Faith and Reason | All of Thomas Aquinas's Philosophy

Thomas Aquinas stands as perhaps the most influential Christian philosopher in Western history, the architect of a synthesis between Aristotelian reason and biblical faith that continues to shape Catholic thought and natural law theory eight centuries after his death.

Born into Italian nobility around 1225, Aquinas defied his family's violent opposition to join the Dominican order. His classmates called him the Dumb Ox for his size and silence, but his teacher Albertus Magnus prophesied that this ox's bellowing would fill the whole world. That prophecy came true.

Studying under Albert in Cologne and teaching at the University of Paris, Aquinas became the preeminent theologian of medieval Christendom, constructing an intellectual edifice of breathtaking scope and coherence.

His masterwork, the Summa Theologica, attempted nothing less than a comprehensive account of God, creation, and the human journey toward perfect happiness. This presentation explores Aquinas's life from his childhood at Roccasecca through his mystical vision of December 6, 1273, when he declared all his writings to be straw compared to what he had seen. We examine his Five Ways of proving God's existence, his metaphysics of being and existence, his understanding of divine simplicity and analogy, his ethics of natural law and virtue, his doctrine of grace, and his vision of the beatific vision as humanity's ultimate end.

The legacy of Thomas Aquinas remains vital for anyone wrestling with the relationship between faith and reason in our secular age. From his condemnation in 1277 to his canonization in 1323, from medieval scholasticism to twentieth century Thomistic revival, from Leo XIII's Aeterni Patris to contemporary analytical Thomism, his influence pervades Catholic philosophy, natural law tradition, virtue ethics, and debates about God's existence and nature.

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CHAPTERS:
00:00:00 The Dumb Ox Who Filled the World with His Bellowing
00:05:50 Roccasecca, Monte Cassino, and a Noble Family's Ambitions
00:13:22 Naples, Aristotle, and the Call to the Dominicans
00:21:12 Kidnapping, Imprisonment, and the Test of Vocation
00:26:19 Albertus Magnus and the Recovery of Aristotle
00:33:33 Paris, the University, and the Battle of Ideas
00:41:39 The Structure of the Summa: A Cathedral in Words
00:48:24 Being and Existence: The Heart of Thomistic Metaphysics
00:56:47 The Five Ways: Proving God's Existence by Reason
01:07:04 Divine Simplicity: What God Is and Is Not
01:15:40 How We Speak of God: Analogy and the Limits of Language
01:22:57 Creation: From Nothing, by Love, in Freedom
01:31:01 The Human Soul: Neither Ghost nor Machine
01:40:40 The Will, Freedom, and the Passions
01:47:44 Happiness: The Ultimate End of Human Life
01:53:31 Natural Law: The Eternal Law Written in Reason
02:00:28 Virtue: The Path to Human Flourishing
02:07:53 Grace: What Nature Cannot Achieve Alone
02:15:45 The Straw and the Vision: Aquinas's Final Mystery
02:23:44 Legacy: From Condemnation to Doctor of the Church


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