As part of our 75th anniversary celebration, we want to highlight foundational authors on our list that have been instrumental in advancing knowledge and continue to impact so many lives. St. Thomas Aquinas is one of Catholicism’s greatest theologians and philosophers, and we are proud to have so many of his works on our list.
One of his most famous works is the Summa Contra Gentiles. Part of our mission as a University Press is to make scholarly works like these available so that valuable knowledge from centuries ago can continue to enlighten us and fuel conversations today. Our translations of Aquinas’s original Latin preserve the integrity of his words while allowing more people to read them.
The Summa Contra Gentiles is not merely the only complete summary of Christian doctrine that St. Thomas has written, but also a creative and even revolutionary work of Christian apologetics composed at the precise moment when Christian thought needed to be intellectually creative in order to master and assimilate the intelligence and wisdom of the Greeks and the Arabs. In the Summa Aquinas works to save and purify the thought of the Greeks and the Arabs in the higher light of Christian Revelation, confident that all that had been rational in the ancient philosophers and their followers would become more rational within Christianity.
Summa Contra Gentiles
Book One: God
Book One of the Summa Contra Gentiles series studies God’s existence, nature, and substance, his perfect actuality, the autonomy of his knowledge, the independence of his will, the perfection of his life, and the generosity of his love.
Summa Contra Gentiles
Book Two: Creation
Book Two of the Summa Contra Gentiles series examines God’s freedom in creation, his power as creator of all things, and the nature of man, particularly the unity of soul and body within man.
Summa Contra Gentiles
Book Three: Providence, Part I
Book Three, Part 1 of the Summa Contra Gentiles series is the first part of a treatise on the hierarchy of creation, the divine providence over all things, and man’s relation to God.
Summa Contra Gentiles
Book Three: Providence, Part II
Book Three, Part 2 of the Summa Contra Gentiles series is the second part of a treatise on the hierarchy of creation, the divine providence over all things, and man’s relation to God.
Summa Contra Gentiles
Book 4: Salvation
Book Four of the Summa Contra Gentiles examines what God has revealed through scripture, specifically the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the end of the world.