Book Review: Practical Theology by Peter Kreeft

Practical Theology by Peter Kreeft

Saint Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae is famously a bit rough to read. The style mirrors the classroom discussions of his time, with a proposed topic, objections, a citation of an authority, an explanation of the topic, and refutation of the objections. The writing is often bare-bones and technical, requiring some patience and guidance to make it through the arguments presented. 

The Summa Theologiae is also very valuable to read. It is clear and precise and comprehensive. Thomas covers everything from the existence of God to the fine points of morality in an organized and definitive way. The effort to read it is richly rewarded.

In this book Peter Kreeft presents 358 snippets from the Summa with some explanatory commentary. He draws in modern-day relevance, which is easy to do since eternal problems are always contemporary. Kreeft's style is fun and insightful, making Thomas's points more clear for the average reader. Each snippet and commentary is a page long, so not a big commitment in time to read individually. This could be read as a devotional or a reader could just wander through the index and go to topics of interest or concern. 

This book makes a great "jumping in" point for new readers or a nice review for those already familiar with Saint Thomas's work.

Highly recommended.

Sample Text: Something I read around Halloween, so naturally Kreeft's insight resonated especially.

There is no human body without a human soul; a corpse is what once was a human body but no longer is one. And the human soul without the human body is like a ghost; it is not fully human until it receives its human body in the Resurrection. Ghosts and corpses scare us precisely because they are not human. [p. 113]