What is The Book of Life?

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In Question 23, Aquinas addresses predestination. In Question 24, Aquinas takes something of a Scriptural detour to discuss the Book of Life. This Book of Life is a Scriptural question rather than a philosophical question, but a question in which Aquinas locates the mystery of predestination throughout Scripture, arguing that we can see and understand God’s providence in Scriptural descriptions of this book. This chapter also provides a reminder of Aquinas’s actual job: he was a Scriptural theologian. While his contributions to philosophy and sacramental theology are more emphasised now, it was in Scripture that Aquinas was, properly speaking, an “expert.” So, it makes perfect sense that he would be concerned with how the Bible treats predestination.

As always, here are some resources you might find helpful as we move forward:

1. The Summa Theologiae itself. Buy Prima Pars here, and the whole Summa here. Read it for free here.

2. If you have never read the Summa, it can be a little intimidating. But I put together a roadmap so that anybody can read it and understand it. Get it here.

3. Here is the commentary I will be using from Walter Farrell, O.P.

4. Here is the commentary I will be using from Brian Davies, O.P.

Now, let’s dive into the book of life.

Aquinas begins by asking if the Book of Life, as found in the Bible, is the same as predestination. He answers yes, with a few caveats that will be found in later articles. Aquinas clarifies, of course, that the “Book of Life” is not a literal book, but the knowledge of God of those whom He has predestined to salvation. Therefore, when the Bible talks about the Book of Life, it is talking about God’s thinking about His act of predestining those he has, in fact, predestined.

Davies gives a good background here:

What is the book of life supposed to be? …References to the book of life can be found in a number of Old and New Testament texts…The idea in these passages is that God has recorded the names of all those to be saved—these names being thought of as contained in a book. Aquinas was familiar with this idea and turns to it in 1a.24 because it can obviously be connected with the idea that some people are predestined to union with God. He considers talk about the book of life to be metaphorical and as referring to God’s knowledge of those predestined to eternal life (a record of predestination in God’s mind, as it were).1

So far, so clarifying but unexciting. But the thing that really makes this question interesting is what comes in the last article…

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