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How is the Summa theologiae organized?
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St. Thomas Aquinas
St. Thomas Aquinas, from the Demidoff Altarpiece, tempera on poplar by Carlo Crivelli, 1476; in the National Gallery, London.
The Summa theologiae, a systematic theology compendium written by Thomas Aquinas, is organized into three primary parts that address God, Man, and Christ (the God-Man).1
- Part I: Focuses on God and the creation of the world.
- Part II: Examines the movement of the rational creature toward God.
- Part III: Discusses Christ, who, as the way to God, assumes human nature.
Aquinas authored the entirety of the first and second parts, but he died before completing the third, having finished only the first 90 questions. The remaining portion of the third part, known as the Supplement, is a 14th-century compilation derived from Aquinas’s earlier commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences.1