Question 1 in Part 1 of the Summa Theologica is about the "nature and extent of Sacred Doctrine". Aquinas wants to "place our purpose within proper limits". That is, to say what Sacred Doctrine is and is not.
For a summary, Monsignor Glenn's "Tour of the Summa" is available online. Here is the part on Question 1.
As for this read-through, it will not be a summary. I have read the Summa before, though in parts rather than systematically. I just want to read through it again and think through it. But I'm not proposing to go through the whole Summa on this blog.
It seems to me that how authors start a book is important, because they will want to say the most important things first. If they are writing fiction, the first part establishes or at least hints at all kinds of things -- setting, style, tone, structure -- at the same time as the work tries to situate the reader in the book, addressing the implicit question "Why should I keep reading?"
In a summa, particularly this one, the ground is different but not entirely different. Aquinas has already specifically mentioned that his work is for novices. He wants to bypass the avoidable difficulties of earlier works of this kind. He is a magister, a teacher, addressing students.
In this first question, one notices that before talking about God as such, he talks about Sacred Doctrine which is essentially revelation. Revelation is a relationship word. There is no revealing with only a solitary person.
Human teachers do not reveal knowledge to students. They may reveal themselves in a way -- but what they are doing by teaching is a transmission. When teaching you impart both content and method. As a student one often has to distinguish between the content of the teaching, the method imparted, and the teacher's personality, which is important whether for good or not, but not intrinsic to the subject.
Method is an important but structural word -- like media and message. They all seem like how words -- how a thing is to be imparted or accomplished.
For this part of the reading, here is an article on How to read the Summa written for undergraduates. This is the method in use for the 13th century scholastics, and indeed, for centuries afterwards, though the form changed to an extent over time.
Here are the questions to do with the nature and extent of Sacred Doctrine. You can see the sorting process in determining this nature and extent, and also the importance of the word whether. These articles at least are posed in binary form, more or less. Aquinas structures them so the answer to the whether is yes. But the objections and other qualifications allow for a lot of flexibility and transparency in the process. It is not a simple either/or.
The ten points of inquiry are as follows:
(1) Whether it is necessary?
(2) Whether it is a science?
(3) Whether it is one or many?
(4) Whether it is speculative or practical?
(5) How it is compared with other sciences?
(6) Whether it is the same as wisdom?
(7) Whether God is its subject-matter?
(8) Whether it is a matter of argument?
(9) Whether it rightly employs metaphors and similes?
(10) Whether the Sacred Scripture of this doctrine may be expounded in different senses
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