Quotes from St. Thomas Aquinas

Objection 2: Further, if it is a matter of argument, the argument is either from authority or from reason. If it is from authority, it seems unbefitting its dignity, for the proof from authority is the weakest form of proof. But if it is from reason, this is unbefitting its end, because, according to Gregory (Hom. 26), "faith has no merit in those things of which human reason brings its own experience." Therefore sacred doctrine is not a matter of argument.

Reply to Objection 3: From effects not proportionate to the cause no perfect knowledge of that cause can be obtained. Yet from every effect the existence of the cause can be clearly demonstrated, and so we can demonstrate the existence of God from His effects; though from them we cannot perfectly know God as He is in His essence.

Objection 3: Further, Gregory says (Moral. ii): "God speaks to the angels by the very fact that He shows to their hearts His hidden and invisible things." But this is to enlighten them. Therefore, whenever God speaks, He enlightens. In the same way every angelic speech is an enlightening. Therefore an inferior angel can in no way speak to a superior angel.

BEDE. But though there were four Evangelists, yet what they wrote is not so much four Gospels, as one true harmony of four books. (non occ.) For as two verses having the same substance, but different words and different metre, yet contain one and the same matter, so the books of the Evangelists, though four in number, yet contain one Gospel, teaching one doctrine of the Catholic faith.

yet so that envy is not to be taken for a passion, but for a will resisting the good of another.

It was necessary for man's salvation that there should be a knowledge revealed by God besides philosophical science built up by human reason.

This word "other" [alius], however, in the masculine sense, means only a distinction of "suppositum"; and hence we can properly say that "the Son is other than the Father," because He is another "suppositum" of the divine nature, as He is another person and another hypostasis.

Also pertinent to these spirits is the execution of divine works which are done outside the order of nature, for these are most sublime among the divine ministrations... And if there be anything else that is universal and primary in the carrying out of divine ministrations, it is proper to assign it to this order.

But this name of 'Holy Ghost' [*It should be borne in mind that the word "ghost" is the old English equivalent for the Latin "spiritus," whether in the sense of "breath" or "blast," or in the sense of "spirit," as an immaterial substance.

The existence of a prime mover- nothing can move itself; there must be a first mover. The first mover is called God.

Hold firmly that our faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church.

One aspect of neighbourly love is that we must not merely will our neighbours good, but actually work to bring it about.