Dominican theologian and philosopher
Thomas Aquinas
c. AD 1225–1274
The most influential theologian of medieval Catholicism, Aquinas synthesized Aristotelian philosophy with Christian doctrine in the Summa Theologica, shaping Catholic theology to the present day.
Life and work
Born to a noble family near Aquino in southern Italy, Thomas was sent as a child oblate to the great abbey of Monte Cassino before studying at the University of Naples, where he encountered the newly translated works of Aristotle and, against his family's fierce objections (who reportedly held him captive for over a year to dissuade him), joined the mendicant Dominican order.
Thomas studied under Albertus Magnus in Cologne and Paris, and spent his career teaching theology at Paris, Naples, and various Dominican houses in Italy, developing a formidable reputation despite a famously reserved, quiet personal manner that earned him the nickname "the Dumb Ox" among fellow students, until Albertus reportedly predicted his "bellow" would one day "be heard throughout the world."
His two great works, the Summa Contra Gentiles and especially the unfinished Summa Theologica, systematically address the whole of Christian theology using the tools of Aristotelian logic, arguing that faith and reason are complementary rather than opposed, and offering his famous "five ways" of arguing for God's existence from observed features of the natural world.
In late 1273, Thomas experienced a profound mystical episode during Mass and abruptly stopped writing, reportedly telling his secretary that "all that I have written seems like straw to me" compared to what he had experienced, leaving the Summa Theologica incomplete at his death the following year.
Though controversial in his own time — some of his positions were briefly condemned by the Bishop of Paris in 1277 — Aquinas's synthesis was later embraced as the normative framework of Catholic philosophy and theology, formally endorsed by the church especially from the nineteenth century onward.
- Occupation
- Friar, theologian, philosopher
- Places
- Roccasecca, Naples, Cologne, Paris, Rome
- Dates
- c. AD 1225–1274 Traditional dating
In their own words
Presents the "five ways" (quinque viae), arguments for God's existence from motion, causation, contingency, gradation, and design.Summa Theologica, I, Q.2, Art.3
"All that I have written seems like straw to me."attributed, late in life
Further reading
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