Summa Contra Gentiles

Aquinas Thomas, Vernon J. Bourke

Description

Book Three, Part 1 of the Summa Contra Gentiles series is the first part of a treatise on the hierarchy of creation, the divine providence over all things, and man’s relation to God.

The Summa Contra Gentiles is not merely the only complete summary of Christian doctrine that St. Thomas has written, but also a creative and even revolutionary work of Christian apologetics composed at the precise moment when Christian thought needed to be intellectually creative in order to master and assimilate the intelligence and wisdom of the Greeks and the Arabs. In the Summa Aquinas works to save and purify the thought of the Greeks and the Arabs in the higher light of Christian Revelation, confident that all that had been rational in the ancient philosophers and their followers would become more rational within Christianity.

Book 1 of the Summa deals with God; Book 2, Creation; and Book 4, Salvation.

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie de la religion
• Philosophie médiévale, scolastique
• Surveys
• Medieval
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Edad Media
• God
• Greeks
• Middle Ages
• Catholic
• Christianity
• Arab people
• History

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 1975
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268074807
• Langue: English

Extrait

Summa Contra Gentiles
Book Three: Providence
Part I
Translated, with an Introduction and Notes,
by
Vernon J. Bourke
Saint Thomas Aquinas
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame
Copyright © 1956 by Doubleday & Company, Inc. First published in 1956 by Hanover House as On the Truth of the Catholic Faith First paperback edition 1956 by Image Books -->
Published by arrangement with Doubleday & Company, Inc.
University of Notre Dame Press edition 1975
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 www.undpress.nd.edu Reprinted in 1976, 1980, 1983, 1984, 1992, 1996, 1998, 2001, 2006, 2012 Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Thomas Aquinas, Saint, 1225?–1274. Summa contra gentiles. Reprint of the ed. published by Hanover House, Garden City, N.Y., under title: On the truth of the Catholic faith. Includes bibliographies. CONTENTS: book 1. God, translated, with an introd. and notes, by A. C. Pegis.—book 2. Creation, translated, with an introd. and notes, by J. F. Anderson. [etc.] 1. Apologetics—Middle Ages, 600–1500. I. Title. [BX1749.T4 1975] 239 75-19883 ISBN 0-268-01675-5 ISBN 0-268-01676-3 pbk. Summa Contra Gentiles, Book Three, Part I: Providence ISBN 13: 978-0-268-01686-9 (pbk.: alk. paper) ISBN 10: 0-268-01686-0 (pbk.: alk. paper) ∞ This book is printed on acid-free paper. -->
E-ISBN 978-0-268-07480-7
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FOR JANET

Between man and wife there seems to be the greatest friendship
—S AINT T HOMAS A QUINAS
Contents
PART I
Chapters 1–83
Introduction
Bibliography
I St. Thomas Aquinas
II The sources
III Secondary studies
IV Studies on the end of man and the vision of God
1. Prologue
2. How every agent acts for an end
3. That every agent acts for a good
4. That evil in things is not intended
5. Arguments which seem to prove that evil is not apart from intention
6. Answers to these arguments
7. That evil is not an essence
8. Arguments which seem to prove that evil is a nature or some real thing
9. Answers to these arguments
10. That good is the cause of evil
11. That evil is based on the good
12. That evil does not wholly destroy good
13. That evil has a cause of some sort
14. That evil is an accidental cause
15. That there is no highest evil
16. That the end of everything is a good
17. That all things are ordered to one end Who is God
18. How God is the end of all things
19. That all things tend to become like God
20. How things imitate divine goodness
21. That things naturally tend to become like God inasmuch as He is a cause
22. How things are ordered to their ends in various ways
23. That the motion of the heavens comes from an intellectual principle
24. How even beings devoid of knowledge seek the good
25. That to understand God is the end of every intellectual substance
26. Whether felicity consists in a will act
27. That human felicity does not consist in pleasures of the flesh
28. That felicity does not consist in honors
29. That man’s felicity does not consist in glory
30. That man’s felicity does not consist in riches
31. That felicity does not consist in worldly power
32. That felicity does not consist in goods of the body
33. That human felicity does not lie in the senses
34. That man’s ultimate felicity does not lie in acts of the moral virtues
35. That ultimate felicity does not lie in the act of prudence
36. That felicity does not consist in the operation of art
37. That the ultimate felicity of man consists in the contemplation of God
38. That human felicity does not consist in the knowledge of God which is generally possessed by most men
39. That human felicity does not consist in the knowledge of God gained through demonstration
40. Human felicity does not consist in the knowledge of God which is through faith
41. Whether in this life man is able to understand separate substances through the study and investigation of the speculative sciences
42. That we cannot in this life understand separate substances in the way that Alexander claimed
43. That we cannot in this life understand separate substances in the way that Averroes claimed
44. That man’s ultimate felicity does not consist in the kind of knowledge of separate substances that the foregoing opinions assume
45. That in this life we cannot understand separate substances
46. That the soul does not understand itself through itself in this life
47. That in this life we cannot see God through His essence
48. That man’s ultimate felicity does not come in this life
49. That separate substances do not see God in His essence by knowing Him through their essence
50. That the natural desire of separate substances does not come to rest in the natural knowledge which they have of God
51. How God may be seen in His essence
52. That no created substance can, by its own natural power, attain the vision of God in His essence
53. That the created intellect needs an influx of divine light in order to see God through His essence
54. Arguments by which it seems to be proved that God cannot be seen in His essence, and the answers to them
55. That the created intellect does not comprehend the divine substance
56. That no created intellect while seeing God sees all that can be seen in Him
57. That every intellect, whatever its level, can be a participant in the divine vision
58. That one being is able to see God more perfectly than another
59. How those who see the divine substance may see all things
60. That those who see God see all things in Him at once
61. That through the vision of God one becomes a partaker of eternal life
62. That those who see God will see Him perpetually
63. How man’s every desire is fulfilled in that ultimate felicity
64. That God governs things by His providence
65. That God preserves things in being
66. That nothing gives being except in so far as it acts by divine power
67. That God is the cause of operation for all things that operate
68. That God is everywhere
69. On the opinion of those who take away proper actions from natural things
70. How the same effect is from God and from a natural agent
71. That divine providence does not entirely exclude evil from things
72. That divine providence does not exclude contingency from things
73. That divine providence does not exclude freedom of choice
74. That divine providence does not exclude fortune and chance
75. That God’s providence applies to contingent singulars
76. That God’s providence applies immediately to all singulars
77. That the execution of divine providence is accomplished by means of secondary causes
78. That other creatures are ruled by God by means of intellectual creatures
79. That lower intellectual substances are ruled by higher ones
80. On the ordering of the angels among themselves
81. On the ordering of men among themselves and to other things
82. That lower bodies are ruled by God through celestial bodies
83. Epilogue to the preceding chapters
Introduction
Book Three of St. Thomas’ Summa Contra Gentiles contains a great deal of his practical thought. It is most important for the study of his moral, political, and social views. Moreover, since St. Thomas always keeps his practical science firmly grounded in his speculative views, the central teachings of his general theory of reality are continually summarized in this Book. While the subjects treated are all related to the general or particular functions of divine providence, they will be found to range over the whole area of ancient and mediaeval learning.
As in Books One and Two, St. Thomas is here expounding the teachings of his Catholic faith, and judging the errors of competing world views, by the use of natural reason and experience. However, two enlargements of his original purpose seem to occur in this Book. First, the use of Scripture grows quantitatively, and in importance, as the Book progresses. Toward the end, the reader is almost prepared for the shift to the more definitely Scriptural argument of Book Four. Secondly, the “Gentiles” seem to grow in number and in historical extent. A glance at the Bibliography of source works indicates this: if the Gentiles were originally a few Greek and Arabian and Jewish thinkers, they now include scientists, historians, Roman essayists, heretics of many brands, and the followers of strange religious cults. St. Thomas’ canvas is much broader than many interpreters have realized.
If we consider, with necessary brevity, the situation in which he completed Book Three, we may better understand St. Thomas’ purpose. When he left the University of Paris, in May 1259, Aquinas went to Valenciennes, where an important meeting of Dominican officials was held on the first of June. It was decided there that study in the liberal arts be required on the part of the younger monks in all the provinces of the Order. This regulation meant that more work in philosophy was henceforth to be done in the Order of Preachers. 1 At about the same time, the Master General, Humbert de Romans, wrote his explanation of the Rule, in the course of which he stressed the value of philosophical studies for the monks who could do them well. 2 Later in the summer, Thomas went on to Italy, presumably bringing a copy of the partly completed SCG with him. We know that he spent the years 1261–1264 at the Dominican monastery in Orvieto, in which city Pope Urban IV was in residence. This Pope was much interested in philosophy and he appears to have encouraged Thomas Aquinas, and others, to attempt to settle the problem which had annoyed scholars and ecclesiastical officials for several decades. This was the question of the place to be given Aristotle and the other philosophers in the p