Abstract

Thomas Aquinas was an Italian Dominican priest, philosopher, theologian, saint, and doctor of the Roman Catholic Church, famous for synthesizing the thought of Aristotle and Christian doctrine. His most important and well-known work is his Summa Theologiae. Here we will be reading from Aquinas’s other summa, the Summa Contra Gentiles. We will be taking a look at some of the early chapters of Book I in which he discusses the relationship between faith and reason. According to Aquinas, there are two ways of coming to know truths about God: by reason and by faith through revelation. Aquinas thinks that both reason and faith are reliable and authoritative. He thinks that there are good reasons to expect that there would be truths of both sorts. And, finally, he thinks that, as a matter of principle, the truths of one can never really contradict the truths of the other.