About Summa
Launched in July 2007, Summatheologica – Interfaith Dialogue, is one of the first blogs devoted to interfaith dialogue among Latter-day Saints, Evangelicals and Catholics. Since 2007, Summa has highlighted audio and video lectures and articles by individuals who participate in the Evangelical-Mormon dialogue, or present subject matter relevant to various faith communities. Summa also offers critique and commentary on audio lectures, books, articles and other resources relating to interfaith dialogue, Christian history, philosophy and theology.
Summa is not primarily apologetic in nature and the goal is to treat other faiths with respect, civility, and charity and provide responsible treatments of ideas and doctrine in other faith communities. Summa embraces the principle that “If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.” Joseph Smith to John Wentworth, 1842.
Why Did you Choose Summa Theologica?
Summa Theologica is the title of a seminal work by St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), an Italian Catholic philosopher and theologian in the scholastic tradition. Thomas drew freely from Muslim (Averroes), Jewish (Rabbi Moses or Maimonides) and Greek (Aristotle, who Thomas simply referred to as The Philosopher) sources in his writings. In that sense, he is a good model for interfaith dialogue and discussion.
No better guide could have been chosen than the clear-minded, analytic, synthetic, and sympathetic Thomas Aquinas. His extraordinary patience and fairness in dealing with erring philosophers, his approbation of all that was true in their writings, his gentleness in condemning what was false, his clear-sightedness in pointing out the direction to true knowledge in all its branches, his aptness and accuracy in expressing the truth — these qualities mark him as a great master not only for the thirteenth century, but for all times” (Catholic Encylopedia).
For these reasons, I’ve borrowed the moniker ‘aquinas’ (note: using a lowercase ‘a’) and hope to offer patience and fairness in dealing with these challenging issues.
Contact Information
If you would like to contact me, express your desire to do so by sending a comment from this page.
Comment Policy
Please comment. All comments are moderated to benefit you, the reader, and to ensure high-quality discussion. I welcome civil, charitable, courteous and responsible comments. I reserve the right to edit comments for clarity, style, length or other considerations. Comments made by others do not necessarily represent my views.
Thank you for your thoughtful comments left on my blog in response to my post on interreligious dialogue with new religious movements. It prompted my review of your blog which I had not seen before. Thanks for your thoughtful comments and interactions with your readers, and your helpful perspectve on much-needed dialogue.
You’re very welcome. I appreciate your post. It’s great to find people who share similar perspectives on ways to approach these issues and who provide opportunity for reflection on how to improve dialogue.
Hey, came across you through Mr Morehead, that guy who commented above. Friend of mine with similar perspectives on interfaith dialogue. Nice to meet another like minded one. I blog from http://mattstone.blogs.com. See you around :-)
Hi Matt, thanks for the contact info! I agree, it’s always great to meet a like-minded individual.
My dear friend, this is a wonderful weblog you have here! I have only browsed a bit thus far, but as always, I enjoy your charming and lucid prose…no matter what the subject matter! I intend to get around to publishing my own weblog on another host, and am seriously considering WordPress, if I can only figure out how I want to work things. I’d like to get away from using MyStalk for blogging, quite honestly, and I would also like to find a way to incorporate my site and my blog…ah well, I will worry it out eventually. Be well, Aquinas, and hope to chat with you soon!
Hi Gnosis, it’s good to hear from you and thank you for your very kind comments. I wish you well in your future blogging endeavors!
Hi. It is nice to find a site like this on dialouge between all Christian faiths. Go visit my blog True to my faith. Since I am still learning how to represent myself and my faith I hope you allow me sometime to get some posts up on Interfaith Dialouge and hopefully as you read my posts and my videos you can understand why I am frustrated in some places. So check it out. And thank you for this site.
Welcome Sarah. You’re very welcome. Interfaith dialogue can be extremely frustrating at times and the challenges are great. However, in my experience, the rewards are also great and rest assured there are people out there with similar interests.
Peace Aquinas,
An interesting blog. I agree with your analysis of ‘inter-faith’ dialogue – or at least, much of it. I too am interested in exploration and discussion. I am a Muslim by faith and God willing, I look forward to engaging in some interesting discussions here.
Abdur Rahman
Abdur, welcome. I’m glad to hear you are interested in exploring these issues through an inter-faith dialogue perspective. I look forward to your participation.
Thanks aquinas for creating and moderating this blog. I’ve only visited it a few times, but now that I’ve gotten a chance to review some of the posts, I’ve found the information invaluable. A few months ago I created a similar site at Believe All Things, albeit from an LDS or Mormon perspective. Please feel free to drop by and visit. It’s a relatively new site, but I will be adding new content to it over time. Thanks – I’ve added your RSS feed to my reader and will comment as appropriate.
Thanks for your support Greg.
For all who think interreligious dialogue is important, please note that a Mormon chapter of the Foundation for Interreligious Diplomacy has recently been announced. See the announcement with the founding members on the website of the Foundation for Interreligious Diplomacy: http://www.fidweb.org.
The chapter is seeking those who desire to become “religiously bi-lingual” interreligious diplomats–careful listeners who at the same time hold firm to their deepest convictions and loyalites. (Kristor Stendahl would have been our Lutheran chapter leader no doubt.)
An Evangelical Christian chapter is in formation now and more chapters will be announced in coming months including Nichiren Buddhist, Sunni, Shi’ite, Orthodox Jewish, Secular Humanist, Roman Cathoic, and more.
C. Randall Paul
President
Foundation for
Interreligious Diplomacy
aquinas and John Morehead: Here is a long piece you will both enjoy.
Alan Race, “Between Mission and Dialogue: A Pluralist Arbitration in Christian Perspective” Journal for the Globalization of the Common Good, Fall 2006. HTML.
Love the blog. Thanks for archiving so many wonderful sources on interfaith dialogue. I hope to visit often.
Derek, thanks for the support.