For For students and readers who want to read Aquinas himself with a guide at their elbow; not for beginners wanting a popular summary in place of the text.
Should I read this?
For the general reader
3 of 5worth your time
For the researcher
5 of 5essential
Difficulty
4 of 5hard
Aquinas's key philosophical passages from the Summa, selected and explained in footnotes.
How it proceeds
Philosophic5 of 5
Scriptural2 of 5
Experiential1 of 5
Sociological1 of 5
Historical2 of 5
Independent intensities, 0–5 — what the work is made of, not how good it is.
Published by Ignatius Press in 1990, this volume selects the essential philosophical passages of Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae and adds Kreeft's footnotes and explanations. He chose passages that are important, intelligible to modern readers without technical training and suited to classroom use. It runs to some 540 pages against the Summa's several thousand, and was later shortened again as A Shorter Summa.
