(1225–1274) Aquinas was convinced of the goodness of all creation and its participation in the goodness of God’s own self. His work embodies what one historian has called the essential principle of Western civilization, that “truth unfolds in time through a communal process.” Called “the angelic doctor” for his brilliant synthesis of faith and reason, he is among the teachers of the whole church whom Dante, a fellow dancing saint, saw dancing before God in his final vision in Il Paradiso. (January 28)