Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Within his large body of work, Thomas treats most of the major sub-
disciplines of philosophy, including logic, philosophy of nature, metaphysics,
epistemology, philosophical psychology, philosophy of mind, philosophical
theology, the philosophy of language, ethics, and political philosophy. As far
as his philosophy is concerned, Thomas is perhaps most famous for his so-
called five ways of attempting to demonstrate the existence of God. These
five short arguments constitute only an introduction to a rigorous project in
natural theology—theology that is properly philosophical and so does not
make use of appeals to religious authority—that runs through thousands of
tightly argued pages. Thomas also offers one of the earliest systematic
discussions of the nature and kinds of law, including a famous treatment of
natural law. Despite his interest in law, Thomas’ writings on ethical theory
are actually virtue-centered and include extended discussions of the
relevance of happiness, pleasure, the passions, habit, and the faculty of will
for the moral life, as well as detailed treatments of each one of the
theological, intellectual, and cardinal virtues. Arguably, Thomas’ most
influential contribution to theology and philosophy, however, is his model for
the correct relationship between these two disciplines, a model which has it
that neither theology nor philosophy is reduced one to the other, where each
of these two disciplines is allowed its own proper scope, and each discipline
is allowed to perfect the other, if not in content, then at least by inspiring
those who practice that discipline to reach ever new intellectual heights.
In his lifetime, Thomas’ expert opinion on theological and philosophical
topics was sought by many, including at different times a king, a pope, and a
countess. It is fair to say that, as a theologian, Thomas is one of the most
important in the history of Western civilization, given the extent of his
influence on the development of Roman Catholic theology since the 14th
century. However, it also seems right to say—if only from the sheer influence
of his work on countless philosophers and intellectuals in every century since
the 13th, as well as on persons in countries as culturally diverse as
Argentina, Canada, England, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Poland,
Spain, and the United States—that, globally, Thomas is one of the 10 most
influential philosophers in the Western philosophical tradition.
Table of Contents
1. Life and Works
1. Life
2. Works
b. Faith and Reason
c. Philosophy of Language: Analogy
d. Epistemology
1. The Nature of Knowledge and Science
2. The Extension of Science
3. The Four Causes
1. The Efficient Cause
2. The Material Cause
3. The Formal Cause
4. The Final Cause
ii. The Sources of Knowledge: Thomas’
Philosophical Psychology
b. Metaphysics
i. On Metaphysics as a Science
ii. On What There Is: Metaphysics as the
Science of Being qua Being
b. Natural Theology
i. Some Methodological Considerations
ii. The Way of Causation: On
Demonstrating the Existence of God
iii. The Way of Negation: What God is Not
1. God is Not Composed of Parts
2. God is Not Changeable
3. God is Not in Time
ii. The Way of Excellence: Naming God in
and of Himself
b. Philosophical Anthropology: The Nature of
Human Beings
c. Ethics
i. The End or Goal of Human Life:
Happiness
ii. Morally Virtuous Action as the Way to
Happiness
1. Morally Virtuous Action as
Pleasurable
2. Morally Virtuous Action as Perfectly
Voluntary and the Result of
Deliberate Choice
3. Morally Virtuous Action as Morally
Good Action
4. Morally Virtuous Action as Arising
from Moral Virtue
ii. Human Virtues as Perfections of
Characteristically Human Powers
1. Infused Virtues
2. Human Virtues
ii. The Logical Relations between the
Human Virtues
iii. Moral Knowledge
iv. The Proximate and Ultimate Standards
of Moral Truth
b. Political Philosophy
i. Law
1. The Nature of Law
2. The Different Kinds of Law
1. The Eternal Law
2. The Natural Law
3. The Divine Law
4. Human Law and its Relation to
Natural Law
ii. Authority: Thomas’ Anti-Anarchism
iii. The Best Form of Government
b. References and Further Reading
i. Thomas’ Works
ii. Secondary Sources and Works Cited
iii. Bibliographies and Biographies
1. Life and Works
a. Life
St. Thomas Aquinas was born sometime between 1224 and 1226 in
Roccasecca, Italy, near Naples. Thomas’ family was fairly well-to-do, owning
a castle that had been in the Aquino family for over a century. One of nine
children, Thomas was the youngest of four boys, and, given the customs of
the time, his parents considered him destined for a religious vocation.
Thomas began his theological studies at the University of Naples in the fall of
1239. In the 13th century, training in theology at the medieval university
started with additional study of the seven liberal arts, namely, the three
subjects of the trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) and the four subjects of
the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy), as well study
in philosophy. As part of his philosophical studies at Naples, Thomas was
reading in translation the newly discovered writings of Aristotle, perhaps
introduced to him by Peter of Ireland. Although Aristotle’s Categories and On
Interpretation (with Porphyry’s Isagoge, known as the ‘old logic’) constituted
a part of early medieval education, and the remaining works in
Aristotle’s Organon, namely, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, Topics,
and Sophismata (together known as the ‘new logic’) were known in Europe
as early as the middle of the 12th century, most of Aristotle’s corpus had been
lost to the Latin West for nearly a millennium. By contrast, Arab philosophers
such as Ibn Sina or Avicenna (c. 980-1087) and Ibn Rushd or Averroes (1126-
1198) not only had access to works such as Aristotle’s De
Anima, Nicomachean Ethics, Physics, and Metaphyiscs, they produced
sophisticated commentaries on those works. The Latin West’s increased
contact with the Arabic world in the 12th and 13th centuries led to the
gradual introduction of these lost Aristotelian works—as well as the writings
of the Arabic commentaries mentioned above—into medieval European
universities such as Naples. Philosophers such as Peter of Ireland had not
seen anything like these Aristotelian works before; they were capacious and
methodical but never strayed far from common sense. However, there was
controversy too, since Aristotle seemed to teach things that contradicted the
Christian faith, most notably that God was not provident over human affairs,
that the universe had always existed, and that the human soul was mortal.
Thomas would later try to show that such theses either represented
misinterpretations of Aristotle’s works or else were founded on probabilistic
rather than demonstrative arguments and so could be rejected in light of the
surer teaching of the Catholic faith.
It was in the midst of his university studies at Naples that Thomas was
stirred to join a new (and not altogether uncontroversial) religious order
known as the Order of Preachers or the Dominicans, after their founder, St.
Dominic de Guzman (c. 1170-1221), an order which placed an emphasis on
preaching and teaching. Although Thomas received the Dominican habit in
April of 1244, Thomas’ parents were none too pleased with his decision to
join this new evangelical movement. In order to talk some sense into him,
Thomas’ mother sent his brothers to bring him to the family castle sometime
in late 1244 or early 1245. Back at the family compound, Thomas continued
in his resolve to remain with the Dominicans. Having resisted his family’s
wishes, he was placed under house arrest. A famous story has it that one day
his family members sent a prostitute up to the room where Thomas was
being held prisoner. Apparently, they were thinking that Thomas would, like
any typical young man, satisfy the desires of his flesh and thereby “come
back down to earth” and see to his familial duties. Instead, Thomas
supposedly chased the prostitute out of the room with a hot poker, and as
the door slammed shut behind her, traced a black cross on the door.
Eventually, Thomas’ mother relented and he returned to the Dominicans in
the fall of 1245. Despite these family troubles, Thomas remained dedicated
to his family for the rest of his life, sometimes staying in family castles
during his many travels and even acting late in his life as executor of his
brother-in-law’s will.
Recognizing his talent early on, the Dominican authorities sent Thomas to
study with St. Albert the Great at the University of Paris for three years, from
1245-1248. Thomas made such an impression on Albert that, having been
transferred to the University of Cologne, Albert took Thomas along with him
as his personal assistant.
In 1272, the Dominicans moved Thomas back to Naples, where he taught for
a year. In the middle of composing his treatise on the sacraments for
the Summa theologiae around December of 1273, Thomas had a particularly
powerful religious experience. After the experience, despite constant urging
from his confessor and assistant Reginald of Piperno, Thomas refused any
longer to write. Called to be a theological consultant at the Second Council of
Lyon, Thomas died in Fossanova, Italy, on March 7, 1274, while making his
way to the council.
Canonized in 1323, Thomas was later proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by
Pope St. Pius V in 1567. In 1879, Pope Leo XIII published the
encyclical Aeterni Patris, which, among other things, holds up Thomas as the
supreme model of the Christian philosopher. Through his voluminous,
insightful, and tightly argued writings, Thomas continues to this day to
attract numerous intellectual disciples, not only among Catholics, but among
Protestants and non-Christians as well.
b. Works
Thomas is famous for being extremely productive as an author in his
relatively short life. For example, he authored four encyclopedic theological
works, commented on all of the major works of Aristotle, authored
commentaries on all of St. Paul’s letters in the New Testament, and put
together a verse by verse collection of exegetical comments by the Church
Fathers on all four Gospels called the Catena aurea. Such examples
constitute only the beginning of a comprehensive list of Thomas’ works. His
literary output is as diverse as it is large. Thomas’ body of work can be
usefully split up into nine different literary genera: (1) theological syntheses,
for example, Summa theologiae and Summa contra gentiles; (2)
commentaries on important philosophical works, for example, Commentary
on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Commentary on Pseudo-Dionysius’ De
divinis nominibus; (3) Biblical commentaries, for example, Literal
Commentary on Job and Commentary and Lectures on the Epistles of Paul
the Apostle; (4) disputed questions, for example, On Evil and On Truth; (5)
works of religious devotion, for example, the Liturgy of Corpus Christi and
the hymn Adoro te devote; (6) academic sermons, for example, Beata
gens, sermon for All Saints; (7) short philosophical treatises, for example, On
Being and Essence and On the Principles of Nature; (8) polemical works, for
example, On the Eternity of the World against Murmurers, and (9) letters in
answer to requests for an expert opinion, for example, On Kingship. For
present purposes, this article focuses on the first four of these literary
genera. This should be enough to demonstrate the capaciousness of Thomas’
thought.
Thomas’ most famous works are his so-called theological syntheses. Thomas
composed four of these during his lifetime: his commentary on Peter
Lombard’s Sentences, Summa contra gentiles, Compendium
theologiae, and Summa theologiae. Although each of these works was
composed for different reasons, they are nonetheless similar insofar as each
of them attempts to communicate clearly and defend the substance of the
Catholic faith in a manner that can be understood by someone who has the
requisite education, that is, training in the liberal arts and Aristotle’s
philosophy of science. Although Thomas aims at both clarity and brevity in
the works, because Thomas also aims to speak about all the issues integral
to the teaching the Catholic faith, the works are quite long (for
example, Summa theologiae, although unfinished, numbers 2,592 pages in
the English translation of the Fathers of the English Dominican Province).
Thomas’ Summa contra gentiles (SCG), his second great theological
synthesis, is split up into four books: book I treats God; book II treats
creatures; book III treats divine providence; book IV treats matters pertaining
to salvation. Whereas the last book treats subjects the truth of which cannot
be demonstrated philosophically, the first three books are intended by
Thomas as what we might call works of natural theology, that is, theology
that from first to last does not defend its conclusions by citing religious
authorities but rather contains only arguments that begin from premises that
are or can be made evident to human reason apart from divine revelation
and end by drawing logically valid conclusions from such premises. SCG is
thus Thomas’ longest and most ambitious attempt at doing what he is
probably most famous for—arguing philosophically for various theses
concerning the existence of God, the nature of God, and the nature of
creatures insofar as they are creatures of God. Although Thomas cites
Scripture in these first three books in SCG, such citations always come on the
heels of Thomas’ attempt to establish a point philosophically. In citing
Scripture in the SCG, Thomas thus aims to demonstrate that faith and reason
are not in conflict, that those conclusions reached by way of
philosophy coincide with the teachings of Scripture.
Summa theologiae (ST) is Thomas’ most well-known work, and rightly so, for
it displays all of Thomas’ intellectual virtues: the integration of a strong faith
with great learning; acute organization of thought; judicious use of a wide
range of sources, including pagan and other non-Christian sources; an
awareness of the complexity of language; linguistic economy; and rigorous
argumentation. However, ST is not a piece of scholarship as we often think of
scholarship in the early 21st century, that is, a professor showing forth
everything that she knows about a subject. Rather, it is the work of a gifted
teacher, one intended by its author, as Thomas himself makes clear in the
prologue, to aid the spiritual and intellectual formation of his students. It was
once thought that Thomas meant ST to replace Lombard’s Sentences as a
university textbook in theology, which, incidentally, did begin to happen as
early as one hundred and fifty years after Thomas’ death. Recent scholarship
has suggested that Thomas rather composed the work for Dominican
students preparing for priestly ministry. This thesis is consistent with what
Thomas actually does in ST, which may surprise people who have not
examined the work as a whole.
What of the method and content of ST? Like Lombard’s Sentences, Thomas’
ST is organized according to the neo-Platonic schema of exit from and return
to God. This is no accident. Thomas thinks it is fitting that divine science
should imitate reality not only in content but in form. ST is split into three
parts. Part one (often abbreviated “Ia.”) treats God and the nature of
spiritual creatures, that is, angels and human beings. Part two treats the
return of human beings to God by way of their exercising the virtues,
knowing and acting in accord with law, and the reception of divine grace.
Given the Fall of human beings, part three (often abbreviated “IIIa.”) treats
the means by which human beings come to embody the virtues, know the
law, and receive grace: (a) the Incarnation, life, passion, death, resurrection,
and ascension of Christ, as well as (b) the manner in which Christ’s life and
work is made efficacious for human beings, through the sacraments and life
of the Church.
Of the three parts of ST, the second part on ethical matters is by far the
longest, which is one reason recent scholarship has suggested that Thomas’
interest in composing ST is more practical than theoretical. We might think of
ST as a work in Christian ethics, designed specifically to teach those
Dominican priests whose primary duties were preaching and hearing
confessions. In fact, part two of ST is so long that Thomas splits it into two
parts, where the length of each one of these parts is approximately 600
pages in English translation. The first part of the second part is often
abbreviated “IaIIae”; the second part of the second part is often abbreviated
“IIaIIae.”
The fundamental unit of ST is known as the article. It is in the article that
Thomas works through some particular theological or philosophical issue in
considerable detail, although not in too much detail. (Recall Thomas is
training priests for ministry, not scholars. For Thomas’ most detailed
discussions of a topic, readers should turn to his treatment in his disputed
questions, his commentary on the Sentences, SCG, and the Biblical
commentaries.) Thomas treats a very specific “yes” or “no” question in each
article in accord with the method of the medieval disputatio. That is to say,
each article within the ST is, as it were, a mini-dialogue. Each article within
ST has five parts. First, Thomas raises a very specific question, for example,
“whether law needs to be promulgated.” Second, Thomas entertains some
objections to the position that he himself defends on the specific question
raised in the article. In other words, Thomas is here fielding objections to his
own considered position. Third, Thomas cites some authority (in a section
that begins, on the contrary) that gives the reader the strong impression that
the position defended in the objections is, in fact, untenable. Oftentimes the
authority Thomas cites is a passage from the Old or New Testament;
otherwise, it is some authoritative interpreter of Scripture or science such
as St. Augustine or Aristotle, respectively. It should be noted the authority
cited is in no way, shape, or form Thomas’ final word on the subject at hand.
Thomas is well aware that authorities need to be interpreted. Fourth, Thomas
develops his own position on the specific topic addressed in the article. This
part of the article is oftentimes referred to as the body or the respondeo,
literally, I respond. Here, Thomas offers arguments in defense of his own
considered position on the matter at issue. Sometimes Thomas examines
various possible positions on the question at hand, showing why some are
untenable whereas others are defensible. At other times, Thomas shows that
much of the problem is terminological; if we appreciate the various senses of
a term crucial to the science in question, we can show that authorities that
seem to be in conflict are simply using an expression with different intended
meanings and so do not disagree after all. Fifth, Thomas returns to the
objections and answers each of them in light of the work he has done in the
body of the article. It should be noted that Thomas often adds interesting
details in these answers to the objections to the position he has defended in
the body of the article.
In addition to his theological syntheses, Thomas composed numerous
commentaries on the works of Aristotle and other neo-Platonic philosophers.
For example, Thomas commented on all of Aristotle’s major works,
including Metaphysics, Physics, De Anima, and Nichomachean Ethics. These
are line-by-line commentaries, and contemporary Aristotle scholars have
remarked on their insightfulness, despite the fact that Thomas himself did
not know Greek (although he was working from Latin translations of Greek
editions of Aristotle’s text). The focus in Thomas’ commentaries is certainly
explaining the mind of Aristotle. That being said, given that Thomas
sometimes corrects Aristotle in these works (see, for example, his
commentary on Physics, book 8, chapter 1), it seems right to say that
Thomas’ commentaries on Aristotle are usefully consulted to elucidate
Thomas’ own views on philosophical topics as well.
Thomas is often spoken of as an Aristotelian. This is particularly so when
speaking of Thomas’ philosophy of language, metaphysics of material
objects, and philosophy of science. When it comes to Thomas’ metaphysics
and moral philosophy, though, Thomas is equally influenced by the neo-
Platonism of Church Fathers and other classical thinkers such as St.
Augustine of Hippo, Pope St. Gregory the Great, Proclus, and the Pseudo-
Dionysius. One way to see the importance of neo-Platonic thought for
Thomas’ own thinking is by noting the fact that Thomas authored
commentaries on a number of important neo-Platonic works. These include
commentaries on Boethius’ On the Hebdomads, Boethius’ De trinitate,
Pseudo-Dionysius’ On the Divine Names, and the anonymous Book of
Causes. (The last work Thomas correctly identified as the work of an Arab
philosopher who borrowed greatly from Proclus’ Elementatio Theologica and
the work of Dionysius; previously it had been thought to be a work of
Aristotle’s).
Although Thomas commented on a number of philosophical works, Thomas
probably saw his commentaries on Scripture as his most important. (Thomas
commented on Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Psalms 1-51 (this
commentary was interrupted by his death), Matthew, John, Romans, 1 and 2
Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2
Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Hebrews. Thomas also
composed a running gloss on the four gospels, the Catena aurea, which
consists of a collection of what various Church Fathers have to say about
each verse in each of the four gospels.) Thomas understood himself to be,
first and foremost, a Catholic Christian theologian. Indeed, theology
professors at the University of Paris in Thomas’ time were known as Masters
of the Sacred Page. In addition, Thomas was a member of the Dominican
order, and the Dominicans have a special regard for teaching the meaning of
Scripture.
A reader might wonder why one would mention Thomas’ commentaries on
Scripture in an article focused on his contributions to the discipline of
philosophy. It is important to mention Thomas’ Scripture commentaries since
Thomas often does his philosophizing in the midst of doing theology, and this
is no less true in his commentaries on Scripture. To give just one example of
the importance of Thomas’ Scripture commentaries for understanding a
philosophical topic in his thought, he has interesting things to say about the
communal nature of perfect happiness in his commentaries on St. Paul’s
letters to the Corinthians and to the Ephesians. A reader who focused merely
on Thomas’ treatment of perfect happiness in, for example, the Summa
theologiae, would get an incomplete picture of his views on human
happiness.
Where talk of Thomas’ philosophy is concerned, there is a final literary genus
worth mentioning, the so-called disputed question. Like ST, the articles in
Thomas’ disputed questions are organized according to the method of the
medieval disputatio. However, whereas a typical article in ST fields three or
four objections, it is not uncommon for an article in a disputed question to
field 20 objections to the position the master wants to defend. Consider, for
example, the question of whether there is power in God. Whereas the article
in ST that treats this question fields four objections, the corresponding article
in Thomas’ Disputed Questions on the Power of God fields 18 objections.
Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to think that Thomas’ disputed questions
necessarily represent his most mature discussions of a topic. Although the
disputed questions can be regarded as Thomas’ most detailed treatments of
a subject, he sometimes changed his mind about issues over the course of
his writing career, and the disputed questions do not necessarily represent
his last word on a given subject.
2. Faith and Reason
Thomas’ views on the relationship between faith and reason can be
contrasted with a number of contemporary views. Consider first an influential
position we can label evidentialism. For our purposes, the advocate of
evidentialism believes that one should proportion the strength of one’s belief
B to the amount of evidence one has for the truth of B, where evidence for a
belief is construed either (a) as that belief’s correspondence with a
proposition that is self-evident, indubitable, or immediately evident from
sense experience, or (b) as that belief’s being supported by a good
argument, where such an argument begins from premises that are self-
evident, indubitable, or immediately evident from sense experience (see
Plantinga [2000, pp. 67-79] and Rota [2012]). Evidentialism, so construed, is
incompatible with a traditional religious view that Thomas holds about divine
faith: if Susan has divine faith that p, then Susan has faith that p as a gift
from God, and Susan reasonably believes that p with a strong conviction, not
on the basis of Susan’s personally understanding why p is true, but on the
basis of Susan’s reasonably believing that God has divinely revealed that p is
true. In other words, divine faith is a kind of certain knowledge by way
of testimony for Thomas.
Fideism is another position with which we can contrast Thomas’ views on
faith and reason. For our purposes, consider fideism to be the view that
states that faith is the only way to apprehend truths about God. Put
negatively, the fideist thinks that human reason is incapable of
demonstrating truths about God philosophically.
Finally, consider the position on faith and reason known as separatism.
According to separatism, philosophy and natural science, on the one hand,
and revealed theology, on the other, are incommensurate activities or
habits. Any talk of conflict between faith and reason always involves some
sort of confusion about the nature of faith, philosophy, or science.
In contrast to the views mentioned above, Thomas not only sees a significant
role for both faith and reason in the best kind of human life (contra
evidentialism), but he thinks reason apart from faith can discern some truths
about God (contra fideism), as epitomized by the work of a pagan
philosopher such as Aristotle (see, for example, SCG I, chapter 3). Thomas
also recognizes that revealed theology and philosophy are concerned with
some of the same topics (contra separatism). Although treating some of the
same topics, Thomas thinks it is not possible in principle for there to be a
real and significant conflict between the truths discovered by divine faith and
theology on the one hand and the truths discerned by reason and philosophy
on the other. In fact, Thomas thinks it is a special part of the theologian’s
task to explain just why any perceived conflicts between faith and reason are
merely apparent and not real and significant conflicts (see, for example, ST
Ia. q. 1, a. 8). Indeed, showing that faith and reason are compatible is one of
the things Thomas attempts to do in his own works of theology. A diverse
group of subsequent religious thinkers have looked to Thomas’ modeling the
marriage of faith and reason as one of his most important contributions.
One place where Thomas discusses the relationship between faith and
reason is SCG, book I, chapters 3-9. Thomas notes there that there are two
kinds of truths about God: those truths that can be apprehended by reason
apart from divine revelation, for example, that God exists and that there is
one God (in the Summa theologiae, Thomas calls such truths about God the
preambles to the faith) and those truths about God the apprehension of
which requires a gift of divine grace, for example, the doctrine of the Trinity
(Thomas calls these the articles of faith). Although the truth of the preambles
to the faith can be apprehended without faith, Thomas thinks human beings
are not rationally required to do so. In fact, Thomas argues that three
awkward consequences would follow if God required that all human beings
need to apprehend the preambles to the faith by way of philosophical
argumentation.
First, very few people would come to know truths about God and, since
human flourishing requires certain knowledge of God, God wants to be
known by as many people as possible. Not everyone has the native
intelligence to do the kind of work in philosophy required to understand an
argument for the existence of God. Among those who have the requisite
intelligence for such work, many do not have the time it takes to apprehend
such truths by philosophy, being engaged as they are in other important
tasks such as taking care of children, manual labor, feeding the poor, and so
forth. Finally, among those who have the natural intelligence and time
required for serious philosophical work, many do not have the passion for
philosophy that is also required to arrive at an understanding of the
arguments for the existence of God.
Second, of the very few who could come to know truths about God
philosophically, these would apprehend these truths with anything close to
certainty only late in their life, and Thomas thinks that people need to
apprehend truths such as the existence of God as soon as possible.
(Compare here with a child learning that it is wrong to lie; parents wisely
want their children to learn this truth as soon as possible.) In order to
understand why Thomas thinks that the existence of God is a truth
discernible by way of philosophy only late in life, we need to appreciate his
view of philosophy, metaphysics, and natural theology. Philosophy is a
discipline we rightly come to only after we have gained some confidence in
other disciplines such as arithmetic, grammar, and logic. Among the
philosophical disciplines, metaphysics is the most difficult and presupposes
competence in other philosophical disciplines such as physics (as it is
practiced, for example, in Aristotle’s Physics, that is, what we might
call philosophical physics, that is, reflections on the nature of change,
matter, motion, and time). Finally, demonstrating the existence of God is the
hardest part of metaphysics. If we are to apprehend with confidence the
existence of God by way of philosophy, this will happen only after years of
intense study and certainly not during childhood, when we might think that
Thomas believes it is important, if not necessary, for it to happen.
Third, let us suppose Susan has the native intelligence, time, passion, and
experience requisite for apprehending the existence of God philosophically
and that she does, in fact, come to know that God exists by way of a
philosophical argument. Thomas maintains that such an apprehension is
nonetheless going to be deficient for it will not allow Susan to be totally
confident that God exists, since Susan is cognizant—being the philosopher
she is—that there is a real possibility she has made a mistake in her
philosophical reasoning. However, the good life, for example, living like a
martyr, requires that we possess an unshakeable confidence that God exists.
Since God wants as many people as possible to apprehend his existence, and
to do so as soon as possible and with the kind of confidence enjoyed by the
Apostles, saints, and martyrs, Thomas argues that it is fitting that God
divinely reveals to human beings—even to theologians who can
philosophically demonstrate the existence of God—the preambles to the
faith, that is, those truths that can be apprehended by human reason apart
from divine faith, so that people from all walks of life can, with great
confidence, believe that God exists as early in life as possible.
However, does it make sense to believe things about God that exceed the
natural capacity of human reason? Thomas thinks the answer is “yes,” and
he defends this answer in a number of ways. Two are mentioned here. First,
Thomas thinks it sensible of God to ask human beings to believe things
about God that exceed their natural capacities since to do so reinforces in
human beings an important truth about God, namely, that God is such that
He cannot be completely understood by way of our natural capacities. If we
say we completely understand God by way of our natural capacities, then we
do not understand what “God” means. Talk about God, for Thomas, requires
that we recognize our limitations with respect to such a project. God’s asking
us to believe things about Him that we cannot apprehend philosophically
makes sense for Thomas because it alerts human beings to the fact that we
cannot know God in the same way we know the objects of other sciences.
Thomas also notes that believing things about God by faith perfects the soul
in a manner that nothing else can. Here Thomas draws on the testimony of
Aristotle, who thinks that even a little knowledge of the highest and most
beautiful things perfects the soul more than a complete knowledge of earthly
things. Although we cannot understand the things of God that we apprehend
by faith in this life, even a slim knowledge of God greatly perfects the soul.
Just as a bit of real knowledge of human beings is better for Susan’s soul
than Susan’s knowing everything there is to know about carpenter ants,
Susan’s possessing knowledge about God by faith is better for Susan’s soul
than Susan’s knowing scientifically everything there is to know about the
cosmos.
Where act and potency are concerned, Thomas also distinguishes, with
Aristotle, between first and second act on the one hand
and active and passive potency on the other. A substance s is in first act or
actuality insofar as s, with respect to some power P, actually has P. For
example, the newborn Socrates, although actually a human being, only
potentially has the power to philosophize and so is not in first act with
respect to the power to philosophize. On the other hand, Socrates, when
awaiting his trial, and being such that he is quite capable of defending the
philosophical way of life, is in first act with respect to the habit of philosophy,
that is, he actually has the power to philosophize. A substance s is
in second act insofar as, with respect to some power P, s not only actually
has P but is currently making use of P. For example, imagine that Socrates is
sleeping, say, the night before he makes his famous defense of the
philosophical way of life. When he is sleeping, although Socrates is in first act
with respect to the power to philosophize, he is not in second act with
respect to that power (although he is in potency to the second act of
philosophizing). Socrates, when he is actually philosophizing at his trial, is
not only in first act with respect to the power to philosophize, but also in
second act.
Consider now the difference between active and passive potency. Imagine
Socrates is not now philosophizing. He is resting. Nonetheless, he is
potentially philosophizing. However, his potency with respect to
philosophizing is an active potency, for philosophizing is something
one does; it is an activity. Insofar as Socrates is not now philosophizing, but
is potentially philosophizing, he has an active potency.
Now imagine Socrates is hit by a tomato at time t at his trial. Socrates can be
hit by a tomato at t because he has, among other passive potencies, the
ability to be hit by an object. Having the ability to be hit by an object is not
an ability (or potentiality) Socrates has to F, but rather an ability (or
potentiality) to have F done to him; hence, being able to be hit by an object
is a passive potentiality of Socrates.
Where being is concerned, Thomas also distinguishes between beings in
nature and intentional beings or beings of reason (see, for
example, Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics IV, lec. 4, n. 574). Thomas
thinks that nothing can be understood, save insofar as it has being. Natural
being is what philosophers (and empirical scientists) study, for example, non-
living things, plants, animals, human beings, colors, virtues, and so forth.
However, some beings that we think about follow upon the consideration of
thinking about beings of nature, notions such as genus, species, and
difference. These are the sorts of beings studied in logic, Thomas thinks. In
additional to logical beings, we could also mention fictional beings such as
Hamlet as an example of a being of reason.
Where the meanings of being are concerned, Thomas also recognizes the
distinction between being in the sense of the essentia (essence or nature or
form) or quod est (what-it-is) of a thing on the one hand and being in the
sense of the esse or actus essendi or quo est (that-by-which-it-is) of a thing
on the other hand (see, for example, SCG II, ch. 54). To say that a being
B’s essentia differs from its esse is to say that B
is composed of essentia and esse, which is just to say that B’s esse is limited
or contracted by a finite essentia, which is also to say that
B’s esse is participated esse, which itself is to say that B receives its esse
from another. If esse and essentia do not differ in a being B1, then
B1’s esse is not limited by a finite essentia, B1’s esse is not participated and
so uncreated, and B1’s esse is unreceived. For Thomas, only in God are
God’s esse and essentia identical.
According to Thomas, all created substances are composed
of essentia and esse. The case where there is the clearest need to speak of a
composition of essentia and esse is that of the angels. In speaking of act and
potency in the angels, Thomas does not speak in terms of form and matter,
since for Thomas matter as a principle of potentiality is always associated
with an individual thing existing in three dimensions. Thomas’ Franciscan
colleague at the University of Paris, St. Bonaventure, did indeed argue that
angels were composed of form and spiritual matter. However, Thomas thinks
the notion of spiritual matter is a contradiction in terms, for to be material is
to be spread out in three dimensions, and the angels are not spread out in
three dimensions. Angels are essentially immaterial beings, thinks Thomas.
(This is not to say that angels cannot on occasion make use of a body by the
power of God; this is how Thomas would make sense of the account of the
angel Gabriel talking with the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Gospel according to
Luke; whatever Mary saw when she claimed to talk to the angel Gabriel,
according to Thomas, it was not a part of Gabriel. Compare the notion that
angels are purely immaterial beings that nonetheless make use of bodies as
instruments with Plato’s view (at least in the Phaedo) that the human body is
not a part of a human being but only an instrument that the soul uses in this
life.) However, because angels are not pure act—this description is reserved
for the first uncaused efficient cause alone for Thomas—there is need to
make sense of the fact that an angel is a composite of act and potency.
Thus, Thomas speaks of a composition of essentia (being in the sense
of what something is) and esse (being in the sense that a thing is) in the
angels, for it does not follow from what an angel is that it exists. In other
words, where we can distinguish essentia and esse in a thing, that thing is a
creature, that is, it exists ever and always because God creates and
conserves it in being. Of course, substances composed of form and matter,
for example, human beings, non-rational animal, plants, minerals, are
creatures too and so they are also composed of essentia and esse. In
general, talk of essence/esse composition in created substances is Thomas’
way of making sense, for him, of the fact that such substances do not
necessarily exist but depend for their existence, at every moment that they
exist, upon God’s primary causal activity.
6. Natural Theology
a. Some Methodological Considerations
Thomas thinks there are two kinds of truths about God: (a) those truths that
can be demonstrated philosophically and (b) those truths that human beings
can come to know only by the grace of divine revelation. Although Thomas
has much of great interest to say about (b)—see, for example, SCG, book IV,
ST Ia. qq. 27-43, and ST IIIa.—this article focuses on (a): those truths that
according to Thomas can be established about God by philosophical
reasoning.
Second, Thomas’ arguments do not try to show that God is the first mover,
first efficient cause, and so forth in a temporal sense, but rather in what we
might call an ontological sense, that is, in the sense that things other than
God depend ultimately upon God causing them to exist at every moment
that they exist. Indeed, as we shall see, Thomas does not think that
God could be first in a temporal sense because God exists outside of time.
Third, as Thomas makes clear in SCG I, 13, 30, his arguments do not assume
or presuppose that there was a first moment in time. As he notes there,
given that the universe has a beginning, it is easier to show there is a God:
“the most efficacious way to prove that God exists is on the supposition that
the world is eternal. Granted this supposition, that God exists is less
manifest” (Anton Pegis, trans.). Nor do the five ways attempt to prove that
there was a first moment of time. Although Thomas believes there was a first
moment of time, he is very clear that he thinks such a thing cannot be
demonstrated philosophically; he thinks that the temporal beginning of the
universe is a mystery of the faith (see, for example, ST Ia. q. 46, a. 2). Thus,
if we should assume anything, for the sake of argument, about time or the
duration of the world where Thomas’ arguments for the existence of God are
concerned, we should assume that there is no first moment of time, that is,
that the universe has always existed. Interestingly, even on such a
supposition, Thomas thinks he can demonstrate philosophically that there is
a God.
Fourth, as will be seen, the five ways are simply five ways of beginning to
demonstrate God’s existence. For example, in ST the demonstrations of
God’s existence continue beyond Ia. q. 2, a. 3, as Thomas attempts to show
that a first mover, first efficient cause, first necessary being, first being, and
first intelligence is also ontologically simple (q. 3), perfect (q. 4), good (qq. 5-
6), infinite (q. 7), ontologically separate from finite being (q. 8), immutable
(q. 9), eternal (q. 10), one (q. 11), knowable by us to some extent (q. 12),
nameable by us (q. 13), knowledgeable (q. 14), such that there are ideas in
that being’s mind (q. 15), such that life is properly attributed to that being
(q. 18), such that will is properly attributed to that being (q. 19), and such
that love is properly attributed to that being (q. 19). However, as Thomas
says at the end of each of the five ways, such a being is what everyone calls
“God.”
For our purposes, let us focus on one of Thomas’ five ways (ST Ia. q. 2, a. 3),
the second way. Here is Thomas’ text (note that numbers have been inserted
in the following text, corresponding to premises in the detailed formulation of
the second way that follows):
The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. [(1)] In the world of
sense we find there is an order of efficient causes. [(3)] There is no case
known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the
efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible.
Now [(12)] in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because
[(6)] in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the
intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause,
whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now [(7)] to take
away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, [(8)] if there be no first
cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate
cause. But [(9)] if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there
will be no first efficient cause, [(10)] neither will there be an ultimate effect,
nor any intermediate efficient causes; [(11)] all of which is plainly false.
Therefore, [(13)] it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, [(14)] to
which everyone gives the name of God (Fathers of the English Dominican
Province, trans.).
Finally, premise (14) simply records the intuition that if there is an x that is
an uncaused cause, then there is a God. Of course, Thomas does not think
he has proved here the existence of the Triune God of Christianity
(something, in any case, he does not think it possible to demonstrate).
Rather, Thomas believes by faith that the absolutely first efficient cause is
the Triune God of Christianity. However, to show philosophically that there is
a first uncaused efficient cause is enough to show that atheism is false. To
put this point another way, Thomas thinks Jews, Muslims, Christians, and
pagans such as Aristotle can agree upon the truth of premise (14). As will be
seen, Thomas thinks it possible, upon reflection, to draw out interesting
implications about the nature of an absolutely first efficient cause from a few
additional plausible metaphysical principles. The more inferences Thomas
draws out regarding the nature of the absolutely first efficient cause, the
easier it will be to say with him (whether or not we think his arguments
sound), “But this is what people call ‘God’.”
c. The Way of Negation: What God is Not
As we saw in discussing his philosophical psychology, Thomas thinks that
when human beings come to know what a material object is, for example, a
donkey, they do so by way of an intelligible species of the donkey, which
intelligible species is abstracted from a phantasm by a person’s agent
intellect, where the phantasm itself is produced from a sensible species that
human beings receive through sense faculties that cognize the object of
perception. Thomas thinks I can know what a thing is, for example, a donkey,
since the form of a donkey and my intelligible species of a donkey are
identical in species (see, for example, SCG III, ch. 49, 5). However, in
Thomas’ view, we cannot possess an idea of the first cause, that is, God, in
this life that is isomorphic with God’s essence, for he thinks any likeness of
God that we have in our minds in this life is derived from what we know of
material objects, and such a likeness is not the same in species as the form
or essence of God Himself (for reasons that will become clear in what
follows). Therefore, we cannot naturally know what God is. (Thomas thinks
this is true even of the person who is graced by the theological virtues of
faith, hope, and charity in this life; knowing the essence of God is possible for
human beings, Thomas thinks, but it is reserved for the blessed in heaven,
the intellects of whom have been given a special grace called the light of
glory [see, for example, ST Ia. q. 12, a. 11, respondeo].) Although we cannot
know what God is in this life, by deducing propositions from the conclusions
of the arguments for the existence of God, Thomas thinks we can, by natural
reason, come to know what God is not. For our purposes, let us focus on
three pieces of negative theology in Thomas’ natural theology: that God is
not composed of parts; that God is not changeable; that God does not exist
in time.
i. God is Not Composed of Parts
To say that God is not composed of parts is to say that God is metaphysically
simple (see, for example, ST Ia. q. 3), for whatever has parts has a cause of
its existence, that is, is the sort of thing that is put together or caused to
exist by something else. Since nothing can cause itself to exist all by itself,
whatever is composed of parts has its existence caused by another.
However, God, the first uncaused cause, does not have God’s existence
caused by another. Therefore, God does not have parts.
As Thomas notes, the denial that God the Creator has parts shows how much
God is unlike those things God creates, for all the things with which we are
most familiar are composed of parts of various kinds. However, there are a
number of ways in which something might be composed of parts. The most
obvious sense is being composed of quantitative parts, for example, there is
the top inch of me, the rest of me, and so forth. Since God is not composed
of parts, God is not composed of quantitative parts.
Thomas thinks that material objects, at any given time, are also composed of
a substance and various accidental forms. The substance of an object
explains why that object remains numerically one and the same through
time and change. For example, Thomas would say that a human being, say,
Sarah, is numerically the same yesterday and today because she
is numerically the same substance today as she was yesterday. However,
Sarah is not absolutely the same today compared to yesterday, for today she
is cheerful, whereas yesterday she was glum. Thomas calls such
characteristics—forms a substance can gain or lose while remaining
numerically the same substance—accidental forms or accidents. At any
given time, Sarah is a composite of her substance and some set of accidental
forms. Now, we have shown that God is not composed of parts. Therefore,
God also is not a composite of substance and accidental forms.
ii. God is Not Changeable
God’s not being composed of substance and accidental forms shows that
God does not change, for if a being changes, it has a feature at one time that
it does not possess at another. However, features that a being has at one
time that it does not have at another are accidental forms. Thus, beings that
change are composed of substance and accidental forms. However, God is
not composed of substance and accidents. Therefore, God does not change
(see, for example, ST Ia. q. 9).
Indeed, the fact that God is not composed of parts shows that God is not only
unchanging, but also immutable (unchangeable), for if God can change, then
God has properties or features that he can gain or lose without going out of
existence. However, properties or features that a being can gain or lose
without going out of existence are accidental forms. Therefore, if God can
change, then God is composed of substance and accidental forms. However,
God is not composed of parts, including the metaphysical parts that we
call substance and accidental forms. Therefore, God cannot change, that is,
God is immutable.
iii. God is Not in Time
Thomas contends that God does not exist in time (see, for example, ST Ia. q.
10). To see why he thinks so, consider what he thinks time is: a
measurement of change with respect to before and after. (Thomas thinks
time is neither a wholly mind-independent reality—hence it is
a measurement—nor is it a purely subjective reality—it exists only if there
are substances that change.) Therefore, if something does not change, it is
not measured by time, that is, it does not exist in time. However, as has
been seen, God is unchanging. Therefore, God does not exist in time.
d. The Way of Excellence: Naming God in and of
Himself
Thomas thinks that we can not only know that God exists and what God is
not by way of philosophy, but we can also know—insofar as we know God is
the first efficient cause of creatures, exemplar formal cause of creatures, and
final cause of creatures—that it is reasonable and meaningful to predicate of
God certain positive perfections such as being, goodness, power, knowledge,
life, will, and love. Nonetheless, in knowing that, for example, God is good is
a correct and meaningful thing to say, we still do not know the essence of
God, Thomas thinks, and so we do not know what God is good means with
the clarity by which we know things such as triangles have three
sides, mammals are animals, or this tree is flowering right now. Why this is
the case will become clear in what follows.
In Thomas’ view, words are signs of concepts and concepts are likenesses of
things. (For Thomas, concepts are not [usually] the objects of understanding;
they are rather that by which we understand things [see, for example, ST Ia.
q. 85, a. 2], like a window in a house is that by which we see what is outside
the house.) Therefore, words relate to things through the medium of
intellectual conception. We can therefore meaningfully name a thing insofar
as we can intellectually conceive it. Although we cannot know the essence of
God in this life, we can know that God exists as the absolutely first efficient
cause of creatures, we can know what God is not, and, insofar as we know
God as the absolutely first efficient cause of creatures and what God is not,
we can know God by way of excellence. It is this last way of knowing God
that allows us to meaningfully predicate positive perfections of God, thinks
Thomas. Knowing God by way of excellence requires some explanation.
First, whatever perfection P exists in an effect must in some way exist in its
cause or causes, otherwise P would come from absolutely nothing, and ex
nihilo nihil fit (from nothing, nothing comes). (Note that the traditional
theological doctrine of creation ex nihilo, which Thomas accepts, does not
contradict the Greek axiom, ex nihilo nihil fit. Whereas the latter means that
nothing can come from absolutely nothing, the former does not mean that
creatures come from absolutely nothing. Rather, creation ex nihilo is
shorthand for the view that creatures do not have a first material cause;
according to the traditional doctrine of creation ex nihilo, creatures do, of
course, have a first efficient, exemplar formal, and extrinsic final cause, that
is, God.) Some perfections are pure and others are impure. A pure perfection
is a perfection the possession of which does not imply an imperfection on the
part of the one to which it is attributed; an impure perfection is a perfection
that does imply an imperfection in its possessor, for example, being able to
hit a home run is an impure perfection; it is a perfection, but it implies
imperfection on the part of the one who possesses it, for example,
something that can hit a home run is not an absolutely perfect being since
being able to hit a homerun entails being mutable, and an absolutely perfect
being is not mutable since a mutable being has a cause of its existence.
Second, creatures possess perfections such as justice, wisdom, goodness,
mercy, power, and love. However, justice, wisdom, goodness, mercy, power,
and love are pure perfections.
Third, God is the absolutely first efficient cause, which cause is simple,
immutable, and timeless. Therefore, whatever pure perfections exist in
creatures must pre-exist in God in a more eminent way (ST Ia. q. 4, a.
2, respondeo). Therefore, we can apply positive predicates to God, for
example, just, wise, good, merciful, powerful, and loving, although not in
such a way that defines the essence of God and not in a manner that we can
totally understand in this life (ST Ia. q. 13, a. 1).
Not only can we meaningfully apply positive predicates to God, some such
predicates can be applied to God substantially, Thomas thinks (see, for
example, ST Ia. q. 13, a. 2, respondeo). One applies a name substantially
to x if that name refers to x in and of itself and not merely because of a
relation that things other than x bear to x. For example, the terms “Creator”
and “Lord” are not said substantially of God, Thomas thinks, since such
locutions imply a relation between creatures and God, and, for Thomas, it is
not necessary that God bring about creatures (God need not have created
and so need not have been a Creator, a Lord, and so forth). Although we
come to know God’s perfection, goodness, and wisdom through reflecting
upon the existence of creatures, Thomas thinks we can know that predicates
such as perfect, good, and wise apply to God substantially and do not simply
denote a relation between God and creatures since, as we saw above, God is
the absolutely first efficient cause of the perfection, goodness, and wisdom in
creatures, and there cannot be more in the effect than in the cause.
However, given the radical metaphysical differences between God and
creatures, what is the real significance of substantially applying words such
as good, wise, and powerful to God? Thomas knows of some philosophers, for
example, Moses Maimonides (1138-1204), who take positive predications
with respect to God to be meaningful only insofar as they are interpreted
simply as statements of negative theology. For example, on Thomas’
reading, Maimonides thinks “God is good” should be understood simply as
“God is not evil.” Thomas notes that other theologians take statements such
as “God is good” to simply mean “God is the first efficient cause of
creaturely goodness.” Thomas thinks there are a number of problems with
these reductive theories of God-talk, but one problem that both of them
share, he thinks, is that neither of them do justice to the intentions of people
when they speak about God. Thomas states, “For in saying that God lives,
[people who speak about God] assuredly mean more than to say that He is
the cause of our life, or that He differs from inanimate bodies” (ST Ia. q. 13,
a. 2, respondeo; English Dominican Fathers, trans.). According to Thomas,
positive predicates such as God is good “are predicated substantially of God,
although they fall short of a full representation of Him. . . So when we
say, God is good, the meaning is not God is the cause of goodness, or, God
is not evil, but the meaning is, Whatever good we attribute to creatures, pre-
exists in God, and in a more excellent and higher way” (ST Ia. q. 13, a.
2, respondeo; English Dominican Fathers, trans.). Although it is correct to say
that goodness applies to God substantially and that God is good “in a more
excellent and higher way” than the way in which we attribute goodness to
creatures, given that we do not know the essence of God in this life, we do
not comprehend the precise meaning of “good” as applied substantially to
God.
As has been seen, Thomas thinks that even within the created order, terms
such as “being” and “goodness” are “said in many ways” or used
analogously. Thus, we should not be surprised that Thomas thinks that a
proper use of positive predications when it comes to God, for example, in the
phrase, “God is wise,” involves predicating the term wise of God and human
beings analogously and not univocally or equivocally (ST Ia. q. 13, a. 5). Why
can we not properly predicate the term wise of God and human
beings univocally? When we attribute perfections to creatures, the perfection
in question is not to be identified with the creature to which we are
attributing it. For example, when we say, John is wise, we do not mean to
imply John is wisdom. However, given the divine simplicity, the perfections of
God are to be identified with God’s very existence so that when we say God
is wise, we should also say God is wisdom itself. In fact it is important to say
both God is wise and God is wisdom itself when speaking of the wisdom of
God, Thomas thinks. For if we say only the latter, then we may fall into the
trap of thinking that God is an abstract entity such as a number (which is
false, as the ways of causality, negation, and excellence imply). If we say
only the former, we run the risk of thinking about God’s wisdom as though it
were like our own, namely, imperfect, acquired, and so forth (which the ways
of causality, negation, and excellence also show is false). Thus, when we use
the word wise of John and God, we are not speaking univocally, that is, with
the precisely same meaning in each instance.
On the other hand, if we merely equivocate on wise when we speak of John
and God, then it would not be possible to know anything about God, which,
as Thomas points out, is against the views of both Aristotle and the Apostle
Paul, that is, both reason and faith. Rather, Thomas thinks we
predicate wise of God and creatures in a manner between these two
extremes; the term wise is not completely different in meaning when
predicated of God and creatures, and this is enough for us to say we know
something about the wisdom of God. Although we do name God from
creatures, we know God’s manner of being wise super-exceeds the manner
in which creatures are wise. It is correct to say, for example, God is wise, but
because it is also correct to say God is wisdom itself, the wisdom of God is
greater than human wisdom; in fact, it is greater than human beings can
grasp in this life. That being said, we can grasp why it is that God’s wisdom is
greater than we can grasp in this life, namely, because God is the simple,
immutable, and timelessly eternal uncaused cause of creaturely perfections,
including creaturely wisdom, and that is to know something very significant
about God, Thomas thinks.
7. Philosophical Anthropology: The Nature of
Human Beings
Thomas attributes to Plato of Athens the following view:
(P) A human being, for example, Socrates, is identical to his soul, that is, an
immaterial substance; the body of Socrates is no part of him.
Thomas thinks (P) is false. In fact, in his view there are good reasons to think
a human being is not identical to his or her soul. To take just one of his
arguments, Thomas thinks the Platonic view of human beings does not do
justice to our experience of ourselves as bodily beings. For Thomas,
Plato is right that we human beings do things that do not require a material
organ, namely, understanding and willing (for his arguments that acts of
understanding do not make use of a material organ per se, see, for example,
ST Ia. q. 75, aa. 2, 5, and 6). However, anything that sees, hears, touches,
tastes, and smells is clearly also a bodily substance. We experience
ourselves as something that sees, hears, touches, tastes, and smells. In
short, I smell things, therefore, I am not an immaterial substance (see, for
example, ST Ia. q. 76, a. 1, respondeo).
Although Thomas does not agree with Plato that we are identical to
immaterial substances, it would be a mistake—or at least potentially
misleading—to describe Thomas as a materialist. Like Aristotle, Thomas
rejects the atomistic materialism of Democritus. In other words, Thomas
would also reject the following view:
(M) Human beings are composed merely of matter.
For Thomas, (M) is false since human beings, like all material substances, are
composed of prime matter and substantial form, and forms are immaterial.
In fact, even non-living things such as instances of water and bronze are
composed of matter and form for Thomas, since matter without form has no
actual existence.
However, Thomas thinks (M) is false in the case of human beings for another
reason: the substantial form of a human being—what he calls
an intellect or intellectual soul—is a kind of substantial form specially created
by God, one that for a time continues to exist without being united to
matter after the death of the human being whose substantial form it is. To
make some sense of Thomas’ views here, note that Thomas thinks a kind of
substantial form is the more perfect insofar as the features, powers, and
operations it confers on a substance are, to use a contemporary idiom,
“emergent,” that is, features of a substance that cannot be said to belong to
any of the integral parts of the substance that is configured by that
substantial form, whether those integral parts are considered one at a time
or as a mere collection. Here is Thomas:
It must be considered that the more noble a form is, the more it rises above
(dominatur) corporeal matter, the less it is merged in matter, and the more it
exceeds matter by its operation or power. Hence, we see that the form of a
mixed body has a certain operation that is not caused by [its] elemental
qualities (ST Ia. q. 76, a. 1, respondeo; English Dominican Fathers, trans.).
In other words, a substance’s substantial form is something above and
beyond the properties of that substance’s integral parts. Why think a thing
like that? Substances have powers and operations that are not identical to
any of the powers and operations of that substance’s integral parts taken
individually, nor are the powers conferred by a substantial form of a
substance x identical to a mere summation of the powers of the integral
parts of x. Thus, a mixed body such as a piece of bronze has certain powers
that none of its elemental parts have by themselves nor when those
elemental parts are considered as a mere sum.
Consider that Thomas thinks substantial forms fall into the following sort of
hierarchy of perfection. The least perfect kind of substantial form
corresponds with the least perfect kind of material substance, namely, the
elements (for Thomas, elemental substances are individual instances of the
kinds water, air, earth, and fire; for us they might be fundamental particles
such as quarks and electrons). Thomas says that the substantial forms of the
elements are wholly immersed in matter, since the only features that
elements have are those that are most basic to matter. In contrast, the
substantial forms of compounds, that is, instances of those non-living
substance-kinds composed of different kinds of elements, for
example, blood, bone, and bronze, have operations that are not caused by
their elemental parts. Above the substantial forms of compounds, the
substantial forms of living things, including plants, reach a level of perfection
such that they get a new name: “soul” (see, for example: Disputed Question
on the Soul [QDA] a. 1; ST Ia. q. 75, a.1; and ST Ia. q. 76, a.1.). For those of
the 21st century, soul almost always means “immortal substance.” Thomas
rather uses soul (anima) in Aristotle’s deflationary sense of “a substantial
form which is the explanation for why a substance is alive rather than dead.”
To see this, consider the English word “animate.” Soul (anima), for Thomas,
is the principle or explanation for life or animation in a living substance.
Souls are therefore substantial forms that enable plants and animals to do
what all living things do: move, nourish, and reproduce themselves, things
non-living substances cannot do. Next in line comes the souls or substantial
forms of non-human animals, which have emergent properties to an even
greater degree than the souls of plants, since in virtue of these substantial
forms non-human animals not only live, move, nourish themselves, and
reproduce, but also sense the world. Finally, the substantial forms of human
beings have operations (namely, understanding and willing) that do not
require bodily organs at all in order to operate, although such operations are
designed to work in tandem with bodily organs (see, for example, SCG II, ch.
68). Since human souls do not require matter for their characteristic
operations, given the principle that something’s activity is a reflection of its
mode of existence (for example, if something acts as a material thing, it
must be a material thing; if something acts as an immaterial thing, it
must be an immaterial thing), human souls can exist apart from matter, for
example, after biological death. In contrast, the substantial forms of non-
human material substances are immersed in matter such that they go out of
existence whenever they are separated from it (see, for example, ST Ia. q.
75, a. 3).
Since the human soul is able to exist apart from the matter it configures, the
soul is a subsistent thing for Thomas, not simply a principle of being as are
material substantial forms (see, for example: QDA a. 1; QDA a. 14; and ST Ia.
q. 75, a. 2). However, even when it is separated from matter, a human soul
remains the substantial form of a human being. As Thomas states (see, for
example, ST Ia. q. 75, a. 4), a human being such as Socrates is not identical
to his soul (for human beings are individual members of the species rational
animal). Nonetheless, the individual soul can preserve the being and identity
of the human being whose soul it is. In other words, although the soul is not
identical to the human person, a human person can be composed of his or
her soul alone. Thomas explains the point as follows: God creates the human
soul such that it shares its existence with matter when a human being comes
to exist (see, for example, SCG II, ch. 68, 3). Because the being of the human
soul is numerically the same as that of the composite—again, the soul shares
its being with the matter it configures whenever the soul configures matter—
when the soul exists apart from matter between death and the general
resurrection, the being of the composite is preserved insofar as the soul
remains in existence (see, for example: SCG IV, ch. 81, 11; ST Ia. q. 76, a. 1,
ad5; and ST IaIIae. q. 4, a. 5, ad2).
Consider an analogy: say Ted loses his arms and legs in a traffic accident but
survives the accident. After the accident, Ted is not identical to the parts
that compose him. Otherwise, we would have to say, by the law of the
transitivity of identity, that Ted’s arms and legs (or the simples that
composed them) were not parts of Ted before the accident. Composition is
not identity. Something analogous can be said about Thomas’ views on the
human soul and the human person. Although the human soul is never
identical to the human person for Thomas, it is the case that after death and
before the general resurrection, some human persons are composed merely
of their soul.
Although the human soul can exist apart from matter between death and the
general resurrection, existing separately from matter is unnatural for the
human soul. The human soul, by its very nature, is a substantial form of a
material substance (see, for example, SCG II, chs. 68 and 83). Given Thomas’
belief in a good and loving God, he thinks such a state can only be temporary
(see, for example, SCG IV, ch. 79). Indeed, as a Catholic Christian, Thomas
believes by faith that it will be only temporary, since the Catholic faith
teaches there will one day be a general resurrection of the dead in which all
human beings rise from the dead, that is, all intellectual souls will
reconfigure matter. At that time not only will all separated souls configure
matter again, by a miracle the separated soul of each human being will come
to configure matter such that each human being will have numerically the
same human body that he or she did in this life (see, for example: ST Suppl.
q. 79, a. 1; and SCG IV, chs. 80 and 81). Human beings will then be restored
to their natural state as embodied beings that know, will, and love.
Finally, since human souls are immaterial, subsistent entities, they cannot
have their origin in matter (see, for example, SCG II, ch. 86). Thus, unlike
material substantial forms, human souls only come to exist by way of a
special act of creation on the part of God (see, for example, SCG II, ch. 87).
Therefore, for Thomas, the beginning of the existence of every human
person is both natural (insofar as the human parents of that person supply
the matter of the person) and supernatural (insofar as God creates a
person’s substantial form or intellectual soul ex nihilo).
8. Ethics
Thomas has one of the most well-developed and capacious ethical systems
of any Western philosopher, drawing as he does on Jewish, Christian, Greek,
and Roman sources, and treating topics such as axiology, action-theory, the
passions, virtue theory, normative ethics, applied ethics, law, and grace. His
ST alone devotes some 1,000 pages in English translation to ethical issues.
Where many philosophers have been content to treat topics in meta-ethics
and ethical theory, Thomas also devotes the largest part of his efforts in ST,
for example, to articulate the nature and relations between the particular
virtues and vices. In this summary of his ethical thought, we treat, only in
very general terms, what Thomas has to say about the ultimate end of
human life, the means for achieving the ultimate end, the human virtues as
perfections of the characteristic human powers, the logical relationship
between the virtues, moral knowledge, and the ultimate and proximate
standards for moral truth.
Second, in addition to the theological virtues, there are also the infused
versions of the intellectual and moral virtues (see, for example, ST IaIIae. q.
63, a. 3; on the distinction between intellectual and moral virtue, see below).
Why infused virtues of this type? Whereas the theological virtues direct
human beings to God Himself as object of supernatural happiness, the
infused intellectual and moral virtues are those virtues that
are commensurate with the theological virtues—and thus direct us to a
supernatural perfection—where things other than God are concerned. Just as
human beings are naturally directed to both God and creatures through their
natural desires and through virtues that can be acquired naturally, so human
beings, by the grace of God, can be supernaturally directed both to God and
creatures through the theological and the infused intellectual and moral
virtues, respectively. As Thomas says in one place, where the human moral
virtues, for example, enable human beings to live well in a human
community, the infused moral virtues make human beings fit for life in
the kingdom of God (see, for example, ST IaIIae. q. 63, a. 4).
ii. Human Virtues
Thomas thinks there are a number of human virtues, and so in order to offer
an account of what he has to say about humanly virtuous activity (and its
relationship to the imperfect human happiness we can have in this life), we
need to mention the different kinds of human virtues. In order to do this, we
have to examine the various powers that human beings possess, since, for
Thomas, mature human beings possess various powers, and virtues in
human beings are perfections of the characteristically human powers (see,
for example, ST IaIIae. q. 55, a. 1).
First, there are the rational powers of intellect and will. Although Thomas
thinks that intellect enables human beings to do a number of different
things, most important for the moral life is intellect’s ability to allow a human
being to think about actions in universal terms, that is, to think about an
action as a certain kind of action, for example, a voluntary action, or as
a murder, or as one done for the sake of loving God. Our ability to do this—
which separates us from irrational animals, Thomas thinks—is a requisite
condition for being able to act morally. Since a gorilla, we might suppose,
cannot think about actions in universal terms, it cannot perform moral
actions.
Second, Thomas also distinguishes between the apprehensive powers of the
soul, that is, powers such as sense and intellect that are productive of
knowledge of some sort, and the appetitive powers of the soul, which are
powers that incline creatures to a certain goal or end in light of how objects
are apprehended by the senses and/or intellect as desirable or undesirable.
The will, according to Thomas, is an appetitive power always linked with the
operation of intellect. For Thomas, intellect and will always act in tandem.
Since the object of will—that is, what it is about—is being insofar as
the intellect presents it as desirable, Thomas thinks of will as rational
appetite. The will is therefore an inclination in rational beings towards an
object or act because of what the intellect of that being presents of that
object or act as something desirable or good in some way.
In addition to the appetitive power of the will, there are appetitive powers in
the soul that produce acts that by nature require bodily organs and therefore
involve bodily changes, namely, the acts of the soul that Thomas
calls passions or affections. These include not only emotions such as love
and anger, but pleasure and pain, as well (see, for example, ST IaIIae. q. 31,
a. 1).
Thomas thinks there are two different kinds of appetitive powers that
produce passions in us, namely, the concupiscible power and
the irascible power. The object of the concupiscible power is sensible good
and evil insofar as a creature desires/wants to avoid such sensible
goods/evils in- and-of-themselves. Thus, the concupiscible power produces in
us the passions of love, hate, pleasure, and pain or sorrow. By contrast, the
object of the irascible power is sensible good and evil insofar as such
good/evil is difficult to acquire/avoid. Thomas therefore associates the
passions of anger, fear, and hope with the irascible power.
In contrast to Socrates of Athens, who, according to Thomas, thinks all
human virtues are intellectual virtues (see, for example, ST IaIIae. q. 58, a.
2), Thomas distinguishes intellectual and moral virtues since he thinks
human beings are both intellectual and appetitive beings. Since virtues are
dispositions to make a good use of one’s powers, Thomas distinguishes
virtues perfecting the intellect—called the intellectual virtues—from those
that perfect the appetitive powers, that is, the moral virtues. Unlike the
moral virtues, which automatically confer the right use of a habit, intellectual
virtues merely confer an aptness to do something excellently (ST IaIIae. q.
57, a. 1). For example, John might have an intellectual virtue such that he
can easily solve mathematical problems. However, John might use such a
habit for evil purposes. On the other hand, if John is courageous, he cannot
make use of his habit of courage to do what is wrong. If John were to do what
is morally wrong, it would be in spite of his moral virtues, not because of
them.
Following Aristotle, Thomas mentions five intellectual virtues: wisdom
(sapientia), understanding (intellectus), science (scientia), art (ars), and
prudence (prudentia). First, there are the purely speculative intellectual
virtues. These intellectual virtues do not essentially aim at some practical
effect but rather aim simply at the consideration of truth. Understanding is
the speculative intellectual virtue concerning the consideration of first
principles, that is, those propositions that are known through themselves and
not by way of deduction from other propositions, for example, the principle
of non-contradiction, and propositions such as all mammals are
animals and it is morally wrong to kill an innocent person
intentionally. Wisdom is the intellectual virtue that involves the ability to
think truly about the highest causes, for example, God and other matters
treated in metaphysics. As we saw in the section on the nature of knowledge
and science above, science (considered as a virtue) is the intellectual ability
to draw correct conclusions from first principles within a particular subject
domain, for example, there is the science of physics, which is the ability to
draw correct conclusions from the first principles of being qua material
being.
Second, there are two intellectual virtues, namely, art and prudence, to
which it belongs essentially to bring about some practical effect. Thomas
defines art as “right reason about certain works to be made” (ST IaIIae. q.
57, a. 3, respondeo). Art is therefore unlike the first three of the intellectual
virtues mentioned—which virtues are purely speculative—since art
necessarily involves the practical effect of bringing about the work of art (if I
simply think about a work of art without making a work of art, I am not
employing the intellectual virtue of ars). Thomas considers art nonetheless
to be an intellectual virtue because the goodness or badness of the will is
irrelevant where the exercise of art itself is concerned. (Beethoven may or
may not have been a morally bad man all the while he composed the 9th
symphony, but we need not consider the moral status of Beethoven’s
appetites when we consider the excellence of his 9th symphony qua work of
art).
Finally, there is prudence. Prudence is the habit that enables its possessor to
recognize and choose the morally right action in any given set of
circumstances. As Thomas puts it: “Prudence is right reason of things to be
done” (ST IaIIae. q. 57, a. 4, respondeo). Prudence is not a speculative
intellectual virtue for the same reason ars is not: the human being exercising
the virtue of prudence is not simply thinking about an object but engaged in
bringing about some practical effect (so, for example, the philosopher who is
simply thinking about the right thing to do without actually doing the morally
right thing is not exercising the virtue of prudence, even if said philosopher
is, in fact, prudent). Prudence also differs from ars in a crucial way: whereas
one can exercise the virtue of ars without rectitude in the will, for example,
one can bring about a good work of art by way of a morally bad action, one
cannot exercise the virtue of prudence without rectitude in the will. Indeed,
we do not find prudence in a person without also finding in that person
the moral virtues of justice, courage, and temperance. Thus, not only is
prudence necessarily practical, its exercise necessarily involves someone (a)
habitually acting with a good will and (b) possessing appetites for food, drink,
and sex that are habitually measured by right reason.
Why, then, is prudence an intellectual virtue for Thomas? Recall that Thomas
thinks that virtue is the perfection of some power of the soul. Thomas
therefore thinks the essential difference between the intellectual and moral
virtues concerns the kinds of powers they perfect. Intellectual virtues perfect
the intellect while moral virtues are perfections of the appetitive powers.
However, prudence is essentially a perfection of intellect, and so it is an
intellectual virtue. Nonetheless, it “has something in common with the moral
virtues,” (ST IaIIae. q. 58, a. 3, ad1) Thomas says, insofar as it is concerned
with things to be done. This is why, Thomas thinks, prudence is also
reckoned among the moral virtues by authors such as Cicero and St.
Augustine. Indeed, some philosophers call prudence a “mixed” virtue, partly
intellectual and partly moral.
According to Thomas, moral virtue “perfects the appetitive part of the soul
by directing it to good as defined by reason” (ST IaIIae. q. 59, a.
4, respondeo). Since the moral virtues are perfections of
human appetitive powers, there is a cardinal or hinge moral virtue for each
one of the appetitive powers (recall that prudence is the cardinal moral
virtue that perfects the intellect thinking about what is to be done in
particular circumstances). As has been seen, Thomas thinks there are three
appetitive powers: the will, the concupiscible power, and the irascible power.
Thus, there are three cardinal moral virtues: justice (which perfects the
faculty of will); temperance (perfecting the concupiscible power),
and fortitude (perfecting the irascible power). Where prudence perfects
intellect itself thinking about what is to be done, justice is intellect disposing
the will such that a person is “set in order not only in himself, but also in
regard to another” (ST IaIIae. q. 66, a. 4). According to Thomas, temperance
is the virtue whereby the passions of touch participate in reason so that one
is habitually able to say “no” to desires of the flesh that are not in accord
with right reason (ST IaIIae. q. 61, a. 3). Finally, fortitude is the virtue
whereby the desire to avoid suffering participates in reason such that one is
habitually able to say “yes” to suffering insofar as right reason summons us
to do so (ST IaIIae q. 61, a. 3).
This is just the tip of the iceberg of what Thomas has to say by way of
characterizing the human virtues and their importance for the good life. In
addition, Thomas has a lot to say about the parts of the cardinal virtues and
the virtues connected to the cardinal virtues, not to mention the vices that
correspond with these virtues (see, for example, his treatment of these
issues in ST IIaIIae).
Finally, we can also note that, for Thomas, Joe cannot be perfectly temperate
if he is not also perfectly courageous and just (where we are speaking about
perfect human virtue). This is because Joe cannot be temperate if he is not
also prudent. However, for Thomas, Joe cannot be prudent if he is not also
temperate, courageous, and just. Therefore, Joe cannot be temperate if he is
not also courageous and just. For the same kinds of reasons, it follows,
according to Thomas, that all of the human cardinal virtues come with one
another. It is for these sorts of reasons that Thomas affirms the truth of the
“unity of the virtues” thesis.
Where perfect human virtue is at issue, what of the relation between the
human intellectual virtues and the human moral virtues for Thomas? Since
prudence is a mixed virtue—at once moral and intellectual—there is at least
one human intellectual virtue that requires possession of the moral virtues
and one intellectual virtue that is required for possession of the moral
virtues. In addition, since the possession of prudence requires a knowledge
of the principles of human action that are naturally known, that is, natural
law precepts (see the section on moral knowledge below),
and understanding is the virtue whose possessor has knowledge of, among
other things, the principles of human action that are naturally known,
possession of the moral virtues requires possession of the intellectual virtue
of understanding (although one may have understanding without possessing
the moral virtues, if only because one can have understanding without
prudence).
As for the other intellectual virtues—art, wisdom, and science—none of these
virtues can be possessed without the virtue of understanding. To give
Thomas’ example, if one does not know a whole is greater than one of its
parts—knowledge of which is a function of having the intellectual virtue
of understanding—then one will not be able to possess the science of
geometry. Aside from its dependence on understanding, the possession of
the virtue of art does not require the moral virtues or any of the other
intellectual virtues. The possession of science with respect to a particular
subject matter seems to be similar to the virtue of art in this regard, that is,
although it requires possessing the virtue of understanding, it does not
require the possession of moral virtues or any other intellectual virtues.
The possession of the intellectual virtue of wisdom—habitual knowledge of
the highest causes—seems to differ for Thomas from science and art insofar
as possession of wisdom presupposes the possession of other forms of
scientific knowledge (see, for example, SCG I, ch. 4, sec. 3). Nonetheless, like
art and the other sciences, one can possess the virtue of wisdom without
possessing prudence and the other moral virtues. That being said, Thomas
seems to suggest that possession of the virtue of wisdom is less likely if one
lacks the moral virtues (SCG I, ch. 4, sec. 3).
e. Moral Knowledge
In order to make sense of Thomas’ views on moral knowledge, it is important
to distinguish between different kinds of moral knowledge, which different
kinds of moral knowledge are produced by the (virtuous) working of different
kinds of powers.
Thomas thinks that all human beings who have reached the age of reason
and received at least an elementary moral education have a kind of moral
knowledge, namely, a knowledge of universal moral principles. One place he
says something like this is in his famous discussion of law in ST. In that place
he argues that there are at least three different kinds of universal principles
of the natural law, that is, principles that apply in all times, places, and
circumstances, which principles can be learned by reflecting on one’s
experiences by way of the natural light of human reason, apart from faith
(although Thomas notes that knowledge of these principles often is
inculcated in human beings immediately through divinely infused faith [see,
for example, ST IaIIae. q. 100, a. 3, respondeo]).
First, there are those universal principles of the natural law that function as
the first principles of the natural law, for example, one should do good and
avoid evil (ST IaIIae. q. 100, a. 3, respondeo). Such universal principles are
known to be true by every human person who has reached the age of reason
without fail. Of course, most people—unless they are doing theology or
philosophy—will not make such principles of practical action explicit. In being
usually implicit in our moral reasoning, Thomas compares the first principles
of the natural law with the first principles of all reasoning, for example, the
principle of identity and the principle of non-contradiction.
Second, there are those universal principles of the natural law that, with just
a bit of reflection, can be derived from the first principle of the natural law
(ST IaIIae. q. 100, a. 3, respondeo). We can call these the secondary
universal precepts of the natural law. For example, we all know we should do
good and avoid evil. We also know, when we reflect upon it, that failing to
honor those who have given us extremely valuable gifts we cannot repay
would be to do evil. However, we all know that our father and mother have
given us extremely valuable gifts we cannot repay, for example, life and a
moral education. Therefore, we can naturally know that we ought to honor
our mother and our father. Of course, most of us do not need to make such
reasoning explicit in order to accept such moral principles as absolute
prescriptions or prohibitions. Like the first universal principles of the natural
law, the truthfulness of these secondary universal precepts of the natural law
is immediately obvious to us—whether we know this by the natural light of
reason insofar as the truth of such propositions is obvious to us as soon as
we understand the meaning of the terms in those propositions or we
immediately know them to be true by the light of faith (see, for example, ST
IaIIae. q. 100, a. 1 respondeo). Thomas thinks that (at least abstract
formulations of) the commandments of the Decalogue constitute good
examples of the secondary, universal principles of the natural law [see, for
example, ST IaIIae. q. 100, a. 3, respondeo). To know the primary and
secondary universal precepts of the natural law is to have what Thomas calls
the human virtue of understanding with respect to the principles of moral
action. Moral knowledge of other sorts is built on the back of having the
virtue of understanding with respect to moral action. As we have seen, it is
possible to have the virtue of understanding (say, with respect to principles
of action) without otherwise being morally virtuous, for example, prudent,
courageous, and so forth (see, for example, ST IaIIae. q. 58, a. 5).
Third, Thomas thinks there are also universal principles of the natural law
that are not immediately obvious to all but which can be inculcated in
students by a wise teacher (see, for example ST IaIIae. q. 58, a. 5; ST IaIIae.
q. 100, a. 1, respondeo; and ST IaIIae. q. 100, a. 3, respondeo). We might call
this third of universal principle of the natural law the tertiary precepts of the
natural law. Thomas gives as an example of such a principle a precept from
Leviticus 19: 32: “Rise up before the hoary head, and honor the person of the
aged man,” that is, respect your elders (ST IaIIae. q. 100, a. 1, respondeo).
Other examples Thomas would give of tertiary precepts of the natural law
are one ought to give alms to those in need (ST IIaIIae. q. 32, a.
5, respondeo), one must not intentionally spill one’s seed in the sex act (ST
IIaIIae. q. 154, a. 11, respondeo), and one should not lay with a person of the
same sex (ST IIaIIae. q. 154, a. 11, respondeo).
It is easy to be confused by what Thomas says here about natural law as
conferring moral knowledge if we think Thomas means that all people have
good arguments for their moral beliefs. People sometimes say that they “just
see” that something is morally wrong or right. Thomas thinks it is possible to
know the general precepts of the moral law without possessing a scientific
kind of moral knowledge (which, as has been seen, does require having
arguments for a thesis). One way to talk about this “just seeing” that some
moral propositions are true is by making reference to what Thomas
calls natural law. People do not typically argue their way to believing the
general norms of morality, for example, it is wrong to murder, one should not
lie. Rather, the truth of these norms is “self-evident” (per se nota) to us, that
is, we understand such norms to be true as soon as we understand the terms
in the propositions that correspond to such norms (see, for example, ST
IaIIae. q. 94, a. 2). Of course, that does not mean that arguments cannot be
given for the truth of such norms, at least in the case of the secondary and
tertiary precepts of the natural law, if only for the sake of possessing a
science of morals. The truth of such basic moral norms is thus analogous to
the truth of the proposition “God exists” for Thomas, which for most people
is not a proposition one (needs to) argue(s) for, although the theologian or
philosopher does argue for the truth of such a proposition for the sake of
scientific completeness (see, for example, ST Ia. q. 2, a. 2, ad2).
So far we have simply talked about the fact that, in Thomas’ view, human
beings have some knowledge of universal moral principles. However, unless
such knowledge is joined to knowledge of particular cases in the moral agent
or there is a knowledge of particular moral principles in the agent, then the
moral agent will not know what he or she ought to do in a particular
circumstance. For example, all human beings know they should seek
happiness, that is, they should do for themselves what will help them to
flourish. However, in a particular case, Joe really wants to go to bed with
Mike’s wife. In fact, given his passions and lack of temperance, it seems to
Joe that going to bed with Mike’s wife will help him to flourish as an
individual human being. That is, it seems good to Joe to commit adultery.
Thomas thinks that ordinarily a person such as Joe knows by the universal
principles of the natural law, that is, he understands not only that he should
not commit adultery but that committing adultery will not help him flourish.
In addition, Joe knows that going to bed with Mike’s wife would be an
example of an adulterous act. However, such knowledge can be destroyed or
rendered ineffective (and perhaps partly due to Joe’s willingness that it be
so) in a particular case by his passion, which reflects a lack of a virtuous
moral disposition in Joe, that is, temperance, which would support the
judgment of Joe’s reason that adultery is not happiness-conducive. Thus, it
may seem genuinely good to Joe to go to bed with Mike’s wife. In this
particular case, (we are supposing) Joe lacks effective moral knowledge of
the wrongness of going to bed with Mike’s wife. (Again, Joe could be morally
responsible for his lack of temperance, and so for his lack of resolve to act in
accord with what he knows about the morality of going to bed with Mike’s
wife; in that case, his passion would simply render him vincibly ignorant of
the principles of this particular case and so would not excuse his moral
wrongdoing, although it would make intelligible why he wills as he does.) In
order for knowledge of the universal principles of the natural law to be
effective, the agent must have knowledge of moral particulars, and such
knowledge, Thomas thinks, requires possessing the moral virtues. Without
the virtues, a person will have at best a deficient, shallow, or distorted
picture of what is really good for one’s self, let alone others (see, for
example, ST IaIIae. q. 58, a. 5, respondeo).
Finally, we should mention another kind of knowledge of moral particulars
that is important for Thomas, namely, knowing just what to do in a particular
situation such that one does the right thing, for the right reason, in the right
way, to the proper extent, and so forth. This is knowledge had by way of the
possession of prudence. As we noted above, the knowledge that comes by
prudence has the agent’s possession of the other moral virtues as a
necessary condition, for the knowledge we are speaking of here is knowing
just how to act courageously in this situation; to know this, one must have
one’s passions ordered such that, whatever one chooses to do, one knows
one always ought to act courageously. However, the prudent person is also
able to decide to act in a particular way in a given situation. Such deciding,
of course, involves a sort of knowing just what the situation in question calls
for, morally speaking. In order for one’s temperance, for example, to be
effective, one needs not only to have a habit of desiring food, drink, and sex
in a manner consistent with right reason, but one needs to decide how to use
that power in a particular situation. For example, the prudent person knows
what temperate eating will look like on this given day, at this given time, and
so forth. The moral knowledge that comes by prudence is another kind of
moral knowledge, Thomas thinks, one necessary for living a good human life.
f. The Proximate and Ultimate Standards of Moral
Truth
According to Thomas, the proximate measure for the goodness and badness
of human actions is human reason insofar as it is functioning properly, or to
put it in Thomas’ words, right reason (recta ratio) (see, for example, ST
IaIIae. q. 34, a. 1). Thomas sometimes speaks of this proximate measure of
what is good in terms of that in which the virtuous person takes pleasure
(see, for example, ST IaIIae. q. 1, a. 7; and ST IaIIae. q. 34, a. 4).
However, since right reason in human beings is a kind of participation in
God’s mind (see, for example, ST IaIIae. q. 91, a. 2, respondeo), we can also
speak of the mind of God as the ultimate standard for whether a human
action is morally good or bad. In fact, given Thomas’ doctrine of divine
simplicity, we can say simply that God is the ultimate measure or standard of
moral goodness.
One way Thomas speaks about God being the measure of morally good acts
is by using the language of law. According to Thomas, God’s idea regarding
His providential plan for the universe has the nature of a law (ST Ia. q. 91, a.
1; see the section below on political philosophy for more on Thomas on law).
This idea of how the universe ought to go, like any other of God’s ideas, is
not, in reality, distinct from God Himself, for by the divine simplicity God’s
intellect and will are in reality the same as God himself. God’s own infinite
and perfect being—we might even say “God’s character,” if we keep in mind
that applying such terms to God is done only analogously in comparison to
the way we use them of human moral agents—is the ultimate rule or
measure for all creaturely activity, including normative activity. This is why
Thomas can say that none of the precepts of the Decalogue are dispensable
(ST IaIIae. q. 100, a. 8), for each one of the Ten Commandments is a
fundamental precept of the natural law, thinks Thomas. However, it would be
a contradiction in terms for God to will that a fundamental precept of the
natural law be violated, since the fundamental precepts of the natural law
are necessary truths (we could say that they are true in all possible worlds)
that reflect God’s own necessary, infinite, and perfect being. For God to will
to dispense with any of the Ten Commandments, for example, for God to will
that someone murder, would be tantamount to God’s willing in opposition to
His own perfection. Since God’s will and God’s perfection (being) are the
same, for God to will in opposition to His own perfect being would be a
contradiction in terms.
9. Political Philosophy
a. Law
i. The Nature of Law
For Thomas, law is (a) a rational command (b) promulgated (c) by the one or
ones who have care of a perfect community (d) for the sake of the common
good of that community (ST IaIIae. q. 90, a. 4). First, a law is a rational
command. It is not simply a suggestion or an act of counsel. If John merely
suggests a course of action A to Mike, or Mike asks John what to do about
some moral decision D, and Mike merely offers counsel to John about what to
do where D is concerned, all other things being equal, John is not morally
obligated to perform A or follow John’s advice where D is concerned, even if
John is related to Mike as John’s moral or political superior. Mike may indeed
be likely to perform A or follow John’s advice about D out of fear or out of
respect for John, but Mike would not necessarily do something morally wrong
if he did not perform A or follow John’s counsel about D. On the other hand, if
John commands Mike to do something (and all the other conditions for a law
are met), then John does something morally wrong if he fails to act in accord
with John’s command. According to Thomas, law morally obligates those to
whom it is directed. That being said, not all moral acts are equally morally
wrong for Thomas. It may be that Susan’s breaking a law in a given situation
merely counts as a venial sin. (For the distinction between venial and mortal
sin, see the section on infused virtue above.)
A law is also a rational command. That means that, minimally, John’s
command must be coherent. In addition, for John’s command to have the
force of law, it must not contradict any pre-existing law that has the force of
law. Such a pre-existing law could be a higher law. For example, if John (a
mere human being) commands that all citizens sacrifice to him as an act of
divine worship once a year, Thomas would say that such a command does
not have the force of law insofar as (Thomas thinks) such a command is in
conflict with a natural law precept that ordains that only divine beings
deserve to be worshiped by way of an act of sacrifice. One is not obliged to
obey a human being’s ordinance that is in conflict with the commands of a
higher power (see, for example, ST IaIIae. q. 104, a. 5.). In his Letter from
the Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. invokes precisely this aspect of
Thomas’ understanding of law in defense of the injustice of segregation
ordinances when he notes that, according to Thomas, “an unjust law is a
human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law” (1963, p. 82).
A command C of a human being could also be in conflict with a pre-
existing human law. C would not, in such a case, have the force of law. Take
an example: John’s mother commands him to run some errands for her. As
John is about to do so, John’s father says to him: “Stop what you’re doing
right now and do your homework!” Assuming that John’s mother and father
have equal authority in John’s home, and that both of these commands meet
all of the other relevant conditions for a law, the command issued by John’s
father does not have the force of law for John, since it contradicts a pre-
existing law.
Second, commands that get to count as laws must have as their purpose the
preservation and promotion of the common good of a particular community.
When Thomas speaks about the common good of a community, he means to
treat the community itself as something that has conditions for its survival
and its flourishing. For example, if a tyrant issues an edict that involves
taxing its citizens so heavily that the workers in that community would not
be able to feed themselves or their families, such an edict would violate the
very purpose of law, since the edict would, in short order, lead to the
destruction of the community.
In article three, Thomas asks whether all human beings would have been
equal in the state of innocence. Thomas answers this question by saying, “In
some senses, human beings would have been equal in the state of
innocence, but in other senses, they would not have been equal.” Thomas
thinks human beings would have been equal, that is, the same, in the state
of innocence in two significant senses: (a) all human beings would have been
free of defects in the soul, for example, all human beings would have been
equal in the state of innocence insofar as none would have had sinned, and
(b) all human beings would have been free of defects in the body, that is, no
human beings would have experienced bodily pain, suffered disease, and so
forth in the state of innocence. It is worth mentioning that Thomas believes
that the state of innocence was an actual state of affairs, even if it probably
did not last very long. However, it certainly could have lasted a long time. In
fact, assuming Adam and Eve and their progeny chose not to sin, the state of
innocence could have been perpetual or could have lasted until God
translated the whole human race into heaven (see, for example, ST Ia. q.
102, a. 4, respondeo).
Interestingly, Thomas thinks that there are a number of different ways in
which human beings would have been unequal (by which he simply
means, not the same) in the state of innocence. First of all, since God
intended there to be families in the state of innocence, some would have
been male and others female, since human sexual reproduction, which was
intended by God in the state of innocence, requires diversity of the sexes. In
addition, some people would have been older than others, since children
would have born to their parents in the state of innocence.
Second, there would have been inequalities having to do with the souls of
those in the state of innocence. For example, although none would have a
defect in the soul, some would have had more knowledge or virtue than
others. Thomas mentions the following sort of reason: those in the state of
innocence had free choice of the will. Thus, some would have freely chosen
to make a greater advance in knowledge in virtue than others. In addition,
although the first human persons were created with knowledge and all the
virtues, at least in habit (see ST Ia. q. 95, a. 3), those born as children in
paradise would not have had knowledge and the virtues, being too young (ST
Ia. q. 101, aa. 1 and 2). Therefore, adult human persons in the state of
innocence would have had more knowledge and virtue than children born in
paradise.
Third, since human bodies would not have been exempt from the influence
of the laws of nature, the bodies of those in paradise would have been
unequal, for example, some would have been stronger or more beautiful
than others, although, again, all would have been without bodily defect.
Since those in the state of innocence have the virtues—or at the very least,
have no defects in the soul—such disparity in knowledge, virtue, bodily
strength, and beauty among those in paradise would not have necessarily
occasioned jealousy and envy.
Thomas argues that “mastership” in the first sense would not exist in the
state of innocence. According to Thomas, a slave is contrasted with a
politically free person insofar as the slave, but not the free person, is
compelled to yield to another something he or she naturally desires,
and ought, to possess himself or herself, namely, the liberty to order his or
her life according to his or her own desires, insofar as those desires are in
accord with reason. This provides Thomas with two reasons for thinking there
would be no slavery in the state of innocence. First, since all persons
naturally desire political freedom, not having it would be painful. However,
there is no pain in the state of innocence. Second, all persons ought to enjoy
political freedom. Slaves do not have it. However, there is no sin in the state
of innocence. Therefore, there is no “mastership” in the state of innocence
that implies the existence of slavery.
Nonetheless, Thomas argues there would have been human authorities, that
is, some human beings governing others, in the state of innocence. Why?
Thomas offers two reasons. He begins from the belief that human beings are
by nature rational and social creatures, and so would have led a social life
with other human beings, ordered by reason, in the state of innocence. This
means that, in the state of innocence, human beings would seek not just
their own good but the common good of the society of which those
individuals are a part. However, where there are many reasonable
individuals, there will be many reasonable but irreconcilable ideas about how
to proceed on a variety of different practical matters. For the sake of the
common good, there must therefore be those who have the authority to
decide which of many reasonable and irreconcilable ideas will have the force
of law in the state of innocence. Therefore, there would have been some
human beings in authority over other human beings in the state of
innocence.
Thomas’ second reason that there would have been human authorities in the
state of innocence has him drawing on positions he established in ST Ia. q.
96, a. 3. Recall that he argues there that human beings would have been
unequal in the state of innocence insofar as some would have been wiser
and more virtuous than others. However, it would be unfitting if the wiser
and more virtuous did not share their gifts with others for the sake of the
common good, namely, as those who have political authority. Given that (as
Thomas believes) human beings are not born with knowledge and virtue, it
seems obvious that this would have been true in the case of the relation
between parents and their children. However, Thomas sees that human
authorities would have been necessary and fitting at all levels of society.
Since law is bound up with authority for Thomas, what has been said about
authority has an interesting consequence for Thomas’ views on law too. It is
not essential to law that there be evil-doers. Given that human beings are
rational and social creatures, that is, they were not created to live
independently and autonomously with respect to other human beings, even
in a perfect society a human society will have human laws. (This also
assumes that God has willed to share His authority with others; this is
precisely what Thomas thinks; in fact, Thomas thinks that having authority
over others is part of what it means to be created in the image of God.)
Recall the definition of law—it says nothing about curbing appetites or
protecting the innocent. In a world where the strong try to take advantage of
the weak, law, of course, does do these things. However, the fact that law
protects the weak from the strong is accidental to law for Thomas.
However, given the soundness of the kind of argument for the superiority of
kingship as a form of government we noted above, and the importance of
virtuous politicians for a good government, we have the following:
Author Information
Christopher M. Brown
Email: chrisb@utm.edu
University of Tennessee at Martin
U. S. A.
An encyclopedia of philosophy articles written by professional philosophers.
ABOUT
EDITORS
DESIRED ARTICLES
SUBMISSIONS
VOLUNTEER
STAY CONNECTED
BROWSE BY TOPIC
Browse by Topic
© Copyright Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy and its Authors | ISSN 2161-0002