In your plan: Week 19, Mon, 22 Feb 2027.
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Overview
The Summa Theologica is the great unfinished work of Thomas Aquinas, written mainly between about 1265 and 1273. It sets out Christian theology as a structured system of questions, each answered by weighing objections against a reasoned reply. It draws heavily on Aristotle and on Jewish and Islamic philosophers to argue that faith and reason are compatible. It also gave the Western tradition one of its most influential accounts of law and natural law, and a powerful model of how to argue.
Context
In the 12th and 13th centuries Latin Europe recovered much of Aristotle, mostly through Arabic translations and commentaries, notably those of Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd. Universities in Paris and elsewhere debated whether this philosophy threatened Christian teaching. Aquinas, a Dominican friar and teacher, set out to show that it could be absorbed into theology without loss to either.
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Curator's notes
- Why it matters
- Synthesised Aristotle with Christianity. Natural law.
- Use in training and coaching
- Structured argument: objection, reply, conclusion; a model for debate training
- Connects to
- Aristotle; Ibn Rushd; Locke
- What to read
- Five Ways; Treatise on Law (Q. 90–95)
- Text (date)
- Aquinas, Summa Theologica (c. 1270)
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