![\"\"](\"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/aquinas.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nI found a lot of Aquinas’s early work unintelligible, too jargon-filled and not saying anything of substance.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I got further into his works in chronological order, I started to understand his method of argument – the Disputed Question. It\u2019s very close reasoning, the type associated with the Scholastics, and indeed the Talmudists. Though I personally disagree with Aquinas putting God at the center of all, I still got something out of reading it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aquinas, like many of my other authors, wrote in an age when cosmology and the origins of humanity and animals were still the province of philosophers.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn’t really understand most of Aquinas’s reasoning in his disputed questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As an exercise for myself, I am writing here why I think the Aquinas book belongs in Great Books. No right or wrong answers.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think it’s a Great Book because:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
– It was extremely influential on later Catholic theology<\/p>\n\n\n\n
– It synthesized Aristotelian philosophy with Church teachings <\/p>\n\n\n\n
– It attempted to separate the domains of rationality and faith, and give each its due <\/p>\n\n\n\n
– Aquinas’s erudition <\/p>\n\n\n\n
– His respect for the reader <\/p>\n\n\n\n
– The boldness of what he set out to do <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last thoughts on Aquinas<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n – I found the scholastic reasoning not at all helpful.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n -A lot of his decisions on topics like God and the soul seem arbitrary.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Original language: Latin. Born in present-day central Italy, he moved around a lot in Europe.\u00a0 I read Aquinas’s Selected Writings published by Penguin Classics, 1998. It was edited and translated with an introduction and notes by Ralph McInerny. I found a lot of Aquinas’s early work unintelligible, too jargon-filled and not saying anything of substance.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-great-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1358"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1359,"href":"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358\/revisions\/1359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larrykooper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}