rom God, it imitates and emanates from Him andtends toward Him who is perfect Being by tending toward the perfection andcontinuation of its own being.This last principle of emanation and return provides St. Thomas with thestructure of his Summa Theologiae. The Summa is organized in three parts: the First Partdeals with God and his creative activity; Second Part treats of human actions, along withtheir virtues, by which God is united to human beings in the communion of knowledgeand love; finally, Christ and his Church are treated in the Third Part as the particular andhistorical means, necessitated by the Fall of Adam and Eve.In Christ, an effect of God is united or returned to Himself in a mannerthat extends beyond participated existence, or rational communion. In Christ, God isunited to creation and humanity in God's own personal existence. Thus, the SecondPerson of the Trinity is efficient cause of the humanity of Christ, God acting in atemporal way. As being united personally to God, Christ's humanity is the perfection ofhuman communion and its final cause. And as the perfect human , Christ is humanity'sexample. Although St. Thomas lived less than fifty years, he composed more thansixty works, some of them brief, some very lengthy. This does not necessarily mean thatevery word in the authentic works was written by his hand; he was assisted by secretaries,and biographers assure us that he could dictate to several scribes at the same time.It is not possible to characterize the method of St. Thomas by one word,unless it can be called eclectic. He chose the best that could he found in those whopreceded him, approving what was true, rejecting the false. His powers of synthesis wereextraordinary. No writer surpassed him in the faculty of expressing in a few well-chosenwords the truth gathered from a multitude of varying and conflicting opinions; and inalmost every instance the student sees, the truth and is perfectly satisfied with St.Thom...
