One-Minute Aquinas: The Doctor's Quick Answers to Fundamental Questions Author: Kevin Vost | Language: English | ISBN:
B00I655UJM | Format: PDF
One-Minute Aquinas: The Doctor's Quick Answers to Fundamental Questions Description
If you don’t have a year to study the more than 3,000 pages St. Thomas wrote, then turn to The One-Minute Aquinas, the fast-paced book that provides busy readers with simple, readable explanations of the truths that, for 750 years now, have caused the works of St. Thomas to be sought out by kings and popes, scholars and saints, as well as by ordinary souls like you — hungry to know God and to love him more and more.
In this book’s lucid pages, author Kevin Vost gives you small, digestible portions of St. Thomas’s life-giving wisdom that you can enjoy one minute at a time. Tables and graphics will help you grasp and remember St. Thomas’s key ideas with a minimum of time and effort.
Best of all, in The One-Minute Aquinas you’ll find quick, sure refutations of the countless relativistic, secular, and pseudoscientific ideas that are so influential in our culture today — and so shallow, contradictory, and wrong!
Pope John Paul II declared that “the Church has been justified in consistently proposing St. Thomas as a master of thought and a model of the right way to do theology.” Now The One-Minute Aquinas enables even those with limited time and only a modest education to benefit from the wisdom of this great saint.
Here, with minimal effort and among scores of other things, you’ll finally come to know and understand:
--Why God permits evil
--Heaven: what it is (and is not)
--Five simple proofs that God exists
--Why God became man
--Why Jesus let himself be tempted
--How you can grow quickly in virtue
--Why all souls need the sacraments
--Why Jesus let himself be crucified
--The causes of lust
--The natural law and the Commandments
--The soul, free will, sin, and damnation
--The angels, their ranks, and their powers
--How God governs (and refrains from governing)
--God’s power and its limits
--The Bible: why didn’t Jesus just write it himself?
--The surprising qualities of our resurrected bodies
- File Size: 1877 KB
- Print Length: 304 pages
- Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
- Publisher: Sophia Institute Press (January 31, 2014)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00I655UJM
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,726 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #2
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Theology > Philosophy - #7
in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies > Philosophy - #11
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Reference > Theology
- #2
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Theology > Philosophy - #7
in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies > Philosophy - #11
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Reference > Theology
I have read four other books by Dr. Vost - Memorize the Faith, Unearthing Your Ten Talents, From Atheism to Catholicism, and Fit for Eternal Life. One Minute Aquinas is his best work yet. Among all of the books I have read seeking to provide a lay person's introduction to Aquinas, this one is the most accessible.
Anyone who has attempted to read Aquinas, especially the Summa Theologica (his "introduction" to theology) can attest to the difficulty. Aquinas is brilliant, and the subjects he traverses are often very abstract (such as delving deeply into the mystery of the Trinity). Add to that philosophical language that has very precise meanings that are often unknown to non-philosophers...and most people give up on the Summa. I have managed to preserver with the help of guides like Pieper, Garrigou-Lagrange, Feser, and even notes from a seminary course on St. Thomas's thought. I wish I could have started with "One Minute Aquinas" first and then progressed to these works.
Vost does a masterful job of giving a 30,000 foot view of the Summa in less than 300 pages. He explains in laymen's terms some of the key concepts that St. Thomas discusses in the Summa, taking us on a lightning tour of all three parts. He consistently references the Summa throughout the book, which is very helpful when you want to go back to the Summa and compare the original work against Vost's explanations.
In One-Minute Aquinas, Dr. Vost has done much to introduce a new generation of truth seekers to the Angelic Doctor. I hope he will someday consider a sequel that delves even further into the thought of St. Thomas, especially what Thomas wrote in part 1 about the nature of God, which can be some of the most challenging material.
As I write this review, I am charged with trying to find new ways and enticing words to describe the work of Kevin Vost. Having had the pleasure of offering endorsements for his work (St. Albert the Great), writing reviews for his numerous titles (such as Memorize the Reasons), and having published the wholly unique, daily devotional he wrote with Peggy Bowes and Shane Kapler (Tending the Temple), I realize that I am forced to repeat myself and go with this tried and true summary: Vost is a brilliant author. Everything he writes is witty and shaped by his intelligence and insight.
The One-Minute Aquinas is no exception.
In fact, as I thumb through it, it occurs to me that this book is actually way more fun that any non-fiction book ought to be! But that's Kevin: a man who walks the talk and shares it with all in an inviting, warm way. If anyone is going to convert lost souls, it will be Kevin through his work as an author. He is intelligent without being brash; he is a gift to those of us who wish to know the likes of an Aquinas because Vost can present the works of such a thinker in a way that you and I get it without bringing it down a level.
As I read this book it becomes apparent that what Vost does--and what is so incredibly evident in this excellent book--is raises us, the readers, up to a level that we did not know we could achieve.
The One-Minute Aquinas is made up of three parts: How Can We Be Happy--on Earth and in Heaven?; God; and, Who Is Christ? Each part is made up of chapters wherein Vost uses questions you and I have (or should have) and then uses Summa Theologica to answer but in a way that is much clearer than you or I will remember from our own efforts to tackle the work.
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