What is the Summa Theologica?

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Written from 1265—1273, the *Summa Theologica* (or Summa Theologiae, or sometimes referred to as the *Summa*) is the name of the philosophical summary (*summa*) of the theology (*theologica*) of the Roman Catholic Church as presented and organized by [Thomas Aquinas](Saint-Thomas-Aquinas.html), 1225—1274\.  
  

Aquinas used Aristotelian philosophy as a framework for the *Summa Theologica*, believing [Aristotle](Aristotelianism.html) to be a friend of Christianity when many earlier thinkers had seen him as a foe. Aquinas, however, did reject Aristotle’s concept of a detached and distant God in favor of the God of the Bible who is intensely interested and knowable. The *Summa Theologica* was declared to be the official teaching of the [Roman Catholic Church](Roman-Catholicism.html) by Pope Leo XIII (1879\).  
  

The *Summa Theologica* is divided into three parts. The first part covers the nature of God, creation, angels, man, and divine government (sovereignty). The second part addresses ethics, habits, law, faith, wisdom, self\-control, morality, prophecy, miracles, and the contemplative life. The third part instructs the reader on the doctrine of Christ including His incarnation, life, death, and resurrection. In the same section, Aquinas addresses the need for [sacraments](seven-Catholic-sacraments.html) in the remission of sins. A majority of the third section is devoted to explaining the sacraments.  
  

The *Summa Theologica* is still in print and available today. Of course, it is a significant source of information about Roman Catholic theology, but there will be much in it that Protestants can agree with regarding evidence for God’s existence, ethics, epistemology, faith and reason, and anthropology. There are many evangelicals today, especially apologists, who consider themselves Thomists, or those who follow the thinking of Thomas Aquinas. ([Norman Geisler](Norman-Geisler.html), who died in 2019, was perhaps the most prominent modern apologist to fit this description.)  
  

Roman Catholicism is in error on several theological fronts, including the issue of justification—how a person is made right with God—indeed, that was central to the [Reformation](Protestant-Reformation.html). Most of the theological discrepancies in the *Summa Theologica* come in the third section with its sacramentalism.  
  

The *Summa Theologica* is a weighty tome, with over a million and a half words covering 512 topics and 2,668 articles on a wide variety of theological subjects. The English translation is over 2,500 pages long. The thoroughness and organization of the work is evident. The intellectual brilliance of the author is unquestionable. The significance and influence of the *Summa* is far\-reaching. If only *all* of the theology it contains were biblical.  
  

