SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS: BIOGRAPHY, PHILOSOPHY, CONTRIBUTIONS - PHILOSOPHY - 2024

Santo Tomas de Aquino (1225-1274) was a theologian, doctor of the Church, Dominican friar, Catholic priest and one of the most influential philosophers of scholasticism. His thought has allowed to develop theological and philosophical studies of great importance. Likewise, his works have a great influence on Christian theology, especially in the Catholic Church.

His writings include Summa Contra Gentiles, Summa Tehologiae, as well as various studies devoted to the work of Aristotle, the fields of theology in general, metaphysics, law, and much more.

He was the father of Thomism and for him philosophy was the discipline that investigates what can naturally be known about God and human beings. In his studies he dealt with the main sub-disciplines of philosophy; epistemology, logic, philosophy of nature, theological philosophy, ethics, political philosophy or theological philosophy.

One of his most famous contributions is his five ways of trying to prove the existence of God. If Saint Augustine was considered the first great scholar of the Middle Ages, Saint Thomas could be the last.

Biography

The exact date of birth of Thomas Aquinas is not known. However, it can be estimated that he was born between 1224 and 1225.

The castle of Roccasecca was the place where Tomás was born, a town located in Italy, very close to the city Aquino.

Family

The family of Tomás was noble and had Germanic ancestry; Furthermore, it was a very large family, as Thomas had eleven siblings and he was the last child his parents had.

The father was called Landolfo de Aquino and was in the line of descendants of those who were the counts of Aquino; in addition, Landolfo also had a familiar tie with Federico II, emperor of Rome.

Tomás's mother was called Teodora and she was also related, in this case to the counts of Chieti.

First studies

The first training that Tomás de Aquino obtained was when he was 5 years old. At that time his parents took him to the Abbey of Montecassino, a convent made up of Benedictine monks; the abbot of this convent was Tomás's uncle.

Historical records from this time indicate that Thomas, already at such a young age, expressed considerable devotion, and that he was an exemplary pupil. The teachings of the monks were related to how to meditate in silence, as well as different areas on music, grammar, religion and morals.

The monks who trained Thomas said that he had a very good memory, and that he quickly and easily retained everything he read.

In 1239 the Benedictine monks had to leave the country because Emperor Frederick II ordered them to go into exile.

University formation and the Dominican order

After this episode, in 1239 Tomás entered the University of Naples. He stayed there for five years and delved deeply into the concepts associated with Aristotelian logic.

At the end of his formation process, in the year 1244, Tomás began to connect with the Dominican order, with which he was fascinated.

At this time he became friends with Juan de Wildeshausen, who was a master general of the Dominican order. This friendship favored Thomas to enter the order very quickly.

In the midst of this context, the family of Tomas felt very confused, since the plan they had for Tomas was to replace his uncle as abbot of the Abbey of Montecassino.

Tomás was going to Rome to begin his studies related to the novitiate stage, when his brothers came to him and took him to the castle of Roccasecca, where they forced him to stay while they tried to convince him not to enter the Dominican order..

Thomas considered his brothers' arguments over and over again, and at times he was on the point of giving in to their conceptions. However, he eventually fled the castle and traveled to Paris, to get away from his family.

Studies in Paris

After this stage, Tomás entered the University of Paris. This period was very important, since among his teachers he had personalities whose teachings were in harmony with the doctrines of Aristotle.

Some of its most prominent teachers were the German Alberto Magno, priest, geographer and philosopher; and Alejandro de Hales, who was a theologian of English origin.

Also at this stage, Tomás de Aquino was characterized by being a diligent student with great intellectual potential.

Transfer to Cologne

When Tomás was close to finishing his training at this university, his teacher Alberto Magno asked him to do a scholastic act, a tool through which the interrelation between reason and faith is sought.

Tomás de Aquino carried out the task in an exemplary way, even breaking down many of the arguments established by Alberto Magno, who was a doctor in the area and was widely recognized as an academic figure.

Thanks to this interaction, Magno proposed to Thomas Aquinas that he accompany him to Cologne, Germany, where he taught him the work of the Greek philosopher Aristotle and their arguments were studied in depth.

After analyzing the Aristotelian work, Thomas Aquinas was able to conclude that faith and reason were not opposing concepts, but that there was a harmony between both conceptions.

It is precisely this notion that is considered the greatest contribution that Thomas Aquinas made to history and humanity. It was at this point in his life that Thomas Aquinas was ordained a priest.

Return to paris

In 1252 he returned to Paris with the intention of continuing his studies. At this point in his life, he encountered an adverse situation that came from the hand of secular teachers.

These professors, who were laymen, were opposed to the mendicant orders, whose way of life was dependent on alms.

They were against the mendicant monks, who drew the attention of the students given their peculiar characteristics, such as poverty, the study habit they showed and the perseverance they showed in their different areas of action.

Dangerous writing

In this context, the French-born theologian William de Saint Amour wrote two very critical and dangerous manifestos for mendicants.

In response to this, in 1256, Thomas Aquinas published the work entitled Against those who impugn divine worship, which was decisive in the decision that Pope Alexander IV later made to excommunicate Saint Amour, also preventing him from teaching anywhere. study center.

This fact implied that the Pope entrusted Thomas Aquinas with different complex issues in the theological sphere, such as reviewing the work entitled Introductory Book to the Eternal Gospel.

University teacher

The fact of having the trust of Pope Alexander IV and the tasks he carried out in that context, was one of the elements that made him become a doctor at just 31 years of age. From this appointment he began his career as a university professor.

In 1256 he was a teacher of theology at the University of Paris. At that time Thomas was also an advisor to Louis IX, King of France.

Three years later, in 1259, he attended the French city of Valenciennes, under the indication that he was in charge of organizing the studies of the Dominican order together with Pedro de Tarentaise and Alberto Magno.

Then he moved to Italy, where he worked as a teacher in the cities of Orvieto, Viterbo, Naples and Rome; that activity lasted for 10 years.

During this period, Thomas Aquinas also served as personal advisor to Pope Urban IV, who commissioned him several of his later publications, as well as reviews of works by other scholars, such as the book by Bishop Nicolás de Durazzo called On Faith in the Blessed Sacrament. Trinity

Disagreements in Paris

Tomás de Aquino returned again to Paris, where he got a strong opposition to his ideas represented from three different spheres: on the one hand, the followers of the ideas of Augustine of Hippo; on the other hand, followers of Averroism; and lastly, the laity opposed to the mendicant order.

Before all this scenario of intellectual hostility towards the ideas of Thomas Aquinas, he responded with various publications, among which De unitate intellectus contra averroístas stands out. Before each of these confrontations, Tomás was the winner.

Back home

The order of the Dominicans asked Thomas Aquinas to attend Naples, where he obtained a tremendous reception full of respect and admiration.

While in this city he began to write the third part of one of his most recognized works, entitled Summa Theologiae. Right at the moment when he began to write it, he indicated that he received a revelation that showed him that everything he had written so far was sterile.

Death

On March 7, 1274 Tomás de Aquino was making a profession of faith in the municipality of Terracina, with the energy that characterized him, when he died suddenly.

There is no clear information regarding the causes that led to his death. There is even the hypothesis that he may have been poisoned by the king of Sicily, Carlos de Anjou.

However, there is no concrete data to support this claim; Only the statement about it made by Dante Alighieri in his renowned work Divine Comedy is available.

50 years after his death, on January 28, 1323, Thomas Aquinas was canonized by the Catholic Church.

Philosophy

The great contribution of Thomas Aquinas to philosophy was to argue that faith and reason were not opposing ideas, but that between these it was possible that there was harmony and concord.

Under the premise presented by Thomas Aquinas, faith will always have preponderance over reason. In the event that opposing ideas are obtained based on faith and others on reason, those linked to faith will always be superior, since Thomas Aquinas considers that God is the superior and essential element in relation to any other.

For Thomas, reason is a tool that is somewhat restricted to approach the true knowledge of God. However, it is an essential element to obtain the kind of knowledge that he considered true.

In addition, Thomas Aquinas was very clear that rationality is the way through which human beings can know the truth of things and the elements that surround them. Therefore, the reason cannot be false, since it is a natural tool for man.

Five ways to recognize that God exists

Thomas Aquinas indicated that there were at least 5 elements through which it is possible to know and corroborate the existence of God; it is about recognizing the presence and conception of God from a vision that goes from effect to cause.

Then, Thomas Aquinas stipulated that there were 5 essential elements through which it was possible to approach that notion of the existence of God.

These elements are linked by the notion that effects are always generated by specific causes, and that all events in the world are related to each other through a great causal chain. The five routes proposed by Tomás de Aquino are the following:

Movement

For Thomas Aquinas, everything is in constant motion. At the same time, it establishes the impossibility of something moving and being moved at the same time. Therefore, all things that move do so because another element caused that movement.

This constant movement generated by others is not characterized by being infinite, since it must have a beginning and an end. In fact, for Thomas Aquinas the beginning of this great movement is God, whom he calls the First Motionless Motor

Causal dependency

It has to do with the causal chain. Through this path we seek to recognize that the great efficient cause that has existed is precisely God, who is the beginning of everything, the main cause of all the other things that have happened, that happen and that will happen.

About what is possible and what is necessary

The third way proposed by Thomas Aquinas talks about the fact that the world is full of possibilities in different areas of existence. Everything that surrounds us has the possibility of existing or not, because it is possible that it is destroyed.

Since there is a possibility that something does not exist, this implies that there was a moment in history when nothing existed.

Faced with this nothingness, the need arose for the appearance of a being that Thomas Aquinas calls "necessary", which corresponds to full existence; God.

Hierarchy of values

For Thomas Aquinas, the recognition of values ​​is one of the ideal ways to get closer to the concept of God.

It indicates that values ​​such as nobility, truthfulness and goodness, among others, are greater as they approach that higher reference point, which represents the maximum externalization and the absolute cause of said values.

Thomas Aquinas establishes that this superior point of reference is God, which corresponds to the highest perfection.

Sorting the objects

Thomas Aquinas states that natural objects have no thought, so they cannot order themselves. This makes necessary the existence of a superior entity that is in charge of putting order.

Importance of the Bible

For Thomas Aquinas, God as a notion is a very complex conception, to which it is not possible to approach directly because our reason cannot understand so much enormity.

That is why he proposes that the best way to approach God is through the Bible, especially through the New Testament; of the so-called apostolic tradition, not written verbatim in the Bible but part of the Christian dynamic; and the teaching of the pope and bishops.

Plays

The works of Thomas Aquinas were varied and his publication was extensive. He published a large number of books during his short life, since he died when he was only 49 years old.

Among his enormous list of publications, his theological syntheses stand out: Summa contra gentiles, Summa theologiae and Scriptum super quatuor libris sententiarum magistri Petri Lombardi.

Summa against gentiles

This work is translated as Sum against people. It is believed that it was written between the years 1260 and 1264, although there is no agreement regarding the veracity of this date.

It is believed that the objective of this publication is to provide arguments that corroborate the Catholic and Christian faith in situations of hostility.

Within this publication you can find arguments designed specifically to respond to manifestations of non-faithful people. It is believed that the intention of the book was to support the missionaries in their efforts to make the word of God known.

It is also estimated that these arguments could have been useful in disputes with Jews or Muslims, who were characterized at that time as being followers of Aristotle's philosophy.

Summa theologiae

The Theological Sum was written between the years 1265 and 1274. It is characterized as the most popular theological treatise of the medieval period and for having had a strong influence on Catholicism.

Rather than defending the faith (as in the case of Suma contra gentes), this publication was intended as a theological manual that could be used in teaching.

For the writing of the Theological Summa, Thomas Aquinas is based on the Bible and other scriptures of the sacred court, as well as the teachings of Aristotle and Augustine of Hippo.

Structure

Within the structure of this publication can be found a pattern. In the first place, the explanation begins with a question, which usually expressed the opposite idea to which Thomas Aquinas defended.

Later, Santo Tomás described the arguments that, according to him, refuted the thesis exposed at the beginning, in the stated question; and after this, he went on to describe those arguments that did support said thesis.

In the development of the analysis, Tomás was dedicated to expanding and conceiving what would be his answer and, in the end, he answered one by one all the arguments that objected to the thesis in question.

This book was written in three parts, and the third of these was left unfinished after Thomas Aquinas expressed, in the last years of his life, that he had had a revelation through which he was told that everything he had written thus far it was fruitless and meaningless.

However, although Thomas Aquinas did not finish the third part of his work, his disciples finished it for him, adding a supplement in which they developed various writings made by him in the time of his youth.

Scriptum super quatuor libris sententiarum magistri Petri Lombardi

This was the first work of Thomas Aquinas, which is translated as Commentary on the Four Books of Sentences by Pedro Lombardi.

It is estimated that this work was written between the years 1254 and 1259. In this publication Tomas de Aquino comments on the work of the theologian Pedro Lombardi, in which the sacraments proper to the Church were developed.

Some scholars have identified that what Thomas Aquinas raised in these comments has important differences with the way he expresses himself in the Theological Sum, the most important work of Thomas.

However, the fact that the theological Summa was not completed by Thomas Aquinas, may explain the difference in arguments between the two works of the religious philosopher.

Other Thomas Aquinas scholars indicate that this book is concrete evidence of how his thinking developed and evolved over time.

Contributions

About God

Saint Thomas Aquinas developed the idea of ​​what or who is God, and he did so through positive ideas trying to discover his nature.

In his deductive thinking, he said that God is simple, perfect, infinite, immutable, and unique. God is not composed of parts, that is, he has no body and soul, no matter or form.

It is so perfect that it lacks nothing and is not limited in any way. Its character and essence are so solid that nothing can change them.

Philosophy

From the philosophical point of view, Aquino was characterized by being Aristotelian. He took the physical analysis of objects as his starting point.

Perhaps, the most prominent concept in his philosophical thought has to do with his idea that objects, and everything that is present in the universe, exists together with its essence, which means that all matter exists physically, but its essence it is manifested by the perfect creation of God.

Psychology

For Santo Tomas, the human being is not limited by the idea of ​​cause and effect. Therefore, the human being is responsible for his own actions. However, the existence of free will is not contrary to the existence of God.

Metaphysics

One of the fields in which Saint Thomas Aquinas most innovated was in metaphysics. However, the entire line of thought was closely related to his religious beliefs. The Supreme God is always at the top of the pyramid.

In that sense, his thinking developed on the basis that a static world was the idea of ​​perfection. In his words, what was immobile was perfect.

He distinguished between natural movement and voluntary movement. However, once again, every first move is made by a Supreme Being, that is, God.

Right

Within the field of law, the doctrine of Saint Thomas Aquinas plays a very important and respected role.

His thought is taken as one of the axes of the theory of law and is exposed in all university chairs as a starting point for the reflection of future jurists.

His idea of ​​divine order, present in each exposition of his legacy, affirms that law is made up of laws that are nothing more than instruments for the common good. However, these laws are valid as long as they are adequate to the right.

Economy

Santo Tomas believed that everything around us is not really ours. Because God was the great creator, we had to share everything and consider it a gift.

He considered that man needed incentives to perform and, in this regard, private property was part of this incentive and the result of human work.

References

1. (2008). The Basics of Philosophy. Philosophy Basics. philosophybasics.com.
2. McInerny, Ralph. (2014). plate.stanford.edu. USES. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. plate.stanford.edu.
3. Summa Theologiae: Volume 17, Psychology of Human Acts: 1a2ae. 6-17.
4. Fonseca, Miranda. (2015). Portal of Academic Journals. Costa Rica university. magazines.ucr.ac.cr.
5. Siapo, Harold R. (2014). In Slide Share. St. Thomas Aquinas And Education. es.slideshare.net.
6. (2011). The Truth About Money and Government. Aquinas' Economics. political-economy.com.