Summa contra Gentiles

Introduction

In the manuscripts the work is called “Book on the Truth of the Catholic Faith against the Errors of the Unbelievers”. Thomas wrote its four books around 1259–1265, partly in Paris and partly in Italy; parts of his autograph survive. Books I–III deal with what reason can know without revelation: God, creation and the ordering of creatures to their goal. Book IV turns to truths that only revelation discloses, such as the Trinity and the Incarnation. A fourteenth-century report says that Raymond of Peñafort asked Thomas to write it for missionaries in Spain; many scholars doubt this, and its intended readers are debated.

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Connections

Builds on

• The Book of Healing (Kitab al-Shifa)c. 1027 · Ibn Sina (Avicenna)
• The Guide for the Perplexedc. 1190 · Maimonides

More works by Thomas Aquinas

• 1270On the Unity of the Intellect against the Averroists
• 1273Summa theologiae