A Companion to the Summa

FOREWORD

This first volume of a set of four, unlike most first volumes,does not come as a stranger into a strange world. Through a varietyof circumstances, Volumes II and III were born before their time. Ofcourse it was necessary in them to explain that this whole set ofbooks took its rise from series of lectures on the Summa Theologicaof St. Thomas Aquinas; that the double purpose of the whole work isan introduction to Thomas and a defense of the truths, natural anddivine, by which human life is lived; and that these books are theSumma reduced to popular language, the parallel questions of theSumma being indicated under each chapter heading.

There is no need to go into all that again. Nevertheless, anintroductory note to this volume is necessary, for each of the fourbooks has its own immediate and special purpose. Volume II, forexample, furnished the key to human life and human action; Volume IIIconcentrated on the manner of the living of human life in itsexuberant fullness. This volume is the wise man's search for theultimate answers that are the bedrock far beneath human life, humanaction and the living of human life.

This volume attempts to put in popular form St. Thomas' masterlystudy of God, man, and the world in the Prima Pars of his SummaTheologica. His study is of extreme pertinence to our times preciselybecause we are the victims of a constantly increasing intellectualconfusion. We have become more and more timid about digging beneaththe surface of life, more and more emphatic about a knowledge offacts, less and less concerned with the wisdom of beginnings andends. To put it baldly, we have concentrated more and more on thephysical world and less and less on man and on God. The fact is,however, that exclusive concentration on a study of the world doesnot unearth the important truths about the world; an exclusiveconsideration of man and the world results in a blurred, distortedvision of both. We have tried to know only the world and remainedmost ignorant of it; to know only man and the world and have becomeentangled in a mass of meaningless detail. For the world isintelligible only in terms of man and God; man is intelligible onlyin terms of God; God is intelligible only in terms of Himself.

Thomas does not, of course, attempt to amass all the detailedknowledge that has been gathered by the ages. He does attempt, asdeeply as is given to the human mind, strengthened and illumined bydivine help, to plumb the uttermost depths of truth. It is notsurprising, then, that the reader will more than once or twicediscover that such a study is not easy. But man was not made for easythings; he was made for hard things, almost insuperably hardthings--a truth that intrudes itself on the mind of man in its everycontact with the crucial things of life.

This study involves one of those crucial activities, for itcenters around indispensable knowledge. Plainly it is important forevery man to know about the world, at least the primely importantthings like its origin, its meaning its relation to himself; afterall, he must live in the world, do something with it and havesomething done to himself by it. It is of the utmost importance thata man know about himself, at least the important things like hisorigin, the meaning of his life and his relations to things beneathand above himself; for he has the unique gift of being able to usehis life to some purpose, a purpose of immediate concern to theindividual man. Unless a man know about God, he cannot know theimportant things about either the world or himself.

When we go below the surface of a man's life to the spiritualdepths beneath, the image of God stands out more clearly; then webegin to appreciate the servile place of the world, the inestimabledignity of man and the eternal promise which, crowning his life,dwarfs everything else in the universe. Thomas' study, in a word, isimportant for our times because the men of our times have learned allbut the important things. His study of God, man, and the world, hardand deep as it may be, is necessary because, forgetting God, ourtimes have not recognized men and have yet to see the world. We arelearned but far from wise. This is Thomas' book of wisdom, hissearching examination of the profound reasons, his handbook of theimportant answers.

This is a beginner's book in a much more literal sense than is theSumma Theologica, explicit as Thomas was in aiming his book atbeginners. To the angels, it must seem like a primer; yet men are notangels but always beginners in the way of wisdom. From those humanbeginners I ask pardon for all the difficulties I fail to remove fromtheir path to wisdom. To the particularly ruthless critics whoinsisted on the removal of so many of those impediments, I give mysincere thanks. To Thomas, my acknowledgment of all the good thingsthat are in this book.

W. F.
Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D. C.

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