Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae
Thomas Aquinas, of the Order of Preachers
Objection. Objection. On the contrary. I answer that. Thousands of times, in order, without ever losing the thread.
Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.
The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.
Thousands of articles, every one of them stating the objections before the answer. There is more of this book than of anything else on the shelf.
The five ways start from things anybody can see — motion, cause, a world that did not have to exist — and walk from there. Arguments that need no shared Scripture travel a long way.
Every article answers its objections in order and by name. A book that has already written down the case against itself is very hard to surprise.
Vast. Nobody reaches for the Summa quickly, and it does not pretend otherwise.
The first question asked in the whole work is whether theology should exist at all beside philosophy, and the answer governs everything after it: reason is not faith’s rival and not its replacement. Aquinas stopped writing in December 1273 and never finished; asked why, he said only that what he had seen made his writing look like straw.
A book develops as it is read — the fragment becomes the work, the work becomes the corpus.
By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.
| Lv | Move | Type | Cat. | Pwr | Acc | PP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Speak Latin | History | Status | — | 100% | 5 |
| 1 | Affirm | — | Status | — | — | 1 |
| 1 | The Five Ways | Natural Theology | Argument | 78 | 100% | 10 |
| 1 | Random Verse | Bible | Argument | 10 | 100% | 30 |
| 1 | Chapter… | Bible | Scripture | — | — | 12 |
| 36 | Beyond What Reason Reaches | Faith | Argument | 64 | 100% | 15 |
| 40 | Grace Perfects Nature | Rationality | Argument | 68 | 100% | 15 |
| 46 | Than Which Nothing Greater | Rationality | Argument | 82 | 90% | 5 |
How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.
Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.
“For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said.”
Acts 17:28 (WEB) — Paul at the Areopagus, quoting the Athenians’ own poets back to them.
In the gamePick the part of the opponent’s case that is true and affirm it. That point can no longer be used against you, and the opponent’s Defend falls sharply. It deals no damage. Affirm something false and you have only agreed with an error.
“The existence of God can be proved in five ways. The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion… it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.”
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q.2, a.3 (trans. English Dominican Fathers, public domain). (trimmed quote)public domain
“There is no case known… in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself… Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.”
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q.2, a.3, the second way (trans. English Dominican Fathers, public domain). (trimmed quote)public domain
“Therefore we cannot but postulate the existence of some being having of itself its own necessity, and not receiving it from another… This all men speak of as God.”
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q.2, a.3, the third way, from contingency (trans. English Dominican Fathers, public domain). (trimmed quote)public domain
In the gameFive arguments that start from things anyone can see — motion, cause, contingency — and walk to the same place. The move draws one of them.
Russell attacks "everything must have a cause." Aquinas never wrote that. The Second Way is that nothing can be the efficient cause of itself — a different claim, and the one he walked past. The reader carried the real arguments out of the Philosopher’s Hall.
Aquinas builds the same argument from possibility and necessity — and then spends the rest of the book arguing that what it arrives at is one, simple, good, and provident, which is most of the way to the God actually worshiped.
Aquinas held that faith and reason cannot truly contradict, because God is the source of both. His Five Ways reach God by reason alone, with no need for a second truth.
“It was necessary for man’s salvation that there should be a knowledge revealed by God besides philosophical science built up by human reason.”
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q.1, a.1 (trans. English Dominican Fathers, public domain).public domain
In the gameThe first question of the Summa is whether theology should exist at all beside philosophy. The answer sets the limit honestly: some things reason cannot walk to.
“Since therefore grace does not destroy nature but perfects it, natural reason should minister to faith as the natural bent of the will ministers to charity.”
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q.1, a.8 (trans. English Dominican Fathers, public domain). Close to a thesis statement for the whole faith-and-reason tradition.public domain
In the gameReason is not faith’s rival and not its replacement — it is the thing faith takes up and uses. The book’s own Defend may rise as it says so.
Nobody here says Plato was wrong. The claim is that he was unfinished, and that what he was reaching for came down and finished it.
“And indeed, we believe that thou art a being than which nothing greater can be conceived… But, at any rate, this very fool, when he hears of this being of which I speak… understands what he hears, and what he understands is in his understanding.”
Anselm, Proslogium 2 (trans. Sidney Norton Deane, 1903, public domain). (trimmed quote)public domain
In the gameAddressed to the fool of Psalm 14, and it uses his own understanding against him: to deny the idea, he must first hold it. Expensive, and it does not always land.
It slides off. Getting from the understanding to the world is the very step he is refusing.
The specific move or chapter of Scripture that cuts through this one, and why. The number is how much harder it hits than usual — ×4 is four times the normal force.
Aquinas takes Boethius’s definition of a person and defends it (Summa I, q.29, a.1).
Aquinas defends Boethius’s definition of eternity against the charge that it only says what eternity lacks (Summa I, q.10, a.1).
Aquinas cites John of Damascus for this teaching again and again in the Summa (III, q.2): two natures, one person.
Aquinas takes from Augustine the teaching that evil is the lack of a good (Summa I, q.48).
Aquinas follows Augustine on this too: a bad will has a deficient cause (Summa I, q.49).
The passages the Scriptorium holds on screen, word for word from a public-domain translation. Written in Latin.
“It was necessary for man’s salvation that there should be a knowledge revealed by God besides philosophical science built up by human reason.”
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q.1, a.1 (trans. English Dominican Fathers, public domain).
“Since therefore grace does not destroy nature but perfects it, natural reason should minister to faith as the natural bent of the will ministers to charity.”
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q.1, a.8 (trans. English Dominican Fathers, public domain).
“The existence of God can be proved in five ways. The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion… it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.”
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q.2, a.3 (trans. English Dominican Fathers, public domain). (trimmed quote)
“Therefore we cannot but postulate the existence of some being having of itself its own necessity, and not receiving it from another… This all men speak of as God.”
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q.2, a.3, the third way, from contingency (trans. English Dominican Fathers, public domain). (trimmed quote)
The first question in the whole work is whether theology should exist at all beside philosophy, and the answer governs everything after it: reason is not faith’s rival and not its replacement.
Aquinas stopped writing in December 1273 and never finished. Asked why, he said only that what he had seen made his writing look like straw.
