Aquinas' mentor was Albert the Great, one of the first scholars to put pagan philosophy to work in the service of Catholic theology, and Aquinas carried this approach to its zenith. Thomistic philosophy is basically Aristotelian in methodology and point of view. It is empirical and realist. Thomas preferred an order of study that presupposed the liberal arts and mathematics, and he began with Aristotelian logic; moved through natural philosophy involving all the natural sciences, including psychology; treated moral philosophy, including political science; and concluded with metaphysics, or first philosophy, which today would include epistemology and natural theology. Moral philosophy for Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas presupposes psychology and deals with human happiness, the goal of every person in this life, and the optimum (morally good) means of attaining that goal for the individual the family, and the body politic:
The foundation of both goal and correct means is called the natural law, which is knowable by human reason but open to rejection by the individual. There are four cardinal virtues, or optimum means, for use in every state of life: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. The highest of all is prudence, which binds all virtues together and securely guides humanity to happiness (Eliade 488).
Thomistic theology, which he calls sacred doctrine, is distinct from pure philosophy and depends on the divine gift of faith involving the whole realm of revelation, divine law, ecclesial worship, the spiritual life, and human speculation about these subjects. The realm of faith is strictly speaking "super-natural" in that its truths, values, and efficacy transcend the realm of "nature."
Aquinas talks of power in a way that applies to the power of the state as to the power of the individual. He says that virtue is a perfection of power. Perfection is considered in terms of the action's end, and the end of ...