Why I read the Summa Simplified
Response to some reader questions about why I read aloud from the Summa Simplified book:
As a non-Catholic, how does this all pertain to me? Why should I look at it?
As with all of what I publish at Bailiwick, no reader is obligated to read it, look at it or listen to it. I offer it for anyone for whom it is of interest.
Catholic teaching pertains to you because you have a soul, the eternal salvation of which is of interest to me, and should be of interest to you.
Why is this writing of St. Thomas so important? As with much of the canon, it is simply too long to wade into hoping to be able to eventually figure out whether it holds anything for me. A distillation or summary would be helpful, if you have a link.
The things I'm reading aren't St. Thomas himself. The Summa Simplified is an abridged or condensed version, written in English by two priests and published in 1952, of the full Summa Theologica written in Latin by St. Thomas Aquinas between 1265 and 1274.
The reason I'm reading that out loud, and not something else, is because I came across it in the collection of my late father's Catholic books when I was struggling last November with the magnitude of the deception I was reading about in the biological product law.
When I began reading the English translation of St. Thomas's main work, I found opportunities for intellectual rest because it's words about what is true, and thus the opposite of, or balm for, the reams of painful false words (better known as lies) that I've been immersed in for most of the last four years.
It may not be as useful or as comforting for others, as it has been for me. But to the extent I'm asking Bailiwick readers to also immerse themselves in a lot of very painful, very false, very deliberately misleading information as I write about the vaccination deception campaign, I wanted to also offer one possible resting place for readers to also rest.
Readers of course can find comfort and rest in many other things that they read and do.
As far as even more brief summaries of the Summa Theologica, the Wikipedia entry offers a very brief overview.
I've heard good things about Peter Kreeft's Summa of the Summa. I bought a copy a few years ago, but have not been able to do more than look at a few specific chapters so far.
I also have a copy of the full English translation of the Summa, but again, have only been able to use it for looking up specific topics that I wanted to know how St. Thomas treated.
St. Thomas's work is important for my work overall, because of his importance in the history of the Catholic faith, and his explanations of Catholic doctrine. My work is done against that all-encompassing backdrop, because the deception campaign surrounding vaccination is one part of the ancient war of Satan against Christ and against mankind as God's creation.
For more information about St. Thomas's importance for Catholic moral teaching and formation of conscience, I found the papal encyclical Studorium Ducum very helpful.
