Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, O.P., was an Italian Dominican friar, Catholic priest, and Doctor of the Church. He was an immensely influential philosopher, theologian, and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism, within which he is also known as the Doctor Angelicus and the Doctor Communis. The name Aquinas identifies his ancestral origins in the county of Aquino in present-day Lazio, where his family held land until 1137...
NationalityItalian
ProfessionTheologian
CountryItaly
powerful philosopher moral
The theologian considers sin mainly as an offence against God; the moral philosopher as contrary to reasonableness.
christian men two
Man can sin against nature in two ways. First, when he sins against his specific rational nature, acting contrary to reason. In this sense, we can say that every sin is a sin against man's nature, because it is against man's right reason....
science ignorant ends
It is not possible to be ignorant of the end of things if we know their beginning.
powerful passion perfection
Perfection of moral virtue does not wholly take away the passions, but regulates them.
hatred hated suitable
Love must precede hatred, and nothing is hated save through being contrary to a suitable thing which is loved. And hence it is that every hatred is caused by love.
sex powerful perfect
As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active power.
difficult
Not everything that is more difficult is more meritorious.
christian sex animal
Secondly, man sins against nature when he goes against his generic nature, that is to say, his animal nature. Now, it is evident that, in accord with natural order, the union of the sexes among animals is ordered towards conception. From this it follows that every sexual intercourse that cannot lead to conception is opposed to man's animal nature.
positive powerful men
Justice is a certain rectitude of mind whereby a man does what he ought to do in the circumstances confronting him.
powerful reality mind
Distinctions drawn by the mind are not necessarily equivalent to distinctions in reality.
men evil sloth
Sloth is sluggishness of the mind which neglects to begin good...it is evil in its effect, if it so oppresses man as to draw him away entirely from good deeds.
christian men animal
If all the sins of the flesh are worthy of condemnation because by them man allows himself to be dominated by that which he has of the animal nature, much more deserving of condemnation are the sins against nature by which man degrades his own animal nature....
powerful existence known
It is possible to demonstrate God's existence, although not a priori, yet a posteriori from some work of His more surely known to us.
christian lying passion
Given the sin of impiety through which they [the Romans] sinned against the divine nature [by idolatry], the punishment that led them to sin against their own nature followed.... I say, therefore, that since they changed into lies [by idolatry] the truth about God, He brought them to ignominious passions, that is, to sins against nature; not that God led them to evil, but only that he abandoned them to evil....