Description

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Book One of the Summa Contra Gentiles series studies God's existence, nature, and substance, his perfect actuality, the autonomy of his knowledge, the independence of his will, the perfection of his life, and the generosity of his love.

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 that all that had been rational in the ancient philosophers and their followers would become more rational within Christianity.

Book 2 of the Summa deals with Creation; Book 3, Providence; and Book 4, Salvation.

About the Author

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St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) is a Doctor of the church. He was an Italian Dominican friar and Roman Catholic priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian, and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism. Canonized in 1323 by Pope John XXII, Aquinas was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology and the father of Thomism.Anton C. Pegis served as president of the Pontifical Institute from 1946 to 1952 and subsequently became editorial director of the Catholic textbook division of Doubleday and Company in New York. He remained a fellow of the institute, returning to Toronto to teach full time from 1961 until his retirement in 1974.