Customer Reviews

The Thought of Thomas Aquinas

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If only every subject were taught with such clarity! The Revd Dr. Brian Davies, O.P. (of Blackfriars and St. Bennett's, Oxford U.) gives the central thought of St. Thomas' magnum opus, the Summa Theologiae. The Summa itself is overwhelming, the English editions are 3 to 5 vols. (approx. 5000 dense pages), the Latin & English edition (Blackfriars) some 60 vols.So, it is easy to miss the forest for the trees, so to speak, so naturally you'll need a tour guide. To study the Summa Theologiae- to do some Summa-wrestling- requires a good grasp of traditional logic (w/ 3 acts of the minds, as the scholastics termed them), a thorough grasp of Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics, and some Thomistic natural philosophy. Understandably, very few have this background, and that is the beauty of Davies' book. Believe it or not, the Summa Theol. was meant for beginners. It's not, but Davies' book certainly is. Davies assumes nothing more than a desire to understand St. Thomas and his greatest work.Davies' writing is both lucid and luminous, just like the fellow Dominican who's thought he is writing about.The Southern writer Flannery O'Conner once wrote (in _Wise Blood_) that "Thomism usually comes in horrible wrappers." Unfortunately Ms. O'Connor never had the pleasure of reading Brian Davies.

Brian Davies' "The Thought of Thomas Aquinas" is to Aquinas what A. E. Taylor's "Plato: The Man and His Works" is to Plato and what John Randall's "Aristotle" is to Aristotle. An excellent introduction to difficult thought, written in clear and coherent simplicity, retaining the nuances that are unique to Aquinas by not oversimplifying.