Of God and His Creatures (Summa Contra Gentiles)
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Selection or partial work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~380,000 words · 1,788 passages
Cite this work
- APAThomas Aquinas. (n.d.). Of God and His Creatures (Summa Contra Gentiles). SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/thomas-aquinas/of-god-and-his-creatures-summa-contra-gentiles
- MLAThomas Aquinas. "Of God and His Creatures (Summa Contra Gentiles)." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/thomas-aquinas/of-god-and-his-creatures-summa-contra-gentiles.
- ChicagoThomas Aquinas. Of God and His Creatures (Summa Contra Gentiles). SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/thomas-aquinas/of-god-and-his-creatures-summa-contra-gentiles.
What it is about
Four books on God and his creatures. The division is what makes them singular: in the first three Aquinas argues by reason alone, without appeal to Scripture; in the fourth he starts from what is known only by revelation.
Context and history
Written around 1259-1265. An old tradition holds that it was a handbook for missionaries disputing with Muslims and Jews in Spain; modern scholars doubt this and there is no settled view. What is clear is the method: for three quarters of the book Aquinas forbids himself the argument from authority, and it is the work in which one sees best how far he thought unaided reason could reach.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
ACCORDING to established popular usage, which the Philosopher considers should be our guide in the naming of things, they are called 4 wise ' who put things in their right * order and control them well. Now, in all things that are to be controlled and put in order to an end, the measure of control and order must be taken from the end in view ; and the proper end of everything is something good. Hence we see in the arts that art A governs and, as it were, lords it over art B, when the proper end of art B belongs to A.f Thus the art of medicine lords it over the art of the apothecary, because health, the objeft of medicine, is the end of all drugs that the apothecary's art compounds. These arts that lord it over others are called 4 master-building/ or 4 masterful arts'; and the 'master-builders' who practise them arrogate to themselves the name of 'wise men.' But because these persons deal with the ends in view of certain particular things, without attaining to the general end of all things, they are called 4 wise in this or that particular thing,' as it is said, zAs a wise architect I have laid the foundation (1 Cor. iii, 10) ; while the name of 'wise' without qualification is reserved for him alone who deals with the last end of the universe, which
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