Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae

Audience

Thomas’s intended audience consisted of university students earning theology degrees, for whom the Summa was designed as a comprehensive textbook. Fulfilling and far surpassing this goal, the Summa immediately became essential reading not only for students but also for all of Thomas’s academic contemporaries in the Scholastic movement, regardless of school (conceptualist, realist, or nominalist) or religion (Christian, Jewish, or Muslim). However, the Summa was neither intended for nor read by medieval laypeople, most of whom were illiterate. Until the Protestant Reformation, the Summa served as a staple in the theology curricula of all European universities, with professors and students emulating, modifying, or refuting it depending on the philosophical slant of each university.

In recent times, the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) seemed to displace Thomas’s thought with post-Enlightenment philosophical trends, limiting his modern audience. However, the fluidity of such trends coupled with the so-called failure of modernity led Pope John Paul II in 1998 to issue Fides et ratio (“Faith and Reason”), an encyclical that reasserted the primacy of Thomas for the Roman Catholic Church. While recognizing his importance in stimulating continued dialogue, secular philosophers are split on the validity of Thomas’s claims, finding in them either points of support or foils for their own thinking.