summa contra gentiles, 4: book four: salvation

Book Four of the Summa Contra Gentiles examines what God has revealed through scripture, specifically the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the end of the world.

The Summa Contra Gentiles is not merely the only complete summary of Christian doctrine that St. Thomas has written, but also a creative and even revolutionary work of Christian apologetics composed at the precise moment when Christian thought needed to be intellectually creative in order to master and assimilate the intelligence and wisdom of the Greeks and the Arabs. In the Summa Aquinas works to save and purify the thought of the Greeks and the Arabs in the higher light of Christian Revelation, confident that all that had been rational in the ancient philosophers and their followers would become more rational within Christianity.

Book 1 of the Summa deals with God; Book 2, Creation; and Book 3, Providence.

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) was a Doctor of the church. He was an Italian Dominican friar and Roman Catholic priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian, and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism. Canonized in 1323 by Pope John XXII, Aquinas was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology and the father of Thomism.

Charles J. O’Neil (1909-1988) was professor of philosophy at Loyola University from 1934 to 1947, Marquette University from 1947 to 1961, and at Villanova University from 1961 to 1976. He was a Navy captain during World War II. He is author of several philosophical works and translated the Summa Contra Gentiles of St. Thomas Aquinas into English.