This book is an "essay" in that it restates in paraphrase Aquinas' positions on metaphysics and the existence of God contained in various places throughout the work of Aquinas but citations are predominately from the Summa Theologia. This work is now out of print but would have been useful for students of Aquinas with no knowledge of Latin to understand in outline the ideas contained in it. There are 14 chapters and strangely both a nihil obstat and imprimatur issued. This may be the only essay with that claim to fame. This book uses some modern examples to illustrate the difficult ideas (most are to modern readers). The author expects there to be discussions and further questions. For that reason, he subtitles the book an essay and not a manual-textbook. ( )