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.

Reading Summa Theologica

I don't think you would come across this unless you have some knowledge of what the Summa Theologica is, but just in case I will give some background. The Summa Theologica was written in 1485 by St. Thomas Aquinas and is still upheld by the Catholic Church today. Even outside of the Church, those who study in politics, history and law cannot deny its influence.

What my plan is, is to write on the Summa as I go through the text. I have no more than a BA in Politics and History and am a Catholic. I came across this text through my studies in Political Science and specifically in review of Aristotle and Natural Law Theory. Without the basics of understanding Aristotle, some can be missed within the meanings in the text. Especially as Aquinas does use Aristotle's definitions within this text and is referred as a source on countless occasions as "the Philosopher".

If you wish to go through yourself I will go ahead and say if you can read a legal document, you can read this. If you can read a philosophical text you can make it through this. Now I say this as I have not yet done so, but I have read sections throughout the text and I know of its readability.

I say both legal and philosophical, because the way he wrote this document you can tell he did not want to leave any doubt for his audience. He starts with a "Question" and under these "Questions" he has several articles. I put the question in quotes because they are not always in question form. Its more like a topic and subtopics. Within the text he always goes through this by stating the question, giving objections, an answer with source, a description and finally the answer to the objections. It is incredibly thorough and from I have read so far his logic is amazing. 

If interested in St. Thomas Aquinas I recommend a short text on him specifically called The Dumb Ox. The man was amazing and his accomplishments were so too. But what I find interesting was that in the end of his life he stated that all his life works was, "like straw" in comparison to a revelation he had. We don't know what this means, but I think he did great service to his Creator because it gave the idea that our science and our reason can be used with our faith. 

I will start with Prima Pars, which is broken down into 119 Questions on its own. Lets see how far we can go with this. Hope you join!