Summa summae S. Thomae sive compendium theologiae
Charles René Billuart (1685–1757)
First published 1754
Charles René Billuart, O.P.'s Summa summae S. Thomae sive compendium theologiae (Liège, 1754) is his six-volume abridgment of the larger Summa S. Thomae hodiernis academiarum moribus accommodata (1746–1751). It condenses Aquinas's order and teaching into a reference manual while retaining the Dominican's characteristic distinctions, scholastic proofs, and historical material. The compendium belongs to the eighteenth-century consolidation of post-Tridentine Thomist education and helped carry Billuart's influential reading of Aquinas into later schools. Schola presents the Latin text with an English translation from its public-domain source.
Proemium I: De natura et dotibus theologiae
Tractatus I: De Deo et Ejus Attributis
Dissertatio I: De Dei existentia
Articulus I: Utrum Deum esse sit per se notum
Articulus II: Utrum sit Deus, et quibus rationibus demonstretur?
Articulus III: De Atheismo
Articulus IV: Utrum possit dari ignorantia invincibilis de existentia Dei?
Articulus V: An existant athei theoretici?
Dissertatio II: De natura seu quidditate Dei et Ejus attributis in communi
Articulus I: Quodnam sit constitutivum divinae naturae?
Articulus II: De attributis divinis in communi
Dissertatio III: De attributis in particulari quae pertinent ad divinum esse
Articulus I: De simplicitate Dei
Articulus II: De perfectione Dei
Articulus III: De bonitate Dei
Tractatus I: De infinitate Dei
Tractatus II: De immensitate Dei
Articulus IV: De immutabilitate Dei
Articulus V: De aeternitate Dei
Articulus VI: An Deus sit unus?
Dissertatio IV: De visione Dei a nobis
Articulus I: Utrum Deus, ut est in se, possit videri oculo corporeo?
Articulus II: Utrum intellectus creatus supernaturaliter adiutus possit videre Deum ut in se est?
Articulus III: Utrum aliquis in hac vita viderit, possitve videre Deum ut est in se?
Articulus IV: Utrum essentia divina videatur aut videri possit per aliquam similitudinem seu speciem?
Dissertatio V: De scientia Dei
Articulus I: Utrum in Deo sit scientia proprie dicta, eaque sit attributum?
Articulus II: De obiecto et divisione scientiae Dei
Articulus III: An et quae scientia in Deo sit causa rerum?
Articulus IV: In quo medio Deus cognoscat alia a se?
Dissertatio VI: De praescientia futurorum
Articulus I: Quid et quotuplex sit futurum?
Articulus II: Utrum Deus certo et infallibiliter cognoscat omnia futura absoluta, contingentia et libera?
Articulus III: Quomodo futura sint praesentia in aeternitate?
Articulus IV: In quo medio Deus cognoscat futura absoluta, contingentia et libera?
Articulus V: De scientia futurorum conditionatorum
Conditioned future things are of a threefold kind. Some have a necessary connection with the condition: as, if Peter sins, he will lose grace. If fire is applied to tow, it will burn it. Some have with the condition only a contingent connection: as, if the Gospel is preached to the Tyrians, they will be converted. Some, finally, have no connection at all with the condition, but are altogether disparate: as, if King Joas had struck the ground seven times, he would have destroyed Syria. No one doubts that necessary conditioned future things are known with certainty by God, since these are known even by us. The difficulty, then, remains concerning contingent and disparate conditioned future things.
I say: God knows with certainty contingent and disparate conditioned future things1.
Proof 1°. God foretold with certainty in the Scriptures many conditioned future things, which have of themselves no connection with the condition, or only a contingent one. But it is impious to say that God affirmed something to be certainly future, which He did not know would certainly be future. Therefore. — Proof of the major. I Reg., XXIII, 12, to David asking the Lord whether the Ceilites would deliver him to Saul, if he remained among them, the Lord answered: They will deliver thee up, namely, if you should remain. III Reg., XI, 2: The Lord said to the children of Israel: You shall not go in unto them (the daughters of the nations)... for they will most certainly turn away your hearts, that you may follow their gods. IV Reg., XIII, 19, Eliseus said to the king of Israel: If thou hadst smitten the ground five, or six, or seven times, thou hadst smitten Syria even to utter destruction. Matth., XI, 21, Christ said: Woe to thee, Corozain, woe to thee, Bethsaida! for if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in you, they would long ago have done penance in sackcloth and ashes. Add the promises which God made concerning the transmission of original justice to the posterity of Adam, if he himself did not violate the covenant; concerning the establishment of the kingdom in the house of David, if his posterity kept the law, and many other things. Therefore.
Proof 2° by reason. There are no conditioned future things, in the opinion of the Thomists, except through a decree of God absolute on the part of the subject, and conditioned on the part of the object, as we shall explain below. But such a decree is certain and infallible. Therefore God, in it, knows these future things with certainty and not conjecturally.
You will ask, whether God knows with certainty absolutely all conditioned future things.
I answer affirmatively, because by this very fact that they are supposed to be future in some way, they are decreed by God; for nothing is future, even conditionally, in our opinion, except through a decree; and in the decree He knows them with certainty.