Summa Theologica

“ The doctrine of Jesus Christ, that doctrine so divine, and so much admired even by the pagans, would no longer, in that case, be but a monstrous mixture of impiety, of presumption, and of folly, if, not being himself the God blessed in all ages, he had made that love which he exacted of his disciples the most essential precept of his morality ”

“ In the history of the church, as throughout the moral history of mankind, there are two distinct ideals, either of which it is possible to maintain—two conceptions, under one or the other of which we may represent to ourselves men’s efforts towards a better life—corresponding to those two contrasted aspects, noted above, as discernible in the picture afforded by the New Testament itself of the character of Christ. ”

“ Finally, Modern Theology has taken up the work of both of the foregoing epochs by defending the fundamental dogmas of Religion against modern agnostics and heretics, and at the same time carefully attending to the development of doctrine within the Church. ”

“ The high-water mark of religion in human history is recorded in these writings. To enter into the spirit of these writings is to feel the force of the free, full tides of ethical and spiritual life which rose, as never before nor since, in the dawning day of Christianity. The flow of such a force within the individual soul and through society has been the power of the New Testament in Christendom. ”

“ It is the constant doctrine of Christ and his apostles that he came in accordance with the scriptures of the Old Testament, and that his religion is the fulfilment of the types and prophecies therein contained: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." ”

“ It is therefore our Lord’s distinct doctrine, that good works are necessary for salvation, and it is almost inconceivable that the comfortable idea that faith alone will save us, should ever have been proclaimed to be the doctrine of Christ! ”

“ The doctrine which, first and foremost, it is the purpose of the Bible to affirm, and of the Christ to demonstrate, and in which reason entirely concurs, is no other than that of the divine potentialities of man, belonging to him in virtue of the nature of his constituent principles, the force and the substance of existence. ”

“ When Theology expounds and coordinates the dogmas themselves, and demonstrates them from Scripture and Tradition, it takes the name of Positive Theology. When it takes the dogmas for granted, and penetrates into their nature and discovers their principles and consequences, it is designated Speculative Theology, and sometimes Scholastic Theology, because it is chiefly the work of the Schoolmen, and also because, on account of its abstruseness, it can only be acquired by scholars. Positive Theology and Speculative Theology cannot be completely separated. ”

“ Theology is not above Christianity: the Christian Church is in many respects the best practical exposition of the Christian Religion. Facts are still the most powerful, the most solid, the most stubborn guides in the mazes of speculation and casuistry; they cut through difficulties which arguments cannot overturn; they overturn theories which will surrender to nothing else. Ecclesiastical History is thus, as it were, the backbone of Theology. ”

“ The history of evangelical theology, with its conviction of sin, its self-despair, and its abandonment of salvation by works, is the deepest of possible examples, but we meet others in every walk of life. ”

“ Demonstration in these matters is impossible. It is a maintainable thesis that the allegorising of the Fathers is right, and that this is the true sense of the Bible. It is a maintainable thesis that the theological dogmas of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Atonement, underlie the whole Bible. It is a maintainable thesis, also, that Jesus was himself immersed in the Aberglaube of his nation and time, and that his disciples have reported him with absolute fidelity ”

“ It is not sufficient for the young theologian to have learned by heart a number of proofs, and the answers to the long string of difficulties given in his text-book. He must be imbued with the whole spirit of Catholic doctrine, and thus he will form within himself a new theological sense, if we may use the expression, by which he can easily discern what is consonant with, and what is repugnant to, the truths contained in the deposit of faith. ”

“ The true Biblical theology is—Christ himself. His thought of God, and not even Paul's thoughts about Christ, are to mould our thinking. The Supreme Son of Man must have had the truest thought of God. Two words formulate his theology as bodied not in a creed, but in a prayer—"Our Father." The earliest, simplest, deepest cry of the human after God, now by Him who lived its spirit perfectly, the trusting, loving, holy Child of the Father, made no longer a sigh, a dream, a vision, but a life. "The life was the light of men." ”

“ But as the shoots live the life of the seed, so, too, all Christians are to be said to live the life of Christ. But the life of Christ is according to faith, and so, too, is the life of Christians. And since this life produced, in the courses of ages, both the Church and the Sacraments, it is quite right to say that their origin is from Christ and is divine. In the same way they prove that the Scriptures and the dogmas are divine. And thus the Modernistic theology may be said to be complete. ”

“ The facts form, so to say, the essence of the religion. The Christianity of the New Testament is a growth which encircles itself around the person of its founder in a manner in which no other system of thought or religion, [pg 371] which has existed among men, has ever done. If we take the person of Jesus Christ out of the New Testament, the whole system of its teaching crumbles into nothingness. If we remove the person of its founder from every other system of human thought—its great religions form no exception—the system remains intact. ”

“ The sound and orthodox doctrine of Catholic mystical theology presents God as he is in his own intrinsic essence, as the object of his own beatific contemplation, and of the contemplation of the blessed who have received the faculty of intuitive vision by the light of glory. ”

“ We believe that the study of the New Testament in this way is the true road by which men can arrive at the truth concerning God's justice, holiness and mercy, and concerning human sin and salvation from sin. It is also the road by which we can arrive at such knowledge of the mode of the Divine existence and God's one revelation of Himself to the human understanding as our finite minds are able to grasp. We may well press home the question. What are Jesus Christ's claims ? ”

“ For we find, upon a critical examination of the matter, that at least three-fourths of the texts, both in the Gospels and Epistles, which relate to the divinity of Christ, specifically or by implication either teach a different and a contrary doctrine, or make concessions entirely fatal to it, by investing him with finite human qualities utterly incompatible with the character and attributes of a divine or infinite Being. ”

“ VI. It is a wrong use of the Bible to manufacture cut of it any one uniform, system, of theology, as the fixed and final form of thought in which religion is to live.
Let me define these contrasting terms, so commonly confounded. Religion is man's perception of the Power in whom we live and move and have our being, and his emotion towards this power. Theology is man's conception of this Power, and his thought defined and formulated.
Religion is man's feeling after God; theology is man's grasp of God. ”

“ Theology may be taken objectively as doctrine, or subjectively as knowledge. But it is not every knowledge of Divine doctrine, especially not the mere apprehension of it, that is called Theology. The term is restricted to scientific knowledge; and consequently Theology, in its technical sense, is the scientific exposition of the doctrine concerning God and things Divine.
The knowledge of God which can be obtained by means of Revelation is called Revealed Theology, in contra-distinction to Natural Theology, which depends on human reason alone. ”

“ But how does it follow from this saying that the doctrines of men are also to be observed? What doctrine of men has ever been devised that has been accepted and preached by all of the universal Church throughout the world? Not one; the Gospel alone is accepted by all Christians everywhere. ”

“ While, however, carefully distinguishing between Reason and Faith, and Nature and Grace, Theology at the same time insists upon the organic connection and mutual relation between the natural and the supernatural order. Hence it is more than ever important that Catholic doctrines should be set forth in such a way as to bring out their organic union and connection. ”

“ It is also shown that modern Catholic theology, although far more precise and definite in many points than the ancient theology could be, is the only true and legitimate offspring and development of its principles. The drift of the whole book in both its parts is to present a clear conception of what the Catholic doctrine is, and to show that this conception is in harmony with the rational principles on which a spiritual and theistic philosophy must base itself. ”

“ All doctrine, for example, founded on special revelation presupposes doctrine founded on general revelation; all Christian theology must imply and incorporate natural theology. Christian dogmatics has to make use of the results of natural theology, Biblical theology, and comparative theology, and to raise them to a higher stage by a comprehensive synthesis which connects them with the person and work of Christ, as of Him in whom all spiritual truth is comprehended and all spiritual wants supplied. ”

“ In him also two natures, the divine and the human, are joined together, in the one person of God the Son. He is appointed King of angels and of men. Afterwards his Incarnation, in a certain sense, is finished, carried out in its fulness, by the formation of the Church, his spouse, who is drawn from his side, opened for us on the cross; and by the incorporation of the faithful into Jesus Christ in the bosom of the Church, Christianity is complete—it lives, it grows, it gives life to the earth, and peoples heaven. ”

“ If any man be willing to do the will of God, have his will melted into the will of God, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself. Observe here, First, What the question is, concerning the doctrine of Christ, whether it be of God or no; whether the gospel be a divine revelation or an imposture. Christ himself was willing to have his doctrine enquired into, whether it were of God or no, much more should his ministers; and we are concerned to examine what grounds we go upon, for, if we be deceived, we are miserably deceived. ”

“ The proof for the actual progress of theology is furnished by its history. It shows how theology has gradually grown from the first seed of the divine Word, placed by the hand of God's Son into the soil of humanity, until it became a great tree, rich in branches and leaves. The holiest men of the Christian centuries, equipped with the choicest mental forces, enlightened by the light of grace, have worked on its growth ”

“ In its advance from authority to freedom, the history of Christian theology supplies a parallel to that of science and that of the state. Christianity, based on the claim of its founder to be the Lord and Saviour of men, finds its strongest and most consistent exponent in the Roman Catholic Church. That Church presents its dogmas with absolute claims to truth and infallibility, and demands the complete submission of mind and will, as the representative on earth of the Divine Saviour. ”

“ Every one who thinks logically must select between the two. As we have before said, we judge it by the criterion of revelation. What is the Christian, that is, what is the Catholic doctrine, founded on the veracity of God, clearly declared, and unalterable? We have already stated it, and it is known to all men. Those who still profess that they have in the Scriptures interpreted by their own private judgment an infallible rule of faith, are bound to demonstrate that their doctrine is clearly taught in the Scriptures, or is at least compatible with what is taught in them. ”

“ Catholic doctrine alone preserves the proportion of truth. To work and to think within the lines of dogmatic faith, is to work and to think upon the true and harmonious conception of the Person of Jesus Christ—'Quem nosse vivere, Cui servire regnare.' In this knowledge certainly there is no limitedness, and in this subordination no slavery. ”

“ And this, we say, is again a signal witness to Christianity. Jesus Christ came to reveal what righteousness, to which the promises belong, really is; and so long as this, though shown by Jesus, is not recognised by us, we may call ourselves Christendom as much as we please, the true character of a Christendom will be wanting to us, because the great promises of prophecy will be still without their fulfilment. Nothing will do, except righteousness; and no other conception of righteousness will do, except Jesus Christ's conception of it:—his method, his secret, and his temper. ”

“ When we talk of the true Church of Christ we speak of a system of theology, the principles of which will bear upon every motive and act of mankind. If there is a fault in the people, it will make it manifest ”

“ DOCTRINAL BASIS OR CREED. Whereas it is the duty of the followers of Christ to profess his [sic] religion before the world (Matt. x. 32) , not only by their holy walk and conversation, but also by "walking in the apostles' doctrines" (1 Cor. xiv. 32) , and bearing testimony "to the faith once delivered to the saints" (Jude 3) , Christians have, from the earlier ages, avowed some brief summary of their doctrines or a Confession of their faith. Such confessions, also called symbols, were the so-called Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, &c., of the first four centuries after Christ. ”