A Shorter Summa: The Essential Philosophical Passages of St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica Edited and Explained for Beginners Kindle Edition

St. Thomas Aquinas is arguably the smartest man to live after Aristotle and before Sir Isaac Newton (with the exception of Jesus Christ). "Summa Theologiae" (ST) by St. Thomas Aquinas has over 3,000 pages. Peter Kreeft's "Summa of the Summa" has 500 pages of excerpts from the ST. And Kreeft's "A Shorter Summa" has only 170 pages to introduce beginners to the ST.P 18: A diagram showing the parts of the ST are listed. The diagram is very useful because the parts of the ST are confusing to beginners.P 45 begins a summary of St. Thomas Aquinas's famous five proofs for the existence of God, beginning with the proof from motion that shows that there is one and only one unmoved first mover and "all men call that first mover God".P 48: A diagram of the three acts of the mind and a tree of logical possibilities.P 84: A footnote showing the difference between the human intellect and human will compared to God's intellect and God's will. This chart helps me to understand Boethius's explanation that God does not have "foreknowledge". God is outside of time and, as Einstein confirms, God created time. So just like the author of a book who knows the entire story, God knows all our choices and their effects in the "present".P 129: A diagram shows a fundamental error in modern philosophy. St. Thomas believes that an idea is that by which some objectively real thing is known. Starting with Locke and continuing with many others such as Kant, modern philosophers have fallen into the error of thinking that an idea is that which is known. If that were true, it would leave us trapped inside our minds with no way to judge whether an idea has any relationship to anything outside the mind. Read footnote 27 on p. 126. Mortimer J. Adler devotes the first chapter of his book "Ten Philosophical Mistakes" to a much longer explanation, history, and the consequences of this error.P 131: This Question with its eight articles shows seven ways that do not lead to happiness, beginning with money, and the only way that does lead to happiness. It is no accident that those first seven articles are parallel to the discussion of things that do not lead to happiness in the "Nicomachean Ethics" by Aristotle. Nor is it an accident that St. Thomas disagrees with the answer given by Aristotle who did not know Jesus Christ.

One the greatest books written, The Summa Theological, by St. Thomas Aquinas is several thousand pages, so you can imaginehow grateful we are to Peter that makes it simpler for us. If you have not ever had or been exposed to Logic, spend few days going over the vocabulary, reviewing each day. If you are the type that always skipped the introduction and other writings preceding the beginning of the chapters, THIS IS NOT ONE THE ONE TO SKIP THOSE INSTRUCTIONS/INTRODUCTION at the beginning.Go over a few times until to get the hang of it, then you cruise.....and you will increase your status by just being familiar with theSumma!

This is really an amazing book for people who have always been curious about St. Thomas Aquinas, but intimidated by the huge bulk of the "Summa Theologica." Peter Kreeft began with his  A Summa of the Summa , which was a shorter version of the big work, and then whittled that book down to the book under review. People interested in Aquinas should probably go just the other way: begin here, and then, if interest persists, go to Kreeft's larger abridgement. If interest persists after that (!), you may be happy to know that you can get the whole  Summa Theologica (Complete & Unabridged)  for almost nothing in a Kindle edition.This book is clear and helpful. It's everything you could want in an introduction. Even if you're not religious, you might want to take a peek at the man widely considered the greatest philosopher between Aristotle and Descartes.

Kreeft revisits Aquinas' seminal work and pares it down nicely to what I can accept as 'essential Aquinas'. The original ran to thousands of pages, Kreeft's original work whittled that down to about 540 pages. This compact tome is about a fifth of that count, weighing in at some 160 pages.Are you losing a lot? Well, yeah. This book isn't really meant to replace the Summa Theologica or even the Summa of the Summa. It's meant to serve as an introduction - or, if you will - an appetizer that will hopefully whet your appetite for the more substantial works. If you are interested in touching the mind of one of humanity's most brilliant thinkers, pick up this book.

This book is a very short anthology of the works of Thomas Aquinas. I.e. the book is almost exclusively short passages of Thomas’ own writings. We do get some helpful footnotes, but it is absolutely no guide. If you are looking for a very short selected writings of Aquinas, then this book is superb.

Excellent.

It is a book I will have to read a number of times to absorb all the meaning, its given me a lot of questions.

St Thomas is a master of metaphysics and the Summa is certainly the greatest and most ambitious, and rational book on Theology. He was a master of common sense. Ordinary people, Popes and Kings wrote to him for advice and always got back sound wisdom. A summa is simply a summary. It is more like an Encyclopedia than a textbook, and it is meant to be used more as a reference library than as a book. Everything is "bottom line ". Such a style should appeal to us busy moderns.

Recommend to anyone who wants to go deeper in their understanding.