Thomas Aquinas (1224/6—1274)

St. Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican priest and

Scriptural theologian. He took seriously the medieval maxim that “grace
perfects and builds on nature; it does not set it aside or destroy it.”
Therefore, insofar as Thomas thought about philosophy as the discipline that
investigates what we can know naturally about God and human beings, he
thought that good Scriptural theology, since it treats those same topics,
presupposes good philosophical analysis and argumentation. Although
Thomas authored some works of pure philosophy, most of his philosophizing
is found in the context of his doing Scriptural theology. Indeed, one finds
Thomas engaging in the work of philosophy even in his Biblical
commentaries and sermons.

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.

In his early years, from approximately 5 to 15 years of age, Thomas lived

and served at the nearby Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino, founded by
St. Benedict of Nursia himself in the 6th century. It is here that Thomas
received his early education. Thomas’ parents probably had great political
plans for him, envisioning that one day he would become abbot of Monte
Cassino, a position that, at the time, would have brought even greater
political power to the Aquino family.

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.

From 1252-1256, Thomas was back at the University of Paris, teaching as a

Bachelor of the Sentences. We might think of Thomas’ position at Paris at
this time as roughly equivalent to an advanced graduate student teaching a
class of his or her own. In addition to his teaching duties, Thomas was also
required, in accord with university standards of the time, to work on a
commentary on Peter the Lombard’s Sentences. We might think of Thomas’
commentary on the Sentences as roughly equivalent to his doctoral
dissertation in theology.
At 32 years of age (1256), Thomas was teaching at the University of Paris as
a Master of Theology, the medieval equivalent of a university professorship.
After teaching at Paris for three years, the Dominicans moved Thomas back
to Italy, where he taught in Naples (from 1259-1261), Orvietto (1261-1265),
and Rome (1265-1268). It was during this period, perhaps in Rome, that
Thomas began work on his magisterial Summa theologiae.
Thomas was ordered by his superiors to return to the University of Paris in
1268, perhaps to defend the mendicant way of life of the Dominicans and
their presence at the university. (Like the Franciscans, the Dominicans
depended upon the charity of others in order to continue their work and
survive. This sometimes meant they had to beg for their food. In doing so,
the members of the mendicant orders consciously saw themselves as living
after the pattern of Jesus Christ, who, as the Gospels depict, also depended
upon the charity of others for things to eat and places to rest during his
public ministry.) Thomas ended up teaching at the University of Paris again
as a regent Master from 1268-1272. While he was at the University of Paris,
Thomas also famously disputed with philosophers who contended on
Aristotelian grounds—wrongly in Thomas’ view—that all human beings
shared one intellect, a doctrine that Thomas argued was incompatible with
personal immortality and moral responsibility, not to mention our experience
of ourselves as individual knowers.

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.

Still, we might wonder why Thomas thinks it is reasonable to accept the

Catholic faith as opposed to some other faith tradition that, like the Catholic
faith, asks us to believe things that exceed the capacity of natural reason.
One thing Thomas says is that some non-Catholic religious traditions ask us
to believe things that are contrary to what we can know by natural reason.
Thomas accepts the medieval maxim that “grace does not destroy nature or
set it aside; rather grace always perfects nature.” Although the Catholic faith
takes us beyond what natural reason by itself can apprehend, according to
Thomas, it never contradicts what we know by way of natural reason.
Therefore, any real conflicts between faith and reason in non-Catholic
religious traditions give us a reason to prefer the Catholic faith to non-
Catholic faith traditions.

In addition, Thomas thinks there are good—although non-demonstrative—

arguments for the truth of the Catholic faith. Thomas begins with the
accounts of healings, the resurrection of the dead, and miraculous changes
in the heavenly bodies, as contained in the Old and New Testaments. These
accounts of miracles—which Thomas takes to be historically reliable—offer
confirmation of the truthfulness of the teaching of those who perform such
works by the grace of God. Even more significant, thinks Thomas, is the fact
that simple fishermen were transformed overnight into apostles, that is,
eloquent and wise men. Thomas takes this to be a miracle that provides
confirmation of the truth of the Catholic faith the apostles preached. Most
powerful of all, according to Thomas, the Catholic faith spread throughout
the world in the midst of great persecutions. As Thomas notes, the Catholic
faith was not initially embraced because it was economically advantageous
to do so; nor did it spread—as other religious traditions have—by way of the
sword; in fact, people flocked to the Catholic faith—as Thomas notes, both
the simple and the learned—despite the fact that it teaches things that
surpass the natural capacity of the intellect and demands that people curb
their desires for the pleasures of the flesh. Given human nature, Thomas
thinks that such conversions were miraculous and so testify to the truth of
the faith that such people came to adopt.

3. Philosophy of Language: Analogy

Any discussion of Thomas’ views concerning what something is, for
example, goodness or knowledge or form, requires some stage-setting. Much
of contemporary analytic philosophy and modern science operates under the
assumption that any discourse D that deserves the honor of being
called scientific or disciplined requires that the terms employed within D not
be used equivocally. Thomas agrees, but with a very important caveat.
Thomas distinguishes two different kinds of equivocation: uncontrolled (or
complete) equivocation and controlled equivocation (or analogous
predication). While the former is incompatible with a discourse being
scientific or disciplined, according to Thomas, the latter is not. Thomas
therefore distinguishes three different ways words are used: univocally,
equivocally (in a sense that is complete or uncontrolled), and analogously,
that is, equivocally but in a manner that is controlled. When we use a
word univocally, we predicate of two things (x and y) one and the same
name n, where n has precisely the same meaning when predicated
of x and y. For example, think of the locutions, “the cat is an animal” and
“the dog is an animal.” Here, the same word “animal” is predicated of two
different things, but the meaning of “animal” is precisely the same in both
instances. By contrast, when we use a word equivocally, two things (x and y)
are given one and the same name n, where n has one meaning when
predicated of x and a different meaning when predicated of y. For example,
we use the very same word “bank” to refer to a place where we save money
and that part of the land that touches the edge of a river.
Importantly, Thomas notices that some instances of equivocation
are controlled, or instances of analogous predication, whereas other
instances of equivocal naming are complete or uncontrolled. In a case of
complete or uncontrolled equivocation, we predicate of two things (x and y)
one and the same name n, where n has one meaning when predicated
of x and n has a completely different meaning when predicated of y. English
usage of the word “bank” is a good example of complete or uncontrolled
equivocation; here the use of the same name is totally an accident of
language. It is a matter of linguistic chance that “bank” has these two totally
different and unrelated meanings in English.
By contrast, in a case of controlled equivocation or analogous predication,
we predicate of two things (x and y) one and the same name n, where n has
one meaning when predicated of x, n has a different but not unrelated
meaning when predicated of y, where one of these meanings is primary
whereas the other meaning derives its meaning from the primary meaning.
For example, consider the manner in which we use the word “good.” We
sometimes speak of “good dogs,” and sometimes we say things such as
“Doug is a good man.” The meanings of “good” in these two locutions
obviously differ one from another since in the first sense
no moral commendation is implied where there is moral commendation
implied in the latter. However, it also seems right to say that “good” is not
being used in completely different and unrelated ways in these locutions.
Rather, our speaking of “good dogs” derives its meaning from the primary
meaning of “good” as a way to offer moral commendation of human beings.
We thus use the word “good” as an analogous expression in Thomas’ sense.
To take an example Aristotle uses, “healthy” is used in the primary sense in
a locution such as “Joe is healthy.” We might also say “Joe’s urine is
healthy,” which uses “healthy” to pick out a sign of Joe’s health (in the
primary sense of that term), or “exercise is healthy,” which uses “healthy” to
pick out a cause of health (again, in the primary sense).
Thomas takes analogous predication or controlled equivocation to be
sufficient for good science and philosophy, assuming, of course, that the
other relevant conditions for good science or philosophy are met. Although
the most famous use to which Thomas puts his theory of analogous naming
is his attempt to make sense of a science of God, analogous naming is
relevant where many other aspects of philosophy are concerned, Thomas
thinks. For example, we also use words analogously when we talk about
being, knowledge, causation, and even science itself. Thomas therefore sees
a significant difference between complete equivocation and controlled
equivocation or analogous naming. Whereas the scientist qua scientist must
avoid the former, a discipline that uses words in the latter sense can properly
be understood to be scientific or disciplined.
4. Epistemology
a. The Nature of Knowledge and Science
Thomas is aware of the fact that there are different forms of knowledge. One
form of knowledge that is particularly important to a 13th-century professor
such as Thomas is scientific knowledge (scientia). However, Thomas
recognizes that scientific knowledge itself depends upon there being non-
scientific kinds of knowledge, for example, sense knowledge and knowledge
of self-evident propositions (about each of which, there is more below). We
can begin to get a sense of what Thomas means by scientia by way of his
discussion of faith, which is a form of knowledge he often contrasts
with scientia (see, for example, ST IIaIIae. q. 1, aa. 4-5; q. 2, a. 1). According
to Thomas, faith and scientia are alike in being subjectively certain. If I
believe that p by faith, then I am confident that p is true. It is likewise with
scientific knowledge. However, the reason for one’s being confident
that p differs in the cases of faith and scientia. If I know that p by way of
science, then I not only have compelling reasons that p, but I understand
why those reasons compel me to believe that p. In contrast to scientia, the
certainty of faith that p is grounded for Thomas in a rational belief that
someone else has scientia or intellectual vision with respect to p. Thus, the
certainty of faith is grounded in someone else’s testimony—in the case of
divine faith, the testimony of God. For Thomas, faith can and, at least for
those who have the time and talent, should be supported by reasons.
However, if Susan believes p by faith, Susan may see that p is true, but she
does not see why p is true. Susan’s belief that p is ultimately grounded in
confidence concerning some other person, for example, Jane’s epistemic
competence, where Jane’s competence involves seeing why p is true, either
by way of Jane’s having scientia of p, because Jane knows that p is self-
evidently true, or because Jane has sense knowledge that p.
We should note that, for Thomas, scientia itself is a term that we rightly use
analogously. For example, in speaking of science, we could be talking
about an act of inquiry whereby we draw certain conclusions, not previously
known, from things we already know, that is, starting from first principles,
where these principles are themselves known by way of (reflection upon our)
sense experiences, we draw out the logical implications of such principles.
We can contrast science as an act of inquiry with another kind of
speculative activity that Thomas calls contemplation. Both science (in the
sense of engaging in an act of inquiry) and contemplation are acts
of speculative intellect according to Thomas, that is, they are uses of
intellect that have truth as their immediate object. (In
contrast, practical uses of intellect are acts of intellect that aim at the
production of something other than what is thought about, for example,
thinking at the service of doing the right thing, in the right way, at the right
time, and so forth, or thinking at the service of bringing about a work of art.)
Thomas thinks that, whereas an act of scientific inquiry aims at discovering a
truth not already known, an act of contemplation aims at enjoying a truth
already known.
We can speak of science not only as an act of inquiry, but also as a
particularly strong sort of argument for the truth of a proposition that
Thomas calls a scientific demonstration. If a person possesses a scientific
demonstration of some proposition p, then he or she understands an
argument that p such that the argument is logically valid and he or she
knows with certainty that the premises of the argument are true.
In addition to the senses of science mentioned above, Thomas also
recognizes the Aristotelian sense of scientia as a particular kind of
intellectual habit or disposition or virtue, which habit is the fruit of scientia as
scientific inquiry and requires the possession of scientific demonstrations.
But science in the sense of a habit is more than the fruit of inquiry and the
possession of arguments. Science as a habit is a person’s possession of an
organized body of knowledge of and demonstrative argumentation about
some subject matter S, where possessing an organized body of knowledge of
and demonstrative argumentation about some subject matter is a function of
knowing (a) the basic facts about S, that is, the characteristic properties or
powers of things belonging to S, as well as (b) the principles, causes, or
explanations of these properties or powers of S, and (c) the logical
connections between (a) and (b). For example, according to this model of
science, I have a scientific knowledge of living things qua living things only if
I know the basic facts about all living things, for example, that living
things grow and diminish in size over time, nourish themselves,
and reproduce, and I know why living things have these characteristic
powers and properties. According to Thomas, a science as habit is a kind
of intellectual virtue, that is, a habit of knowledge about a subject matter,
acquired from experience, hard work, and discipline, where the acquisition of
that habit usually involves having a teacher or teachers. A person who
possesses a science s knows the right kind of starting points for thinking
about s, that is, the first principles or indemonstrable truths about s, and the
scientist can draw correct conclusions from these first principles. In other
words, if one has a science of s, one’s knowledge of s is systematic and
controlled by experience, and so one can speak about s with ease,
coherence, clarity, and profundity.
Thomas notes that the first principles of a science are
sometimes naturally known by the scientist, for example in the cases of
arithmetic and geometry (ST Ia. q. 1, a. 2). According to Thomas, the science
of sacred theology does not fit this characterization of science since the first
principles of sacred theology are articles of faith and so are not known by the
natural light of reason but rather by the grace of God revealing the truth of
such principles to human beings. Of course, contemporary philosophers of
science would not find sacred theology’s inability to fit neatly into a well-
defined univocal conception of science to be a problem for the scientific
status of sacred theology. Think of the demarcation problem, that is, the
problem of identifying necessary and sufficient conditions for some discourse
counting as science. The demarcation problem suggests that science is a
term we use analogously. This is what Thomas thinks. For example, Thomas
recognizes that, even among those sciences whose first premises are known
to some human beings by the natural light of reason, there are some
sciences (call them “the xs”) such that scientists practicing the xs, at least
where knowledge of some of the first principles of the xs is concerned,
depend upon the testimony of scientists in disciplines other than their own.
For example, optics makes use of principles treated in geometry, and music
makes use of principles treated in mathematics. If, for example, all musicians
had to be experts at mathematics, most musicians would never get to
practice the science of music itself. Thus, musicians take the principles and
findings of mathematics as a starting point for the practice of their own
science. Like optics and music, therefore, sacred theology draws on
principles known by those with a higher science, in this case, the science
possessed by God and the blessed (see, for example, ST Ia. q. 1, a.
2, respondeo). Unlike optics, music, and other disciplines studied at the
university, the principles of sacred theology are not known by the natural
light of reason. However, sacred theology is nonetheless a science, since
those who possess such a science can, for example, draw logical conclusions
from the articles of faith, argue that one article of faith is logically consistent
with the other articles of faith, and answer objections to the articles of faith,
doing all of these things systematically, clearly, and with ease by drawing on
the teachings of other sciences, including philosophy (ST Ia. q. 1, a. 8).
b. The Extension of Science
Given his notion of science (whether taken as activity, demonstrative
argument or intellectual virtue), we might think that Thomas understands
the extension of science to be wider than what most of our contemporaries
would allow. There is a sense in which this is true. Although there is certainly
disagreement among our contemporaries over the scientific status of some
disciplines studied at modern universities, for example, psychology and
sociology, all agree that disciplines such as physics, chemistry, and biology
are to be counted among the sciences. The demarcation problem
notwithstanding, we tend to think of science as natural science, where a
natural science constitutes a discipline that studies the natural world by way
of looking for spatio-temporal patterns in that world, where “the way of
looking” tends to involve controlled experiments (Artigas 2000, p. 8).
Thomas would have known something of science in this sense from his
teacher St. Albert the Great (c. 1206-1280). However, for Thomas, (for
whom science is understood as a discipline or intellectual virtue) disciplines
such as mathematics, music, philosophy, and theology count as sciences too
since those who practice such disciplines can talk about the subjects studied
in those disciplines in a way that is systematic, orderly, capacious, and
controlled by common human experience (and, in some cases, in the light of
the findings of other sciences).
On the other hand, there is a sense in which Thomas’ understanding of
science is more restrictive than the contemporary notion. Thomas follows
Aristotle in thinking that we know something x scientifically only if our
knowledge of x is certain. That is to say, we have demonstrative knowledge
of x, that is, our knowledge begins from premises that we know with
certainty by way of reflection upon sense experience, for example, all
animals are mortal or there cannot be more in the effect than in its cause or
causes, and ends by drawing logically valid conclusions from those premises.
However, it seems to be a hallmark of the modern notion of science that the
claims of science are, in fact, fallible, and so, by definition, uncertain.
c. The Four Causes
No account of Thomas’ philosophy of science would be complete without
mentioning the doctrine of the four causes. Following Aristotle, Thomas
thinks the most capacious scientific account of a physical object or event
involves mentioning its four causes, that is, its efficient, material, formal, and
final causes. Of course, some things (of which we could possibly have a
science of some sort) do not have four causes for Thomas. For example,
immaterial substances will not have a material cause. However, Thomas
thinks that material objects—whether natural or artificial—do have four
causes. For example, for any material object O, O has four causes, the
material cause (what O is made of), the formal cause (what O is), the final
cause (what the end, goal, purpose, or function of O is), and the efficient
cause (what brings—or conserves—O in(to) being). One has a scientific
knowledge of O (or O’s kind) only if one knows all four causes of O or the
kind to which O belongs. Here follows a more detailed account of each of the
four causes as Thomas understands them.
i. The Efficient Cause
An efficient cause of x is a being that acts to bring x into existence,
preserve x in existence, perfect x in existence, or otherwise bring about
some feature F in x. For example, Michelangelo was the efficient cause of
the David. Thomas thinks that there are different kinds of efficient causes,
which kinds of efficient causes may all be at work in one and the same object
or event, albeit in different ways. For example, Thomas thinks that God is
the primary efficient cause of any created being, at every moment in which
that created being exists. That is, if it were not for God’s timelessly and
efficiently causing a creature to exist at some time t, that creature would not
exist at t. God’s act of creation and conservation with respect to some
creature C does not rule out that C also simultaneously has creatures
as secondary efficient causes of C. This is because God and creatures are
efficient causes in different and yet analogous senses. God is the primary
efficient cause as creator ex nihilo, timelessly conserving the very existence
of any created efficient cause at every moment that it exists, whereas
creatures are secondary efficient causes in the sense that they go to work on
pre-existing matter such that matter that is merely potentially F actually
becomes F. For example, we might say that a sperm cell and female gamete
work on one another at fertilization and thereby function
as secondary efficient causes of a human being H coming into existence. To
continue with this example, Thomas thinks that God, too, is at work as
the primary efficient cause of H’s coming into existence, since, for example,
(a) God is the creating and conserving cause of (i) any sperm cell as long as
it exists, (ii) any female gamete as long as it exists, and (iii) all aspects of the
environment necessary for successful fertilization. In addition, Thomas thinks
(b) God is the creating and conserving cause of the existence of H itself as
long as H exists.
ii. The Material Cause
Thomas thinks that “material cause” (or simply “matter”) is an expression
that has a number of different but related meanings. Perhaps the most
obvious sense of “matter” is what “garden-variety” objects and their
“garden-variety” parts are made of. In this sense of “matter,” the material
cause of an axe is some iron and some wood.

There is one sense of “matter” that is very important for an analysis of

change, thinks Thomas. Matter in this sense explains why x is capable of
being transformed into something that x currently is not. The material cause
in this sense is the subject of change—that which explains how something
can lose the property not-F and gain the property F. For example, the
material cause for an accidental change is some substance. Socrates himself
is the material cause of the change that consists in Socrates’ losing the
property of not-standing and gaining the property of standing. Such a
change is accidental since the substance we name Socrates does not in this
case go out of existence in virtue of losing the property of not-standing and
gaining the property of standing.
The material cause for a substantial change is what medieval interpreters of
Aristotle such as Thomas call prima materia (prime or first matter). Prime
matter is that cause of x that is intrinsic to x (we might say, is a part of x)
that explains why x is subject to substantial change. For Thomas, substances
are unified objects of the highest order. Substances, for example, living
things, are thus to be directly contrasted with heaps or collections of objects,
for example, a pile of garbage or an army. Thomas thinks that if substantial
changes had actual substances functioning as the ultimate subjects for those
substantial changes, then it would be reasonable to call into question the
substantial existence of those so-called substances that are (supposedly)
composed of such substances. If Socrates were composed, say, of
Democritean atoms that were substances in their own right, then Socrates,
at best, would be nothing more than an arrangement of atoms. He would
merely be an accidental being—an accidental relation between a number of
substances—instead of a substance. At worst, Socrates would not exist at all
(if we think the only substances are fundamental entities such as atoms, and
Socrates is not an atom). Since Thomas thinks of Socrates as a paradigm
case of a substance, he thus thinks that the matter of a substantial change
must be something that is in and of itself not actually a substance but is
merely the ultimate material cause of some substance. Thomas calls this
ultimate material cause of a substance that can undergo substantial
change prime matter. For example, consider that a bear eats a bug at t, so
that the bug exists in space s, that is, the bear’s stomach, at t. Some prime
matter therefore is configured by the substantial form of a bug in s at t such
that there is a bug in s at t. At time t+1, when the bug dies in the bear’s
stomach, the prime matter in s loses the substantial form of a bug and that
prime matter comes to be configured by a myriad of substantial forms such
that the bug no longer exists at t+1. What exists in s at t+1 is a collection of
substances, for example, living cells arranged bug-wise, where the cells
themselves will soon undergo substantial changes so that what will exist is a
collection of non-living substances, for example, the kinds and numbers of
atoms and molecules that compose the living cells of a living bug.
That being said, Thomas thinks prime matter never exists without being
configured by some form. First of all, matter always exists under dimensions,
and so this prime matter (rather than that prime matter) is configured by the
accidental form of quantity, and more specifically, the accidental quantity of
existing in three dimensions (see, for example, Commentary on Boethius’ De
trinitate q. 4, a. 2, respondeo). In addition, it is never the case that some
prime matter exists without being configured by some substantial form. For
example, some quantity of prime matter m might be configured by the
substantial form of an insect at t, be configured by the substantial forms of a
collection of living cells at t+1 (for example, some moments after the insect
has been eaten by a frog), be configured by the substantial forms of a
collection of chemical compounds at t+2, and be incorporated into the body
of a frog as an integral part of the frog such that it is configured by the frog’s
substantial form at t+3. A portion of prime matter is always configured by a
substantial form, though not necessarily this or that substantial form.
Note the theoretical significance of the view that material substances are
composed of prime matter as a part. Prime matter is the material causal
explanation of the fact that a material substance S’s generation and
(potential) corruption are changes that are real (contra Parmenides of
Elea), substantial (contra atomists such as Democritus), natural (contra
those who might say that all substantial changes are miraculous), and
intelligible (contra Heraclitus of Ephesus and Plato of Athens).
iii. The Formal Cause
Like the material cause of an object, the expression formal cause is said in
many ways. There are at least three for Thomas. First, formal cause might
mean “the nature or definition of a thing,” that is, what-it-is-to-be S. The
formal cause of a primary substance x in this sense is the substance-sortal
that picks out what x is most fundamentally or the definition of that
substance-sortal. For example, for Socrates this would be human being, or,
what-it-is-to-be-a-human being, and, given that human beings can be
defined as rational animals, rational animal. Although Socrates certainly
belongs to other substance-sortals, for example, animal, living thing, rational
substance, and substance, such substance-sortals only count as genera to
which Socrates belongs; they do not count as Socrates’ infima species, that
is, the substance-sortal that picks out what Socrates is most fundamentally.
Of course, Socrates can be classified in many other ways, too, for example,
as a philosopher or someone who chose not to flee his Athenian prison.
However, such classifications are not substantial for Thomas, but merely
accidental, for Socrates need not be (or have been) a philosopher—for
example, Socrates was not a philosopher when he was two years old, nor
someone who chose not to flee his Athenian prison, for even Socrates might
have failed to live up to his principles on a given day.
A second sense that formal cause can have for Thomas is that which is
intrinsic to or inheres in x and explains that x is actually F. There are two
kinds of formal cause in this sense for Thomas. First, there are accidental
forms (or simply, accidents). Accidental forms inhere in a substance and
explain that a substance x actually is F, where F is a feature that x can gain
or lose without x’s ceasing to exist, for example, Socrates’ being tan,
Socrates’ weighing 180 lbs, and so forth. Second, there are substantial
forms. According to Thomas, substantial forms are particulars—each
individual substance has its own individual substantial form—and the
substantial form of a substance is the intrinsic formal cause of (a) that
substance’s being and (b) that substance’s belonging to the species that it
does. A substantial form is a form intrinsic to x that explains the fact that x is
actually F, where F is a feature that x cannot gain or lose without ceasing to
exist, for example, Socrates’ property being an animal.
A third sense of formal cause for Thomas is the pattern or definition of a
thing insofar as it exists in the mind of the maker. Thomas calls this
the exemplar formal cause. For example, the form of a house can exist
insofar as it is instantiated in matter, for example, in a house. However, the
form of (or plan for) a house can also exist in the mind of the architect, even
before an actual house is built. This latter sense of formal cause is what we
might call the exemplar formal cause. For Thomas, following St. Augustine,
some of the ideas of God are exemplar formal causes in this sense, for
example, God’s idea of the universe in general, God’s idea of what-it-is-to-be
a human being, and so forth, function, as it were, as plans or archetypes in
the mind of the Creator for created substances.
iv. The Final Cause
The final cause of an object O is the end, goal, purpose, or function of O.
Some material objects have functions as their final causes, namely, that is,
artifacts and the parts of organic wholes. For example, the function of a knife
is to cut, and the purpose of the heart is to pump blood. Therefore, the final
cause of the knife is to cut; the final cause of the heart is to pump blood.
Thomas thinks that all substances have final causes. However, Thomas (like
Aristotle) thinks of the final cause in a manner that is broader than what we
typically mean by function. It is a mistake, therefore, to think that all
substances for Thomas have functions in the sense that artifacts or the parts
of organic wholes have functions as final causes (we might say that all
functions are final causes, but not all final causes are functions). For
example, Thomas does not think that clouds have functions in the sense that
artifacts or the parts of organic wholes do, but clouds do have final causes. In
the broadest sense, that is, in a sense that would apply to all final causes,
the final cause of an object is an inclination or tendency to act in a certain
way, where such a way of acting tends to bring about a certain range of
effects. For example, a knife is something that tends to cut. A cloud is a
substance that tends to interact with other substances in the atmosphere in
certain ways, ways that are not identical to the ways that either oxygen per
se or nitrogen per se tends to interact with other substances.
For Thomas, the final cause is “the cause of all causes” (On the Principles of
Nature, ch. 4) and so the final, formal, efficient, and material causes go
“hand in hand.” If an object has a tendency to act in a certain way, for
example, frogs tend to jump and swim, that tendency—final causality—
requires that the frog has a certain formal cause, that is, it is a thing of a
certain kind. In addition, things that jump and swim must be composed of
certain sorts of stuffs and certain sorts of organs. Frogs, since they are by
nature things that flourish by way of jumping and swimming, are composed
of bone, blood, and flesh, as well as limbs that are good for jumping and
swimming. Finally, a frog’s jumping is something the frog does insofar as it is
a frog, given the frog’s form and final cause. That is to say, it is clear that the
frog acts as an efficient cause when it jumps, since a frog is the sort of thing
that tends to jump (rather than fly or do summersaults). Contrast the frog
that is unconscious and pushed such that it falls down a hill. In so falling, the
frog is not acting as an efficient cause.
As we have seen, some final causes are functions, whereas it makes better
sense to say that some final causes are not functions but rather ends or
goals or purposes of the characteristic efficient causality of the substances
that have such final causes. In closing this section, we can note that some
final causes are intrinsic whereas others are extrinsic. According to Thomas,
each and every substance tends to act in a certain way rather than other
ways, given the sort of thing it is; such goal-directedness in a substance is
its intrinsic final causality. However, sometimes an object O acts as an
efficient cause of an effect E (partly) because of the final causality of an
object extrinsic to O. Call such final causality extrinsic. For example, John
finds Jane attractive, and thereby John decides to go over to Jane and talk to
her. John’s own desire for happiness, happiness that John currently believes
is linked to Jane, is part of the explanation for why John moves closer to Jane
and is a good example of intrinsic formal causality, but Jane’s beauty is also
a final cause of John’s action and is a good example of extrinsic final
causality.
d. The Sources of Knowledge: Thomas’
Philosophical Psychology
Thomas thinks there are different kinds of knowledge, for example, sense
knowledge, knowledge of individuals, scientia, and faith, each of which is
interesting in its own right and deserving of extended treatment where its
sources are concerned. For present purposes, we shall focus on what Thomas
takes to be the sources of knowledge requisite for knowledge
as scientia, and, since Thomas recognizes different senses of scientia, what
Thomas takes to be the sources for knowledge as a scientific
demonstration of a proposition in particular.
As we have seen, if a person possesses scientia with respect to some
proposition p for Thomas, then he or she understands an argument
that p such that the argument is logically valid and he or she knows the
premises of the argument with certainty. Therefore, one of the sources
of scientia for Thomas is the operation of the intellect that Thomas
calls reasoning (ratiocinatio), that is, the act of drawing a logically valid
conclusion from other propositions (see, for example, ST Ia. q. 79, a. 8).
Reasoning is sometimes called by Thomists, the third act of the intellect.
How do we come to know the premises of a demonstration with certainty?
Our coming to know with certainty the truth of a proposition, Thomas thinks,
potentially involves a number of different powers and operations, each of
which is rightly considered a source of scientia. Before we speak of
the intellectual powers and operations (in addition to ratiocination) that are
at play when we come to have scientia, we must first say something about
the non-intellectual cognitive powers that are sources of scientia for Thomas.
Thomas agrees with Aristotle that the intellectual powers differ in kind from
the sensitive powers such as the five senses and imagination. Nonetheless,
Thomas also thinks that all human knowledge in this life begins with
sensation. Even our knowledge of God begins, according to Thomas, with
what we know of the material world. Since God, for Thomas, is immaterial,
the claim that “knowledge… begins in sense” (Disputed Questions on Truth,
q. 1, a. 11, respondeo) should not be thought to mean that knowledge
of x requires that we can form an accurate image of x. Thomas’ claim rather
means that knowledge of any object x presupposes some (perhaps prior)
activity on the part of the senses. Indeed, Thomas thinks that sensation is so
tightly connected with human knowing that we invariably
imagine something when we are thinking about anything at all. Of course, if
God exists, that means that what we imagine when we think about God
bears little or no relation to the reality, since God is not something sensible.
Given the importance of sense experience for knowledge for Thomas, we
must mention certain sense powers that are preambles to any operation of
the human intellect.
In addition to the five exterior senses (see, for example, ST Ia. q. 78, a. 3),
Thomas argues that a capacious account of human cognition requires that
we mention various interior senses as preambles to proper intellectual
activity (see, for example, ST Ia. q. 78, a. 4). For in order for perfect animals
(that is, animals that move themselves, such as horses, oxen, and human
beings [see, for example, Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima, n. 255]) to
make practical use of what they cognize by way of the exterior senses, they
must have a faculty that senses whether or not they are, in fact, sensing, for
the faculties of sight, hearing, and so forth themselves do not confer this
ability. In addition, none of the exterior senses enables their possessor to
distinguish between the various objects of sense, for example, the sense of
sight does not cognize taste, and so forth. Therefore, the animal must have a
faculty in addition to the exterior senses by which the animal can identify
different kinds of sensations, for example, of color, smell, and so forth with
one particular object of experience. We might think that it is some sort of
intellectual faculty that coordinates different sensations, but not all animals
have reason. Therefore, animals must have an interior sense faculty whereby
they sense that they are sensing, and that unifies the distinct sensations of
the various sense faculties. Thomas calls this faculty, following Avicenna, the
common sense (not to be confused, of course, with common sense as that
which most ordinary people know and professors are often accused of not
possessing). Since, for Thomas, human beings are animals too, they also
possess the faculty of common sense.
In addition to the common sense, Thomas argues that we also need what
philosophers have called phantasy or imagination to explain our experience
of the cognitive life of animals (including human beings). For, clearly, perfect
animals sometimes move themselves to a food source that is currently
absent. Therefore, such animals need to be able to imagine things that are
not currently present to the senses but have been cognized previously in
order to explain their movement to a potential food source. On the
assumption that, in corporeal things, to receive and retain are reduced to
diverse principles, Thomas argues the faculty of imagination is thus distinct
from the exterior senses and the common sense. He also notes that
imagination in human beings is interestingly different from that of other
animals insofar as human beings, but not other animals, are capable of
imagining objects they have never cognized by way of the exterior senses, or
objects that do not in fact exist, for example, a golden mountain.
In Thomas’ view, we cannot explain the behavior of perfect animals simply
by speaking of the pleasures and pains that such creatures have
experienced. Thus, we need to posit two additional powers in those animals.
The estimative power is that power by which an animal perceives certain
cognitions instinctively, for example, the sheep’s cognition that the wolf is an
enemy or the bird’s cognition that straw is useful for building a nest (for
neither the sheep nor the bird knows this simply by way of what it cognizes
by way of the exterior senses). The memorative power is that power that
retains cognitions produced by the estimative power. Since (a) the
estimative sense and common sense are different kinds of powers, (b) the
common sense and the imagination are different kinds of powers, and (c) the
estimative power can be compared to the common sense whereas the
memorative power can be compared to the imagination, it stands to reason
that the estimative power and the memorative power are different powers.
Just as intellect in human beings makes a difference in the functioning of the
faculty of imagination for Thomas, so also does the presence of intellect in
human beings transform the nature of the estimative and memorative
powers in human beings. As Thomas notes, this is why the estimative and
memorative powers have been given special names by philosophers: the
estimative power in human beings is called the cogitative power and the
memorative power is called the reminiscitive power. The cogitative power in
human beings is that power that enables human beings to make an
individual thing, event, or phenomena, qua individual thing, event, or
phenomena, an object of thought. For example, if Joe comes to believe “this
man is wearing red,” he does so partly in virtue of an operation of the
cogitative power, since Joe is thinking about this man and his properties (and
not simply man in general and redness in general, both of which, for Thomas,
are cognized by way of an intellectual and not a sensitive power; see below).
Similarly, if I come to think, “I should not steal,” I do so partly by way of my
cogitative power according to Thomas insofar as I am ascribing a property to
an individual thing, in this case, myself. As for the reminiscitive power, it
enables its possessor to remember cognitions produced by the cogitative
power. In other words, it helps us to remember intellectual cognitions
about individual objects. For example, say that I am trying to remember the
name of a particular musician. I employ the reminiscitive power when I think
about the names of other musicians who play on recordings with the
musician whose name I cannot now remember but want to remember.
Having said something about the non-intellectual, cognitive sources
of scientia for Thomas, we can return to speaking of the
properly intellectual powers and activities of human beings necessary
for scientia. According to Thomas, there are two powers of the intellect,
powers Thomas calls the active intellect and the passive intellect,
respectively. Thomas thinks that the intellect has what he calls
a passive power since human beings come to know things they did not know
previously (see, for example, ST Ia. q. 79, a. 2). In being able to do this,
human beings are unlike the angels, Thomas thinks, since, according to
Thomas, the angels are created actually knowing everything they will
naturally know. (According to Thomas, the blessed angels do come to have
supernatural knowledge, namely, knowledge of the essence of God in the
beatific vision.) Following Aristotle, Thomas believes that the intellect of a
human being, in contrast to that of an angel, is a tabula rasa at the
beginning of its existence. The passive intellect of a human being is that
which receives what a person comes to know; it is also the power by which a
human being retains, intellectually, what is received. For Thomas, therefore,
the passive intellect plays the role of memory where knowledge of the
nature of things is concerned [see, for example, ST Ia. q. 79, a. 7). For
example, say John does not know what a star is at time t. He reads about
stars at t+1 and in doing so comes to know the nature of a star. Since John’s
intellect has been altered such that he knows something he did not know
before, there must be a power that explains this ability to receive
knowledge; for Thomas, it is John’s passive intellect, that is, the intellect
insofar as John can come to know something he did not know before.
Whereas the passive intellect is that which receives and retains an
intelligible form, what Thomas calls the active intellect is the efficient cause
intrinsic to the knowing agent that makes what is potentially knowable
actually so. In Thomas’ view, anything that is understood is understood in
virtue of its form. However, the forms of material things, although potentially
intelligible, are not actually intelligible insofar as they configure matter, but
human beings can understand material things. Therefore, since that which is
brought from potency to act is done so only by that which is appropriately
actual, we do not know things innately, and we sometimes experience
ourselves actually understanding things, there must be a power in human
beings that can cause the forms of material objects to become actually
intelligible. That power is what Thomas calls the active intellect.
We can round out our discussion of Thomas’ account of the sources
of scientia by speaking of the three activities of the powers of the intellect.
The first act of the intellect is what Thomists call the act of simple
apprehension; this is the intellect’s act of coming to understand the essence
of a thing (see, for example, Commentary on Aristotle’s On Interpretation,
Proeemium, n. 1). The intellectual act of simple apprehension is simple in the
sense that it does not yet imply a judgment on the part of an intellect about
the truth or falsity of a proposition. For example, it is by the intellect’s act of
simple apprehension that a person cognizes what a thing is, that is, its
quiddity, without forming true or false propositions about that quiddity such
as, it exists, or it is F rather than not-F.
According to Thomas, the intellect’s simple act of apprehension is the
termination of a process that involves not only the activities of intellectual
powers but sensory powers, too, both exterior and interior. As we have seen,
Thomas thinks that all intellection begins with sensation. Therefore, when we
come to understand the essence of a material object, say a bird, the form of
the bird is first received spiritually in a material organ, for example, the eye.
To say that the form of the bird is received spiritually is simply to say that
what is received is received as a form, where the form in question does not
exist in the sense organ as it exists extra-mentally. As Stump (2003, p. 253)
notes, we might think of this form, as it exists in the sense organ,
as encoded information. Thomas calls this immaterial reception of the bird in
the eye “the sensible species” of the object cognized. We do not, as of yet,
have enough to explain an animal’s conscious awareness of what is sensed.
In order for this to occur, Thomas speaks of the need of the sensible species
being worked on by the power of phantasia. At that point, the agent has
a phantasm of the bird; she is at least conscious of a blue, smallish object
with wings. From the phantasm, including experiences of similar phantasms
stored in phantasia or the reminiscitive power, the power of active intellect
abstracts what Thomas calls the intelligible species from the phantasm(s),
that is, leaves to one side those features the agent recognizes are accidental
to the object being cognized in order to focus on the quiddity, nature, or
essence of what is being cognized. The resulting quiddity is received in the
possible intellect. Finally, the intelligible species is transformed into an “inner
word” or “concept,” that is, there is conscious awareness of the quiddity of
what has been cognized such that the quiddity is recognized as
corresponding to a word such as “bird.”
So far we have spoken of the third and first acts of the intellect. The second
activity of the intellect is what Thomists call judgment, but Thomas himself
typically speaks of the intellect’s composing and dividing (see, for
example, Commentary on Aristotle’s On Interpretation, Proeemium, n. 1, and
ST Ia. q. 85, a. 5). In this act of the intellect, the intellect compares quiddities
and judges whether or not this property or accident should be attributed to
this quiddity. For example, Joe comes to know the quiddity of mammality and
animality through the first act of intellect and judges (correctly) that all
mammals are animals by way of the second act of understanding.
Since scientia for Thomas involves possessing arguments that are logically
valid and whose premises are obviously true, one of the sources
of scientia for Thomas is the intellect’s second act of intellect, composing
and dividing, whereby the scientist forms true premises, or propositions, or
judgments about reality. Since such judgments have the intellect’s first act
of understanding as a prerequisite—one cannot truly judge that all mammals
are animals until one apprehends animality and mammality—acts of simple
apprehension are also a source of scientific knowledge for Thomas. This
brings us back to where we started, with the third act of intellect,
namely, ratiocination, the intellect’s ability to derive a logically valid
conclusion from some other proposition or propositions, for example, judging
that all mammals are animals and all animals are living things, we reason to
the conclusion that all mammals are living things. To take a more interesting
example, if we judge that all human beings have intellectual souls and all
intellectual souls are by nature incorruptible, it follows that any human being
has a part that survives the biological death of that human being.
We would be remiss not to mention God as a source of all forms of
knowledge for Thomas. For all human intellection involves many instances
of change, of going from a state of not-knowing that p to knowing that p, and
each and every change, Thomas thinks, requires as part of its sufficient
explanation the action of one being that is itself absolutely immutable (see,
for example, Thomas’ so-called first way of demonstrating the existence of
God at ST Ia. q. 2, a. 3, respondeo). Thomas believes (by faith) that the God
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is this one immutable being. Therefore, in
Thomas’ view God is the primary uncaused cause of each and every act of
human intellection. However, all of this is consistent, Thomas thinks, with
human intellects also being real and active secondary causes of their own
acts of knowing. Unlike some of his forerunners in philosophical psychology,
Thomas thinks that each and every human being has his or her own agent
intellect by which he or she can “light up” the phantasms in order to actually
understand a thing. (Here we can contrast Thomas’ views with those of St.
Augustine of Hippo, Ibn Sina [Avicenna], and Ibn Rushd [Averroes], all of
whom think God or some non-human intellect plays the role of agent
intellect). Although God’s act of creating and sustaining any intellectual
activity is a necessary condition and the primary efficient cause for any
human act of coming to know something not previously known, it is neither a
sufficient condition nor the sole cause of such activity, Thomas thinks. For a
human being, too, is a secondary, efficient cause of his or her coming to
know something.
5. Metaphysics
a. On Metaphysics as a Science
In Thomas’ Aristotelian understanding of science, a science S has a subject
matter, and a scientist with respect to S knows the basic facts about the
subject matter of S, the principles or starting points for thinking about the
subject matter of S, the causes of the subject matter of S, and the proper
accidents of the subject matter of S. Following Aristotle, Thomas thinks of
metaphysics as a science in this sense. For Thomas, the subject matter of
the science of metaphysics is being qua being or being in common, that is,
being insofar as it can be said of anything that is a being. (Contrast, for
example, the narrower subject matters of philosophical physics, which
studies physical being insofar as it can be investigated philosophically, and
natural theology, which studies immaterial being insofar as it can be studied
by the power of natural reason alone.) Thomas also thinks intelligent
discussion of the subject matter of metaphysics requires that one recognize
that “being is said in many ways,” that is, that there are a number of
different but non-arbitrarily related meanings for being, for example, being
as substance, quality, quantity, or relation, being qua actual,
being qua potential, and so forth. The metaphysician, minimally, can speak
intelligently about the proper relationships between these many different but
related meanings of “being.”
The principles of being qua being include those principles that are ever and
always employed but are never themselves considered carefully in all
disciplines, for example, the principle of identity and the principle of non-
contradiction. The causes of being qua being are the efficient, formal, and
final causes of being qua being, namely, God. Finally, the proper accidents of
being qua being are “one,” “good,” “beautiful,” “same,” “whole,” “part,” and
so forth. For Thomas, metaphysics involves not only disciplined discussion of
the different senses of being but rational discourse about these principles,
causes, and proper accidents of being.
Note that Thomas therefore thinks about the subject matter of metaphysics
in a manner that differs from that of contemporary analytic philosophers.
Contemporary analytic philosophers tend to think about metaphysics as the
philosophical discipline that treats a collection of questions about ultimate
reality (see, for example, Van Inwagen 2015, p. 3). However, this
contemporary understanding of the subject matter of metaphysics is too
broad for Thomas since he thinks there are philosophical disciplines distinct
from metaphysics that treat matters of ultimate reality, for example, the
ultimate causes of being qua movable are treated in philosophical physics or
natural philosophy, the ultimate principles of human being are treated in
philosophical anthropology.
b. On What There Is: Metaphysics as the Science
of Being qua Being
For Thomas, when we think about the meaning of being wisely, we recognize
that we use it analogously and not univocally. Thus, one of the things the
metaphysician does, thinks Thomas, is identify, describe, and articulate the
relationship between the different senses of being. Let us catalogue some of
the ways Thomas uses “being,” which ways of using the expression “being”
are best understood by way of emphasizing Thomas’ examples.
In one place Thomas distinguishes four different senses of being (Disputed
Questions on Truth q. 21, a. 4, ad4). Being in the primary sense
is substantial being, for example, Socrates, or a particular tree. However,
there are also extended senses of being; there is being in the sense of
the principles of substances, that is, form and matter, being in the sense of
the dispositions or accidents of a substance, for example, a quality of a
substance, and being in the sense of a privation of a disposition of a
substance, for example, a man’s blindness. Again, although the same word is
used to speak of these four realities, the term being does not have precisely
the same meaning in these four cases, although all four meanings are
related to the primary meaning of being as substance.
Another distinction Thomas makes where being is concerned is the
distinction between being in act and being in potency. Being in potency does
not actually exist now but is such that it can exist at some point in the
future, given the species to which that being in potency belongs. In contrast,
being in act exists now. For example, say Socrates is not tan right now but
can be tan in the future, given that he is a rational animal, and rational
animals are such that they can be tan. Socrates is therefore not tan in act,
but rather tan in potency (see, for example, On the Principles of Nature, ch.
1). The distinction between being in act and being in potency is important
because it helps solve a puzzle raised by Parmenides, namely, how
something can change. If “being” can only refer to what exists in act, then
there can be no change. However, if being is said in many ways, not only of
what actually is but also what can be in the sense of what can become what
it is not, then change can be understood as something intelligible (see, for
example, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, lec. 6, n. 39). The viability of
the distinction between being in act and being in potency can be confirmed
by thinking about the way we commonly speak and think. For example,
compare a rock and a very young person who is not yet old enough to see.
Both of them do not actually see, but not in the same sense. For we
rightly negate the ability to see of a rock; it does not actually have the ability
to see, nor does it potentially have such an ability, given the sort of thing
that it is. However, although a very young human person, like the rock, does
not actually have the ability to see, that young person is nonetheless
potentially something that sees.
If a being were fully actual, then it would be incapable of change. If a being
were purely potential, then it would not, by itself, actually exist. Thus,
actually existent beings capable of change are composites of act and
potency. The principle of actuality in a composite being explains that the
being in question actually exists or actually has certain properties whereas
the principle of potentiality in a composite being explains that the being in
question either need not exist—it is not in the nature of that thing to exist—
or is a thing capable of substantial change such that its matter can become
part of some numerically distinct substance.

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.

Thomas thinks there are at least three mutually reinforcing approaches to

establishing truths about God philosophically: the way of causation; the way
of negation, and the way of perfection (or transcendence). Thomas makes
use of each one of these methods, for example, in his treatment of what can
be said truly about God by the natural light of reason in ST.
b. The Way of Causation: On Demonstrating the
Existence of God
Thomas offers what he takes to be demonstrations of the existence of God in
a number of places in his corpus. (On the meaning of the term
“demonstration,” see the section on Thomas’ epistemology). His most
complete argument is found in SCG, book I, chapter 13. There is also an
argument that Brian Davies (1992, p. 31) calls “the existence argument,”
which can be found at, for example, ST Ia. q. 65, a. 1, respondeo. The most
famous of Thomas’ arguments for the existence of God, however, are the so-
called “five ways,” found relatively early in ST.
There are a number of things to keep in mind about the five ways. First, the
five ways are not complete arguments, for example, we should expect to find
some suppressed premises in these arguments. To see this, we can compare
the first way of demonstrating the existence of God in ST Ia. q. 2, a. 3, which
is an argument from motion, with Thomas’ complete presentation of the
argument from motion in SCG, book I, chapter 13. Whereas the former is
offered in one paragraph, the latter is given in 32 paragraphs.

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.).

 This argument might be formulated as follows:

1. In the world that can be perceived by the

senses, there is an order of efficient
causes, for example, there is something E
that is an effect of an efficient cause or
causes at a time t, for example, there is
an animal whose existence at t is an
effect of a number of efficient causes, for
example, the warmth of the earth’s
atmosphere at t, there being oxygen in
the atmosphere for the animal to breath
at t, and the proper functioning of
biological systems within the animal at t,
and so forth, and some of those efficient
causes of E are themselves effects of
 other efficient causes at t, for example,
the warmth of the earth’s atmosphere
at t is an effect of the sun’s warming the
atmosphere of the earth at t and the
proper functioning of biological systems
within the animal at t is an effect of the
action of certain bio-chemicals within
those biological systems at t, and so forth
[assumption].
2. If there is an order of efficient causes, for
example, there is some effect E that
has x as an efficient cause at t,
and x itself has y as an efficient cause
at t, and y itself has z as an efficient
cause at t, and so forth, then (a) there is
an order of efficient causes of E at t that
is infinite, (b) there exists something (E or
a cause of E) that is the efficient cause of
itself at t, or (c) there is an absolutely first
efficient cause of E’s existence at t, that
is, E’s existence has an efficient cause
at t where that efficient cause itself does
not itself have an efficient cause
[assumption].
3. Nothing can be the efficient cause of
itself, all by itself, otherwise it would be
metaphysically prior to itself, which is
impossible [assumption].
4. Therefore, if there is an order of efficient
causes, for example, there is some effect
E that has x as an efficient cause of its
existence at t, and x itself has y as an
efficient cause at t, and so forth, then (a)
there is an order of efficient causes of E
at t that is infinite or (c) there is an
absolutely first efficient cause of E’s
existence at t [from (2) and (3),
conditional introduction].
5. (a) There is an order of efficient causes of
E at t that is infinite or (c) there is an
absolutely first efficient cause of E’s
existence at t [from (1) and (4), MP].
6. In an order of efficient causes such
that a is an efficient cause of b and b is an
efficient cause of an effect c, a is a first
 cause of b and c and b is an intermediate
cause of the effect c [assumption].
7. To take away the cause is to take away
the effect [assumption].
8. Therefore, if it is not the case that there is
an absolutely first efficient cause of an
effect E’s existence at t, then there are no
intermediate causes and so no effect E
at t [from (6) and (7)].
9. If there is an order of efficient causes of E
at t that is infinite, then it is not the case
that there is an absolutely first efficient
cause of E’s existence at t [assumption].
10. Therefore, if there is an order of efficient
causes of E at t that is infinite, then there
are no intermediate causes and no effect
E [from (8) and (9), HS].
11. It is not the case that there are no
intermediate causes and no effect E [from
(1)].
12. Therefore, it is not the case that there is
an order of efficient causes of E at t that
is infinite [from (10) and (11), MT].
13. Therefore, there is an absolutely first
efficient cause of E’s existence at t [from
(5) and (12), DS].
14. An absolutely first efficient cause of E’s
existence at t is what everyone calls
“God” [assumption].
15. Therefore, there is a God [from (13) and
(14)].
The second premise, third premise, seventh premise, the inference to the
eighth premise, and the fourteenth premise likely require further
explanation. As for premise (2), we should note that Thomas assumes the
truth of a principle often called the principle of causality. The principle of
causality states that every effect has a cause. The principle of causality is a
piece of common sense that arguably also plays a pivotal role in all scientific
inquiry. If, for example, Susan was eating Wheaties for breakfast and
suddenly a blueberry appeared on the top of her cereal, it would be
reasonable for Susan to ask, “What caused the blueberry to be there?” We
would not accept the following answer as a legitimate response to that
question: “Nothing caused it to be there.” Of course, we might not be able to
find out precisely what caused the blueberry to be there. However, we
should not therefore conclude that the blueberry’s coming to be on the top
of Susan’s cereal bowl does not have a cause. The principle of causality is
also being invoked when scientists ask a question such as, “What causes
plants to grow?” A scientist assumes the principle of causality when he or
she assumes there is an answer to this question that involves causes. Of
course, when it comes to our understanding of the nature of ultimate causes,
it may be that we run into certain limits to human understanding. This is
something Thomas admits, as will be seen below. However, we get premise
two of the formulation of Thomas’ second way by applying the principle of
causality to the case of the existence of some effect. Given the importance
of the principle of causality in everyday life and scientific work, to deny the
principle of causality in the context of doing metaphysics would seem to
be ad hoc (see Feser 2009, p. 51ff. for more discussion of this point).
Premise (3) is a metaphysical principle. Consider a scenario that would
constitute a denial of premise (3): there is an x such that, absolutely
speaking, x causes itself to exist. However, this is not possible.
Although x can be the efficient cause of itself in one respect, for example, an
organism is an efficient cause of its own continued existence insofar as it
nourishes itself, it cannot be the efficient cause of itself in every respect. This
is easiest to see in the case of something bringing itself into existence. In
order for x to perform the act of bringing x into existence at time t, x must
already exist at t in order to perform such an act. However, if x already
exists at t to perform the act of bringing x into existence at t,
then x does not bring itself into existence at t, for x already exists at t.
However, the same kind of reasoning works if x is a timelessly eternal being.
To say that x is timelessly the efficient cause of its own existence is to offer
an explanatory circle as an efficient causal explanation for x’s existence,
which for Thomas is not to offer a good explanation of x’s existence, since
circular arguments or explanations are not good arguments or explanations.
Premise (7) shows that Thomas is not in this argument offering an ultimate
efficient causal explanation of what is sometimes called a per accidens series
of efficient causes, that is, a series of efficient causes that stretches (perhaps
infinitely) backward in time, for example, Rex the dog was efficiently caused
by Lassie the dog, and Lassie the dog was efficiently cause by Fido the dog,
and so forth. If he did have such a per accidens causal series in mind, then
premise (7) would be subject to obvious counter-examples, for example, a
sculptor is the efficient cause of a sculpture. However, it routinely happens
that a sculpture outlives its sculptor. In such a case, we can take away the
efficient cause (the sculptor) without taking away the effect of its efficient
causation (the sculpture). Unless we are comfortable assigning to Thomas a
view that is obviously mistaken, we will look for a different interpretation of
premise (7).
A typical and more charitable interpretation of premise (7) is that Thomas is
talking here about concurrent efficient causes and their effects, for example,
in a case where a singer’s song exists only as long as the singer sings that
song. This interpretation of premise (7) fits well with what we saw Thomas
say about the arguments for the existence of God in SCG, namely, that it is
better to assume (at least for the sake of argument) that there is no
beginning to time when arguing for the existence of God, for, in that case, it
is harder to prove that God exists.
With such an interpretation of premise (7) in the background, we are in a
position to make sense of the inference from premises (6) and (7) to premise
(8). If there were no absolutely first cause in the order of efficient causes of
any effect E, then there would be nothing that ultimately existentially “holds
up” E, since none of the supposed intermediate causes of E would
themselves exist without an efficient cause that is not itself an effect of some
efficient cause.

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.

a. The End or Goal of Human Life: Happiness

Thomas argues that in order to make sense of any genuine action in the
universe we must distinguish its end or goal from the various means that a
being employs in order to achieve such an end, for if a being does not act for
an end, then that being’s acting in this or that way would be a matter of
chance. In that case there would be no reason why the being acted as it did.
In other words, the act would be unintelligible. However, for any act A in the
universe, A is intelligible. Therefore, every being acts for an end (see, for
example, SCG III, ch. 2). An end of an action is something (call it x) such that
a being is inclined to x for its own sake and not simply as a means to
achieving something other than x. A means to an end refers to something
(call it y) such that a being is inclined to y for the sake of something other
than y. However, some ends are what Thomas calls “ultimate.” An ultimate
end is an end of action such that a being is inclined to it merely for its own
sake, not also as a means to some further end.
Thomas thinks we can apply this general theory of action to human action.
For example, although wealth might be treated as an end by a person
relative to the means that a person employs to achieve it, for example,
working, Thomas thinks it is obvious that wealth is not an ultimate end, and
even more clearly, wealth is not the ultimate end. This distinction
between an ultimate end and the ultimate end is important and does not go
unnoticed by Thomas. He is willing to take seriously the possibility that
human life might have several ultimate ends (see, for example, ST IaIIae. q.
1, a. 5). For example, we might think that knowledge, virtue, and pleasure
are each ultimate ends of human life, that is, things we desire for their own
sake and not also as means to some further end. However, Thomas thinks it
is clear that a human being really has only one ultimate end. This is because
the ultimate end—as Thomas understands the term—is more than simply
something we seek merely for its own sake; it is something such that all by
itself it entirely satisfies one’s desire. Say that John desires pleasure and
virtue as ends in themselves, and pleasure and virtue do not necessarily
come and go together in this life (some things that are pleasant are not
compatible with a life of virtue; sometimes the virtuous life entails doing
what is unpleasant). Thus, neither of these could be equivalent to the
ultimate end for John; for John’s having one without the other, there would
still be something that John desires, and possession of the ultimate end sates
all of one’s desires. In that case, if pleasure and virtue are both ends in
themselves, then at most they must be component parts of an ultimate end
construed as a complex whole.
Thus, for Thomas, each and every human being (like all beings) has one
ultimate end. However, do all human beings have the same ultimate end?
Thomas thinks so, and he believes that, in one sense, this should not be
controversial. All human beings think of happiness as the ultimate end of
human beings. Of course, Thomas recognizes that to speak about the
ultimate end as “happiness” is still to speak about the ultimate end in very
abstract terms, or, as Thomas puts it, to speak merely of the “notion of the
ultimate end” (rationem ultimi finis) (ST IaIIae. q. 1, a. 7). Four people might
agree that their goal in life is to be happy but disagree with one another
(greatly) about that in which a happy life consists. For Thomas, this claim is
not the same as the claim that human beings choose different means to
achieving happiness. Although this is undoubtedly true, what Thomas means
to say here is that people disagree about the nature of the happy life itself,
for example, some think the ultimate end itself is the acquisition of wealth,
others enjoying certain pleasures, whereas others think the happy life is
equivalent to a life of virtuous activity. To see Thomas’ point, compare John
and Jane, both of whom plan to rob a bank. John (unthinkingly) takes the
acquisition of a great sum of wealth to be his ultimate end. Jane realizes that
wealth is really merely an instrumental good and has already planned to
retire to a vacation resort, which she (still shortsightedly) takes to be the
object of human happiness.
Although people certainly disagree about what happiness is in the concrete,
Thomas maintains that there are objective truths about the nature of
happiness. (It is important to emphasize here that if one thinks that there are
ways in which all of us must live if we are to be counted as genuinely happy,
for example, by displaying and acting in accord with the moral virtues, then
one can also think there are nearly an infinite number of ways that we can
manifest those virtues, for example, as doctors, lawyers, teachers, artists,
mechanics, engineers, priests, lay persons, and so forth.) If we take Thomas’
manner of speaking about human happiness in ST as demonstrative of his
own position—what we have here, after all, is one long chain of arguments—
Thomas also thinks that it is possible to offer a convincing argument for what
it is that, objectively, fulfills a human being qua human being. However,
Thomas also shows sensitivity to the role that our moral habits play in
forming our beliefs—and so which arguments we will find convincing—
regarding the nature of the good life for human beings (see, for example, ST
IaIIae. q. 1, a. 7).
Before leaving the subject of the ultimate end of human action, we should
note two other respects in which Thomas thinks the expression “ultimate
end” (or “happiness”) is ambiguous. First, it is one thing to speak about the
happiness that human beings can possess in this life, what Thomas
sometimes calls “imperfect human happiness,” and another to speak
about the happiness possessed by God, the angels, and the blessed, which
Thomas considers to be perfect (see, for example, ST IaIIae. q. 4, a. 5).
Thomas calls this worldly human happiness imperfect not only because he
thinks it pales by comparison with the perfect happiness enjoyed by the
saints in heaven, but also because he reads Aristotle—whose discussion of
happiness is very important for Thomas’ own—as thinking about this worldly
human happiness as imperfect. Thomas notes that, after Aristotle identifies
the general characteristics of human happiness in NE, book I, ch. 7, Aristotle
goes on to note in chapter 10 that human beings cannot be happy in this life,
absolutely speaking, or perfectly, since human beings in this life can lose
their happiness, and not being able to lose their happiness is
something human beings desire. Thus, Aristotle himself thinks of human
happiness in this life as imperfect in comparison to the conditions he lays out
in NE, book I, ch. 7. Aristotle thinks humans are happy in this life merely as
human beings, that is, as beings whose nature is mutable.
Second, Thomas recognizes two different kinds of questions we might wish
to raise when we think about the nature of human happiness (see, for
example, ST IaIIae. q. 1, a. 8 and q. 2, a. 7). When asking about the nature of
human happiness, we might be asking what is true about the person who is
happy. As Thomas puts it, this is to focus our attention on
the use, possession, or attainment of happiness by the one who we are
describing as (at least hypothetically) happy. To speak about happiness in
this sense is to make claims about what has to be true about the soul of the
person who is happy, for example, that happiness is an activity of the soul
and not merely a state of the soul or an emotion, that it is
a speculative rather than a practical activity, that this activity does not
require a body, and so forth. However, in asking about the happiness of
human beings, we might rather be asking about the object of happiness, or
as Thomas puts it, “the thing itself in which is found the aspect of good” (ST
IaIIae q. 1, a. 8). For example, the end of a hungry man in the sense of
the object of his desire is food; the end of the hungry man in the sense
of attainment is eating.
What constitutes happiness for Thomas? Thomas agrees with Aristotle that
the attainment of happiness consists in the soul’s activity expressing virtue
and, particularly, the best virtue of contemplation where the object of such
contemplation is the best possible object, that is, God. Thus, the object of
human happiness, whether perfect or imperfect, is the cause of all things,
namely, God, for human beings desire to know all things and desire the
perfect good. However, this is just another way to talk about God. Therefore,
whether they consciously know it or not, all human beings desire
contemplative union with God. Thomas thinks that human beings in this life
—even those who possess the infused virtues, whether theological or moral
(about which more is said below)—at best attain happiness only imperfectly
since their contemplation and love of God is, at best, imperfect. For Thomas,
only human happiness in heaven is perfect insofar as God brings it about
that persons in heaven enjoy a perfect intellectual and volitional union with
God. Thomas calls such a union the beatific vision.
b. Morally Virtuous Action as the Way to
Happiness
Thomas thinks that happiness is the goal of all human activity. That suggests
that human beings normally achieve happiness by means of human actions,
that is, embodied acts of intellect and will (see, for example, ST IaIIae. q. 6,
prologue). However, Thomas also thinks there are certain kinds of human
actions that conduce to happiness. One complication, however, arises from
the fact that Thomas thinks that we can speak about
both imperfect and perfect happiness, the latter which is a happiness that
human beings can only possess by God’s grace helping us transcend (but not
setting aside) human nature. This latter happiness culminates for the saints
in the beatitudo (blessedness) of heaven. Thus, according to Thomas, there
are, in reality, two mutually reinforcing stories to tell about those human
actions that lead to happiness. Since our focus here is on Thomas’
philosophy, we shall focus on what follows on what Thomas has to say about
the relation between virtuous actions and imperfect happiness in this life.
(We will nonetheless have occasion to discuss a few things about Thomas’
views on perfect happiness.)
Thomas’ primary concern in the place where he provides his most detailed
outline of the good human life—ST IaIIae.—is explaining how human beings
achieve happiness by means of virtuous human actions, especially morally
virtuous actions (for more on the difference between intellectual virtue and
moral virtue, see the section below on Human Virtues as Perfections of
Characteristically Human Powers). Thomas, like Aristotle and Jesus of
Nazareth (see, for example, Matthew 5:48), is a moral perfectionist in the
sense that the means to human happiness comes not by way of
merely good human actions, but by way of perfect or virtuous moral actions.
Thus, in order to understand Thomas’ understanding of morality and the
good life, we have to say something about his understanding
of virtuous moral activity. However, what are morally virtuous human
actions? In general terms, Thomas thinks virtuous human actions are actions
that perfect the human agent that performs them, that is, good human
actions are actions that conduce to happiness for the agent that performs
them. An act is perfective of an agent relative to the kind to which the agent
belongs. Since human beings are rational animals by nature, then virtuous
human actions are actions that perfect the rationality and animality of
human beings. Of course, this is still to speak about actions that conduce to
happiness in very abstract terms. Thomas has much to say about the specific
characteristics of virtuous human action, especially morally virtuous action.
i. Morally Virtuous Action as Pleasurable
First of all, good or happiness conducive human actions are pleasant for
Thomas. Thomas goes so far as to say that intellectual pleasure (or delight)
is even a necessary or proper accident of human activity in heaven (see, for
example, ST IaIIae. q. 4, a. 1; and ST IaIIae. q. 34, a. 3). Thomas also sees
pleasure as a necessary feature of the kind of happiness humans can have in
this life, if only because virtuous activity—at the center of the good life for
Thomas—involves taking pleasure in those virtuous actions (see, for
example, ST IaIIae. q. 31, a. 4; ST IaIIae. q. 31, a. 5, ad1; and ST IaIIae. q. 35,
a. 5). Both intellectually and morally virtuous actions are pleasant in
themselves, thinks Thomas; in fact, he thinks they are the most pleasant of
activities in themselves (ST IaIIae. q. 31, a. 5).
However, it is not just intellectual pleasure that belongs to virtuous human
action in this life for Thomas, but bodily pleasure, too. For we are bodily
creatures and not simply souls, and so human perfection (happiness) must
make reference to the body (ST IaIIae. q. 59, a. 3). Thomas rejects the view,
held by some Stoics, that all bodily pleasures are evil. As Thomas notes, it is
natural for human beings to experience bodily and sensitive pleasures in this
life (ST IaIIae. q. 34, a. 1). Therefore, the perfection of a bodily nature such
as ours will involve not only intellectual pleasures, but bodily and sensitive
pleasures, too.
Nonetheless, Thomas thinks it is true that bodily pleasure tends to hinder the
use of reason, and this for three reasons (ST IaIIae. q. 33, a. 3). First, bodily
pleasures, as powerful as they are, can distract us from the work of reason.
Second, bodily pleasures can be contrary to reason, particularly those that
are enjoyed in excess. Third, bodily pleasures can weaken or fetter the
reason in a way analogous to how the drunkard’s use of reason is weakened.
However, despite all of this, Thomas does not think that bodily pleasure is
something evil by definition, and this for two reasons. First, pleasure is
taking repose in an apparent good; but if we take repose in a manner that is
consistent with reason, such pleasure is good, otherwise, it is not. Second,
taking pleasure in an action is more akin to that action than a desire to act
since the desire to act precedes the act whereas the pleasure in acting does
not. However, desiring to do good is something good, whereas desiring to do
evil is itself evil. A fortiori, taking pleasure in doing good is itself something
good whereas taking pleasure in evil is something evil.
However, perhaps some bodily pleasures are evil by definition. For example,
there have been philosophers and religious teachers that teach that sexual
pleasure is evil insofar as it hinders reason. Although Thomas agrees that
sexual pleasure hinders reason, he disagrees that sexual pleasure is bad per
se. Recall that a bodily pleasure hinders reason for one of three reasons:
it distracts us from using reason, it is inconsistent with reason, or
it weakens reason. Thomas does not think that sexual pleasure per se is
inconsistent with reason, for it is natural to feel pleasure in the sexual act
(indeed, Thomas says that, before the Fall, the sexual act would have been
even more pleasurable [see, for example, ST Ia. q. 98, a. 2, ad3]), and
performing the sexual act within marriage is, all other things being equal,
something natural and good. Thus, sexual pleasure must hinder reason
insofar as it distracts us from using reason or weakens reason. However, this
need not be morally evil, even a venial sin, as long as it is not inconsistent
with reason, just as sleep, which hinders reason, is not necessarily evil, for as
Thomas notes, “Reason itself demands that the use of reason be interrupted
at times” (ST IaIIae. q. 34, a. 1, ad1).
ii. Morally Virtuous Action as Perfectly Voluntary and
the Result of Deliberate Choice
Although virtuous actions are pleasant for Thomas, they are, more
importantly, morally good as well. What does this mean for Thomas? We can
begin with the fact that, according to Thomas, morally good actions are
moral rather than amoral. However, moral actions have being voluntary as a
necessary condition. Voluntary acts are acts that arise (a) from a principle
intrinsic to the agent and (b) from some sort of knowledge of the end of the
act on the part of the agent (see, for example, ST IaIIae. q. 6, a. 1). For
example, the movements of a plant do not meet the necessary condition of
being voluntary, according to Thomas. This is because plants do not have
cognitive powers and so have no apprehension of the end of their actions. To
take another example, insofar as a squirrel moves towards an object on the
basis of apprehending that object by way of its sense faculties, the squirrel’s
act is, in a sense, a voluntary one (see, for example, ST IaIIae. q. 6, a. 2).
However, an action’s being voluntary is not a sufficient condition for that
action counting as a moral action according to Thomas. More than being
voluntary, moral actions must be perfectly voluntary in order to count as
moral actions. A perfectly voluntary action is an action that arises (a) from
knowledge of the end of an action, understood as an end of action, and (b)
from knowledge that the act is a means to the end apprehended (see, for
example, ST IaIIae. q. 6, a. 2). This is just to say that perfectly voluntary
actions are caused by rational appetite, or will, for Thomas. Therefore,
although irrational animals (such as squirrels) can be said, in a sense, to act
voluntarily, they cannot be understood to be acting morally, since they do
not cognize the end as an end and do not understand their actions to be a
means to such an end. Indeed, insofar as an act of a human being does not
arise from an act of will, for example, when someone moves his or her arm
while he or she is asleep, that action is not perfectly voluntary and so is not a
moral action for Thomas (see, for example, ST IaIIae. q. 1, a. 1).
Morally virtuous action is moral (rather than amoral) action, and so it is
perfectly voluntary. However, morally virtuous activity is also intentional and
deliberate. Here we see a connection between the virtue of prudence and
the other moral virtues. Prudence is that virtue that enables one to make a
virtuous decision about what, for example, courage calls for in a given
situation, which is often (but not always) acting in a mean between
extremes. In other words, prudence is the virtue of rational choice (see, for
example, ST IaIIae. q. 57, a. 5). Without prudence, human action may be
good but not virtuous since virtuous activity is a function of rational choice
about what to do in a given set of circumstances; although, as we shall see,
virtuous action arises from a virtuous habit, and virtuous action is not
habitual in the sense that we “do it without even thinking about it.”
iii. Morally Virtuous Action as Morally Good Action
Although morally virtuous action is more than simply morally good action, it
is at least that. However, how does Thomas distinguish morally good actions
from bad or indifferent ones? First of all, Thomas thinks that some kinds of
actions are bad by definition. As Thomas would put it, such actions are
bad according to their genus or species, no matter the circumstances in
which those actions are performed. For example, an act of adultery is a
species of action that is immoral in and of itself insofar as such acts
necessarily have the agent acting immoderately with respect to sexual
passion as well as putting preexisting or potential children at great risk of
being harmed (ST IIaIIae. q. 154, a. 8, respondeo). An action, therefore, that
counts as morally good—and so is conducive to living what we might call a
good life—cannot be an action that is morally bad according to its genus or
species.
Second, there are circumstances surrounding an action that affect the moral
goodness or badness of an action. For example, Thomas thinks that it is
morally permissible for a community to put a criminal to death on the
authority of the one who governs that community. However, if those in
authority in a community have set a timetable for an execution, say, that it
should occur no sooner than Wednesday at 5 PM, and John the executioner,
on his own authority, kills the prisoner on Wednesday at 10 AM (where John
is not also an authority in the community), then the circumstances of John’s
act of killing make what might otherwise have been a morally permissible act
to be an immoral act. Sometimes circumstances make an action that is bad
according to its species even worse. For example, it is morally wrong to
murder. However, if someone murders his father, he commits patricide,
which is a more grievous act than the act of murdering a stranger.

Third, motivations count as another form of circumstance that make an

action bad, good, better, or worse than another. If Jane obeys her parents
because of her love for God while Joan does so because she is afraid of being
punished, although Joan’s act can still be morally praiseworthy, it is not as
praiseworthy as Jane’s, since Jane’s motivation for moral action is better than
Joan’s.

In putting these three “sources” for offering a moral evaluation of a

particular human action together—kind of action, circumstances surrounding
an action, and motivation for action——Thomas thinks we can go some
distance in determining whether a particular action is morally good or bad,
as well as how good or bad that action is. For example, Thomas thinks lying
by definition is morally bad (see, for example, ST IaIIae. q. 110, a. 3).
However, not all lies are equally bad. If someone lies in order to get an
innocent person killed, one commits a mortal sin (the effect of which is, if
one dies without repenting of such a sin, one will go to hell). However, if one
tells a lie in order to save a person’s innocent life, one does something
morally wrong, but such moral wrongdoing counts only as a venial sin, where
venial sins harm the soul but do not kill charity or grace in the soul (see, for
example, ST IaIIae. q. 110, a. 4).
iv. Morally Virtuous Action as Arising from Moral
Virtue
Morally virtuous action, therefore, is minimally morally good action—morally
good or neutral with respect to the kind of action, good in the circumstances,
and well-motivated. However, it is also action that arises from a good moral
habit, that is, a moral virtue, which good moral habits make it possible easily
and gracefully to act with moral excellence. To be sure, in many cases, moral
virtues are acquired by way of good actions. However, one morally good
action is not necessarily a morally virtuous act. This is because virtuous
actions arise from a habit such that one wills to do what is virtuous with
ease. The person who does what the virtuous person does, but with great
difficulty, is at best continent or imperfectly virtuous—a good state of
character compared to being incontinent or vicious to be sure—but not
perfectly virtuous.
One way that Thomas often sums up the conditions for morally virtuous
action we have been discussing is to say that morally virtuous action consists
in a mean between extremes (see, for example, ST IaIIae. q. 60, a. 4). In
acting temperately, for example, one must eat the right amount of food in a
given circumstance, for the right reason, in the right manner, and from a
temperate state of moral character. If, for example, John eats the right
amount of food on a day of feasting (where John rightly eats more on such
days than he ordinarily does), but does so for the sake of vain glory, his
eating would nonetheless count as excessive. If, on the other hand, John eats
the right amount of food on a day of mourning (where John rightly eats less
on such days than he ordinarily does) for the sake of vain glory, this would
be deficient (compare ST IaIIae. q. 64, a. 1, ad 3). Of course, John might also
eat too much on a given day, or too little, for example, on a day marked for
feasting and celebration. Such actions would also be excessive and deficient,
respectively, and not morally virtuous.
c. Human Virtues as Perfections of
Characteristically Human Powers
So far we have discussed Thomas’ account of the nature of the means to
happiness as moral virtue bearing fruit in morally virtuous action. One might
wonder how we acquire the virtues. Although we have a natural desire for
some of the virtues, the actual possession of the virtues is not in us by
nature. How do we come to possess the virtues according to Thomas? Here,
it is again worth pointing out that there are two stories to tell, since Thomas
thinks there are really two different kinds of virtue, one which disposes us to
act perfectly in accord with human nature and one which disposes us to
perform acts which transcend human nature (see, for example, ST IaIIae. q.
54, a. 3). These two kinds of virtues correspond with the two different ends
of human beings for Thomas, one that is natural, that is, the imperfect
happiness attainable by human beings in this life by the natural light of
reason and the natural inclination of the will, and one that is supernatural
and comes to us only by grace, that is, the perfect happiness of the saints in
heaven, in which happiness Christians can begin to participate even in this
life, Thomas thinks.
According to Thomas, human beings can acquire virtues that perfect human
beings according to their natural end by repeatedly performing the kinds of
acts a virtuous person performs, that is, by habituation. Thomas calls such
virtues human (see, for example, ST IaIIae. q. 54, a. 3; ST IaIIae. q. 55, aa. 1-
3; and ST IaIIae. q. 61, a. 1, ad2) in order to distinguish such virtues from
“infused” (or, to use concepts Thomas finds in Aristotle, “god-like,” “heroic”
or “super-human”) virtues, which are virtues we have only by way of a gift
from God, not by habituation. For example, we can imagine that, apart from
any special gift of the God, Socrates was courageous in the sense that
Socrates acquired the ability to habitually say “yes” to pains that are in
accord with right reason in much the same way that an athlete or a musician
voluntarily becomes more skilled or proficient in what they do through
practice, that is by doing (or at least approximating) what good athletes and
virtuosi do. Before saying more about human virtue, which is our focus here,
it will be good to say a few things about infused virtue since this is an
important topic for Thomas, and Thomas’ views on infused virtue are
historically very important.
i. Infused Virtues
Like human virtues, infused virtues are perfections of our natural powers that
enable us to do something well and to do it easily. For example, the virtue of
faith enables its possessor, on a given occasion, to believe that “God exists
and rewards those who seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6) and to do so confidently
and without also thinking it false that God exists, and so forth. In addition, as
in the case of human virtues, we are not born with the infused virtues;
virtues, for Thomas, are acquired.
However, infused virtues differ from human virtues in a number of interes
ting ways. First, unlike human virtues, which enable us to perfect our powers
such that we can perform acts that lead to a good earthly life, infused virtues
enable us to perfect our powers such that we can perform acts in this life
commensurate with—and/or as a means to—eternal life in heaven (ST IaIIae.
q. 62, a. 1).

Second, whereas a human virtue, for example, human temperance, is

acquired by habituation, that is, by repeatedly performing the kinds of
actions that are performed by the temperate person, infused virtues are
wholly gifts from God. Thomas cites St. Augustine in this regard: “Virtue is a
good quality of the mind, by which we live righteously, of which no one can
make a bad use, which God works in us, without us (ST IaIIae. q. 55, a. 4, obj.
1; emphasis mine). To see clearly this difference
between human and infused virtue according to Thomas, note that Thomas
thinks that neither infused nor human virtue makes a human being
impervious to committing mortal sin. (For Thomas, a mortal sin is a sin that
kills supernatural life in the soul, where such supernatural life makes one fit
for the supernatural reward of heaven. Mortal sins require intentionally and
deliberately doing what is grievously morally wrong. Contrast a mortal sin
with a venial sin. Although venial sin can lead to mortal sin, and so ought to
be avoided, a venial sin does not destroy supernatural life in the human
soul.) Does Socrates lose his human virtue, for example, his courage, if he
commits a mortal sin? Thomas thinks the answer is “no.” This is because
naturally acquired virtues are virtues acquired through habituation, and one
sinful act does not destroy a habit acquired by way of the repetition of many
acts of one kind (see, for example, ST IaIIae. q. 63, a. 2, ad2). However, since
infused virtues are not acquired through habituation but are rather a function
of being in a state of grace as a free gift from God, and sinning mortally
causes one to no longer be in a state of grace, just one mortal sin eliminates
the infused virtues in the soul (although imperfect forms of them can remain,
for example, unformed faith and hope [see below]). Of course, such mortal
sins can be forgiven, Thomas thinks, by God’s grace through the sacrament
of penance, thereby restoring a soul to the state of grace (see, for example,
ST IIIa. q. 86, a. 1, respondeo).   
Thomas speaks of at least two different kinds of infused virtue. First, there
are the well-known theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity (see, for
example, St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, ch. 13). In general, the
theological virtues direct human beings toward their supernatural end,
specifically in relation to God himself. In other words, they are gifts of God
that enable human beings to look to God himself as the object of a happiness
that transcends the natural powers of human beings. Faith is the infused
virtue that enables its possessor to believe what God has supernaturally
revealed. Hope is the infused virtue that enables its possessor to look
forward to God Himself—and not some created image of God—being the
object of his or her perfect bliss. Finally, the virtue of charity creates a union
of friendship between the soul of its possessor and God—a union that is not
natural to human beings but requires that God raise up the nature of its
possessor to God. In comparison to charity, faith and hope are imperfect
infused virtues, since, unlike charity, faith and hope connote the lack of
complete possession of God (see, for example, ST IaIIae. q. 66, a.
6, respondeo). As has been seen, perfect human happiness (qua possession)
consists of the beatific vision. However, if we have faith, we do not have
vision. If we have hope, we do not yet possess that for which we hope.
Therefore, among the theological virtues, only charity remains in the saints
in heaven. Thomas thinks this is one reason why St. Paul says, “The greatest
of these [three virtues, that is, faith, hope, and charity] is charity.”
Unlike the intellectual and moral virtues—whether infused or human—the
theological virtues do not observe the mean where their proper object, that
is, God, is concerned, for Thomas thinks it is not possible to put faith in God
too much, to hope too much in God, or to love God more than one should
(see, for example, ST IaIIae. q. 64, a. 4).

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).

d. The Logical Relations between the Human

Virtues
Virtue ethicists have traditionally been interested in defending a position on
the logical relations between the human virtues. For example, we might
wonder whether one can really be courageous without also being temperate.
Thomas is no exception to this rule. As has been seen, there are two kinds
of human virtues, intellectual and moral. Where specifying the relations
between the human moral virtues are concerned, Thomas thinks it important
to distinguish two senses of human moral virtue, namely, perfect human
moral virtue and imperfect human moral virtue (see, for example, ST IaIIae.
q. 65, a. 1). An imperfect human moral virtue, for example, imperfect
courage, is a disposition such that one simply has a strong inclination or
desire to do good deeds, in this case, courageous deeds. Perfect human
moral virtues, by contrast, are dispositions such that one is inclined to do
good deeds well, that is, in the right way, at the right time, for the proper
motive, and so forth. Where imperfect human moral virtues are concerned,
these can be possessed independently of the others. For example, Joe is
inclined (by nature or by acquired habit) to perform deeds that would be
rightly (if loosely) described as just, but Joe is not inclined to virtuous activity
where his desires for eating, drinking, and sex are concerned. By
contrast, perfect human moral virtues cannot be possessed apart from one
another. If Joe is perfectly just, then he also is perfectly temperate. Thomas
has two reasons for accepting this “unity of the virtues” thesis. As he notes,
these two reasons correspond with two different ways we can distinguish the
cardinal virtues from one another (ST IaIIae. q. 65, a.1, respondeo).
First, we might distinguish the virtues “according to certain general
properties of the virtues: for instance, by saying that discretion belongs to
prudence, rectitude to justice, moderation to temperance, and strength of
mind to courage” (ST IaIIae. q. 65, a. 1, respondeo). Given this way of
distinguishing the virtues, discretion is not perfectly virtuous without
strength of mind, strength of mind is not virtuous without moderation, and so
forth. Thomas notes that it is for this sort of reason that, for example, Pope
St. Gregory the Great and St. Augustine believe the unity of the virtues
thesis.
Second, we might distinguish the cardinal virtues as Thomas himself prefers
to do, after the example of Aristotle, namely, insofar as the different virtues
perfect different powers. Given this way of distinguishing the virtues, it still
follows that one cannot have any one of the perfect cardinal virtues without
also possessing the others. This is because one cannot have courage,
temperance, or justice without prudence, since part of the definition of a
perfect virtue is acting in accord with rational choice, where rational choice is
a function of being prudent. For example, if I am able to act courageously in
a given situation, not only does my irascible power need to be perfected,
that is, I have to perfectly desire to act rationally when experiencing the
emotion of fear, but I need to know just what courageous action calls for in
that given situation. For example, it may be that the prudent thing to do in
that situation is to “run away in order to fight another day.”
However, knowing just what to do in a given situation where one feels afraid
is a function of the virtue of prudence. Thus, one cannot be perfectly
courageous without having perfect prudence (ST IaIIae. q. 65, a. 1; see also
ST IaIIae. q. 58, a. 4).
However, according to Thomas, it is also the case that one cannot be
perfectly prudent unless one is also perfectly temperate, just, and
courageous. This is because the prudent person has a perfected intellect
where deciding on the virtuous thing to do in any given situation. However,
such knowledge requires a perfected knowledge about the rational ends or
principles of human action, for one cannot perfectly know how to apply the
principles of action in a given situation if one does not perfectly know the
principles of action. However, a perfect knowledge of the ends or principles
of human action requires the possession of those virtues that perfect the
irascible appetite, the concupiscible appetite, and the will, otherwise, one will
have a less than perfect, that is, a distorted, picture of what ought to be
pursued or avoided. For example, if John is a coward, then he will be inclined
to think that one always ought to avoid what causes pain. However, if John is
inclined to believe such a thing, then he will not be able to think rightly, that
is, prudently, about just what he should do in a particular situation that
potentially involves him suffering pain. However, what goes for courage goes
for temperance and justice, too. Therefore, the perfectly prudent person has
the perfect virtues of courage, temperance, and justice.

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.

Third, in addition to being a rational command that promotes the common

good of a community, a law must be issued by those who have true political
authority in that community. There is no need to think that the authority
figures in question here have to be political authorities in the sense that we
take elected officials or kings to be. Within the confines of a household, for
example, parents have the authority to make laws, that is, rational
commands that morally obligate those to whom the laws are addressed. It is
worth stressing that a command’s being issued by the requisite authority is a
necessary but not sufficient condition for that command’s having the force of
law. The political authorities in Birmingham, Alabama may have been
genuine authorities and enjoyed real power to make laws. However, if Martin
Luther King Jr. was right that segregation ordinances were unjust—and so
irrational—then such ordinances, despite the fact that they were issued by
authorities that were legitimate, did not have the force of law and so did not
morally obligate those who, in their conscience, recognized that such
segregation ordinances were unjust.
Finally, a command must be promulgated in order to have the force of law,
that is, to morally bind in conscience those to whom it is directed. Thomas
accepts the principle that ignorance of the law excuses, but not just any kind
of ignorance does so. For ignorance comes in at least two
varieties, invincible and vincible. If I am invincibly ignorant of p, it is not
reasonable to expect me to know p, given my circumstances. For example,
say John has been extremely ill for a year, and in that time a law was passed
of which, under normal circumstances, John should have made himself
aware. Because of John’s circumstances, however, it would be correct to say
he remains invincibly ignorant of the law. For John, then, the law does not
bind in conscience (at least as long as John remains invincibly ignorant of it).
If John were to transgress the law, John would not be morally culpable for
such a transgression. On the other hand, someone might really be ignorant
of a law but still be culpable for transgressing it. Such a person would
be vincibly ignorant of that law. Someone is vincibly ignorant of a law just in
case that person does not know about the law but should have taken actions
so as to know about it.
ii. The Different Kinds of Law
1. The Eternal Law
In his famous discussion of law in ST, Thomas distinguishes four different
kinds of law: eternal, natural, human, and divine. The eternal law is “God’s
idea of the government of things in the universe” (ST IaIIae. q. 91, a.
1, respondeo). This description of the eternal law follows Thomas’ definition
of law in general, which definition mentions the four causes of law. Recall
that, according to Thomas, a law is a rational command (this is a law’s formal
cause) made by the legitimate authority of a community (a law’s efficient
cause) for the common good of that community (the final cause) and
promulgated (the material cause). The community in question here is the
whole universe of creatures, the legitimate authority of which is God the
creator. In Thomas’ view, God the creator is provident over, that is, governs,
his creation (see, for example, ST Ia. q. 22, aa. 1-2). Since God is perfect
Being and Goodness itself (see, for example, ST Ia. q. 4, a. 2; and ST Ia. q.
13, a. 2, respondeo), God’s governing of the universe is perfectly good, and
so God’s idea of how the universe should be is a rational command for the
sake of the common good of the universe.
How does God promulgate the eternal law? God communicates the eternal
law to creatures in accord with their capacity to receive it. Now, God’s
eternal law is not distinct from God, but God is perfection itself. Therefore,
God communicates Himself, that is, perfection itself, to creatures insofar as
this is possible, that is, insofar as God creates things as certain reflections of
God’s own perfection.

For example, God communicates His perfection to non-rational, non-living

creatures insofar as God creates each of these beings with a nature that is
inclined to perfect itself simply by exhibiting those properties that are
characteristic of its kind. For example, a carbon atom reflects the divine
perfection—and so has God’s eternal law communicated to it—insofar as God
gives a carbon atom a nature such that it tends to exhibit the properties
characteristic of a carbon atom, for example, being such that it can
form such and such bonds with such and such atoms, and so forth. God
communicates the eternal law to plants insofar as God creates plants with a
nature such that they not only tend to exhibit certain properties, each of
which is a certain limited reflection of the Creator, but also insofar as plants
are inclined by nature to perfect themselves by nourishing themselves,
growing, and maturing so as to contribute to the perpetuation of their
species through reproduction. Non-rational animals, of course, have all of
these perfections plus the added perfection of being conscious of other
things, thereby having the eternal law communicated to them in an even
more perfect sense than in the case of non-living things and plants. Finally,
rational creatures—whether human beings or angels—have the eternal law
communicated to them in the most perfect way available to a creature, that
is, in a manner analogous to how human beings promulgate the law to other
human beings, that is, insofar as they are self-consciously aware of being
obligated by said law. In other words, God gives rational creatures a nature
such that they can naturally come to understand that they are obligated to
act in some ways and refrain from acting in other ways. This reception of the
law by rational creatures is what Thomas calls the natural (moral) law (see,
for example, ST Ia. q. 91, a. 2, respondeo).
2. The Natural Law
More specifically, by natural law Thomas understands that aspect of the
eternal law that has to do with the flourishing of rational creatures insofar as
it can be naturally known by rational creatures—in contrast to that aspect of
the eternal law insofar as it is communicated by way of a divine revelation.
(In this section, we are interested in natural law only insofar as it is relevant
for the development of a political philosophy; for the importance of natural
law where moral knowledge is concerned, see the discussion of that topic in
the ethics section above.) To put this another way, the natural law implies a
rational creature’s natural understanding of himself or herself as a being that
is obligated to do or refrain from doing certain things, where he or she
recognizes that these obligations do not derive their force from any human
legislator. As we saw Martin Luther King Jr. say above, there are some moral
laws that constitute the foundation of any just human society; if such laws
are transgressed, or legislated against, we act or legislate unjustly. This set
of moral laws that transcends the particularities of any given human culture
is what Thomas and King call the natural law.
There is another way to think about natural law in the context of politics that
is commensurate with what was said above. As in the case of all creatures,
the nature possessed by human beings represents a certain way of
participating in God, a certain finite degree of perfection that is therefore
limited and imperfect in comparison to God’s absolute, infinite perfection. As
Thomas famously says in one place, “The natural law is nothing else than the
rational creature's participation of the eternal law” (ST IaIIae. q. 91, a.
2, respondeo). Now, like all created beings, human beings are naturally
inclined to perfect themselves, since their nature is an image of the eternal
law, which is absolutely perfect. One way in which all creatures show that
they are creatures, that is, created by Perfection itself, is in their natural
inclination toward perfecting themselves as members of their species.
However, human beings are rational creatures and rational creatures
participate in the eternal law in a characteristic way, that is, rationally; since
the perfection of a rational creature involves knowing and choosing, rational
creatures are naturally inclined to know and to choose, and to do so well. In
addition, like other animals, human beings must move themselves (with the
help of others) from merely potentially having certain perfections
to actually having perfections that are characteristic of flourishing members
of their species. Although everything is perfect to some extent insofar as it
exists—since existence itself is a perfection that reflects Being itself—
actually possessing a perfection P is a greater form of perfection than merely
potentially possessing P. Therefore, the natural law is a human being’s
natural understanding of its inclination to perfect himself or herself according
to the kind of thing he or she naturally is, that is, a rational, free, social, and
physical being. Thus, we know naturally that we should act rationally, protect
life, educate our children, increase liberty for ourselves and others, work for
the common good of the community, and, given the precept act rationally,
apply all these principles in a rational manner, a manner that reflects a
natural understanding that we are animals of a certain sort. We therefore are
naturally inclined to pursue those goods that are consistent with human
flourishing, as we understand it, that is, the flourishing of a rational, free,
social, and animal being. Insofar as we conclude that such an activity or
apparent good is a real good for us, we conclude that it is a good we can—or
ought to—seek. Insofar as we see that a particular activity or apparent good
undermines human flourishing, we conclude that such an activity or
apparent good is something bad and so should not be sought, but rather
avoided.
3. The Divine Law
The chief reason the natural law is called natural is because it is that aspect
of the eternal law that rational creatures can (given the right sort of
circumstances) discern to be true by unaided human reason, that is, apart
from a special divine revelation. What human beings can know of God’s
eternal law only by way of a special divine revelation from God is what
Thomas calls divine law (ST IaIIae. q. 91, a. 4, respondeo and ad2). Thomas
also contrasts the divine law with the natural law by noting that the natural
law directs us to perform those actions we must habitually perform if we are
to flourish in this life as human beings (what Thomas calls our natural end,
that is, our end qua created). The divine law, on the other hand, directs us to
perform actions that are proportionate with living an eternal life with God
(what Thomas calls our supernatural end, that is, our end qua grace and
glory). It is not as though the natural law is irrelevant where our supernatural
end is concerned since, as Thomas often says, “grace perfects nature; it
does not destroy it” (see, for example, ST Ia. q. 1, a. 8, ad2). Therefore, living
in a manner that violates the natural law is inconsistent with a human
being’s achieving his or her supernatural end too. That being said, to live
merely in accord with the natural law is not proportionate to the life that
human beings live in heaven, which life, by the grace of God, human beings
can, in a limited sense, begin to live even in this life. Thus, one reason God
gives the divine law is to instruct human beings about which acts are
proportionate to a supernatural life, that is, flourishing in heaven, so as to
make human beings fit for heaven (see, for example, ST IaIIae. q. 91, a.
4, respondeo).
4. Human Law and its Relation to Natural Law
Thomas develops his account of human law by way of an analogy (see ST
IaIIae. q. 91, a. 3). He posits that the human law is to the natural law what
the conclusions of the speculative sciences (for example, metaphysics and
mathematics) are to the indemonstrable principles of that science. Just as all
science begins from premises the truth of which cannot themselves be
demonstrated, for example, the law of non-contradiction, and proceeds by
the work of reason to particular conclusions, so, in practical matters (such as
politics), authorities begin with the knowledge of indemonstrable precepts,
for example, good should be rewarded and evil punished and the
punishment must fit the crime, and proceed to apply those precepts in light
of the particular circumstances, needs, and realities of the communities of
which they are the rightful leaders. These particular practical applications of
the natural law, as long as they meet the conditions of law, have the force of
law. Such laws Thomas calls, human laws. For example, the relevant
authorities in community A might decide to enact a law that theft should be
punished as follows: the convicted thief must return all that was stolen and
refrain from going to sea for one day for each ducat that was stolen. On the
other hand, community B enacts the following law: the thief will be
imprisoned for up to one day for each dollar stolen.
Thomas would want us to notice a couple of things about these human laws.
First, neither of these laws follow logically from the precepts of the natural
law. Just as one cannot deduce empirical truths from the law of non-
contradiction alone, one cannot deduce human laws simply from the
precepts of the natural law. That being said, the natural law functions as a
kind of control on what can count as a legitimate (morally and legally
binding) law. Just as any scientific theory that contradicts itself is not a good
theory, although a number of proposed theories meet this minimal condition
of rationality, so no binding law contradicts the precepts of the natural law,
although there may be any number of proposed human laws that are
consistent with the natural law.
Second, notice that the human laws addressing the appropriate punishment
of thievery mentioned above reflect the circumstances in which the
members of those communities find themselves. For example, say the
members of community A belong to a society where sea-faring is important,
and so restriction of such sea-faring is appropriately painful. On the other
hand, the members of community B, say, do not live in circumstances where
it is so important to travel at sea, and so the punishment for thievery reflects
that. Some human laws, Thomas thinks, will be different in different times
and places, if only because they are enacted in times and places where there
are different geographical, moral, political, and religious circumstances and
needs.

b. Authority: Thomas’ Anti-Anarchism

Unlike some political philosophers, who see the need for human authority as,
at best, a consequence of some moral weakness on the part of human
beings, Thomas thinks human authority is logically connected with the
natural end of human beings as rational, social animals. Thomas, therefore,
rejects anarchism in all of its forms, and he does so for philosophical reasons.
Human authority is in itself good and is necessary for the good life, given the
kind of thing human beings are. One place where we can see clearly that
Thomas holds this position is in his discussion of what human life would have
been like in the Garden of Eden had Adam and Eve (and their progeny) not
fallen into sin.
In a section of ST where he is discussing what life was (and in some cases
would have been) like for the first human beings in the state of innocence,
that is, before the Fall, Thomas entertains questions about human beings as
authorities over various things in that state of innocence (Ia. q. 96).
Particularly relevant for our purposes are articles three and four.

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.

In the fourth article in this question on authority in the state of innocence,

Thomas asks whether some human beings would be master of other human
beings in the state of innocence. In answering this question, Thomas
distinguishes two senses of “mastership.” First, there is the sense of
“mastership” that is involved in the master/slave relationship. Second, there
is a broader sense of “mastership” where one person is in authority over
another, for example, a father in relation to his child.

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.

c. The Best Form of Government

Thomas thinks that a just government is one in which the ruler or rulers
work(s) for the common good and not simply for the good of one class of
citizens. In his view, there are a number of un-mixed forms of government
that are, in principle, legitimate or just, for example, kingship (regnum), that
is, rule by one virtuous man, aristocracy, that is, rule by a few virtuous men,
and polity, rule by a large number of citizens. Following Aristotle in Politics,
book III, chapter 7, Thomas identifies three unjust forms of unmixed
government that are opposed to these just forms: for example, tyranny, that
is, rule by one man who looks after his own benefit rather than the common
good, oligarchy, that is, rule by a few wealthy men who look after their own
good rather than the common good, and democracy, rule by the many poor
people for their own good rather than the common good (see, for
example, De regno ad regem Cypri, I, ch. 2 [chapter 1 in some editions]).
Of the various just unmixed forms of government, Thomas thinks that a
kingship is, in principle, the best form of government. He offers a number of
arguments for this thesis. Consider just one of these. Thomas thinks the chief
concern of a good ruler is to secure the unity and peace of the community.
Therefore, the more a form of government is better able to secure unity and
peace in the community, the better is that form of government, all other
things being equal. What itself has the nature of unity and peace is better
able to secure unity and peace than what is many. However, kingship has
the nature of unity and peace more so than rule by many men (whether or
not these men are virtuous; recall from our discussion of authority above
that Thomas does not think that a group of virtuous people will necessarily
agree on a course of action). Therefore, all other things being equal, kingship
is better able to secure unity and peace than rule by many. Therefore,
kingship is the best unmixed form of government (De regno, book I, ch. 3
[ch. 2]; compare this argument with Thomas’ argument at SCG IV, ch. 76
that there needs to be one bishop, that is, the Pope, functioning as the
visible head of the Church in order to secure the unity and peace of the
Church.)
Thomas is aware of the possibility that a good man can become a tyrant (De
regno, book I, ch. 7 [ch. 6 in some editions]). Furthermore, since the contrary
of the best is the worst, and tyranny is the contrary of kingship, tyranny is
the worst form of government (De regno, ch. 4 [ch. 3 in some editions]).
Thomas therefore thinks kingship should be limited in a number of ways in
order to ensure a ruler will not be(come) a tyrant.
First, in a limited kingship the king is selected by others who have the
authority to do so (De regno, book I, ch. 7 [ch. 6], where such authorities
should choose a king with a moral character such that it is unlikely he will
become a tyrant. In one place Thomas speaks of an ideal situation where the
king is selected from among the people—presumably for his virtue—and by
the people (ST IaIIae q. 105, a. 1, respondeo). Second, in order to ensure the
king does not become a tyrant, the government (and its constitution) should
be written so as to limit the power of the king (De regno, book I, ch. 7 [ch.
6]). Finally, Thomas thinks kingship ideally should be limited in that the
community has a right to depose or restrict the power of the king if he
becomes a tyrant (De regno I, ch. 7 [ch. 6]). Although early in his career he
seems to sanction tyrannicide (In Sent. Book II, d. 44, qu. 2, ad5), by the
time he writes De regno (book I, ch. 7 [ch. 6]) Thomas rejects that view not
only as imprudent, but also as inconsistent with the teaching of the Apostles
(compare 1 Peter 2:19). Rather, those who have the authority to appoint the
king have the authority and responsibility to depose him if need be (De
regno book I, ch. 7 [ch. 6]). If no human authorities can or are willing to help
a community ruled by a tyrant, Thomas counsels that the people should have
recourse to God. However, in doing so, they should first look to expiating
their own sins, since God sometimes allows a people to be ruled by the
impious as a punishment for sin (De regno book I, ch. 7 [ch. 6]).
Notably, in a place in ST, Thomas argues that a certain kind
of mixed government is really the best form of government (ST IaIIae. q. 105,
a. 1, respondeo). Thomas notes there that both Aristotle (Politics, book iii)
and divine revelation (Deuteronomy 1:15; Exodus 18:21; and Deuteronomy
1:13) agree that the ideal form of government combines kingship,
aristocracy, and democracy insofar as one virtuous man rules as king, the
king has a few virtuous men under him as advisors, and, not only all are
eligible to govern (the virtuous can come from the populace and not simply
from the wealthy class), but also all participate in governance insofar as all
participate in choosing who will be the king.
Thomas argues that this form of mixed government—part kingship, part
aristocracy, and part democracy—is the best form of government as follows.
As Aristotle states in Politics ii, 6, a form of government where all take some
part in the government ensures peace among the people, commends itself to
all, and is most enduring. However, a form of government that ensures
peace among the people, commends itself to all, and is most enduring is, all
other things being equal, the best form of government. Therefore,
(G1) A form of government where all take some part in the government is, all
other things being equal, the best form of government.

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:

(G2) The best non-mixed form of government is kingship.

(G3) The second-best form of non-mixed government is an aristocracy.

However, there is a mixed form of government (call it a limited

kingship or limited democracy) that is part kingship, since a virtuous man
presides over all, part aristocracy, since the king takes to himself a set of
virtuous advisors and governors, and part democracy, since the rulers can be
chosen from among the people and the people have a right to choose their
rulers.
However, there is no form of government other than a limited kingship or
limited democracy that takes the truths of (G1), (G2), and (G3) into account.
Therefore, the best form of government is a limited kingship or limited
democracy. Thus, interestingly, we have in Thomas a 13th-century
theologian advocating for a limited form of democracy as the best form of
government.

10. References and Further Reading

a. Thomas’ Works
Thomas authored an astonishing number of works during his short life. Other
than the first entry below, which cites the ongoing project of providing a
critical edition of Thomas’ Opera Omnia (entire body of work), the entries
mentioned here are those works of Thomas’ cited in the body of this article.
For a complete list of Thomas’ works, see Torrell 2005, Stump 2003, or
Kretzmann and Stump 1998.
 Opera Omnia (Complete Works), 1248-1273. Ed.
Leonine Commission, S. Thomae Aquinatis Doctoris
Angelici. Opera Omnia. Iussu Leonis  XIII, P.M. edita,
Rome: Vatican Polyglot Press, 1882- (on-going).
 De principiis naturae, ad fratrem Sylvestrum (On the
Principles of Nature, for Brother Sylvester), 1248-1252
or 1252-1256.
 English translation: Eleonore Stump and Stephen
Chanderbhan, trans. In The Hackett Aquinas: Basic Works. Jeffrey
Hause and Robert Pasnau, eds. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing
Company, 2014), pp. 2-13.
 De ente et essentia, ad fratres et socios suos (On
Being and Essence, for His Brothers and Companions),
1252-1253.
 English translation: Peter King, trans. In The Hackett
Aquinas: Basic Works. Jeffrey Hause and Robert Pasnau, eds.
(Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2014), pp. 14-35.
 Scriptum super libros Sententiarum (Commentary on
[Lombard’s] Sentences), 1252-1256.
 Questiones disputatae de veritate (Disputed
Questions on Truth), 1256-1259.
 English translation: Mulligan, Robert W., James V.
McGlynn, and Robert W. Schmidt, trans. Truth. 3 vols. Library of
Living Catholic Thought (Chicago: Regnery, 1952-1954; reprint,
Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994).
 Beata gens  (Sermon on the Feast of All Saints, the
First of November), ca. 1256-1259 or1268-1272?
 English translation: Mark-Robin Hoogland, trans. In The
Fathers of the Church: Medieval Continuation. Vol. II. Thomas
Aquinas: The Academic Sermons (Washington, DC: The Catholic
University of America Press, 2010), pp. 295-312.
 Expositio super librum Boethii De
trinitate (Commentary on Boethius’ De trinitate),
1257-1258 or 1259 (incomplete).
 English translation: Maurer, Armand, trans. Faith, Reason
and Theology: Questions I-IV of his Commentary on the De
Trinitate of Boethius. Mediaeval Sources in Translation, 32
(Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1987). Maurer,
Armand, trans. The Division and Methods of the Sciences:
Questions V and VI of his Commentary on the De Trinitate of
Boethius. 4th rev. ed. Mediaeval Sources in Translation, 3
(Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1986).
 Summa contra gentiles (Synopsis [of Christian
Doctrine] Directed against Unbelievers) [SCG], 1259-
1265.
 English translation: Pegis, Anton C., James F. Anderson,
Vernon J. Bourke, and Charles J. O’Neil, trans. Summa contra
gentiles (1955; reprint, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1975).
 Glossa continua super Evangelia (Catena aurea)  (A
Continuous Gloss on the Evangelists [collected from
the writings of the Church Fathers]), 1262-1265
(Matthew); 1265-1268 (Mark, Luke, and John).
 English translation: M. Pattison, J. D. Dalgairns, and T. D.
Ryder, trans. John Henry Newman, ed. 4 vols. (1841-1845;
reprint, Boonville, NY: Preserving Christian Publications, 2009).
 Expositio super Iob ad litteram (Literal Commentary
on Job), 1263-1265.
 English translation: Yaffe, Martin D., and Anthony Damico,
trans. The Literal Exposition on Job: A Scriptural Commentary
Concerning Providence. Classics in Religious Studies, 7 (Atlanta,
GA: Scholars Press, 1989).
 Expositio et lectura super Epistolas Pauli
Apostoli  (Commentary and lectures on the Epistles of
Paul the Apostle), 1263-1265 (1 Cor. 11—Philemon);
1271-1272 (Romans), and 1272- 1273 (Hebrews).
 English translations: multiple.
 Officium de festo Corporis Christi ad mandatum
Urbani Papae  (The Office of the Feast of the Body of
Christ, Commissioned by Pope Urban), 1264.
 English translation: The Aquinas Prayer Book: The Prayers
and Hymns of St. Thomas Aquinas, R. Anderson and J. Moser,
trans. (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 2000).
 Adoro te devote  (Hymn) (Humbly I Adore Thee), 1264
or 1274.
 English translation: The Aquinas Prayer Book: The Prayers
and Hymns of St. Thomas Aquinas, R. Anderson and J. Moser,
trans. (Manchester: NH: Sophia Institute Press, 2000).
 Quaestiones disputatae de potentia (Disputed
Questions on [the] Power [of God]), 1265-1266.
 English translation: The English Dominican Fathers, trans.
(1932; reprint, Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2004).
 Compendium theologiae, ad fratrem Reginaldum
socium suum (A Compendium of Theology, for Brother
Reginald, his Companion), 1265-1267 (incomplete).
 English translation: Vollert, Cyril, trans. Light of Faith: The
Compendium of Theology (1947; reprint, Manchester, NH: Sophia
Institute, 1993).
 Expositio super librum Dionysii De divinis
nominibus  (Commentary on Pseudo-Dionysius’ De
divinis nominibus), 1265-1268.
 English translation: Marsh, Harry C., trans. “A Translation
of Thomas Aquinas’ In Librum beati Dionysii de divinis nominibus
expositio.” In his “Cosmic Structure and the Knowledge of God:
Thomas Aquinas’ In Librum beati Dionysii de divinis
nominibus expositio,” 265–549. Ph.D. diss. (Vanderbilt University,
1994).
 Summa theologiae (Synopsis of Theology) [ST], 1265-
1268 (Prima Pars); 1271 (Prima Secundae); 1271-
1272 (Secunda Secundae), and 1271-1273 (Tertia
Pars) (incomplete).
 English translation: Fathers of the English Dominican
Province, trans. (1911; reprint, Allen, TX: Christian Classics,
1981).
 Quaestiones disputatae de anima  (Disputed
Questions on the Soul), 1266-1267.
 English translation: Robb, James H., trans. Questions on
the Soul. Mediaeval Philosophical Texts in Translation, 27
(Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1984).
 De regno [or De regimine principum], ad regem
Cypri (On Kingship [or On the Governance of Rulers],
for the King of Cyprus), 1266-1267.
  English translation: Phelan, Gerald B., and I.T. Eschmann,
trans. On Kingship to the King of Cyprus. Mediaeval Sources in
Translation, 2 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies,
1949).
 Sententia super De anima (Commentary on
Aristotle’s De anima), 1267-1268.
 English translation: Pasnau, Robert C.,
trans. Commentary on Aristotle’s De anima (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1999).
 Expositio Libri Physicorum (Commentary on
Aristotle’s Physics), 1268-1270.
 English translation: Blackwell, Richard J., Richard J.
Spath, and W. Edmund Thirlkel, trans. Commentary on
Aristotle’s Physics. Rare Masterpieces of Philosophy and Science
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963; reprint, Aristotelian
Commentary Series. Notre Dame, IN: Dumb Ox Books, 1999).
 Questiones disputatae de malo (Disputed Questions
on Evil), 1269-1271.
 English translation: Trans. Jean Oesterle (Notre Dame,
IN: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1995).
 Expositio Libri Peryermenias (Commentary on
Aristotle’s De interpretatione), 1270-1271.
 English translation: Oesterle, Jean, trans. Aristotle on
Interpretation: Commentary by St. Thomas and
Cajetan. Mediaeval Philosophical Texts in Translation, 11
(Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1962. Reprinted, with a
new introduction, as Commentary on Aristotle’s On
Interpretation, Notre Dame, IN: Dumb Ox Books, 2004).
 Sententia super Metaphysicam  (Commentary on
Aristotle’s Metaphysics), 1270-1273.
 English translation: Rowan, John P., trans. Commentary
on the Metaphysics of Aristotle. 2 vols (Chicago: Regnery, 1964;
reprinted in one volume with revisions as Commentary on
Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Aristotelian Commentary Series, Notre
Dame, IN: Dumb Ox Books, 1995).
 De aeternitate mundi, contra murmurantes  (On the
Eternity of the World against Murmerers), 1271.
 English translation: In St. Thomas, Siger de Brabant, and
St. Bonaventure, On the Eternity of the World, Cyril Vollert, Lottie
Kenzierski, and Paul M. Byrne, trans. Mediaeval Philosophical
Texts in Translation, 16 (Milwaukee: Marquette University
Press, 1964).
 Sententia libri Ethicorum (Commentary on
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics), 1271-1272.
 English translation: Litzinger, C.I., trans. Commentary on
the Nicomachean Ethics. 2 vols. Library of Living Catholic Thought
(Chicago: Regnery, 1964; reprinted in 1 vol. with revisions
as Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotelian
Commentary Series, Notre Dame, IN: Dumb Ox Books, 1993).
 Expositio super librum Boethii De
hebdomadibus  (Commentary on Boethius’ De
hebdomadibus), 1271-1272?
 English translation: Schultz, Janice L., and Edward A.
Synan, trans. An Exposition of the ‘On the Hebdomads’ of
Boethius. Thomas Aquinas in Translation (Washington, DC: The
Catholic University of America Press, 2001).
 Expositio super librum De causis (Commentary
on Liber de causis), 1272-1273.
  English translation: Guagliardo, Vincent A., Charles R.
Hess, and Richard C. Taylor, trans. Commentary on the Book of
Causes. Thomas Aquinas in Translation (Washington, DC: The
Catholic University of America Press, 1996).

b. Secondary Sources and Works Cited

The secondary literature on Thomas is vast. Here follows just a few important
studies of Thomas’ thought in English that will be particularly helpful to
someone who wants to learn more about Thomas’ philosophical thought as a
whole. Also included in this section are works cited within the article (other
than Thomas’ own).

 Artigas, Mariano. The Mind of the Universe:

Understanding Science and Religion (Philadelphia:
Templeton Foundation Press, 2000).
 Chesterton, G. K. The Dumb Ox (New York: Image
Books, 1956).
 Originally published in 1933, this is a wryly written study
by the famous English journalist that attempts to convey the
spirit and significance of Thomas’ thought. The eminent 20th-
century Thomas scholar Etienne Gilson once called it “the best
book ever written on St. Thomas.” The book is readily available in
many different editions.
 Clarke, W. Norris. The One and the Many: A
Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2001).
 An excellent attempt to articulate Thomas’ metaphysical
views in light of the phenomenological and personalist traditions
of 20th-century philosophy.
 Copleston, F.C. Aquinas. (London: Penguin Books,
1955).
 A still classic study that attempts to explain Thomas’
views with an eye toward analytic philosophical idioms.
 Davies, Brian. The Thought of Thomas
Aquinas  (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).
 A clear and philosophically interesting summary of
Thomas’ theological and philosophical thought, one that follows
the structure of Thomas’ Summa theologiae.
 Davies, Brian and Eleonore Stump, eds. The Oxford
Handbook of Aquinas (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2012).
 A recent and excellent collection of scholarly articles on all
aspects of Thomas’ thought.
 Eberl, Jason. The Routledge Guidebook to
Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae (London: Routledge,
2015).
 A close reading and explanation of the philosophical views
contained in Thomas’ greatest work.
 Feser, Edward. Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide  (Oxford:
Oneworld, 2009).
 Despite the title, this is a sophisticated, very readable,
articulation and defense of ideas central to Thomas’ thought.
 Gilson, Etienne. The Christian Philosophy of St.
Thomas Aquinas. Trans. L. K Shook (1956; reprint,
 Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press,
1994).
 A classic study by the famous 20th-century Thomist and
scholar of medieval philosophy. Among other things, Gilson
argues that Thomas’ concept of actus essendi is the key to
understanding his thought and its unique contribution to the
history of Western philosophy.
 King, Jr., Martin Luther. “Letter from the Birmingham
Jail,” in Why We Can’t Wait (New York: Signet Books,
1963).
 Kretzmann, Norman and Eleonore Stump, eds. The
Cambridge Companion to Aquinas (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1993).
 An excellent collection of scholarly introductions to all the
major facets of Thomas’ thought.
 Pieper, Josef. A Guide to Thomas Aquinas. Trans.
Richard and Clara Winston (San Francisco: Ignatius,
1991).
 Gives a helpful introduction to Thomas’ thought by way of
clearly presenting the historical context in which Thomas lived
and taught.
 Plantinga, Alvin. Warranted Christian Belief (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2000).
 Rota, Michael W. “What Aristotelian and Thomistic
philosophy can contribute to Christian theology,”
in Theology and Philosophy: Faith and Reason, eds. O.
Crisp, G. D’Costa, M. Davies, and P. Hampson
(London: T & T Clark, 2012), pp. 102-115.
 Stump, Eleonore. Aquinas. Arguments of the
Philosophers (London: Routledge, 2003).
 A detailed presentation of Thomas’ philosophical thought,
one that articulates and defends Thomas’ views in light of
contemporary analytic philosophical discussions in metaphysics,
epistemology, the philosophy of religion, the philosophy of mind,
and ethics.
 Torrell, Jean-Pierre. Aquinas’s  Summa: Background,
Structure, and Reception.  Trans. Benedict M. Guevin
(Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America
Press, 2005).
 Helpfully explains the context, content, and the history of
the reaction to Thomas’ greatest work.
 Van Inwagen, Peter. Metaphysics. 4th ed. (Boulder,
CO: Westview Press, 2015).
c. Bibliographies and Biographies
 Ingardia, Richard. Thomas Aquinas: International
Bibliography 1977-1990 (Bowling Green, KY: The
Philosophical Documentation Center).  
 Kretzmann, Norman and Eleonore Stump. “Aquinas,
Thomas,” in The Routledge Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. Vol. 1. Edward Craig, ed. (London:
Routledge, 1998), pp. 326-350.
 A scholarly, concise, and very informative account of
Thomas’ life and works. Also contains a good bibliography.
  Miethe, T. L. and Vernon Bourke. Thomistic
Bibliography 1940-1978 (Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 1980).
 Torrell, Jean-Pierre. Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Person
and His Work. Trans. Robert Royal. Revised Edition
(Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America
Press, 2005).
 The most up-to-date, scholarly, book-length treatment of
Thomas’ life and works.
 Tugwell, Simon. Albert and Thomas: Selected
Writings. The Classics of Western Spirituality
(Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1988).
 The introduction to this work contains a concise and
helpful account of Thomas’ life and works.
 Weisheipl, J. Friar Thomas D’Aquino: His Life, Thought,
and Works (Washington, DC: The Catholic University
of America Press, 1983).
 A classic study, which is nonetheless superseded by
(Torrell 2005).
 

Author Information
Christopher M. Brown
Email: chrisb@utm.edu
University of Tennessee at Martin
U. S. A.
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