What is st thomas aquinas known for
Mindful of this division, Thomas warned against dogmatic interpretations in areas of faith that might have to be abandoned if subsequent natural evidence falsified them. Convinced that Aristotle 's — b. Thomas Aquinas was born near Monte Cassino , Italy, around He was the youngest of nine children. After elementary education in the abbey of Monte Cassino , Thomas was sent to Naples in , where he studied at the University of Naples.
In , while still at Naples, Thomas entered the Dominican order, contrary to the wishes of his family. From to , Thomas studied at Paris and then Cologne. After training as a theologian, Thomas became a professor of theology at the University of Paris — He spent the years between and in Italy serving different popes at their papal courts.
During to , Thomas returned to another professorship at the University of Paris, after which he returned to Naples, where his health began to fail. Thomas died in while on his way to the second Council of Lyons. Thomas was a prolific author who left approximately fifty works that have been thus far identified. He wrote on numerous topics, the most significant of which are his theological treatises, especially his famous Summa of Theology Summa theologiae , commentaries on books of the Bible , and commentaries on various works of Aristotle, especially those on natural philosophy, which include Aristotle's Physics, On the Heavens, On Generation and Corruption, Meteorology, and On the Soul.
In addition, Thomas composed sermons, letters, and replies to queries. Issues of science and religion in the Middle Ages involve the relationship between natural philosophy and religion. By the time Thomas began writing, Aristotle's works on logic and natural philosophy had been adopted as the basic curriculum in faculties of arts of medieval universities.
Because Aristotle's natural philosophy raised issues that were directly relevant to theology and the Catholic faith, it was inevitable that Thomas, who was both a theologian and a natural philosopher, would have to confront those issues in his works on theology and natural philosophy. When Thomas dealt with issues of science and religion, he was guided by his overall view of the relationship between faith and reason.
Thomas emphasized the importance and power of reason, but insisted that it was inadequate to gain knowledge of unseen things, such as God, for which faith and divine revelation are essential. For knowledge of the physical cosmos and its regular operations, however, reason — embodied in the works of Aristotle — was Thomas's instrument for understanding those operations.
But reason was also an instrument for the study of theology. In the very first question of his Summa of Theology, Thomas asked whether theology is a science and replied affirmatively. He is usually regarded as the scholar who gave credence to the claim that theology is a science, a claim that was widely assumed in the late Middle Ages.
Two principles derived from the early Christian leader Augustine of Hippo — c. He insisted: 1 that the truths of Scripture must be held inviolate, but that 2 no passage in Scripture should be interpreted rigidly and dogmatically because it might later be proved false by convincing arguments, thus leading to a loss of credibility that would inhibit nonbelievers from adopting the faith.
Although Aristotle's natural philosophy formed the basic curriculum in the arts faculties of medieval universities, those aspects of his work that conflicted with basic Christian beliefs evoked opposition through most of the thirteenth century. In the s, and s, when Thomas was writing, the opposition was led by the Franciscan theologian Bonaventure — , whose neoconservative Augustinian colleagues eventually prevailed upon the bishop of Paris to condemn certain of Aristotle's articles deemed offensive to the faith; thirteen articles were condemned in and articles were condemned in , three years after the death of Thomas.
Since Thomas was a supporter of Aristotle's philosophy, as were many Dominicans, some of the hostility was plainly directed against him and his colleagues. It was not until , two years after the canonization of Thomas Aquinas, that the bishop of Paris, Stephen Bourret, revoked the condemnation of all articles condemned in that were directed against the teachings of Thomas.
The most significant idea condemned in was Aristotle's claim for the eternity of the world, which was denounced at least twenty-seven times in a variety of contexts. In a treatise he titled On the Eternity of the World, Thomas neither rejected nor accepted the eternity of the world. By absolute power, God could have created a world that was coeternal with God.
For as Thomas argued, "The statement that something was made by God and nevertheless was never without existence. Although God could make the world coeternal with God, an eternal world would still be a created effect, because it is wholly dependent on an immutable God, thus guaranteeing that the world cannot be coequal with God. Of the articles condemned in , Article 99 was probably directed against Thomas's interpretation of the eternity of the world.
Thomas's approach to the question of the world's duration proved popular and found supporters up through the Renaissance. Bonaventure and others were convinced that Aristotle had denied the personal immortality of the soul, but Thomas thought Aristotle had believed it. Since Aristotle firmly believed that every material thing is derived from previous matter, he would have been opposed to the Christian doctrine of creation from nothing.
Article condemned the view that something could not be made from nothing. Indeed, the Fourth Lateran Council of had declared belief in creation from nothing to be an article of faith. On this issue, Thomas, and all Christians , were compelled to reject Aristotle's interpretation. Thomas's conception of the physical world and its operations was basically the same as that held by Aristotle, from whom he derived it.
In his commentaries on Aristotle's natural philosophy, Thomas considered the numerous problems Aristotle presented, accepting most of Aristotle's solutions, but disagreeing on some important issues.
Although Thomas believed with Aristotle that the existence of void spaces was impossible, he disagreed with the absurd consequence Aristotle deduced from the assumption of motion in a vacuum, namely that because of an absence of material resistance, a body would move instantaneously in a vacuum and, as a consequence, no ratio could obtain between motions in a hypothetical void and motions in a space filled with matter.
Thomas rejected these conclusions. A body falling or moving in a void space would have a definite speed and take a definite time to move successively between two distant points. This is so, argued Thomas, because any distance in a three-dimensional void has prior and posterior parts that a body must traverse to get from one point to another, which requires time.
Hence there could indeed be a ratio between motions in a vacuum and motions in a plenum. In a letter to a soldier, Thomas explained how bodies could perform actions that do not follow from the nature of their constituent elements, as, for example, the attraction of a magnet for iron. Thomas regarded such actions as occult, explaining the causes of such phenomena by the behavior of two kinds of superior agents: 1 celestial bodies, or 2 separate spiritual substances, which included celestial intelligences, angels, and even demons.
A superior agent can either communicate the power to perform the action directly to an inferior body, as is the case with the magnet; or the superior agent can, by its own motion, cause the body in question to move, as, for example, the moon causes the ebb and flow of the tides. Whatever disagreements Thomas had with Aristotle, whether doctrinal or otherwise, it is obvious that Thomas was an Aristotelian in natural philosophy.
As an Aristotelian natural philosopher and a professional theologian, one may appropriately inquire how Thomas related natural philosophy and theology, the medieval equivalent of the relations between science and religion. Thomas followed in the path of his teacher, Albert the Great, and generally refrained from introducing theological ideas into his treatises on natural philosophy, whereas he did not hesitate to introduce natural philosophy to elucidate his theological discussions.
As a theologian doing natural philosophy, Thomas could easily have resorted to theological appeals and arguments in his natural philosophy, but he did not think it appropriate to do so. As he explained in a reply to one of forty-three questions sent to him by the master general of the Dominican order, "I don't see what one's interpretation of the text of Aristotle has to do with the teaching of the faith.
In this, Thomas followed the practice of most medieval theologians and natural philosophers. Thomas of Aquino ca. He joined the Dominican order in , taking a licentia docendi at Paris in He later taught at Paris, Rome, Orvieto, and Naples. The Summa contra Gentiles was completed about His longest and most influential work, the Summa Theologiae, was unfinished at the time of his death.
Thomas was the foremost contributor to the thirteenth-century recovery of Aristotle. His achievement in ethics lies chiefly in the application of a Christianized version of Aristotle to politics and law. In most respects he departs from the Augustinian orientation of previous generations that found the present world sin-laden and disordered and its politics harsh and coercive.
Thomas accepted the rational, humane, ordered world depicted by Aristotle. There is no tension between the acquisition of present goods on earth and the achievement of eternal ones in heaven so long as the former are directed toward and subordinated to the latter. Human beings have a final ethical end—eternal blessedness—that transcends all earthly ends, but earthly happiness is also possible and desirable.
God has equipped human beings with the rational capacity to pursue earthly as well as heavenly goods, and although sin has impaired the will, it has not obliterated reason. Thomas believes, as Augustine — did not, that humans are capable, under proper governance, of cooperating with one another to achieve a common good. For Thomas human beings are by nature political animals; government is not merely a consequence of sin.
Even if the Fall of Adam had not occurred, no individual would be able to acquire all the necessities of life unaided; only cooperation can secure the benefits of divisions of labor. However, there are many ways to achieve human ends, and so a community must be guided toward the common good by just and wise rule.
The best government is a "mixed" constitution of the kind that Aristotle called politeia. Kingship may be the most efficient form of rule, but it is also the most likely to deteriorate into tyranny. It therefore must be tempered by elements of democracy and aristocracy. A king should choose the best people as his counselors, and what he does should be ratified by the people.
Thomas follows Aristotle in supposing that a government in which as many people as possible participate will be the most stable because it will commend itself to all sections of the community. In the Summa Theologiae Thomas develops a typology of law as eternal, natural, human, and divine. This theory has a Platonic starting point insofar as law is defined as a rational pattern or form.
In the political realm law thus serves as a "rule and measure" for citizens' conduct.
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When citizens obey the law, they "participate" in that order in the way a table "participates" in the rational pattern or form of a table. Because God is the supreme governor of everything, the rational pattern or form of the universe that exists in God's mind is law in the most comprehensive sense: the law that makes the universe orderly and predictable.
This rational pattern is what Thomas called eternal law, and to it everything in the universe is subject. The eternal law is similar in content to what science now calls the laws of nature. Inasmuch as humankind is part of the eternal order there must be a portion of the eternal law that relates specifically to human conduct. This is the lex naturalis, the "law of [human] nature": an idea present in Aristotle to which Thomas gave extensive elaboration.
In developing his natural law theory Thomas restored human reason to a central place in moral philosophy. For Thomas, as for Aristotle, human beings are preeminently reason-using creatures. The law or order to which people are subject by their nature is not a mere instinct to survive and breed. It is a moral law ordering people to do good and avoid evil, have families, live at peace with their neighbors, and pursue knowledge.
It is natural in that humans are creatures to whom its prescriptions are rationally obvious. To all humans, pagans included, these precepts simply "stand to reason" by virtue of a faculty of moral insight or conscience that Thomas called synderesis. However, humans act on the principles of natural law with the assistance of more particular and coercive provisions of what Thomas called human law.
The natural law is too general to provide specific guidance. Part of this specific guidance can come from the moral virtues that equip people to achieve practical ends: prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude. However, these personal guidelines are developed and reinforced by human or positive laws that that help cultivate such good habits.
These particular, positive rules of behavior include civil and criminal laws of the state as formulated by practical reason, or what Aristotle called phronesis, in the light of the general principles of natural law and have a morally educative function. Human laws that are not based on natural law—laws that oppress people or fail to secure their good—have more the character of force than that of law.
Obedience may be called for if disobedience would cause greater harm, but people are not obliged to obey unjust laws. Individuals may exercise independent moral judgment; they are not simply subjects but rational citizens. The fourth kind of law—divine law—is part of the eternal law but, unlike human law, is not derived from rational reflection on more general principles and historical circumstances.
It is a law of revelation, disclosed through Scripture and the Church and directed toward people's eternal end. Human law is concerned with external aspects of conduct, but salvation requires that people be inwardly virtuous as well as outwardly compliant. The divine law governs people's inner lives: It punishes people insofar as they are sinful rather than merely criminal.
The strongest implications of Thomas's thought for ethics, science, and technology are found in the doctrine of natural law and the underlying idea of human equality. Insofar as it requires people to do good, avoid evil, pursue knowledge, and live at peace with their neighbors, the natural law suggests that governments should support scientific and technological research intended to have beneficial outcomes.
By the same token, it supports the principle that governments should not sponsor such research when it involves the development of weapons of mass destruction or the exploitation of some human beings by others. Natural law doctrine implies as well that governments should not harm, but seek to preserve, the physical environment of humankind: the natural world that God created and over which humans properly exercise dominion.
In regard to biological and medical science, the idea of human nature as a repository of value implies a distinction between laudable biomedical research, which is a work of charity beneficial to the human race, and unacceptable research involving the manipulation or distortion of human nature. In this connection Thomas often is cited in support of the Catholic Church's prohibition of artificial as distinct from natural methods of contraception.
Finally, it may be noted that Thomas's insistence on citizen participation in government speaks against any suggestion that political decisions should be made by technocratic elites of scientists and engineers rather than by those who will be affected by those decisions.
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Thomas presided over a thorough revaluation of the capacity of human beings for autonomous moral action and hence for responsible political participation. In effect, he reinvented the Aristotelian ideal of citizenship after its long medieval eclipse, and that reinvention would apply today to scientific and technological decision making. New York : Image.
A popular and uncritical biography, but useful for purposes of orientation. Dyson, R. A comprehensive selection of passages in translation, with detailed notes and introduction. Finnis, John. Aquinas: Moral, Political and Legal Theory. A comprehensive and recent scholarly treatment of Thomas's thought on ethics, politics and law.
McInerny, Ralph M. A clear exposition and summary of Thomas's moral philosophy; still regarded as a standard textbook on the subject. The Synthesis of Philosophy and Theology. The two defining influences on the great medieval philosopher-theologian Thomas Aquinas were Scholasticism and Aristotelianism. One of the greatest aids to their task of systematizing Christian doctrine along philosophical lines was the rediscovery, in the late twelfth century, of certain major writings of Aristotle.
Thomas was, therefore, born at a time when Scholasticism was reaching its height and the intellectual weight of Aristotelianism was just beginning to be felt. His great contribution to theology was his effort to synthesize Christianity and Aristotelianism, which resulted in one of the most comprehensive philosophical systems in history and the crowning achievement of Scholasticism.
Thomas was born at Roccasecca, a family castle near Naples, Italy, to the noble house of Aquilo. He received his early schooling at the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino , where he demonstrated a precocious intelligence and piety. In he went to Naples to continue his studies at the recently established university, where he was probably introduced to Aristotle, whose Physics and Metaphysics had recently reached western Europe through Latin translations of Arabic texts preserved by the Muslim world and its philosophers.
At Naples, Thomas also came into contact with the Dominicans, a relatively new monastic order with a mission of preaching and instruction and an emphasis on the education of its members. In Thomas took Dominican vows against the wishes of his family, which even abducted Thomas and held him at various family strongholds during — When Thomas was released the Dominicans sent him to the University of Paris, where he studied under Albertus Magnus, one of the pre-eminent Scholastics and an admirer of Aristotle.
Teaching and Writing. About four years later he received the title master of theology. In he left Paris for Italy, where he taught at Rome and several other cities for a decade before returning to Paris. There he disputed the extreme Aristotelianism of Siger of Brabant and other young scholars. He died two years later, on 7 March , on his way to attend the Council of Lyons.
The Summa Theologiae. In fewer than fifty years he wrote scores of commentaries, tracts, and treatises covering a broad range of spiritual and philosophical topics; some of his early biographers mentioned that he had several scribes working for him at once. Among his most influential works are his commentaries on Aristotle and on the Bible, and his Summa de Veritate Catholcae Fidei contra Gentiles Comprehensive Truth of the Catholic Faith against the Gentiles, written — His greatest work is his Summa Theologiae Comprehensive Theology, written — , a systematic and thorough treatment of all the major and many minor questions of Christian theology.
The work is presented in the form of a series of articles, each posing a specific question. Among the more than three thousand questions answered are whether it can be demonstrated that God exists, whether the human soul is incorruptible, whether God is the cause of evil, and whether created goods can bring man happiness.
Thomas addressed each question in the Scholastic form prevalent in the lecture halls of his day, first listing every reasonable objection to his proposed answer, then citing an authority to support him, explaining his solution, and finally replying to each of the objections initially raised. According to his medieval biographers, Thomas was often given to mystical ecstasies, and after an especially profound experience at a mass on 6 December he had abandoned his work on the Summa Theologiae.
Even theologians who disagreed with Thomas were forced to take some account of his work. Thomas Aquinas, called the "Common Doctor" or some centuries later the "Angelic Doctor," was born in the family castle of Roccasecca in the county of Aquino hence his name , which was located in the Kingdom of Naples. The youngest son in a noble family of thirteen children, Thomas was undoubtedly destined by his father for service in the Church.
Hence it was that he was packed off at the age of five to the nearby monastery of Monte Cassino as an oblate a lay member of the religious community , possibly one day to be its abbot, a post befitting his aristocratic status. Thomas's career path took a different turn, however, after his superior transferred him to nearby Naples to continue his studies at the newly founded university, the establishment of the emperor, Frederick II.
There Thomas was exposed, full bore, to the newly translated works of Aristotle. It was also there that he first encountered the religious order of begging preachers, founded by St. Attracted to the mendicant way of life, young Thomas took the habit, much to the consternation of his mother. Sending his older brothers, both knights, to seize her youngest son, she had Thomas placed under "house arrest" in the family castle.
A year's captivity was not able to shake his resolve, however, and Thomas was allowed to continue his interrupted journey to Paris, where he came under the tutelage of Albert of Swabia, who was already being called Albertus Magnus, or "Albert the Great. Following a period in Cologne, where he witnessed the laying of the cornerstone of the great cathedral, Thomas was sent back to Paris to study for the terminal degree in theology, the "master of the sacred page" referring to Scripture.
Owing to university politics, however, the degree was withheld, and it took a letter from the pope to the chancellor before Thomas and his fellow student Bonaventure the future Minister General of the Franciscan Order were admitted to the "university" of masters. For three years Thomas held the chair assigned to the Dominicans at Paris, then was transferred to his native Italy for the next ten years.
While teaching in the house of studies in Rome, Thomas conceived the idea of what was to become his masterpiece, the Summa theologiae , the "Summary of Theology," which was written, as he said in the Prologue, for beginners in the discipline. In Thomas was transferred again to Paris, this time to do battle against the movement that had arisen in his absence, Latin Averroism.
One detects in his writings from this period a dramatic change from his usual placid and tranquil demeanor, and Thomas used rather harsh language in challenging the professors who he was convinced were misinterpreting Aristotle and threatening his own project, which was to build a new synthesis of Christian theology on the foundations of Aristotle's natural philosophy.
Thomas left Paris after four years of incredibly intense activity, when in addition to his lectures on Scripture and his continuing work on the Summa , he had begun his own commentaries on the works of Aristotle. Although these commentaries were extracurricular for Thomas—that is, they did not constitute part of his duties as a master of theology—they were written by him precisely to defend his use of Aristotle in theology in the face of the "Augustinians" who had accused him of Averroism.
Back in Naples, exhausted by his Herculean efforts he wrote or dictated fifty works in his forty-nine years , he suddenly stopped writing altogether, leaving the Summa incomplete. When questioned by his secretary, Reginald of Piperno, Thomas would only reply that after what had been revealed to him, he realized that he had not come close.
The following spring, on his way north to attend the Council of Lyons to which he had been summoned, he fell from his horse and was taken to a nearby monastery, where some days later he died. He was officially recognized as a saint almost fifty years later, after several of his teachings which had been condemned in were subjected to a re-examination and found to be orthodox.
Albert and Thomas. Selected Writings. Robert Royal Washington D. James A. One of the most profound scholars and subtlest logicians of his day.
Aquinas was born around in Roccasecca, Italy. His mother, indignant that he should take the vow of poverty and thus remove himself from the world for life, employed every means in her power to induce him to change his mind. In order to remove Aquinas from her influence, the friars relocated him from Naples to Terracina, from Terracina to Anagnia, and from Anagnia to Rome.
His mother followed him in all these changes of residence but was not permitted to see him. At length she induced his two elder brothers to seize him by force. They kidnapped him while he was traveling to Paris , where he had been sent to complete his course of instruction, and they carried him off to the castle of Aquino, where he had been born.
Here Aquinas was confined for two years, but he found a way to correspond with the superiors of his order, and he finally escaped from a window in the castle. Aquinas exceeded most men in the severity and strictness of his metaphysical disquisitions and thus acquired the name of "Seraphic Doctor. Because of his association with Albertus Magnus, he shared many legends of magical powers.
For example, it was said that because his study was placed in a great thoroughfare where the grooms exercised their horses, Aquinas found it necessary to apply a magical remedy to this nuisance. He made by the laws of magic a small brass horse, which he buried two or three feet underground in the middle of this highway so that horses would no longer pass along the road.
The grooms were compelled to choose another place for their daily exercises. Another legend claimed that Aquinas was offended by the perpetual chattering of an artificial man made of brass, constructed by his tutor Albertus Magnus, and he dashed the automaton to pieces. Aquinas was also supposed to have written some tracts on alchemy.
However, his credulity regarding demonology and witchcraft had an unfortunate influence on witchhunters, and he was later cited as an authority by such writers as Heinrich Kramer and Jakob Sprenger, authors of the infamous Malleus Maleficarum. Although Aquinas did not accept the concept of a pact with the Devil, he endorsed the belief of diabolical association, and the incubus and succubus.
He echoed Albertus Magnus in claiming that when Satan tempted Christ on the mountain-top, he carried Christ on his shoulders, and this belief was used by later witchhunters to endorse the theory of transvection, or magical transport of witches through the air. Aquinas also believed in the power of the evil eye used by old women who had an association with the Devil.
His argument that heretics should be burned was later used to justify the burning of witches. It should be stressed that Aquinas's credulity was characteristic of his time, and his theses concerning the Devil reflected the conclusions of theological dogmas of his day. Thomas composed a commentary on Sentences, titled Scriptum super libros Sententiarium and wrote De ente et essentia.
The spring of saw Thomas appointed regent master in theology at Paris, and one of his first works after assuming the office was Contra impugnantes Dei cultum et religionem, in defense of mendicant orders, which William of Saint-Amour had been attacking. Between to , Thomas spent his tenure writing several books, such as Questiones disputatae de veritate, Quaestiones quodlibetales, Expositio super librum Boethii De trinitate, and Expositio super librum Boethii De hebdomadibus.
At the conclusion of his regency, Thomas was in the process of writing one of his most famous works, Summa contra Gentiles. In , Thomas completed his first regency and returned to Naples, where he was appointed general preacher. In September , he was asked to lecture in Orvieto, and during his stay he finished Summa contra Gentiles, as well as Catena aurea, and Contra errores graecorum.
In , Thomas was summoned to Rome to serve as the papal theologian and was later ordered by the Dominican Chapter of Agnani to teach at the studium conventuale, which was the first school to teach the full range of philosophical subjects of both moral and natural natures. While teaching, Thomas wrote his most famous work, Summa theologiae, which he believed was particularly useful to beginning students "because a doctor of Catholic truth ought not only to teach the proficient, but to him pertains also to instruct beginners.
He continued to write and released several more books until , when he was called to Paris for a second teaching regency. He was named regent master again and stayed until During this time, he wrote De virtutibus and De aeternitate mundi. At the conclusion of his regency, the Dominicans called Thomas to establish a university wherever he wanted with a staff of whomever he wished.
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He established the university in Naples and took the regent master post. In Thomas was seen by the sacristan Domenic of Caserta to be crying and levitating in prayer before an icon of the crucified Christ at the Dominican convent of Naples, in the Chapel of Saint Nicholas. During this prayer, Christ is said to have told him, "You have written well of me, Thomas.
What reward would you have for your labor? Following this exchange, something happened but Thomas never wrote or spoke of it. He abandoned his routine and, when begged to return to work, replied, "I cannot, because all that I have written seems like straw to me. While journeying to the meeting, Thomas hit his head on the branch of a fallen tree and fell ill.
He was escorted to Monte Cassino to recover, then he set out again. Combining the theological principles of faith with the philosophical principles of reason, Saint Thomas Aquinas ranked among the most influential thinkers of medieval Scholasticism. Thomas had eight siblings, and was the youngest child. His mother, Theodora, was countess of Teano.
Before Saint Thomas Aquinas was born, a holy hermit shared a prediction with his mother, foretelling that her son would enter the Order of Friars Preachers, become a great learner and achieve unequaled sanctity. Following the tradition of the period, Saint Thomas Aquinas was sent to the Abbey of Monte Cassino to train among Benedictine monks when he was just 5 years old.
In Wisdom , Saint Thomas Aquinas is described as "a witty child" who "had received a good soul.
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Saint Thomas Aquinas remained at the monastery until he was 13 years old, when the political climate forced him to return to Naples. Saint Thomas Aquinas spent the next five years completing his primary education at a Benedictine house in Naples. During those years, he studied Aristotle's work, which would later become a major launching point for Saint Thomas Aquinas's own exploration of philosophy.
At the Benedictine house, which was closely affiliated with the University of Naples, Thomas also developed an interest in more contemporary monastic orders. He was particularly drawn to those that emphasized a life of spiritual service, in contrast with the more traditional views and sheltered lifestyle he'd observed at the Abbey of Monte Cassino.
St thomas aquinas catholic church: Italian Dominican theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas was one of the most influential medieval thinkers of Scholasticism and the father of the Thomistic school of theology.
In , he secretly joined an order of Dominican monks, receiving the habit in When his family found out, they felt so betrayed that he had turned his back on the principles to which they subscribed that they decided to kidnap him. Thomas's family held him captive for an entire year, imprisoned in the fortress of San Giovanni at Rocca Secca. During this time, they attempted to deprogram Thomas of his new beliefs.
Thomas held fast to the ideas he had learned at university, however, and went back to the Dominican order following his release in He was ordained in Cologne, Germany, in , and went on to teach theology at the University of Paris. Thomas de Aquinas is an essential character of Western philosophy and Christianity. We have access to his academic work, teachings, and writings approaching abstract thinking.
Thomas de Aquinas began his journey with the monastery religious life at five years old. Coming from a wealthy and influential family, Thomas de Aquinas was destined by his family to become the Abbot of Montecassino. They were monks who lived by eliminating all material wealth. For his family, being a monk of the Dominicans was a dishonor.
His family kidnapped him and kept him prisoner in the their castle for over a year in an attempt to change his mind. This was until he escaped and became a friar with the new Dominican Order against the wishes of his family.