87 pages • 2 hours read
Thomas AquinasSumma Theologica
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1274A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Grace Perfects Nature
This is a key underlying idea of Aquinas’ thought. He expresses it in Part 1 Q 1 Article 8, while arguing that rational arguments are necessary to theology:
“Since therefore grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it, natural reason should minister to faith” (8).
Aquinas maintains that grace—God’s freely given help and favor—does not override or destroy man’s natural capacities, but fulfills their potential. Thus, man is naturally endowed with the ability to reason and reach conclusions about the world around him. Reason is in itself a good thing. But God gives us something more, namely the gift of faith, by which we are able to know truths that we never could have figured out on our own.
The idea that grace perfects nature implies that human nature is not totally corrupted by sin. There remains something good in it, implanted by God, which he continues to work upon and perfect. Thus, the lower is brought to a higher level by the higher power. God is constantly working through his creation to bring it to greater perfection. Eventually, all things will reach him as their final end and destiny.
Evil Is the Privation of Good
The problem of evil had preoccupied religious thinkers for centuries before Aquinas. Where does evil come from? Is it more powerful than good? How can we reconcile the existence of evil with God’s infinite goodness?
Aquinas solves the problem, following Augustine, that evil is nothing other than the negation or privation of good. It has no independent existence of its own. Evil attaches itself to good like a cancer and preys upon it. God does not directly will evil, but he does permit certain evils so that he can produce good out of them: “This is part of the infinite goodness of God, that he should allow evil to exist, and out of it produce good” (13).
When the human will chooses evil, it chooses it under the aspect of good. In other words, when we do something evil, we do it because we think it is good in some way (see Part 1, Question 83).
All Human Knowledge Derives From Sense Knowledge
Aquinas develops an epistemology (theory of knowledge) from Aristotle. Aquinas argues that all human knowledge starts through the senses. Aristotle held that “he beginning of our knowledge is from the senses” and that “the sense does not have its proper operation without the cooperation of the body” (448). We sense particular things, then the mind converts this sense knowledge into intellectual understanding, abstracting universal ideas from it. Aquinas goes so far as to argue that there is no knowledge in the human mind that did not originate in the senses. This idea connects with Aquinas’ positive view of the body as inherently united to the soul, paralleling the unity of form and matter in the universe as a whole. Aquinas affirms the goodness of the body and the material world, in contrast to Plato.
Man Is a Social Being
Aquinas sees man not only as an individual but also as a member of society. Human beings belong to a community, to whom they bear moral responsibility. He states in the Treatise on Human Acts: “Man is master of his actions; and yet, in so far as he belongs to another, that is, the community, of which he forms a part, he merits or demerits, in so far as he disposes his actions well or ill” (719). Human actions are either good or evil and can be judged as such on the basis of how they affect the common good. Aquinas argues that even actions done to oneself affect the larger community. It is this sense of justice that creates the basis for legal rewards and punishments. All our actions toward society are in turn referable to God as our last end. He will judge our actions according to their merits. Thus, Aquinas compares God to the ruler of a large community, who takes an interest in just order in his realm.
