Year one of the four-year Thomas Aquinas College curriculum. All courses are year-long.

Note Concerning “Equivalent Credit Hours”: Equivalent Credit Hours are based on an analysis of the Thomas Aquinas College curriculum in terms of equivalent semes­ter hours of conventional college subjects. It should be noted, however, that these are approximate. The integrated nature of the curriculum would make a precise calculation somewhat artificial, so the estimates can be regarded as fairly conservative.

 

 

Theology 1 (Sacred Scripture)

 

Because the scriptures provide both material for and the starting point of the science of theology, the first course in the theology sequence is devoted entirely to the reading of the Holy Bible. Among various considerations to be taken up are the following: the arc of salvation history as God’s establishing of a relationship between Himself and mankind (with particular attention to the role of God’s chosen people) and the importance of Old and New Law in such a relationship, as well as the significance of wisdom, prophecy, sacrifice, and kingship. The course does not make use of any particular interpretive methods but is rather intended, at least in part, to show the necessity of such methods as will be introduced in the sophomore year. As a result, class discussions tend to focus primarily on the literal meanings of the texts, not because the literal meaning is the ultimate meaning, but rather because an understanding of the literal meaning of a text is necessary to come to understand the further senses.

Readings

  • The Holy Bible

Credit Hours: 6.0

 

 

Philosophy 1 (Logic)

 

This course introduces students to philosophy in general, to the philosophy of Aristotle, and even more particularly to the logical works of Aristotle. Using several Platonic dialogues, the course begins by attending to the difference between opinion and knowledge and to the need for definition and argument. This leads to the study of Aristotle’s logical treatises, as introduced by Porphyry’s Isagoge. Using these logical treatises, students consider, among other matters, the divisions of the ten categories and some of their subdivisions; the kinds of argument, especially the syllogism; and the characteristics of and requirements for demonstration and science.

Readings

  • Plato: Meno, Protagoras, Gorgias, Apology, Phaedo
  • Porphyry: Isagoge
  • Aristotle: Categories, On Interpretation, Prior and Posterior Analytics
  • St. Thomas Aquinas: Prologue to the Commentary on the Posterior Analytics

Credit Hours: 6.0

 

 

Natural Science 1 (Biology, Natural History, and Measurement)

 

Scientific investigation begins with the study of living things because the properties and natures of animate things are better known to us than those of the inanimate. Course readings focus on the ways of studying plant and animal life, beginning with overt activity of whole organisms and proceeding to the study of anatomy, physiology, and embryology. Students observe and gather plant and insect specimens in the field and perform laboratory experiments, including dissections of sheep hearts and fertilization of sea-urchin eggs. Toward the end of the course, as a general introduction to experimental science, the theory of measurement is studied through readings and laboratory experiments.

Readings

  • Fabre: Essays on Insect Life
  • Galen: On the Natural Faculties
  • Harvey: The Movement of the Heart and Blood in Animals, On the Generation of Animals
  • Linnaeus: On Classification
  • Goethe: The Metamorphoses of Plants
  • Mendel: Experiments in Plant Hybridization
  • Aristotle: The Parts of Animals
  • DeKonninck: The Lifeless World of Biology
  • Archimedes: On Floating Bodies
  • Readings on Measurement

Credit Hours: 6.0

Equivalent Credit Hours

  • 4.5 (General Biology and Natural History)
  • 1.0 (Embryology and Genetics)
  • 0.5 (Physics) 

 

 

Mathematics 1 (Euclidian Geometry)

 

This is a careful examination of the thirteen books of Euclid’s Elements, which serves as a means of learning the principles of geometry and number theory. The course begins with a reflection on definitions, axioms, and postulates, and then turns to the demonstrations that establish and explore plane geometry, arithmetic, and solid geometry. As part of these explorations, students take up the questions of ratio and proportion, incommensurability, the distinction between magnitude and multitude, and the modes of argument proper to mathematics.

Readings

  • Euclid: Elements

Credit Hours: 8.0

Equivalent Credit Hours

  • 6.0 (Geometry)
  • 2.0 (Number Theory)

 

 

Language 1 (Latin and English Grammar)

 

This course is principally devoted to the study of grammar in a speculative manner. Latin is a highly inflected language, illustrative of the nature of grammar. Often one comes to understand his own tongue best through the study of a foreign lan­guage; by comparison and contrast, one sees what is common between it and his own language and perhaps what is essential to language itself. Latin morphology is studied completely in one semester with a special attention to its true principles: stems, formants, and endings. The second semester is taken up with a study of Latin syntax. A secondary end of the course is a reading knowledge of Latin.

Readings

  • A Primer in Latin Morphology According to the “Stem Method”
  • Concepts for Latin Syntax
  • Latin Readings According to the “Stem Method”
  • Latin Syntax Guide
  • Latin Morphological Paradigms

Credit Hours: 6.0

Equivalent Credit Hours

  • 4.0 (Latin)
  • 2.0 (English)

 

 

Seminar 1 (Ancient Greek Philosophy, Poetry, and History)

 

This course is a year of reading and discussing the epic poetry, drama, philosophy, and history of ancient Greece. Students take up questions such as the following: the character of an epic poem; the meaning of “hero”; the definition of tragedy; comparison and contrast of tragedy and comedy; differing dramatic methods and thematic material found in Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; the challenges of founding a political community; the methods and subject matter of investigation according to Herodotus and Thucydides; the differences between poetry and history; the role of imitation in the fine arts; the relationship of rhetoric to political life; the relationship of justice, eros, and the philosophical life.

Readings

  • Homer: Iliad and Odyssey
  • Aeschylus: Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Eumenides
  • Sophocles: Oedipus the Tyrant, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone
  • Euripides: Hippolytus
  • Aristophanes: The Birds and The Clouds
  • Plutarch: Lives (Lycurgus, Solon, Pericles, Alcibiades, Alexander)
  • Plato: Ion, Republic, and Symposium
  • Aristotle: Poetics and Rhetoric
  • Herodotus: Histories
  • Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War

Credit Hours: 4.0

Equivalent Credit Hours:     

  • 2.0 (Literature)
  • 1.0 (Political Science and History)
  • 1.0 (Philosophy)