Reflection and Evaluation of Thomas Aquinas’ Theological and Philosophical Influence
George Emmanuel Acquaah 
Issue: Vol.11 No. 5 2025 Issue Article 1 pp.174 -187
DOI : https://doi.org/10.38159/erats.20251151 | Published online 15th May, 2025.
© 2025 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
This study evaluates Thomas Aquinas’ influence on theology and philosophy by examining his background, relationship with Aristotelian thought, and reflections on the Bible. It employs theological and evaluative methodology to analyse and reflect upon Thomas Aquinas’s theological and philosophical influence. The research uses literature and documentary sources, including works by Thomas Aquinas, biblical passages, and writings by theologians and philosophers. Thomas Aquinas’ understanding of God’s nature, immortality, body, and soul was shaped by his theology and philosophy of God and humanity. His theory of sense perception and cerebral knowing is based on Aristotle’s ideas, significantly influencing his moral philosophy. God’s essence is Ipsum essence sustenance. The existence of God is self-evident, though not universally acknowledged. Aquinas argues that a living object’s soul exists before death; it is not corruptible like the body. He states that the resurrection of the body is a revealed truth, distinct from the preambles of faith. The study revealed that the soul is not distinct from the body. The soul dies and can only receive the resurrection when Christ comes. The existence is self-evident and is seen through the incarnation of Christ. Thomas Aquinas accepted that the soul was immortal, but the Bible shows that it is mortal. Thomas Aquinas’ ideas resemble Aristotle’s concept of souls entering disembodied joy, which differs from the biblical notion of new heavens and earth. The soul dies, and the resurrection on the final day, based on Jesus’ resurrection, is the key to immortality. The incarnation of Christ is evidence of the existence of God.
Keywords – immortality, philosophy, incarnation, soul, resurrection.
Abbruzzese, John Edward. “Do Descartes and St. Thomas Agree on the Ontological Proof?” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 89, no. 4 (2008): 413–35.
Aertsen, Jan. Nature and Creature: Thomas Aquinas’s Way of Thought. Leiden: BRILL, 1988.
Aquinas, Thomas. Anima . London: A&C Black, 1994.
———. Basic Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas . Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing, 1997.
———. Summa Theologica . New York, NY: Cosimo Inc Publisher, 2013.
———. Thomas Aquinas in Translation . Washington, D.C.: CUA Press, 2011.
———. On the Power of God. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2004.
Astell, Ann W. Chaucer and the Universe of Learning . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996.
Bal, Mieke, and Bryan Gonzales. The Practice of Cultural Analysis: Exposing Interdisciplinary Interpretation . Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999.
Bavinck, Herman. The Doctrine of God . Scotland Carlisle, Pennsylvania: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1991.
Bouyer, Louis. The Christian Mystery . London: A&C Black Publishing, 2004.
Bradley, Denis J. M. Aquinas on the Twofold Human Good: Reason and Human. Washington, D.C.: CUA Press, 1997.
Burrell, David B. Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions . Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993.
———. Knowing the Unknowable God: Ibn-Sina, Maimonides, Aquinas . Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986.
———. “ Thomas Aquinas and Islam.” Modern Theology 20, no. 1 (2004): 71–89.
Cessario, Romanus. “Thomas Aquinas: A Doctor for the Ages.” First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, 1999, 27–28.
Chesterton, G K, and Mark Armitage. “Chesterton on St. Thomas Aquinas: Some Newly Discovered Pages.” The Chesterton Review 30, no. 1/2 (2004): 27–49.
Collison, Diane, and Kathryn Plant. Fifty Major Philosophers. New York: Routledge, 2006.
Cory, Catherine, and Michael Hollerich. Christian Theological Tradition . Oxfordshire: Routledge Publishing, 2015.
Craig, Edward. Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy . London: Psychology Press, 2000.
———. The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Oxfordshire, England: Routledge Publishing, 2005.
Crowell, Dwight. “Thomas Aquinas ‘Attribution of Participation to Aristotle.” Dionysius 37 (2019): 134–63.
Cullen, Christopher M., S. J. Franklin, and T. Harkins. The Discovery of Being and Thomas Aquinas . Washington, D.C.: CUA Press, 2019.
Davies, Brian. A Guide and Commentary . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
———. Aquinas: An Introduction Continuum . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
———. Thomas Aquinas: Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Donnelly, John. “Heavenly Thoughts.” Philosophy Now 43 (2003): 32–33.
Elders, Leo. “The Aristotelian Commentaries of St. Thomas Aquinas.” The Review of Metaphysics, 2009, 29–53.
Elders, Leo J. The Metaphysics of Being of St. Thomas Aquinas in a Historical Perspective . Leiden: BRILL, 2021.
English, Adam C. The Possibility of Christian Philosophy: Maurice Blondel at the Intersection of Theology and Philosophy . Oxfordshire: Routledge Publishing, 2013.
Ferguson, Everett, Michael P. McHugh, and Frederick W. Norris. Encyclopedia of Early Christianity . Oxfordshire: Taylor & Francis, 1998.
Geisler, Norman. Thomas Aquinas: An Evangelical Appraisal . Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2003.
Geisler, Norman L. Thomas Aquinas: An Evangelical Appraisal . Eugene OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2003.
Goodich, Michael. “Childhood and Adolescence among the Thirteenth-Century Saints.” The Journal of Psychohistory 1, no. 2 (1973): 285.
Grcic, Joseph. Facing Reality: An Introduction to Philosophy. Bloomington, Indiana : Authorhouse Publishing, 2009.
Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine . Grand Rapids: (InterVarsity Press and Zondervan Publishing House, 1994.
Guiley, Rosemary. The Encyclopedia of Saints . New York City, NY: Infobase Publishing, 2001.
Hampden, Renn Dickson. The Life of Thomas Aquinas: A Dissertation of the Scholastic Philosophy of the Middle Ages. London: John J. Griffin & Co., 1848.
Hartung, Gerald. Colin Guthrie King and Christof Rapp, Aristotelian Studies in 19th Century Philosophy . Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019.
Healy, Nicholas M. Thomas Aquinas: Theologian of the Christian Life . Farnham: Ashgate publishing, 2003.
Herbermann, Charles George. The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church. Vol. 6. Cambridge, MA: Encyclopedia Press, 1913.
Hyman, Arthur, James J. Walsh, and Thomas Williams. Philosophy in the Middle Ages: The Christian, Islamic, and Jewish Traditions . Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing, 2010.
Jacks, Lawrence Pearsall, and George Dawes Hicks. The Hibbert Journal: A Quarterly Review of Religion . New South Wales, Australia: G. Allen and Unwin Limited, 1918.
Jestice, Phyllis G. Holy People of the World: A Cross-Cultural Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO Publishing, 2004.
Johnson, John Franklin. “Hermeneutics in Thomas Aquinas: An Appraisal and Appreciation.” Concordia Theological Quarterly 45, no. 3 (1981): 223–32.
Jordan, Mark D. Rewritten Theology: Aquinas after His Readers . Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2006.
Justice, Steven, and Kathryn Kerby-Fulton. Written Work: Langland, Labor, and Authorship . Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.
Kaatz, Kevin W. The Rise of Christianity: History, Documents, and Key Questions . Santa Barbara, California: ABC-Clio Publishing Location, 2015.
Kemp, Simon, and Garth J O Fletcher. “The Medieval Theory of the Inner Senses.” The American Journal of Psychology, 1993, 559–76.
Kerr, Fergus. Thomas Aquinas: A Very Short Introduction . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Kretzmann, Eleonore Stump. “Aquinas and Islamic and Jewish Thinkers.” In Cambridge Companion to Aquinas , edited by Norman Kretzmann and Eleonore Stump, 60–84. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Lagerlund, Henrik. Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy: Philosophy Between . Berlin: Springer Science & Business Media, 2010.
LeBlanc, C. Lorraine. Spiritual Paths & Crossroads. Morrisville, North Carolina: Lulu Publishing, 2018.
McInerny, Ralph. Thomas Aquinas, Thomas De Unitate Intellectus Contra Averroistas . West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1993.
Michael, Emily. “Averroes and the Plurality of Forms.” Franciscan Studies 52, no. 1(1992): 155–82.
Michael, William C. The Life and Labours of St. Thomas Aquinas . Morrisville: North Carolina: lulu.com publisher, n.d.
Pasnau, Robert. Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy . Vol. 5. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
———. Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature: A Philosophical Study of Summa Theologiae . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press , 2002.
Pelletier, Jenny E. Four Metaphysics and Theology, in William Ockham on Metaphysics: The Science of Being and God . Leiden: BRILL, 2012.
Pereira Jr, Alfredo, Chris Nunn, Massimo Pregnolato, and Greg Nixon. “Consciousness and Cosmos: Building an Ontological Framework.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 25, no. 3–4 (2018): 181–205.
Porro, Pasquale. Thomas Aquinas . Washington, D.C.: CUA Press, 2016.
Press, Gerald A. Development of the Idea of History in Antiquity . Montreal, Quebec: McGill-Queen’s Press, 2003.
Reid, Dot. “Thomas Aquinas and Viscount Stair: The Influence of Scholastic Moral Theology on Stair’s Account of Restitution and Recompense.” The Journal of Legal History 29, no. 2 (2008): 189–214.
Rogers, Jack, and Donald K. McKim. The Authority and Interpretation of the Bible: An Historical Approach . Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1999.
Schaff, Philip. “Thomas Aquinas”, The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. Vol. 126. Grand Rapids, MI.: Baker Book House, 1953.
Selling, Joseph A. Reframing Catholic Theological Ethics . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Shaw, Perry. Transforming Theological Education: A Practical Handbook for Integrative Learning. Carlisle, Cumbria: Langham Publishing, 2014.
Spalding, Thomas L., James M. Stedman, Christina L. Gagné, and Matthew Kostelecky. The Human Person: What Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas Offer Modern Psychology . Switzerland: Springer Nature, 2020.
Steinberg, Charles Side. “The Aesthetic Theory of St. Thomas Aquinas.” The Philosophical Review 50, no. 5 (1941): 483–97.
Stratton, Timothy A. Human Freedom, Divine Knowledge, and Mere Molinism: A Biblical, Historical, Theological, and Philosophical Analysis . Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2020.
Stump, Eleonore. Aquinas . Oxfordshire, England: Routledge Publishing, 2003.
Taliaferro, Charles, Paul Draper, and Philip L. Quinn. A Companion to Philosophy of Religion . Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2010.
Thomas Aquinas, Saint. A Summary of Philosophy . Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing, 2003.
Torrell, Jean-Pierre. Saint Thomas Aquinas . Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2005.
Velasquez, Manuel. Philosophy: A Text with Readings . Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2016.
Vick, Edward W. H. Philosophy for Believers . Cantonment, FL: Energion Publications, 2013.
Wadell, Paul J. The Primacy of Love: An Introduction to the Ethics of Thomas . Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2009.
Wood, Adam. Thomas Aquinas on the Immateriality of the Human Intellect. Washington, D.C.: CUA Press, 2019.
Woody, William Douglas, and Wayne Viney. A History of Psychology: The Emergence of Science and Applications . Oxfordshire: Taylor & Francis Publishing, 2017.
Pastor George Emmanuel Acquaah, is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Systematic Theology from Adventist University Africa. He also serves as the Executive Secretary of the Pioneer Ghana Conference of the Seventhday Adventist Church. He holds an MPhil in Biblical Theological Studies from the Adventist University of Africa, Kenya, MA in Human Resource Developments from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana and BA in Theological Studies from the Valley View University, Accra, Ghana. His research focuses on Ethics in Religious Studies.
Acquaah, George Emmanuel. “Reflection and Evaluation of Thomas Aquinas’ Theological and Philosophical Influence,” E-Journal of Religious and Theological Studies, 11 no.5 (2025): 174 – 187. https://doi.org/10.38159/erats.20251151
© 2025 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Journals. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
