Sacred Doctrine; faith is needed because our reason does not measure to God's. We must trust in what God gives us. Further to the second objection, since the Sacred Doctrine is beyond human reason, there is obviously part of theology which is not part of philosophy.

I'll continue to the second article, which is questioning if the Sacred Doctrine is a science? First, you must have the idea Aristotelian science, which is not the same as we understand today. In fact, from what I understand science is based on knowledge. If you think about it the entire ideas for science and reason were based off the basic human reason of early philosophers. They had to develop a basis. In continuation of the previous article it seems to me that Aquinas is stating again that there is such thing as a higher science, based on higher reason, and it is still a science. Of what I understand of the Summa, this gets to the very basis of why he writes this. Everything in the universe has reason and logic in its making, therefore goes with our faith and the reason of God is over and what influences the reason and logic in man. It all relates.

I love how this is started with the understanding that there is more than what is capable within human understanding, but there is a reason God gave us both faith and the capability to reason. I will continue next with the third article.