St. Thomas Aquinas: The Fusion of Classical Logic and Christian Doctrine
Saint Thomas Aquinas was an outstanding figure in the High Middle Ages. His intellectual and spiritual contributions left many scholars searching for the divine in the empirical. Saint Thomas was one of many philosophers of his time who drew philosophical wisdom from the classical logic of Aristotle. He was joined in this classical logic by Boethius whose “characterization of musical intervals by numerical ratios” drew from the “Platonic heaven of numbers,” and Abelard who was influenced by the work of the ancient Roman Seneca’s “De clementia.” (1) Saint Thomas contributed much to the theological study of the Roman Catholic Church through his work, Summa Theologiae in which his search for wisdom becomes the example of the Dominican adage, “What we believe, we also want to understand” (3). The Summa Theologiae of Saint Thomas Aquinas was only part of the legacy the Angelic Doctor left behind, as he himself was a true example of the fusion of classical logic and Christian theology through his prayer-filled, intellectual life.
Saint Thomas was a friar and priest of the Order of Saint Dominic. The Dominican Order of Preachers was first established under the Pontificate of Pope Honorius III in 1216. Pope Honorius expressed his support to the newly founded religious order when he said God “inspired you [Dominicans] with a holy desire to embrace poverty, profess the regular life and commit yourselves to the proclamation of the word of God, preaching everywhere the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (3) It was in this religious order, founded by the zealous Saint Dominic in which Saint Thomas continued his life of study, preaching, and prayer. “Dominicans exist for preaching and the salvation of souls” (3) This particular vocation and charism first finds its roots in the desire to become holy. Preaching, studying and teaching are certainly three large facets of the Dominican way of life, yet these active ministries are not the apex of the life of a friar. “The Dominican [way of life] is designed rather to ensure that the one who embraces it himself becomes holy just as Dominic became a saint by his personal acts of loving God. Saint Thomas, although known most often for his philosophical works, was a man of prayer. “First, Holiness of Life” (3).
During his daily life, Saint Thomas would have certainly formed his life around the Eucharist in Catholic Mass. The Dominican order recognized a difference in methods of prayer: those which stir emotional responses and those which increase virtue. Saint Thomas believed that prayer, for it to be truly directed toward God, should benefit God the most. The Holy Mass, offered in sacrifice to God is considered by Catholics to be the highest form of virtuous worship, and therefore the most selfless. If personal prayer becomes a self-soothing mechanism to gain only a positive emotional response, this Aquinas would have believed, may not be the most perfect form of prayer. It is believed that “through prayer man offers reverence to God because he subjects himself to God and professes that God is the source of all that he is and all that he has. Clearly, therefore, prayer is an act of religion." In light of this, prayer would have been something which Saint Thomas “owed to God” (3) and he would have given of himself daily in the celebration of the Holy Mass, through the chanting of the book of Psalms, and in the recitation of the Holy Rosary (3). For Saint Thomas, prayer was the wellspring of life and contemplation. Contemplare et contemplata aliis tradere ”To contemplate and to preach the fruits of contemplation,” this is the charism of the Order of preachers. Saint Thomas states in his commentary on the Gospel of Saint John that “we must understand that the height and sublimity of contemplation consists most of all in the contemplation and knowledge of God” (5). Dominican charism in which Saint Thomas was formed “is an apostolic life in the full sense of the word, from which preaching and teaching ought to issue from an abundance of contemplation.” (3)
During his time as a professor at the University of Paris, Saint Thomas drew from his own contemplation on truth. After one year of lecturing on individual books in the Bible, he decided to use the following year to study “the four books of Peter Lombard, which had become the veritable textbook for the study of theology in Paris.” The style of teaching at the university in the thirteenth century added the innovations of the earlier twelfth century “development of a new combination of teaching, thinking, and understanding centered on the biblical text” (1).
“All through the twelfth century and the first decades of the thirteenth century, in the context of the Parisian university, ‘theological discourse’, that is, the understanding of divine realities and truths, was essentially based on the study, understanding, and teaching of the Bible, made using the instruments available through a classical education according to the liberal arts” (1)
It must be stated that Saint Thomas Aquinas saw the study of theology as a science, as it “has all the features required by the Aristotelian notion of science” (1). The teachings of Saint Thomas “shaped the dominant Christian understanding in the Middle Ages, but also profoundly influenced the doctrines of the Christian faith and their interpretation by today’s Roman Catholic Church” (2).
Saint Thomas’ work in the Summa Theologiae continues to provide a working knowledge of Christian theology in light of logic.The Summa Theologiae is written as a guide to “instruct beginners” in the study of “whatever belongs to the Christian religion in such a way as may befit the instruction of beginners” (4) The goal of this work as stated in the prologue to the Prima Pars of the work itself is “to set forth whatever belongs to Sacred Doctrine as briefly and clearly as the matter itself may allow” (4). Aquinas fused classical logic and Christian doctrine in the Summa in order to create an education plan for students according to the method in which he believed one must come to know the truths of the faith. This method of examining principles of faith in light of reason brought about a new way of thinking about sacred doctrine of the church. For example, in the Summa, Saint Thomas presented five proofs for the existence of God. In these proofs, he uses logic deduction in the natural order to prove God must in fact exist. He argues that one can come to know the existence of God through natural means such as: motion, efficient cause, possibility and necessity, gradation, and governance (4). This work is made up of questions, initial answers, objections to initial answers, a final answer and replies to objections.
The scholarly Dominican friar, Saint Thomas Aquinas, was chiefly concerned with becoming holy. It was through his love for God that the logical study of theological doctrine became for him a practice of contemplating the first mover of the universe. The life of Saint Thomas Aquinas is an example of the fusion of Christian doctrine and logical thought, as it was through prayer, study, and teaching that he came to know God more fully and devour truth. “A man lifts up his eyes on high when he sees and contemplates the Creator of all things” (5).
1. Clare Monagle, The Intellectual Dynamism of the High Middle Ages (Knowledge Communities Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021) 6-213
2. Muhammet Sagi, The Predominant Christian Interpretation of Religious Faith in the Middle Ages: Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas (Darulfunun Ilahiyat, 2023) 212-217
3. Romanus Cessario, OP, The grace St. Dominic brings to the world: a fresh look at Dominican Spirituality (Logos: A Journal of Catholic thought and Culture, 2021) 85-96
4. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Prima Pars (The Aquinas Institute, 1864) 1,
5. Thomas Aquinas, Super Evangelium S. Ioannis Lectura (The Aquinas Institute, 1864) 1-16
