A Summa of the Summa: The Essential Philosophical Passages of St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica: Amazon.ca: Thomas Aquinas, Peter Kreeft: Books

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To place our purpose within proper limits, we first endeavor to investigate the nature and extent of this sacred doctrine. Read the first page

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12 Reviews

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3.9 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)

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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Fine Abridgment That Should Be Used With Care, Mar 7 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: A Summa of the Summa: The Essential Philosophical Passages of St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica (Paperback)

Summa of the Summa (hereafter SS) is a simply wonderful abridgment of Aquinas' Summa Theologica (hereafter ST). Professor Kreeft has done a superlative job of assembling those parts of ST that will be of most interest to readers new to Aquinas' thought. The text is drawn from the Dominican Benzinger Brothers translation of ST, still the most faithful to Aquinas original language and still the most widely available complete edition of ST in English. Kreeft includes a fine glossary of technical terms in ST likely to be unfamiliar to most readers, and a short, readable introductory essay that gives an interesting discussion of the structure of ST. Rather than include a lengthy introductory commentary on the classic text as do many editors, Kreeft includes his comments in footnotes, which appear frequently and are quite extensive. To give one example, to accompany Aquinas' famous "five ways" to prove the existence of God on pp. 57-70, Kreeft provides approximately eight pages worth of footnotes. The footnotes that discuss Aquinas only are nearly always illuminating, and will prove invaluable to readers as they study the primary text. I believe readers of SS will be able to progress more smoothly to the complete ST if they so choose than they could with any other abridgment of ST or other anthology of Aquinas' writings now in print. At the same time, SS is a fine, self-contained introduction to Aquinas' thought.

The only disappointing aspect of SS is its discussion of philosophical positions that are at variance with Aquinas. Like many philosophers working in Roman Catholic institutions, Kreeft has a tendency to present false straw-man interpretations of philosophers whose conclusions he disagrees with, and then to "refute" these philosophers by kicking down the straw men. (For the record, I am Roman Catholic.) For instance, on a footnote on p. 522, Kreeft erroneously attributes to Hobbes the view that people are naturally vicious and to Hume the view that knowledge is nothing other than the passive reception and ordering of sense impressions. Kreeft strongly hints to the reader here that Aquinas' own positions are more cogent than those of Hume and Hobbes, but this is misleading since the footnote presents a "straw-man Hobbes" and a "straw man Hume". Kreeft's tendency to misinterpret and then unfairly dismiss certain important philosophical doctrines even leads him to occasionally misrepresent Aquinas. For instance, in a footnote on pp. 430-431 Kreeft claims that Aquinas' example on these pages refutes utilitarianism. In fact, the classical doctrine of utilitarianism as John Stuart Mill and Henry Sidgwick formulated it is designed to show that the very example Aquinas gives is a CONSEQUENCE of utilitarianism.

In summation, readers can profit immensely from a careful study of the classic text and supplementary materials in SS, but they should take care not to trust anything said here about philosophers who disagree with Aquinas at face value.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Summa of the Summa, Feb 21 2010

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Adrian Hynes (Winnipeg, MB. Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Summa of the Summa: The Essential Philosophical Passages of St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica (Paperback)

This is a wonderful summary of the parts of Thomas Aquinas' philosophy that are relevant for this day and age, in his own words, well edited by Peter Kreeft. I have not read the whole Summa, so it is only from secondary sources that I reckon that this version contains currently relevant pieces of Aquinas' philosophy. The translation is clear and concise. Kreeft's annotations are not intrusive. Possibly the most useful part of the annotations is Kreeft's explanations for words that were somewhat differently understood in Aquinas' time as against the present. My only quibble with this book is that Kreeft can be pedantic and polemical at times.

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5.0 out of 5 stars No Better Place to Start, July 19 2004

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Trent Dougherty "Socratic" (New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Summa of the Summa: The Essential Philosophical Passages of St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica (Paperback)

On the one hand, the text of the Summa can be hard for beginners, even smart ones. On the other hand, textbooks where people tell you what other people thought suck. So Kreeft gives you the main dish, the text of the Summa itself (trimmed of some extraneous material not relevant to beginners (stop complaining specialists and fanatics!)), but with his lucid notes at the bottom of the page along with helpful illustrations. The book also sports a handy glossary. So go ahead, don't be afraid, read Aquinas, but don't be afraid to buy this book and have Kreeft along as a guide.

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Most recent customer reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Highly biased, missing a lot of parts
This edited version of the Summa serves as a defence of Aquinas, and does not allow for the readers to form their own opinions of Aquinas. Read more

Published on Mar 5 2007 by M

1.0 out of 5 stars down with aquinas
Yes, let's forget about St. Thomas Aquinas, whose writings are much too long and much too difficult. Read more

Published on July 3 2004