As a teacher St. Thomas Aquinas engaged in disputations with his students that were focused on answering and exploring one question or theme. These disputations were later rewritten and heavily edited to be short works. For this stylistic reason the Disputed Questions are grouped together. These questions have a range of subject matter that is united by the use of the same writing style throughout the questions. This approach of asking and answering questions is the same method that St. Thomas employs in the Summa Theologiae, the difference is that each disputed question is a short, individual work, with a variety of unique topics, while the Summa Theologiae unites them into one large work.

Because each work is a short, cohesive whole devoted to a single topic, the Disputed Questions are an excellent way to experience St. Thomas’s thought on many different topics.

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