St. Thomas Aquinas Book

Chesterton has only a few things to say about Aquinas, really, but that's the way it is with all his books: the ostensible subject is most of the time fondly neglected for the atmosphere surrounding it. And while from most writers behavior of this sort would be intolerable, from Chesterton, somehow, it's better than tolerable; because almost no one else is this fun to read.

Chesterton's Aquinas is no vague hypothesizer of miniature angels traipsing about in Nana's sewing kit, but the champion of common sense philosophy, out to rescue medieval Christendom from the slow creep of Platonism, and to return it - with some help from Aristotle - to an affirmation of the reality and value of the material order, and a reasonable sense of our place within it.

My grasp on medieval philosophy is perhaps a little rusty, but I recall enough to know that Chesterton is simplifying things. I also know that the compellingly baited hooks of our own "age of uncommon nonsense" (Chesterton's phrase) are sometimes difficult not to swallow. Nonetheless, this is a bright, bracing book and it's got me excited to pick up some of Chesterton's other titles again.