ABSTRACT
The conduct of Thomas Aquinas's life bespeaks a pervasive, all-encompassing love of God. The centrality of God in his lifelong intellectual activity is unmistakable, and his view of God's role in any explication of humanity's position in the ordered universe manifests itself in countless ways throughout his affairs, ranging from his choice of religious order to the daily regimen of his productive activity. For Aquinas thinks that he can establish by rational argumentation, not only that God exists, but that: God is eternal; God is absolutely simple; God is fully actual; God is immaterial; and God is a living being—indeed, that God is identical with his own life. In some cases, the pressure applied only serves to point to a new pathway of discovery into an arresting line of defense already put in place by Aquinas in anticipation of the problem foreseen. One point of special interest concerns Aquinas's attempt to build a bridge from the impersonal to the personal.
