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St. Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica (5 volume set)

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Thomas Aquinas has written a masterwork. Using the method of looking at the objections to a subject, then looking at the arguments for it, he comes up with the answer to many difficult theological and philosophical questions. He discusses who God is, the nature of man and his place in the universe, the signs of the hebrews concerning the end of days, the nature of the soul, what happens to the universe after Christs second coming, and a wealth of fascinating and intresting insights in the christian religion. The book is dense with information just waiting to be mined. I wish I could give it more than a thousand stars. It is brilliant. Thomas is a true scholar and a great mind. The set is somewhat expensive, but more than worth it!

I am not Roman Catholic, but a memebr of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Despite any denominational differences I may have, I am awed by this book. Considering Aquinas had no computers, no electricity, and no spell-check, he managed to write a lengthy bok that would embarress most Ph.D's with an army of research assistants, expense accounts, and unlimited acess to LEXIS-NEXUS. Indeed, I belive much criticism of Aquinas comes from ignorance, or a deep-seated admiration and jealousy.

This is a standard work of Roman Catholic dogman and philosophical brainwork. It is a sumation of Catholic theology, systematized and organized. Aquinas covers several thousand questions relating to Catholic theology and philosophy, provides sharp questions and sound answers to objections. One of the questions gives a thumb-print of his mind: "Could [God] made the past not to have been?" (ST I-I.25.4) And Gov. Jesse Ventura said that religious people are weak-minded! By the way, Aquinas says no, since that would imply a contradiction, which is outsie of God's power.

This book and translation also has the "nihil obstant" and "imprimature," whic is latin for "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval." This translation has passed the Catholic censoring board and can be considered authoriative.

The only drawback is it's bulk--and therefore it is a rather awkward book to use. The internal organization helps to overcome this deficit, but a six volume with a thorough index would help. Peter Kreeft has a streamiled version of this book called "A Summa of the Summa," and an even slimmer volume called "A Shorter Summa," which is a summa of "A Summa of the Summa." These smaller books should hep you navigat the large book.

The cover is conservative and suits the majesty of the interior contents, and the print and paper are excellent and durable. The prose is readable, which a laudable since there is a temptation to latinize the English. This keeps the translation faithful, but makes the book unreadable, and the good Brothers avided this pitfall majestically.

As I said, I am not Catholic, but admiration for Aquinas's endeavor *is* universal. I recommend this book for any hard-core scholar or library aquisitionarian, but for person use, I would recommend Kreeft's excerpts, or Penguin's "Selected Writings" for the undergrad, or ambition high-schooler.

St.Thomas Aquinas has always been a very solid and firm foundation for the Church. I have always loved this Saint from the very first days of becoming a Roman Catholic. I am amazed at the excellence of this work and constantly refer to this work for any of my own personal questions I may have about God. This is an awesome set to own ! I highly recommend to purchase your own set of the Summa. Thanks to God for giving us this wonderful Saint ...........the Great St. Thomas Aquinas.

I read this book for a graduate class in ethics. I was particularly interested in studying the virtue of courage. The McDermott translation is the best of the several I examined. Over a nine-year period starting in 1265, Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae embarked on a transformative literary journey that culminated in a towering work of amalgamation of church theology and Aristotelian ethics. Aquinas' project as denoted in the word summa had a three-fold purpose. First, in a succinct fashion, it provides the essential understanding of a particular topic. In the case of Aquinas' Summa it was to provide the essence of Christian doctrine. The second purpose of a summa is to organize and critically analyze arguments on a particular subject. Finally, a summa's purpose is to synthesize the first two purposes into a text that is teachable to students. In essence, what a summa represents is an encyclopedic treatise on a particular subject. The Summa of Saint Thomas, in the field of theology, was and remains one of the most masterful realizations.

In his Summa, Aquinas perpetuates the four cardinal virtues of the classical Greeks; he lists them as, prudence, temperance, justice, and fortitude (courage). Aquinas argues that all the other virtues are subsets of these four cardinal virtues, which pertain to the principal subject matters of life. One instantly observes an Aristotelian influence in his ideas of virtue when he states in his writings of the cardinal virtues in his section on Living Well and Living Badly that "Another name for these virtues is the political or social virtues: they govern our natural human life, and we are by nature social or political animals." As cited in Aquinas, 239-240, (vol. 23, 61-2-5).

Aquinas' quick definition of courage is to be prepared to face death. Like Aristotle, Aquinas proposes that all virtuous acts require an injection of reason into our base emotions, which he deems is ultimately necessary in order for people to lead the "good" life. "There are different kinds of virtue depending on how the objects of our appetites need the control of reason." Aquinas in essence, agrees with the Aristotelian definition of courage when he states that it is necessary to have an amalgam of reason and emotion, which produces practical reason to make an act virtuous. Aquinas, (vol. 23, 60-1). One instantly detects that Aquinas astutely realized how strong a role emotions played in people's psyche, and how they exerted great influence on their activity. "The measure of good and bad in other activities however relates to the doer, and depends on whether his emotional attitude to the activities are good or bad; so here virtue is chiefly concerned with controlling the emotions (as in moderation and courage)." (Aquinas, 238, (vol. 23, 60-2).

It is in Aquinas' section on Living in the World--Moral Virtue where he delineates his definition of courage, which is similar to Aristotle's. "Courage restrains our boldness and stiffens us against fear, for the same reason: so that we will prize the good of reason above the dangers of death." (Aquinas, 436, (vol. 43, 161-2). Aquinas' definition has definite "echoes" of the classical Greek model of the virtue of courage being the "golden mean" between the emotions of fear, which debilitates an agent from acting courageously, and boldness, which causes an agent to act carelessly. However, by "drilling down" further into Aquinas' teachings on Christian virtues, his ethical philosophy evolves one stage further than Aristotle's does. It is in this section of his Summa that Aquinas explains his notions concerning virtue in general and courage of the "firmness of mind" in particular. Aquinas like Aristotle believes in the idea of virtue, and how an agent will balance their emotions with reason to produce the practical reasoning necessary to perform virtuous acts. For Aquinas, "Virtue is by definition concerned not with the difficult but with `the good.'" (Aquinas, 423, (vol. 42, 123-12). It is important to note that as a theologian, Aquinas is constantly vigilant to the danger of how emotions can overcome reason and deflect an agent from performing a virtuous act. Aquinas sends the virtue of courage down a religious path when he posits that, "In the very nature of martyrdom, the martyr stands firm in truth and justice against the assaults of persecutors. Clearly then martyrdom is a virtuous act, an act indeed of courage." (Aquinas, 423, (vol. 42, 124-1). Aquinas argues that Christians need to develop their "firmness of mind" to face their fears of death through their faith and love of their savior.

I find Aquinas' notion of firmness of mind is similar to Aristotle's definition of the term practical reason. I argue that the real evolutionary step Aquinas takes with his notion of the firmness of mind is best understood in how he expects a person to mix her love of God with her reason to give herself the firmness of mind necessary to act courageously in the face of martyrdom. Aquinas' firmness of mind notion is a deviation from Aristotle's idea that love or friendship of another person is the human emotion most responsible for motivating an agent to perform a courageous act. Aquinas' firmness of mind really pertains to a Christian possessing love and faith of God as the most important motivating factor in causing them to act courageously. In addition, Aquinas argues that the Christian that posses this kind of faith and love will also rely on the character traits of patience and perseverance as well to act courageously. "Courage's ability to endure requires patience to remain unbroken by sorrow and perseverance to remain undefeated by hardship: and these too are both component parts of courage and its subsidiary virtues." Aquinas, 424, (vol.42, 128-1).

Therefore, both Aristotle and Aquinas use the emotion of love or friendship as the human emotion that a person ultimately relies on to overcome their fears and enables them to act courageously. However, I find Aquinas' notion of firmness of mind is an evolutionary stage away from the classical Greek definition of courage. Essentially, Aquinas is asking Christians to rely on their love of God, which is an abstraction, along with reason to produce a "firmness of mind" which will embolden them to act courageously. This belief of Aquinas' is juxtaposed to Aristotle's idea that an agent must rely on their love or friendship of another person; a tangible connection with someone, along with reason to produce the practical reasoning necessary to enable them to overcome their fear and act courageously. Aquinas' definition of courage in particular and his Summa in general is the ethical guidepost which Christian Europe followed until the birth of the Age of Reason.

This set of books is very good for religious studies majors or anyone pursuing a higher education in theological studies. This series addresses in detail, the myriad questions pertaining to Christian theological doctrines through philosophical reasoning.

The buyer needs to be aware of two things that are not clear in the description. First, this is version covers only Questions 75-102 of volume 1 of the Summa. There are five volumes total, so this is but a fraction, not the whole thing. Second, this is a digitized copy (a scanned copy that is bound) and so has many flaws, such as pencil marks and few side notations. The font and type is not to modern expectations. One advantage of the copy is that it is blown up some in comparison to the original, and so is much easier to read.

This being said, the translation is generally considered of a high quality. The binding is not as high quality as I would like, but then the price is good.

According to the TOC, the book is supposed to contain QQ 1-119. But the
one I received has only QQ 50-74. According to readers reviews, the book is supposed to have 5 volumes. Was I sent the wrong book or are another 4
volumes coming please?