09 Nov Journal Reflection
St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 A.D.) was an Italian Dominican Friar and stands as one of the towering intellectuals of Western philosophical and theological thought. He lived during the Middle Ages, came from Italy, studied in Naples and Paris, and is certainly one of the giants of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. His Summa Contra Gentiles was a revolutionary, intellectual, and creative work. He wrote it to engage the wisdom of the Greek, Arab, and Jewish intellectual, philosophical, and theological thinking. We are reading a short selection from Book ONE on God to grapple with Aquinas’ exposition of the compatibility of faith and reason—a cornerstone of the CIT.
- In chapter 3 “On ways in which Divine Truth is made known” what to sections 1,2,3: what are the twofold modes of ascertaining truth about God? What does reason perceive? What does that relate to perceiving the Divine substance? What does knowledge from the senses give us? How does that relate to knowledge of God?
- In chapter 6 “That to give assent to truths of faith is not foolishness,” chapter 1—why is it not foolishness?
- In chapter 7, “That the truth of reason is not opposed to the truth of the Christian Faith,” sections 1,2,3,4: How so? What is Aquinas explanation?
- In chapter 8, “How human reason is related to the truth of faith,” —how so? What explanation does Aquinas provide?
- Go back and look at the two editorials that we briefly discussed the first days of class. How do those editorials ‘fit in’ here?
- How does Thomas’s work here in Summa Contra Gentiles relate to Claims of the CIT? to any of the Four Big Questions? To our world today?
