St. Thomas Aquinas and I have both developed similar philosophies regarding God, nature, humanity, and the human psyche. Aquinas was an Italian philosopher who lived from 1224 to 1274. I, living almost a thousand years later than he, have developed a similar, although not as comprehensive, philosophy. Perhaps such common thought indicates those things that are truth.

Aquinas spends much of his Summa Theologiae discussing the existence/essence of God. He argues that the existence of God can be proven in five ways, including the Argument by Design (the world is too complex to have come about without a Creator), and the Cosmological Argument (there has to be something to have started everything else in motion). I believed somewhat blindly in the existence of God until exploring our world more thoroughly, and finding it magnificently perfect and wondrous in its design. I too formulated an argument by design for the proof of the existence of God. A blaring example of this is the moon. It rotates and revolves in such a manner that only one side of it ever faces the Earth. Plants are amazing in themselves as well. Plants, ferns especially, are almost perfect examples of fractal mathematics. And fractal mathematics is amazingly complex and perfect in itself. I do not believe that such amazing things could have come about by pure chance. However, the five ways in which God can be proven only apply to the rational, conscious mind. I believe true knowledge, the ultimate proof, can only come through some sort of direct communication with God. Aquinas defines this as a divine revelation, and he himself experienced one only several months before his death.

Aquinas also says that God is perfection, transcending everything. I agree: God is, was, and always will be. He is the summation of life itself, since He created it. Aquinas goes into depth on this, saying that God is One, both essence and existence. He defines essence as the part of things that we can perceive, and existence, or essa as whether or not a something exists. In worldly things, we can abstract this difference: a human can exist or not exist (essa), but it can also be molded in different ways (essence). With God, both are one, forming the culmination of all life blended beautifully together like space-time.

The human mind is also a beautiful blend of similar but distinct substances. I refer to them as the subconscious and the conscious parts of the mind. The conscious is the rational, perceiving, abstracting portion of our minds. The subconscious is the portion of the mind that cannot be consciously controlled. It provides emotions and dreams and controls our natural processes. Aquinas also separates the mind into two sections, but his definitions of each are slightly different. He defines the conscious as the part that thinks rationally and detects and analyzes sensations. The subconscious is where thoughts and sensations are stored.

The soul is that which Aquinas developed more thoroughly to explain the mind. He defines three types of souls: the vegetative soul (that which belongs to plants and only controls nutrition and reproduction), the sensitive soul (that which includes the vegetative soul and also allows for locomotion and sensory input), and the rational soul (that which includes the sensitive soul and permits speech and abstraction). Plants are those which have vegetative souls, animals have sensitive souls, and humans have rational souls. I have developed a similar hierarchy of the mind. The subconscious portion of the human mind is that which all animals have. As a result of evolution, the rational part of the mind was created and added to the subconscious. I have found that the subconscious, if necessary, will control all bodily functions if the conscious drifts away. In monotonous routines such as mowing the lawn my thoughts have drifted away from any conscious sensations, and when I have returned from such a state, I find that the stripes of cut grass have continued to expand in my absence. I consider the mind to be the soul. The soul of plants is life itself.

In life, those creatures with only sensitive or vegetative souls are destined to follow a certain path. They are not able to consider veering from that path due to the lack of the conscious mind. They are living the will of God, having ultimate faith in God. This path is what Aquinas defines as the Natural Law. In humans, the basic form of the Natural Law, with our rational minds, is to do good and to avoid evil. I have found this to be quite evident in the world, especially with regard to religion. All religions teach this, and it is a common belief to all people, even those without a specific religious affiliation. All of governmental law, justice, virtue, etc. then stems from the application of the Natural Law. I have always thought that doing good is what makes one happy, and the idea of the Natural Law supports this. Choosing the path that conforms best to the Natural Law is what produces happiness because it is what best fits with the will of God. Thus to become happy in life, one must do good, which in turn leads to redemption, and happiness after life. The Natural Law also indicates that faith in God is in an ever-present will in our subconscious, something that I strongly believe.

The will of God has led me to my current beliefs, which coincide strongly with those of Aquinas. Although St. Thomas Aquinas addresses many more issues than those I have presented here, I have not as yet discovered them for myself. I do find myself agreeing with his points addressing these concerns, and I expect to find myself agreeing with Aquinas even more as the years pass.