St Thomas Aquinas: Five ways to prove God’s existence

Our series continues with perhaps the major figure in scholastic tradition, Saint Thomas Aquinas

Window onto faith: a stained glass depiction of Saint Thomas Aquinas in the Cathedral of Mechelen, Belgium (Getty)

Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225/6–1274) was an Italian Catholic philosopher and a major figure – if not the major figure – in the scholastic tradition. He gave rise to the Thomistic school of philosophy, for a long while the primary philosophical mainstay of the Roman Catholic Church.

The life of Thomas Aquinas ended in a manner not quite befitting a saint and a Dominican friar (the Dominican brotherhood places value on a life of poverty and undertakes the begging of alms). He was born in his family’s castle, the youngest son of Count Landulf of Aquino and Donna Theodora, herself with connections to Norman nobility. His education began at the age of five, when he was sent to the Abbey of Monte Cassino, and continued at what would eventually become the University of Naples.

A devout youth