On Monday, 200 faculty, staff and students of Saint Louis University participated in the 10th annual Summa-thon, a philosophy club-sponsored event that originated to commemorate the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas. From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., participants alternated with philosophy club members reading from Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae. Philosophy club members read philosophical questions, and participants read Aquinas’ answers, the words for which the “angelic doctor” of the Catholic Church is best known. Gregory Beabout, Ph.D., a professor of philosophy and the faculty advisor of SLU’s philosophy club, explained the reason for Aquinas’ highly esteemed moniker. Aquinas displays not just one but both of a great philosopher’s virtues: precision and profundity. The voluminous “summary of theology” is subdivided, within each of its five topics, into questions and answers, or “articles.” The work consists of 2,652 questions, which include over 10,000 objections. Participants do not read the objections, but do read the “respondio,” which begins “Sed contra,” meaning “on the contrary.” These questions and responses cover nearly every philosophical question imaginable, from the famous proofs for God’s existence to the problem of evil, the afterlife and the pursuit of happiness. Aquinas, the most significant philosopher from the medieval period and one of the greatest thinkers in history, set out to write the work as a sort of textbook for theological instruction in the university. “No one since the 1200s has better been able to answer, in 3,000 pages, all questions about God and theology,” said philosophy club member Trevor Clark. Aquinas divided the Summa into five topics, and Monday morning, Summa-thon participants completed the third topic of justice, whose articles have been read for the past two years. “These articles reflect on giving each person their due, and question what we owe to other human beings, a question still relevant today,” Beabout said. The afternoon began with the contemplation of courage, which, along with temperance-the final topic of the “Summa”-will take another five years to complete. Beabout said the topics will explore “finding excellence with regard to educating emotions.” Although this year’s Summa-thon brought no interpretive dance or Aquinas look-alikes, as last year’s event did, participants have found new ways to have fun at the annual event.
One of the questions asked “whether fortitude excels among all other virtues,” and philosophy student Sean McLennan took the opportunity to speak for what he considered to be the best example of human fortitude. Instead of taking the podium, McLennan set an 8 x 5 picture of Chuck Norris on the podium’s ledge, knelt behind it, and read the article in the style of the celebrity.
“Wherefore among the cardinal virtues, prudence ranks first, justice second, fortitude third, temperance fourth, and after these, the other virtues,” read McLennan.
Creativity is also encouraged in other languages at the marathon reading. Participants can choose to read copies of the text in English, Latin, French, German, Spanish and Italian.
While participants consist mostly of SLU students and professors, who come from a variety of graduate and undergraduate disciplines, the Summa-thon welcomes and draws readers from the city of St. Louis at large. SLU alumni, who were participants in the very first Summa-thon, returned for the event this year. Father Tom Keller, a priest from the archdiocese, also participated, said philosophy club president David Sailer.
The Summa-thon was organized by the student members of the philosophy club, who circulated sign-up sheets in the weeks prior to Jan. 30. They arranged for T-shirts and refreshments to be available at the event, which took place in Room 142 of the Humanities Building.
