Library – Ancients

"Truth is the equation of thing and intellect." (De veritate, q. 1, a. 1)

"Whatever is made by God must be made from something or from nothing. If it is made from nothing, it is created. If it is created, it begins to be. But if it is made from something, it is generated. The question is whether it is possible for a thing to be created and yet not have a beginning in time."

"For there are some who have such a presumptuous opinion of their own ability that they deem themselves able to measure the nature of everything; I mean to say that, in their estimation, everything is true that seems to them so, and everything is false that does not. So that the human mind, therefore, might be freed from this presumption and come to a humble inquiry after truth, it was necessary that some things should be proposed to man by God that would completely surpass his intellect."

"Human knowledge, even at its peak, is like a shadow when compared to the light of the divine essence. We struggle to understand the order of the universe, and we are often baffled by the complexities of providence because we see only a fragment of the whole."

"Therefore, essence is what is signified by the definition of a thing. But it is clear that for all things whose essence is distinct from their existence, their existence must be caused by something else. For nothing can be the cause of its own existence, if existence is something caused, since then it would exist before it had existence, which is impossible."

"In order that there be generation three things are required: being in potency which is matter, non-existence in act which is privation, and that through which something comes to be in act which is form." (Aquinas, c. 1255/1952)