Barza, Jomar T.

BEED ECED 4-A

SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS

Saint Thomas Aquinas, O.P. (also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino; c. 1225–7 March 1274) was an
Italian Catholic priest in the Dominican Order, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian
in the scholastic tradition, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Universalis and Doctor Communis. He
is frequently referred to as Thomas because "Aquinas" refers to his residence rather than his surname. He
was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology, and the father of the Thomistic school of
philosophy and theology. His influence on Western thought is considerable, and much of modern
philosophy was conceived as a reaction against, or as an agreement with, his ideas, particularly in the
areas of ethics, natural law and political theory.

Philosophy
Aquinas believed "that for the knowledge of any truth whatsoever man needs Divine help, that the
intellect may be moved by God to its act." However, he believed that human beings have the natural
capacity to know many things without special divine revelation, even though such revelation occurs from
time to time, "especially in regard to [topics of] faith."

Aquinas followed basically the teachings of Aristotle. Aquinas proclaims the supremacy of reason in
every man and maintained that man will know the truth by the application of truth. On the philosophy of
happiness, Aquinas taught that man, by nature, longs for perfection and happiness and this personal
longing can be realized with the full development of all man’s endowments – rational, moral emotional,
social, physical and intellectual.

For Aquinas, man is an embodied soul, not a soul using a body. Thomas Aquinas claimed that man is
substantially united body and soul. Body and soul before death are essentially united because the two
exist in a correlative manner.

Blood that but one drop of has the power to win…….All the world forgiveness of its world of sin.

References:
http://mb-soft.com/believe/txo/philoso.htm
http://katoliko.org/2008/11/07/st-thomas-aquinas-11/
Eddie R. Babor. 2001. The Human Person: not real, but existing. C&E Publishing Inc. Page 79-83
Thomas Aquinas. Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas: Man and the Conduct of Life. Hackett
Publishing, 1997. page 682, 864
Leo Elders. The Philosophical Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. Brill Archive, 1990 Page 229-232
Clarence J. Glacken. Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought from
Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century. University of California Press, 1967. Pages 230-
236