St. Thomas Aquinas

Have you seen my photo in Tribe.Net? If you don't know, we have a tribe at the site that you can access through this blogspot (http://philippines.tribe.net/) That photo, well, I will just post it here, that one is St. Thomas Aquinas. He is my favorite saint. Not because I am from UST. I pursued UST because he is my favorite saint. I am also from Aquinas. There was this photo from our old year book, 1977, that features me with a big A on my shirt. The caption below says this - A is for Aquinas sabi ng teacher ko. That kinda stuck you know.

About Aquinas, he wrote a lot of good books when he was young, that's prior to the invention of printing by Gutenberg. The most important of all was the Summa Theologiae. When I was young I told myself that if I ever receive a copy of that book, then I could die already. (I got it in my library for six years now). That book used to be put side by side with the Holy Bible in Medieval tabernacles. Back in the Middle Ages, I mean.

I also used to think that I will replace Thomas Aquinas in philosophy. When I was younger, I wanted to be a priest. And I was in love with philosophy. Well, partly because of the Humanities Section of UST Library circa 1988-1991. And my professorMr. Pedroza of UST. Anyways, I used to think that since Augustine lorded it in the fifth century, and Aquinas in the thirteenth, someone ought to come in the twenty first century (each after 8 centuries), whose name ends withA, and that's me. What a thought huh? Anyways, I used to think that because Aquinas' Summa Theologiae used to be the thing. It used to be the organon in theology. And Will Durant (in History of Philosophy, a confessed athiest) admitted himself that Aristotle and his Metaphysics "reached its encyclopedic completion in Thomas Aquinas".

Anyways, after him, Metaphysics gradually deteriorated - that's what skeptics like Durant would say - starting with the admittance of Duns Scotus (a Scholastic philosopher) that the things of the faith cannot be demonstrated by reason. After that, Descartes came with his Cogito ergo sum (which is not original mind you, it came from St. Augustine - I doubt, therefore, I am).

I feel it is like this. They cannot dislodged Aquinas with respect to metaphysics and so what better way to do than dislodge the tool itself? Henceforth, everyone kept on questioning about reason itself. After Aquinas, there have been a lot of foreign doctrines and I felt when I was young that I got to do something about that. But I am not a priest, nor will I ever be. If ever I get to publish my Summa Fidei (I don't even know if this is correct Latin for Summary on the Faith) or One World (a sort of unifying doctrine for all the seeming misalignmentof doctrines from the time of Aquinas to this day) that's for all of us to see. Who knows? The one I am looking and dreaming for may be one among you.