Thomas Aquinas Quotes
Anger and the like are attributed to God on account of a similitude of effect. Thus, because to punish is properly the act of an angry man, God's punishment is metaphorically spoken of as His anger.
Aquinas, Thomas. The Summa Theologica. Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Benziger Brothers, 1947.
For many extremists Muslims, this sura calls for the torture or killing of the enemies of Islam. For the more moderate Muslims, the penalty of opposing Islam should be expulsion or banishment. The further modern complication of this sura is the definition of “making war with Allah.” To some extremists, it is writing or publishing anything contrary to their view of Islam; it is occupying any Islamic nation or warring with that nation even though the basis of the war might have nothing to do with religion; it is bringing a Bible into an Islamic nations; it is allowing alcohol to be sold and served; it is opposing their discriminatory customs and laws; it is pressuring them not to stone adulteresses.
Referring to one of his harshest critics, Rev. Jerry Falwell:
On May 26, 1887 President Grover Cleveland, himself a Union Army Civil War veteran, issued an Executive Order providing that the captured Confederate regimental flags held as trophies by the War Department be returned to the States of the regiments from which they were captured. Union veterans were outraged:. Within three weeks the president rescinded the order, caving in to pressure from the major veterans organization of the day, The Grand Army of the Republic. Many years later President Theodore Roosevelt ordered the flags returned to the former Confederate states.
A massive earthquake struck Japan, destroying most of Tokyo and Yokohama. The deaths were so extensive that no official count was ever made. At the time, Japanese politics was polarized by two factions: One urged Japan to become democratic and modern like the West; the other, urged Japanese right wing militarism and expansionism. The shock of the Japanese population of such an enormous natural disaster, were seem by most Japanese as a punishment from God as Yasubumi and many other Japanese leaders stated. The reason for the punishment claimed by most was the recent adoption of Western ideas, lifestyles and particularly the trend away from traditional Japanese authoritarian government and toward Democracy. Japan then rejected democratic ideas and followed a militaristic, expansionistic, aggression leading directly to WWII.
During the American Revolution many patriot clerics argued against the monarchy by claiming that God has given Kings to the Ancient Jews—who had a type of Republic—as a punishment. Therefore monarchy is to be avoided.
The hatred of the English was so great in Germany during WWI that this phrase substituted for the usual “Good Morning” and “Good Bye” etc.
Thomas Aquinas was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, Catholic priest, and Doctor of the Church. An immensely influential philosopher, theologian, and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism, he is also known within the latter as the Doctor Angelicus, the Doctor Communis, and the Doctor Universalis. The name Aquinas identifies his ancestral origins in the county of Aquino in present-day Lazio, Italy. Among other things, he was a prominent proponent of natural theology and the father of a school of thought (encompassing both theology and philosophy) known as Thomism. He argued that God is the source of both the light of natural reason and the light of faith. His influence on Western thought is considerable, and much of modern philosophy developed or opposed his ideas, particularly in the areas of ethics, natural law, metaphysics, and political theory.
