Thomas Aquinas
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A Portrait
Denys Turner
Out of Print
Building on the best biographical scholarship available today and reading the works of Thomas with piercing acuity, Turner seeks the point at which the man, the mind, and the soul of Thomas Aquinas intersect. Reflecting upon Thomas, a man of Christian Trinitarian faith yet one whose thought is grounded firmly in the body’s interaction with the material world, a thinker at once confident in the powers of human reason and a man of prayer, Turner provides a more detailed human portrait than ever before of one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in all of Western thought.
“This book is both an erudite introduction to Aquinas’ thought and an urgent epistle written by a master scholar at the end of his teaching career, to his fellow professors at elite Western universities. . . .This book is a real gem. For those charged with the future of universities, whether secular or catholic, this book is especially a powerful tonic. Turner tells us that ‘this is certainly the last monograph that I will write as a full-time teaching professor of theology’, a career spent at places such as Cambridge and Yale. Read in this light, the book is quite simply an extraordinary call to academic arms, a moving testimony to the intellectual humility that true teaching requires, and a beautiful exposition of ‘matter shot through with divine meaning’.”—Matthew Levering, The Tablet
“[A] superb study”—Terry Eagleton, London Review of Books
“I would recommend Turner’s book for anyone curious about the Mr. Spock of the Middle Ages . . . Turner briefly but concretely fleshes him out in the full context of his age, with all of its paradoxes and contradictions.”—John Farrell, Forbes (selected as “Book of the Year” for John Farrell’s blog)
“Turner’s book is that of a mature scholar, a biography that treats its subject as an integrated human being in whom mind and soul, prayer, and the exploration of the range of reason are united.”—Glenn W. Olsen, The Historian
Publication Date: May 21, 2013