The Ire of God
The natural phenomena are looked upon thru ignorance as manifestations of the divine wrath which would not have taken place if no one among humanity had not provoked them by their conduct. Saint Thomas Aquinas, who with reason is considered as the most scientific man of his period, believed firmly that the thunder, lightning, and the storms were punitive manifestations of God enraged against men. “From his fear of God, the saintly doctor had an unearthly fear of thunder and tempests, who as a reverent child feared to see wrath in the face of the Father, hoping only that those tempests were not provoked by his sins” (Milicia Angélica, Manila, 1907, p. 21).
The blind fear of Saint Thomas led him to conceive a blind justice of the divinity, because of his sins God released the tempests and gave lightning which naturally hurt and molested a great number of persons who suffered by reason of the sins of the saint. To the simple believer, when the wise saint thought and believed in that manner, there was no reason for rejecting the explanation, much less to suspect that to punish justly the sinners was not an act of justice nor of common sense.