Over the course of the
last 10 months and as part of the Bread for the Journey blog series I have
drawn on St Thomas Aquinas on many occasions [for example in The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist #1]. The feast of this great saint
occurs on 28 January and deserves a short blog in its own right today. Much of
our theological thinking has been shaped by his work especially in regards to
the Eucharist.
The saint was a 13th Century Italian Dominican friar, priest, theologian and philosopher. He is associated with a school of thought often referred to as ‘Thomism’. A proponent of natural theology, he argued that the existence of God could be known through rational reflection on the created world, drawing on both human reason and insights from Aristotelian philosophy. He also emphasised that faith and reason ultimately complement one another since both have their source in God.
