Saint Thomas Aquinas Thursday - 2 - Purpose

This series reflects on a short section of St. Thomas Aquinas’s massive work on theology, the Summa Theologiae. This work of synthesis is considered one of the greatest theological works in Christianity because of its structure, its breadth of sources and its depth of content. 

2 - Purpose

One of the things that anyone who talks about the Summa Theologiae has to bring up is the fact that it was written for beginners. When one considers the breadth and depth of this work, the claim does strain credibility. Why would a beginning theology student need to cover a question like, “Whether some part of the food is changed into true human nature?” which one can find in part I, question 119, article 1. While I am tempted to explain exactly how this question applies to the Faith in its entirety and why it must be included, I am sure we will get to that at some point in this series. 

Though the Summa Theologiae is not ideally just a reference book, see my previous post about its structure here, it is certainly useful as one. However, its arrangement itself is meant to be instructive just as much as the content inside of it. The purpose of the Summa Theologiae, in being a foundational work for the beginning theology student, is to build up a vision of reality for the individual that closely reflects the Church’s hierarchical and cyclical view of reality itself. Aquinas is actually creating an implicit Catholic imagination by orienting the student’s vision as flowing from God to us and then uniting us back to God through the Person and actions of Jesus. This is why a Southern Gothic fiction writer like Flannery O’Connor can use the Summa as inspiration as much as a university philosophy professor. 

A very common adage about teaching is that what is modeled goes much further than what is said. While Aquinas says a lot, and it is ALL important, in his Summa, where his teaching is the most ingrained if one actually reads it is in the way he presents it. This, one could argue, shows his true purpose in writing it. Yes, ultimately it is still teaching in general and teaching the truths of the Catholic Faith more specifically. These specific truths, however, only really take hold in the person if they are taught alongside a certain vision that reflects reality from God’s perspective, whom Aquinas and classical theology refers to as the ground of reality itself.