It is not news to say that many Protestants claim that the Catholic Church teaches a form of salvation by merit in contrast to their own belief in salvation by grace. This claim about the Church’s teaching is of course…
Recently a gentleman left a couple comments in response to a post here, and I don’t think I did justice to his remarks. In this post I would like to rectify that situation. He begins with this: Unfortunately, it seems…
Most Protestants erroneously assume that Catholics believe in salvation by works. I could not begin to enumerate all the different Catholic works that demonstrate the falsehood of the notion, but here is a quick and short one from St. Thomas…
What is the Book of Life? It’s not a physical book. God does not need the assistance of a created thing for keeping track of our works nor for knowing who actually belongs to Him. As St Thomas writes: A…
And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness, and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature…
In ST I q5 a1, St Thomas writes: Goodness and being are really the same, and differ only in idea; which is clear from the following argument. The essence of goodness consists in this, that it is in some way desirable. Hence…
In the first question of the Summa Theologiae St Thomas addresses some preliminary issues relating to the value, nature, and extent of sacred doctrine (the science of divine revelation). With the second question he begins to treat of theology proper…
In ST Ia q1 a10 St Thomas says some interesting things about the different senses of Scripture, and especially about its literal sense. The author of Holy Writ is God, in whose power it is to signify His meaning, not…
Reason has its limits. Recently I wrote about intellectual modesty, and this post is certainly related to that. In Summa Contra Gentiles I:5, St Thomas writes that it is fitting for truths beyond the powers of reason to be proposed…
Folks who say that Genesis 1 must be interpreted as presenting a literal chronology of seven literal days often assert that this viewpoint was never challenged before 19th century (or some other recent century). Once scientists began to think that…
Aquinas, Etc. 