Aquinas: A Biography

by Brian Davies

This series offers a range of authoritative studies on people who have made an outstanding contribution to Christian thought and understanding. The series will range across the full spectrum of Christian thought to include Catholic and Protestant thinkers and to cover East and West, historical and contemporary figures. By and large, each volume will focus on a single "thinker", but occasionally the subject may be a movement or a school of thought.Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) is widely recognized as one of the greatest of all Christian thinkers, referred to by Pope Pius V as "the most brilliant light of the Church". This book is a clear and engaging introduction to Aquinas.

Series editor Brian Davies reviews Aquinas's life from the point at which he joined the Dominicans through his tutelage under Albert the Great in Cologne to his death in the Cistercian Abbey of Fossanova. Through exploration of the key questions posed by Aquinas in his voluminous writings, such as "What is God like?" and "What should people do?", Davies surveys this thinker's major themes.

Genres: Philosophy, Christianity, Religion

Hardcover

First published March 1, 2002

About the author

Brian Davies is a Dominican friar and Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University, New York. He has published extensively on the thought of St Thomas Aquinas.

Reviews

[David Haines · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent introduction to the thought of Thomas Aquinas, written by an analytical thomist, at a popular level. Davies knows his subject very well, and explains it easily and clearly. He brings Aquinas into discussion with contemporary philosophy and theology without being superficial. This is a must read for anybody who is interested in Aquinas, to be followed by his more academic contribution called " The Thought of Thomas Aquinas".

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

A mentally engaging summary of Aquinas' thinking on God, the Incarnation and human salvation.
St Thomas Aquinas is perhaps the greatest intellectual in the history of Christendom, so any book giving an accessible treatment of his writings gets a thumbs up from me.

[Matt · Rating 1 out of 5]

I started this book but never finished it. I don't think I will. After reading a few biographies of major Christian figures (Peter Brown's biography of Augustine and a biography of Hildegard of Bingen) I thought it would be fun to try out the most important Christian figure in history. This book is more of an introduction to the theology of Aquinas than the biography I hoped for. As an intro to Aquinas, I'm sure it is good. The author carefully introduces complex ideas in simple language (often using his cat Smoky as an example case). As an atheist, I just really didn't care that much about all this theology. As a classicist, I thought he didn't spend enough time differentiating between what Aristotle said and where Aquinas picked up his ideas. I enjoyed the first 80 pages or so, but just lost interest about half way through.