Saint Thomas Aquinas was indisputably the greatest of the medieval philosophers. He was born in his family's castle of Roccasecca near the town of Aquino, about halfway between Rome and Naples. The seventh son of the Count of Aquino, Landolfo, and his wife Teodora, at the age of five Thomas was sent to the Benedictine monastery of Monte Casino, where his uncle was the abbot. His parents hoped he would get a good education at the monastery and perhaps one day become abbot of Monte Casino. However, political struggles between the pope and the emperor made the monastery unsafe, and at age fourteen Thomas moved to the Imperial University in Naples.
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| The monastery at Monte Casino. The original building was destroyed during World War II and this copy was rebuilt on the site. (Click on picture for a present-day picture) |
Thomas went to Paris, where he studied with Albertus Magnus (Albert the Great), an advocate of the newly rediscovered Aristotelian writings, and even followed his teacher to Cologne to continue his study of Aristotle. As a student Thomas was so stolid and methodical that many of his peers thought he was dull or downright stupid. Given his deliberate manner and his portly build, his classmates dubbed him "the Dumb Ox." But Albertus saw his potential and turned this cruel epithet into a prophecy, saying, "You call him a Dumb Ox; I tell you the Dumb Ox will bellow so loud his bellowing will fill the world." In 1252 Thomas returned to Paris for graduate studies, eventually receiving the magistrate (doctorate) in theology in 1256.
On concluding his studies it seemed natural that Thomas would join the faculty of the University of Paris. However, scholars from the mendicant orders were held in suspicion by the regular faculty of the university. Along with the great Franciscan friar Bonaventure, Thomas was not allowed to teach in Paris until the pope himself intervened.
The rest of Thomas's life was spent teaching in France and Italy and writing extensively on philosophical and theological subjects. His complete works in Latin comprise twenty-five volumes. Thomas was also called upon to intervene in several disputes. In addition to defending his Dominican order, he was forced to articulate a middle position between those who rejected Aristotelian philosophy as anti-Christian and those who accepted Aristotle (or, rather, a version of Averroes' interpretation of Aristotle) too uncritically. Throughout his writings, Thomas negotiated a middle path of critical admiration for Aristotle.
BASIC
THOUGHT
Like
other Christian thinkers, Thomas was concerned with the relation between
reason and faith. Using basically Aristotelian
categories, Thomas taught that natural reason could establish some of
the truths of religion (such as the existence, unity, and goodness of
God), but other truths were accessible only through faith. Contrary to
some of the Latin Averroists,
Thomas taught that there was no conflict between the teachings of philosophy
and those of theology. To use a later analogy, Thomas believed that "the
book of nature" (i.e., the created world) and the "Book of Scripture"
were in perfect harmony.
In December 1273 Thomas suddenly stopped writing, apparently the result of a mystical experience. He reported to a friend that "all I have written seems like straw to me." A few months later he was called to a church council in Lyon, France. On the way there his health forced him to stop at Fossanova (south of Rome) where he died on March 7, 1274, at the age of forty-nine. Three years after his death, several of Thomas's teachings were condemned by the Bishop of Paris. However, the condemnation did not stand long, and in 1323 Saint Thomas Aquinas was canonized. In 1879 Pope Leo XII commended the study of Aquinas's philosophy in an encyclical, Aeterni Patris. This papal proclamation did not launch a revival of Thomism, as is often said, but it did lend an enormous prestige to the study of Thomas and his work. The encyclical praises the saint in the highest terms: "As far as man is concerned, reason can now hardly rise higher than she rose, borne up in the flight of Thomas; and Faith can hardly gain more helps from reason than those which Thomas gave her." Despite the encouragement of Leo XII and others, not all Catholic philosophers are by any means Thomists; many twentieth-century Catholic thinkers have shown more interest in existentialism and phenomenology. Today Thomas is studied and admired as much by Protestants and non-Christians as he is by Catholics.
Thomas's most famous work, the Summa Theologica, is one of the most comprehensive and systematic works of theology ever written. It has often been likened in its complexity and grandeur to a Gothic cathedral. This monumental classic is divided into four sections that, collectively, include 512 "Questions." Each Question raises a topic or area of investigation and is, in turn, made up of several "Articles" that explore specific concerns. These Articles range from abstract philosophical issues such as "Whether one can intend two things at the same time," to such minutiae of theology as "Whether one angel can speak to another in such a way that others will not know what he is saying." Each Article is examined in the same manner, beginning with a question, offering an answer that Thomas considers inadequate, then supporting this answer with several "objections." At this point, a quotation or argument that contradicts the position taken thus far is introduced with the words "On the contrary (sed contra)." The dramatic tension between two opposing positions is then resolved by the author's concise and straightforward Respondeo, or "I answer that . . .," which introduces his own view. In presenting his answer, Thomas tries to avoid directly denying the preceding objections, seeing them instead as limited truths that his Respondeo supersedes. Finally, Thomas moves on to answer, one by one, each of the initial "objections." (The reader should keep in mind that the first things Thomas says about a subject are the opposite of the position he will subsequently defend.)
By Forrest Baird © 2000 by Prentice Hall from Philosophic Classics, Volume II