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10

I can only speak for Calvin. AFAIK, he never explicitly interacts with Aquinas or the Summa. In Institutes he does reference "The Schoolmen" many times, but he seems to have in mind mostly later-medieval theologians rather than the angelic doctor himself. That's a shame, because Aquinas would have been a much more worthy opponent. Protestants in general ...


7

The statement “Crucifixion was not necessary for salvation and that only a drop of Jesus' blood needed to be spilled” could not have been from St. Thomas Aquinas. This is because it obliquely implies that there was no need for Christ to die, which is grossly against the tenets of Christianity. St. Thomas was one of the supreme advocates of Eucharistic ...


6

One of the founding ideas of Protestantism was "sola scriptura", meaning that we view the Bible as the only ultimate authority. That doesn't mean that we refuse to read any other books. The existence of thousands of Baptist bookstores should be adequate proof that that's not true. What it means is that we do not view any book other than the Bible as having ...


5

Now we define "intelligence" and "rationality" otherwise than Aquinas and other scholastic philosophers did. In Aquinas' teaching, reason or rationality is what we usually mean by intelligence - it's the ability to induce new knowledge by reasoning based on experience we get through senses. "Intelligence" was slightly trickier. According to Aquinas and his ...


4

James Dolezol, a recent doctoral graduate of Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, has written a book (which was his dissertation) on divine simplicity in which he traces the agreement of Reformed scholasticism to Thomist scholasticism on the doctrine of God. I have not yet read this book, but I was told about it by a friend of Dolezol's, and I listened to ...


3

Aquinas taught transubstantiation -- the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist: Some men accordingly, not paying heed to these things, have contended that Christ's body and blood are not in this sacrament except as in a sign, a thing to be rejected as heretical, since it is contrary to Christ's words... He is invisibly under the species of this ...


2

The Summa answers this nicely with a resounding, "Absolutely not." I'm lazy, so I'll just put Part III Question 46 Article 4 Objection 1 here: As Chrysostom [Athanasius, Orat. De Incarn. Verb.] says: "Christ had come in order to destroy death, not His own, (for since He is life itself, death could not be His), but men's death. Hence it was not by reason of ...


2

Aeoril says: "The idea of 'Natural Moral Law', if you are referring to the idea that one can discern moral truths from pure philosophical pursuits is something I would argue is untenable." I would suggest that you read Cicero's "De Legibus" ("On the Laws"). Within, you will find that Cicero arrives at many conclusions about of God and His law which ...


1

Unless we have an understanding of philosophical methods, we would have no idea of the validity of any work claiming to be an exposition of the Bible. One could read the Summa, but unless you know how it lacks, it would be pointless. The Divine Law, its requirements, the right approach meet those requirements, all this require a proper understanding of the ...


1

I am not sure about the "Evangelical take", but as a disciple of Christ who studies and lives and speaks in communion with other Christians, I have come to certain conclusions about truth. The idea of "Natural Moral Law", if you are referring to the idea that one can discern moral truths from pure philosophical pursuits is something I would argue is ...


1

There are two types of errors in the Summa. The first are of the type caused by a Medieval understanding of science and biology. The second are actual theological dead ends. The most famous of both has the first causing the second. Thomas believed that the entirety of the body was in the man's "seed". Because of this he argued that the Virgin Mary was ...



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