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Saint Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica Analysis

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Recommended: The philosophical influences in the life of St Thomas Aquinas

The Catholic faith tradition believes, as it has since the early Church, that God is the ultimate happiness of human beings. Resultingly, our purpose is to reach the beatific vision of God, seeing God as he truly is, which is the source of perfect happiness. Saint Thomas Aquinas was concerned with fitting this teaching of the Church into his sweeping theological and philosophical system of scholasticism. In his Summa Theologica, he defends the idea that vision of God is our sole and supreme end, or purpose, and he clarifies several objections and confusions about the belief. Additionally, Aquinas connects that belief with another one of his arguments in the Summa Theologica: our inability to know the “essence” of God by natural reason, instead …show more content…

Upon reading this somewhat puzzling assertion, I objected that if we are able to see the entirety of something then that is the same as to comprehend it. If, for example, I were able to see the entirety of a mechanical watch all at once, it seems that I would comprehend the mechanical watch. Investigating this objection, I unsurprisingly found another section of the Summa Theologica which addressed the issue …show more content…

Each part of his system goes on to support some further argument, as in the case above wherein his argument regarding knowing God’s existence by natural knowledge is a support for his premise 2. This interconnectedness and cohesion is present throughout Aquinas’ works and is, itself, a defense against objections since it makes any objection seem unlikely to penetrate Aquinas’ defenses. Resultingly, it seems reasonable to doubt that my objections to Aquinas’ argument are unmet. It may be that they are met and overcome in other section of the Summa Theologica or even in other works of Aquinas’, but it seems likely that they are addressed by Aquinas

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