Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide – Review

Edward Feser’s book, Aquinas: A Beginners Guide, serves as an edifying introduction to the saint’s “Five Ways” theses for defending God’s existence. Feser does a superb job of simplifying Aquinas, a saint whose work is notoriously hard to comprehend. He goes to great pains to ensure that everyone – from the seasoned “Thomist” to the complete novice – benefits from having read his work.

When I picked up this book, I was completely unfamiliar with Saint Thomas Aquinas. I knew nothing of his efforts to blend Christian doctrine with the classic Greek arguments of Aristotle. I was dumbstruck to find that, for over two millennia, philosophers had been asking the same questions that I had struggled with since childhood. And to my everlasting surprise, they had discovered some pretty convincing answers that revealed a great deal about God’s very nature!

In this book, Feser takes the time to explain the background behind Aristotle and Aquinas’s philosophical viewpoints. This makes his later explanations of Aquinas’s “5 Proofs” fairly straight forward and easy to understand. He also presents the modern challenges to these arguments and provides defenses to each. 

This book helped to fill in some logical gaps within my own faith. Anyone looking to better understand Christian apologetics or, like me, looking to bolster their rational defense of their faith, need look no further.

Saint Thomas’ “proofs” for God are well thought out. They also align with our own modern understanding of the Big Bang Theory. Some of history’s greatest minds have measured them and found them to be sufficiently justified. For these reasons and many more, I believe you will emerge from reading this book, more confident than ever, that your faith is well-founded.

Check out the book for yourself along with some of Edward Feser’s other works by clicking the links below:

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