In this video I want to introduce the work and the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas as he is known to
Christians. Who is Saint Thomas Aquinas? Well he died in 1274 in the 13th century,
he was an Italian philosopher, a Catholic priest and Doctor of the Church which meant that he
was a member of a very exclusive group of people who were officially recognized as
reliable teachers of Christian doctrine. He was an immensely influential philosopher and theologian
and the foremost proponent of natural theology and the father of Thomism, a distinctive Catholic
school of theology. His influence on western thought in general is considerable and much
modern philosophy developed or opposed his ideas particularly in the areas of ethics, natural law,
metaphysics, and political theory, so his thought was extremely encompassing and comprehensive.
I admire his extraordinary intellect, as does everyone, and theological brilliance, though I do
not personally agree with his Trinitarianism. Now I wanted to share with you just a short snippet
of his work which relates to his recounting, interestingly, of Muslim objections to the
Christian understanding of Jesus and i'm going to be quoting from this work the Routledge Reader
In Christian-Muslim Relations edited by Mona Siddiqui who's a British Muslim. She's Professor
of Islamic and Interreligious Studies at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and this is
a fascinating compendium of academic essays, I think more or less an undergraduate level and
it's got for example essays on 'John of Damascus: The Heresy of the Ishmaelites', sounds interesting!
It has an essay entitled 'Luther's Knowledge of and Attitude Towards Islam' and even a chapter called 'The Quest of
the Historical Muhammad', this is obviously copying or mimicking the Quest for the Historical Jesus
as it's been practiced in the last century or so. So that's very interesting and there's other
work here on many other Islam and Christian related subjects. I do kind of recommend that
so I'm just going to read you a short snippet as I say from a work that he wrote at the same
time as his magnum opus. Now this is his magnum opus the 'Summa Theologiae' means a summary
or compendium of theology and this believe it or not is just a small fraction it's a concise
version. The original is many volumes long and it deals with the doctrine of God, the proofs of
God, the soul, the church, the sacraments, who Jesus was, the Trinity, Salvation - everything to do with
Catholic theology, and this is probably the the greatest work of Christian theology ever written.
And that's not me just saying I think most people would agree with that although not everyone would
agree with its contents of course particularly if you are Protestant because he was a Roman Catholic.
And another interesting fact (for me anyway) is that he was alive at the same time as Ibn Taymiyya believe
it or not they actually lived at the same time although there's no evidence that they knew of
each other's existence or ever met of course, so two the two giants of their respective religious
traditions lived at the same time in different parts of the planet. I'm going to
read to you from a much shorter work ('De rationibus fidei contra Saracenos, Graecos et Armenos ad Cantorem Antiochenum' was written by Aquinas in 1264) that he finished at the same time as his magnum opus
and make a few comments on it. So I find this fascinating he says and he refers to the
"Saracens" in this by the way the Saracens are the Muslims that's what they were called then.
QUOTE: 'Truly the Saracens deride us because we say Christ is the Son of God, when God had no wife;
and they consider us mad men because we confess three persons in God, yet do not profess three gods.
They also deride our saying that Christ, the Son of God was crucified for the salvation of humankind,
because if God is omnipotent He could save humankind without the passion of His Son, and He
could fashion man so he could not sin.' The passion of his Son by the way refers to the crucifixion of Jesus. 'Again they blame the Christians because they eat their God on the altar, and because the body
of Christ, even if it was so large as a mountain, ought by now to be consumed. About the true merit
which depends on free will you assert both the Saracens and other nations attribute the necessity
of human acts to divine foreknowledge or foreordination saying that man cannot die, or even
sin, unless God so ordained for man; and that every individual has his outcome written upon his brow.'
End Quote. And then the author of this particular essay entitled Muslims in St. Thomas
Aquinas' says, 'The last sentence accurately presents orthodox islamic predestination doctrine
as well as the more popular belief in fate (kismet). And the first three fairly state muslim views on
the Christian doctrines of the Trinity, Incarnation, Crucifixion, Atonement and Transubstantiation -
issues in Christian-Muslim disputations and disagreements from the early years of Islamic
advance. It appears unlikely that Thomas knew the disputation literature directly,
although John of Damascus, whom he often cites, gave guidelines for disputations and composed a tract,
"On the Heresy of the Ishmaelites," which Thomas Aquinas may well have read and
used. But he certainly knew the basics of Christian- Muslim relations.' And then this writer goes on:
'However, Thomas' knowledge was severely limited.' (his knowledge of Islam) 'He himself confessed
his inadequate knowledge of "the sacrilegious remarks of individual men who have erred" ie
Muslims. 'He could not consult the shar'ia or hadith which embody Islamic law, he certainly manifests
no knowledge of Islamic history, and despite his claim that Muhammad's perversions and fabrications
"can be seen by anyone who examines his law," there is no evidence that he ever read the Qur'an,
although Latin translations were available.' And that's all i'm going to read from that
but obviously I find particularly interesting his recording of Muslim objections to Christian
doctrine even in the 13th century and the points at issue and the arguments
about them remain similar if not identical to those of Thomas's day. And it's particularly
interesting i'm not actually come across this in any other context where he says concerning
'they deride our saying that Christ the Son of God was crucified for humankind,
because if God is omnipotent he could have created man not to sin, and then he says
and they blame the Christians because they eat their god on the altar and because the body of
Christ even if it was so large as a mountain ought by now to be consumed'. There's almost if
one dare say humorous now he's referring there to the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation
the idea that the substance the essence of the bread and the wine at Communion or the Eucharist
actually changes its substance into the Body and Blood of Jesus himself - it actually is the blood of
Jesus, it actually is the body of jesus, this is no mere metaphor for Catholics. So the association
with cannibalism is unavoidable. I don't mean to be rude but that's if you're eating a human, a
human's flesh, and drinking a human's blood that is another way of saying cannibalism. Now Catholics
will stress of course even though they mean this literally they mean it sacramentally so in
other words although Thomas Aquinas recalls the Muslim objection that even if it was a mountain of human flesh and blood it should have been eaten by now, Thomas i'm sure would reply
no no no it's inexhaustible because it is meant sacramentally it's not meant to be taken in that
crude physical way. I'm not pretending i understand this or what could make any sense of it but that's
I think how he would respond, that it's not a problem for Catholic theology.
So I'm reading this I was just struck by how we're now 700 800 years later
and these same issues are still central to Christian-Muslim debates
and they will never be resolved i think because they're two different religions, are two different
assumptions and theologies and understandings of who Jesus is. In Islam he is just a human being
just as Muhammad was a human being and Moses is a human being. In Christianity of course he
is God incarnate, God who became man. Anyway I just thought i'd share that with you. Until next time.