Thomas Aquinas
chigetchior Saint Thomas Aquinas [Thomas of Aquin, or Aquino] (c. 1225 â 7 March 1274) was an Italian Catholic philosopher and theologian in the scholastic tradition, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Universalis. He is the most famous classical proponent of natural theology. He gave birth to the Thomistic school of philosophy, which was long the primary philosophical approach of the Catholic Church. Considered by the Catholic Church to be its greatest theologian, Aquinas is numbered among the thirty-three Doctors of the Church. There have been many institutions of learning named after him.