Summa Theologica

Thomas Aquinas came up with the ‘Five Ways’ in his book ‘Summa Theologica’. These ways are based on his belief that one can know God by observing the world; the Fifth Way is his version of the teleological argument. He comes up with the analogy of an archer aiming and shooting an arrow: every aspect of the universe…

Aquinas acknowledges that this can be a difficult task, and asserts that if people do not take care to look into the ideas of right and wrong, habitual immorality can develop. He stressed that this immortality is present in both the intention and carrying out of an act, and that to act in a good way for the wrong reason is to perform a good exterior act but a bad interior one. For example, donating money to charity is a good exterior act, but if given with the wrong…

While discussing sin, grace, and human freedom, the thoughts of Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, and Martin Luther all differed due to their historical context as well as the thoughts of those who came before them, even though their ideas on grace were similar. Augustine of Hippo believed that God gave humans freedom, however that freedom and human desires were damaged by sin, and only the grace of God can restore humans back to the freedom for which they were created. He believed in the…

For this paper I will be discussing Socrates’s Euthyphro Dilemma. Socrates offers this argument, in the form of a dilemma, to defend the view that the following premises disprove the Divine Command Theory (DCT) when accepting either: (a) is an action morally right simply because God commands it, or (b) is God commanding these actions because he recognizes that they are right (Peterson Class Slides). If Socrates’s argument is sound, it would prove that DCT— the idea of being morally right is…

Wisdom Questions To discuss the wisdom questions, “wisdom” must first be explicitly defined. Wisdom instructs us how to use knowledge- the facts of this world that we understand- to create a better understanding of us and our world. To integrate our knowledge, the following essential questions, what we call “Wisdom Questions”, must be asked: “Who are we?”, “Why are we here?”, “Where do we come from?”, “What do we hope for?”, and “What do we owe one another?”. The answers to these questions are…

Various Philosopher contributed in shaping the pillars of our society. Influencing politics, government, religion, science, culture, language and much more. Furthermore, these philosophers came from the different sectors but offer idiosyncratic ideas. Two of the prominent philosophers are Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. Aristotle is known to be the father of biology and politics, while St. Thomas Aquinas is known to be the greatest theologian-philosopher in medieval time. In addition,…

Christians and the crusades. Jews and the Samaritans. Muslims and terrorists. Every religion has moments in their history in which they go against the basic teachings in their holy text. These moments in history are captured through the art forms that were popular during or after the time they were happening. For example, Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is a play that captures these moments of hypocrisy as it concerns the Jews and the Christians. Many critics look at this play in a new…

This paper has taught me so many different things about my thoughts on God. When I first started this paper, I did not know if anything would be able to change my opinion. When I started my paper, my goal was to find some proof that there was no such thing as God. Instead, I found many different sides to this complex argument. The Life of Pi tried to make a significant argument of why God did exists. Thomas Aquinas showed me different sides to many arguments about God. Finally, my…

Kevin Williamson writes in his essay “Apocalypse Soonish: The End Times Roll On” regarding the evergoing discussion of climate change and humanity 's’ love for apocalyptic drama. Williamson is an excellent writer who knows how to engage the reader with humor and wry comparisons as well as point out some obvious trends within the past that show how dramatic civilization can be. However, his frequent disregard for the consequences of the warming 's effects, inability to keep a concise argument and…

In Patrick Allitt’s book “The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History” there were several themes in the book regarding the rise (and ebb?) of conservativism in the United States. Dr. Allitt apologizes to the reader that his book was limited in its length and scope due to restrictions. One may suspect that major events like the era of Reagan conservativism could have consumed multiple chapters or volumes. Dr. Allitt provides to the reader numerous “snapshots” of…