Status Updates From Thomas Aquinas's Summa theo...

I think I like this book. There was more drama in medieval Christian scholasticism than I realized. I won’t tell you it has been an exciting read but the descriptions of the constant tug-of-war between the various groups of European Christian theologians is interesting and Thomas’ “waters of philosophy” mixing with sacred doctrine is a compelling exploration of gospel I knew little about.

"Thomas was one of the few who insisted that sacra doctrina was indeed a real scientia in the Aristotelian sense.…This is far from the modern sense of empirical and experimental sciences. For Aristotle scientia is 'sure knowledge through causes.'"

Science fiction has led me to theology: the idea of a summation of all Christian theology intrigues me, and so does the idea that Aquinas's mammoth "Summa theologiae" probably provided the model for Stanislaw Lem's "Summa technologiae." So I've decided to delve into a review copy of this book, which I found at work last year.