St Thomas Aquinas Essay -- Religion Philosophy

St Thomas Aquinas It has been written that "since the day of Aristotle, probably no one man has exercised such a powerful influence on the thinking world as did St Thomas Aquinas." Thomas Aquinas was born in 1225 in Italy of a noble family, thus separated by 900 years to Aristotle. He received his first education at the Abbey of Monte Cassino, going on from there to the University of Naples. In 1243, he joined the Dominican monastic order at Cologin. His most influential teacher was another Dominican, Albertus Magnis, a German who wrote extensively on theological matters and questions of national science, especially biology. Thomas was also a highly successful lecturer, and travelled widely across Europe, particularly on the business of his order and the church. In his short and active life, Thomas produced a prodigious amount of writing: commentaries on biblical books and Aristotelian work, short essays on philosophical problems, and a lengthy compendium of Christian apoletices, the Summa Centra Gentiles, which, as Chambers et. al. writes was probably intended for Dominican missionaries working to convert heretics and infidels. St Thomas begins the Summa Centra Gentiles as writes by reaffirming what Aristotle claimed at the beginning of Metaphysics, namely, he that studies the end or purpose of the universe is rightly called a wise man. He is wise because he is studying that which is highest and most noble among the subjects of study: Truth. Truth, Aquinas claims, i...