Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologica I

St. Thomas Aquinas came from a very wealthy family. When he was five years old his parents sent him to the Benedictines to be taught. His family hoped that one day he would join their community. However his family was disappointed when the Dominicans' style of study and prayer caught Thomas' attention. Thomas' family was outraged. They held him captive and tried to make him change his mind but they could not. After more than a year they released him and he rejoined the Dominicans.

St. Thomas was a great theologian and philosopher. Thomas Aquinas is well known for his writings about philosophy and theology. Some of his writings include "Quaestiones Disputatae" (Disputed Questions), "Quodlibeta" (Various Subjects or Free Discussions), "De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas", "Summa de Veritate Catholicae Fidei Contra Gentiles" (Treatise on the Truth of the Catholic Faith, against Unbelivers), and "Summa Theologica".

St. Thomas Aquinas was a powerful influence on the world. He was widely respected for his ideas. He said that reason should help men to receive the Faith because it proves truths that faith just assumes. It should also explain these truths and suggest them in scientific form. He believed that reason should defend the truths that God revealed to us. Leo XIII, a great scholar, said that those who found religious orders require their followers to study the teachings of St. Thomas. He also asked the bishops to bring back the wisdom of Thomas and that doing this would be for the good of society and benefit all the sciences. In the sixteenth century, Martin Luther and those who opposed the Church felt that to destroy the belief in his teachings would destroy the Church.

Thomas Aquinas arguments in defence of God

St. Thomas Aquinas realized that those who doubted the existence of God did so because to them logic could not explain God's existence. So he decided to take up the task of attempting to prove through logic alone that God must exist. In one of his major works, Summa Theologiae, he offers five proofs in defense of God's existence, two of which are based on logic and observation of nature in proving God's existence to those who could not accept God on faith alone.

Aquinas' first argument is based on motion, and he believes it to be the simplest way of proving God's existence. This first argument, the argument from motion, tries to prove the existence of God as the first mover which is unmoved. Now, it is certain as a matter of human senses that some things in this world are in motion. Whatever is in motion, Aquinas states, is moved by something else. Aquinas then defines one type of motion as the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality, and says that nothing can make this movement except by something that is already in actuality in the same respect as the first object is in potentiality. For example, something which is actually hot, like fire, makes something which is potentially ...