Summa Contra Gentiles

by Aquinas, Thomas

• ISBN13: 9780268016784
• ISBN10: 026801678X
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780268045517
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1991-10-31
• Publisher: INGRAM
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Summary

The Summa Contra Gentiles is not merely the only complete summary of Christian doctrine that St. Thomas has written, but also a creative and even revolutionary work of Christian apologetics composed at the precise moment when Christian thought needed to be intellectually creative in order to master and assimilate the intelligence and wisdom of the Greeks and the Arabs. In the Summa, Aquinas works to save and purify the thought of the Greeks and the Arabs in the higher light of Christian Revelation, confident than all that had been rational in the ancient philosophers and their followers would become more rational within Christianity.

This exposition and defense of divine truth has two main parts: the consideration of that truth which faith professes and reason investigates, and the consideration of the truth which faith professes and reason is not competent to investigate. The exposition of truths accessible to natural reason occupies Aquinas in the first three books of the Summa. His method is to bring forward demonstrative and probable arguments, some of wh

Table of Contents

General Introduction	15	(30)
I St. Thomas and his writings	15	(4)
II Aristotelianism and the occasion of the Summa Contra Gentiles	19	(7)
III The plan of the Summa Contra Gentiles	26	(19)
SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES, BOOK ONE: GOD	45	(8)
I The Christian God	45	(5)
II The present translation	50	(3)
Bibliography	53	(6)
1. The office of the wise man	59	(2)
2. The author's intention in the present work	61	(2)
3. On the way in which divine truth is to be made known	63	(3)
4. That the truth about God to which the natural reason reaches is fittingly proposed to men for belief	66	(3)
5. That the truths the human reason is not able to investigate are fittingly proposed to men for belief	69	(2)
6. That to give assent to the truths of faith is not foolishness even though they are above reason	71	(3)
7. That the truth of reason is not opposed to the truth of the Christian faith	74	(1)
8. How the human reason is related to the truth of faith	75	(2)
9. The order and manner of procedure in the present work	77	(2)
10. The opinion of those who say that the existence of God, being self-evident, cannot be demonstrated	79	(2)
11. A refutation of the abovementioned opinion and a solution of the arguments	81	(2)
12. The opinion of those who say that the existence of God cannot be demonstrated but is held by faith alone	83	(2)
13. Arguments in proof of the existence of God	85	(11)
14. That to know God we must use the way of remotion	96	(2)
15. That God is eternal	98	(2)
16. That there is no passive potency in God	100	(1)
17. That there is no matter in God	101	(2)
18. That there is no composition in God	103	(2)
19. That in God there is nothing violent or unnatural	105	(1)
20. That God is not a body	106	(10)
21. That God is His essence	116	(2)
22. That in God being and essence are the same	118	(3)
23. That no accident is found in God	121	(3)
24. That the divine being cannot be determined by the addition of some substantial difference	124	(2)
25. That God is not in some genus	126	(2)
26. That God is not the formal being of all things	128	(5)
27. That God is not the form of any body	133	(2)
28. On the divine perfection	135	(3)
29. On the likeness of creatures to God	138	(1)
30. The names that can be predicated of God	139	(2)
31. That the divine perfection and the plurality of divine names are not opposed to the divine simplicity	141	(2)
32. That nothing is predicated univocally of God and other things	143	(2)
33. That not all names are said of God and creatures in a purely equivocal way	145	(2)
34. That names said of God and creatures are said analogically	147	(2)
35. That many names said of God are not synonyms	149	(1)
36. How our intellect forms a proposition about God	150	(1)
37. That God is good	150	(2)
38. That God is goodness itself	152	(2)
39. That there cannot be evil in God	154	(2)
40. That God is the good of every good	156	(1)
41. That God is the highest good	157	(1)
42. That God is one	158	(7)
43. That God is infinite	165	(5)
44. That God is intelligent	170	(3)
45. That God's act of understanding is His essence	173	(1)
46. That God understands through nothing other than through His essence	174	(2)
47. That God understands Himself perfectly	176	(2)
48. That primarily and essentially God knows only Himself	178	(2)
49. That God understands things other than Himself	180	(1)
50. That God has a proper knowledge of all things	181	(4)
51-52. Arguments inquiring how a multitude of intellectual objects is in the divine intellect	185	(2)
53. The solution of the above difficulty	187	(2)
54. How the divine essence, being one and simple, is the proper likeness of all intelligible objects	189	(3)
55. That God understands all things together	192	(2)
56. That God's knowledge is not habitual	194	(2)
57. That God's knowledge is not discursive	196	(3)
58. That God does not understand by composing and dividing	199	(2)
59. That the truth of enunciables is not excluded from God	201	(3)
60. That God is truth	204	(1)
61. That God is the purest truth	205	(2)
62. That the divine truth is the first and highest truth	207	(2)
63. The arguments of those who wish to take away the knowledge of singulars from God	209	(3)
64. The order of what is to be said on the divine knowledge	212	(1)
65. That God knows singulars	213	(4)
66. That God knows the things that are not	217	(4)
67. That God knows future contingent singulars	221	(4)
68. That God knows the motions of the will	225	(2)
69. That God knows infinite things	227	(4)
70. That God knows lowly things	231	(4)
71. That God knows evils	235	(4)
72. That God has will	239	(3)
73. That the will of God is His essence	242	(2)
74. That the principal object of the divine will is the divine essence	244	(1)
75. That in willing Himself God also wills other things	245	(2)
76. That God wills Himself and other things by one act of will	247	(3)
77. That the multitude of the objects of the will is not opposed to the divine simplicity	250	(1)
78. That the divine will extends to singular goods	251	(2)
79. That God wills even the things that are not yet	253	(2)
80. That His own being and His own goodness God wills necessarily	255	(2)
81. That God does not will other things in a necessary way	257	(3)
82. Arguments leading to awkward consequences if God does not necessarily will things other than Himself	260	(3)
83. That God wills something other than Himself with the necessity of supposition	263	(1)
84. That the will of God is not of what is in itself impossible	264	(2)
85. That the divine will does not remove contingency from things, nor does it impose absolute necessity on them	266	(1)
86. That a reason can be assigned to the divine will	267	(2)
87. That nothing can be the cause of the divine will	269	(1)
88. That in God there is free choice	270	(1)
89. That in God there are not the passions of the appetites	271	(4)
90. That in God there are delight and joy, but they are not opposed to the divine perfection	275	(2)
91. That in God there is love	277	(5)
92. How virtues may be held to be in God	282	(3)
93. That in God there are the moral virtues that deal with actions	285	(4)
94. That in God there are contemplative virtues	289	(1)
95. That God cannot will evil	290	(2)
96. That God hates nothing, and the hatred of no thing befits Him	292	(2)
97. That God is living	294	(1)
98. That God is His life	295	(1)
99. That the life of God is everlasting	296	(2)
100. That God is blessed	298	(2)
101. That God is His blessedness	300	(1)
102. That the perfect and unique blessedness of God excels every other blessedness	301	(4)
Subject Index	305	(8)
Index of Proper Names	313