The Works of Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, of the Order of Preachers
Objection, on the contrary, I answer that — thousands of times, and then one morning nothing.
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.
Two Summae, commentaries on most of the Bible and most of Aristotle, the disputed questions, the Catena Aurea, and the office he wrote for Corpus Christi. There is more of this than of anything else on the shelf, and he was dead at forty-nine.
Very high. Aquinas states the strongest objections to his own view first, by name, thousands of times, and then answers them. A book that has already answered its best critics is very hard to beat.
Copied, printed and argued over without a break since the thirteenth century, and read closely by people who disagree with it. The text is as secure as a medieval text gets.
Everybody knows the name. Not everybody has opened it — but it takes the floor early, because the question of how to argue without a shared book still comes back to him.
On 6 December 1273, while saying Mass, Aquinas had some kind of experience. He stopped writing and never started again. The Summa breaks off in the middle, and others finished it from his notes. He said that what he had seen made everything he had written look like straw. He died three months later.
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 | Random Verse | Bible | Argument | 10 | 100% | 30 |
| 19 | Affirm | — | Status | — | — | 1 |
| 26 | Chapter… | Bible | Scripture | — | — | 12 |
| 29 | The First Way: Motion | Natural Theology | Argument | 74 | 100% | 10 |
| 30 | The Second Way: Cause | Natural Theology | Argument | 74 | 100% | 10 |
| 31 | The Third Way: Contingency | Natural Theology | Argument | 76 | 100% | 10 |
| 32 | The Fourth Way: Gradation | Natural Theology | Argument | 72 | 100% | 10 |
| 40 | Master of the Sacred Page | Exegesis | Argument | 86 | 100% | 10 |
| 45 | The Strongest Authority | Bible | Argument | 80 | 100% | 10 |
| 50 | Speak Latin | History | Status | — | 100% | 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 first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another… 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
In the gameThings move. Nothing moves itself, and the chain of movers cannot run back for ever. Aquinas takes this one from Aristotle and says so.
“There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible… 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
In the gameNothing causes itself, because it would have to exist before it existed. Take away the first cause and you take away everything after it.
“We find in nature things that are possible to be and not to be… Therefore, if everything is possible not to be, then at one time there could have been nothing in existence… Therefore we cannot but postulate the existence of some being having of itself its own necessity… This all men speak of as God.”
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q.2, a.3, the third way (trans. English Dominican Fathers, public domain). (trimmed quote)public domain
In the gameEverything around us might not have been. If everything were like that, at some point there would have been nothing — and nothing comes from nothing.
“Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But “more” and “less” are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum… Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.”
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q.2, a.3, the fourth way (trans. English Dominican Fathers, public domain). (trimmed quote)public domain
In the gameWe rank things — better, truer, nobler. A comparison needs something to compare against, and the maximum in any kind is the cause of the rest.
“The author of Holy Writ is God, in whose power it is to signify His meaning, not by words only (as man also can do), but also by things themselves.”
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q.1, a.10 (trans. English Dominican Fathers, public domain).public domain
In the gameAquinas’ chair was a chair in Scripture, and lecturing on the Bible was the job. He worked through Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, the Psalms, Matthew, John and every letter of Paul. The Summa was written round the edges of that, by a man whose title was Master of the Sacred Page.
“…although the argument from authority based on human reason is the weakest, yet the argument from authority based on divine revelation is the strongest… properly uses the authority of the canonical Scriptures as an incontrovertible proof, and the authority of the doctors of the Church as one that may properly be used, yet merely as probable.”
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q.1, a.8 (trans. English Dominican Fathers, public domain). (trimmed quote)public domain
In the gameRank the authorities you both accept. An argument from human authority is the weakest there is; an argument from what God has revealed is the strongest. And the doctors of the church, Aquinas says in the same breath, are worth citing but only ever probable.
