Today we remember Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) a Dominican friar. Thomas was one of the greatest thinkers in Christian history. He spent most of his adult life teaching at institutions in Paris, Cologne, and Rome. He wrote extensively producing works that continue to influence theological thinking today.

Thomas lived at a time when the thinking of the Greek philosopher Aristotle was being rediscovered by Arab, Jewish, and Christian scholars. Thomas made use of Aristotlean logic in working through various issues in Christian though

Thomas believed that truth is known through reason, rationality and faith. He produced five proofs for the existence of God, but thought there is a limit to what reason can know. While reason may allow us to know that God exists and could lead us to Godly attributes such as unity, truth, goodness, power, knowledge, other aspects of God like the Trinity and Incarnation can only be known through revelation.

Revealed knowledge does not negate the truth of human science as human. Faith and reason complement rather than contradict each other, each giving different views of the same truth. There is no conflict between science and religion.

Thomas was also a poet. Here’s a communion hymn he wrote (ELW #476):

Thee, we adore, O Savior, God most true,
thy glory clothed in bread and wine anew;
our hearts to thee in true devotion bow,
in humble awe, we hail thy presence now.

Towards the end of his life, Thomas seems to have had some mystical experiences and abandoned his writing declaring it to be “straw.”

Read Proverbs 2:1-5 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne