Quotes About Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas may have given the impression that God was just another item—albeit the highest—in the chain of being, but he had personally been convinced that these philosophical arguments bore no relation to the mystical God he had experienced in prayer. But by the beginning of the seventeenth century, leading theologians and churchmen continued to argue the existence of God on entirely rational grounds.

Sloth is sluggishness of the mind which neglects to begin good...it is evil in its effect, if it so oppresses man as to draw him away entirely from good deeds.

Thomas Aquinas states parenthetically, as something entirely obvious, that men are more rational than women. For my part, I see no evidence of this.

The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in His divinity, assumed our nature, so that He, made man, might make men gods.

Peace is the work of justice indirectly, in so far as justice removes the obstacles to peace; but it is the work of charity (love) directly, since charity, according to its very notion, causes peace.

In order for a war to be just, three things are necessary. First, the authority of the sovereign... Secondly, a just cause... Thirdly... a rightful intention.

God himself would not permit evil in this world if good did not come of it for the benefit and harmony of the universe.

If forgers and malefactors are put to death by the secular power, there is much more reason for excommunicating and even putting to death one convicted of heresy.

Grace renders us like God and a partaker of the divine nature.

Charity, by which God and neighbor are loved, is the most perfect friendship.

To disparage the dictate of reason is equivalent to contemning the command of God.

There are indeed solid ontological foundations for an understanding of signals of transformation. Both Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin take the notion of God to be a direct perception of God's existence, one unmediated by reason, by revelation, by society, or by psychological need.

The purpose of God's gifts is to unite us in a unity which is like the unity of the Father and the Son. — Thomas Aquinas

So, to detract from the perfection of creatures is to detract from the perfection of divine power.

Give me an upright heart which no unworthy purpose may tempt aside. Bestow upon me also, O Lord my God, understanding to know Thee, diligence to seek Thee, wisdom to find Thee, and a faithfulness that may finally embrace Thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. —THOMAS AQUINAS (1225–1274)

Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin concur on the claim that there is a kind of natural knowledge of God (and anything on which Calvin and Aquinas are in accord is something to which we had better pay careful attention).

Be encouraged by the teaching of Thomas Aquinas that "habit overcomes habit.

Individual natural human rights are considered one of the great contributions of the glorious Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, so the professor thought he was on safe ground in asking such a thing of the miserable Middle Ages. Well, what do you know; a few years later, medievalist Brian Tierney's The Idea of Natural Rights traced this concept back to medieval philosophers, including St. Thomas Aquinas.

The Eucharist is the Sacrament of Love; It signifies Love, It produces love. The Eucharist is the consummation of the whole spiritual life.

The soul, which is the first principle of life, is not a body, but the act of a body; just as heat, which is the principle of calefaction, is not a body, but an act of a body.

Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath and a glass of wine.

Facts in our day are not the same as the facts in the time of Aristotle or Thomas Aquinas. But the principles by which these facts are interpreted have not changed, for common sense remains essentially the same throughout the ages.

Discrimination against Jews can be read in Thomas Aquinas, and insults against Jews in Martin Luther.

saw logic as the buttress of theology and his faith, not a substitute for them. If this earns him impatience from later skeptics and freethinkers, it does fit him into his own time and place. Peter Abelard's Aristotle points down the road to Thomas Aquinas, not the Enlightenment.