The Logic of Desire

The Logic of Desire

Aquinas on Emotion


Nicholas E. Lombardo, O.P.

The Catholic University of America Press

Washington, D.C.
Copyright © 2011
The Catholic University of America Press
All rights reserved

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum

requirements of American National Standards for Information
Science—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z39.48-1984.
∞

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lombardo, Nicholas E. (Nicholas Emerson)
The logic of desire : Aquinas on emotion / Nicholas E. Lombardo.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 978-0-8132-1797-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)   1. Thomas, Aquinas,
Saint, 1225?–1274.  2. Emotions.  3. Thomas, Aquinas, Saint,
1225?–1274. Summa theologica.  I. Title.
B765.T54L59 2011
128'.37—dc22 2010021133
To my father, my mother, and my sister
What does a man do when he finds himself living after an age
has ended and he can no longer understand himself because
the theories of man of the former age no longer work and the
theories of the new age are not yet known, for even the name of
the new age is not known, and so everything is upside down,
people feeling bad when they should feel good, good when
they should feel bad?
What a man does is start afresh as if he were newly come
into a new world, which in fact it is; start with what he knows
for sure, look at the birds and beasts, and like a visitor from
Mars newly landed on earth notice what is different about man.
Walker Percy, “The Delta Factor”


More tortuous than all else is the human heart,
beyond remedy; who can understand it?
I, the Lord, alone probe the mind
and test the heart
To reward everyone according to his ways,
according to the merit of his deeds.
Jeremiah 17:9–10
Contents

Preface xi

Introduction 1

1 The Passions of the Soul 20

2 The Structure of the Passions 49

3 The Affections of the Will 75

4 Passion, Reason, and Virtue 94

5 Original Sin, Grace, and Human Affectivity 118

6 The Flourishing of Human Affectivity 148

7 The Affectivity of Christ 201

8 A Preliminary Evaluation of Aquinas on Emotion 224

9 Toward a Contemporary Theology of Emotion 250

Conclusion 272

Bibliography 275

Index of Citations 301

General Index 307

Preface

Aquinas’s account of emotion centers on his account of desire. In turn,

it is desire that gives the Summa theologiae its exitus-reditus structure: Aqui-
nas begins with God and then traces how creation flows from God’s desire
and returns to him through ours. Consequently, to follow the theme of emo-
tion through the Summa is to follow the guiding principle around which
Aquinas organized his most mature thought. The Summa is often compared
to the great cathedrals of the Middle Ages for its vast structure and its com-
prehensive synthesis of so many component parts. Looking at the theme of
desire and emotion is like stepping away from the many side chapels of the
Summa and looking down the nave.
Desire and emotion are not just central to the structure of the Summa:
they are central to Aquinas’s project and especially his ethics. For Aquinas,
ethics is nothing other than the study of human psychology insofar as it
flourishes or fails to flourish. Unlike approaches that regard psychology and
ethics as two distinct categories that are only occasionally concerned with
each other, or perhaps extrinsically related in a calculus where psychologi-
cal well-being is weighed against doing what is right, Aquinas’s approach
offers a refreshing synthesis of psychology and ethics. In many popular un-
derstandings, there is something paradoxical about divine commandments:
God gives us desires and then commands us not to act on them. For Aqui-
nas, there is no paradox, because God commands us through the desires he
gives us. The commandments of divine revelation are ancillary to our natu-
ral inclinations; they are signposts to the fulfillment of desire, shorthand
conclusions following from the logic of human nature.
Two extreme views about emotion seem to emerge continually in dif-
ferent eras of human history and sometimes side by side within the same
culture. There is one view that is suspicious of human emotion and seeks to
guard against it, restrain it, and prevent it from taking control. Then there is

xi
Preface

another view that exults in emotion and desire and glorifies following wher-
ever it might lead. While most cultures and peoples settle on some middle
way, it is striking how frequently the extreme views manifest themselves
time and again, in all sorts of different cultural contexts. Nonetheless, it is
not all that surprising. Both views have their origins in human experience:
all of us at times experience the goodness of desire and emotion, and all of
us at times experience how our emotions can mislead us, disrupt our inner
calm, and generally cause trouble. These experiences can be so intense that
we are liable to emphasize one reality at the expense of the other. Aquinas
manages to avoid either extreme. He affirms the fundamental goodness of
emotion even while maintaining that, in a fallen world, human affectivity is
prone to distortions. In consequence, his account is of broad interest to any-
one who seeks to reconcile a positive view of the human person with the em-
pirical fact of our proclivities toward self-destructive and other-destructive
behavior.
The positive role of emotion in Aquinas’s theology derives in no small
part from the cultural milieu of the Dominican Order to which Aquinas be-
longed, even apart from the influence of individual Dominicans such as his
teacher Albert the Great, who had pioneered the study of Aristotle and the
integration of theology with natural science. The order had grown out of
an informal band of itinerant preachers devoted to defending the goodness
of the material world against the dualistic beliefs of the Cathars of south-
ern France. These origins gave Dominic and his companions an especially
acute attentiveness to the goodness of creation. Insofar as they established
the government and basic structure of the order, and consciously and un-
consciously shaped the distinctive traits of Dominican culture, their legacy
undoubtedly influenced Aquinas toward a more pronounced appreciation
of creation—and thus emotion. His account of emotion, then, in part reflects
the cultural dispositions of the early Dominicans. This genealogy under-
scores its rootedness in practical concerns and the analysis of ordinary hu-
man experience, and also helps to explain its balance and humaneness.
Aquinas reinvigorated the living intellectual tradition that he had re-
ceived with a passion for rigorous analysis and a radical openness to all
sources of knowledge, whether secular or religious. Today, several centuries
later, his contribution to making sense of the human condition remains rel-
evant to many contemporary concerns. It is my hope that The Logic of Desire
will make that contribution more accessible and help to build upon it.

xii
 Preface


I am grateful to many people and institutions for the role they played in
bringing this book to print. Looking back at the end of a long process, I am
struck by just how much I owe.
I would like to express my gratitude for the grounding in analytic philos-
ophy that I received at Brown University, and for the exceptional theological
education that I received at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington,
D.C. I am particularly grateful to Lawrence Donohoo, O.P., who directed my
S.T.L. thesis “Aquinas on Emotion.” His guidance and feedback were invalu-
able. I would also like to thank Kevin White, who graciously permitted me
to audit his lectures on Aquinas and the passions at the Catholic University
of America.
I would like to thank Romanus Cessario, O.P., and Archbishop Augus-
tine Di Noia, O.P., for encouraging me in the idea of turning my S.T.L. thesis
into a book and helping me in the practical process of finding a publisher.
Without their encouragement and assistance, it is unlikely that this book
would ever have been written.
The feedback, criticism, and encouragement of many people played a
crucial role in bringing this book to completion. I am especially grateful to
Nicholas Ingham, O.P., who commented on every chapter of the manuscript
as I was writing it. I am also grateful to Michael Sherwin, O.P., for his exten-
sive and very helpful comments. Special thanks are owed as well to Boniface
Endorf, O.P., Brian Mullady, O.P., and an anonymous reviewer for CUA Press.
I am indebted to many other people for their comments and feedback,
and I would particularly like to thank Andrew Brookes, Ann Brown, Clem-
ent Burns, O.P., Sarah Coakley, Hugh Vincent Dyer, O.P., Fergus Kerr, O.P.,
John Baptist Ku, O.P., Thomas Joseph White, O.P., and Celia Wolf-Devine.
I owe special thanks to Michele Ransil, C.D.P., for her expert proofreading,
to Benedict Croell, O.P., for scanning a thesis from the Angelicum library in
Rome, and to James Kruggel, my editor, for assistance above and beyond.
Finally, I would like to thank my father, my mother, and my sister, who
more than anyone else made this book possible, and to whom it is dedi-
cated, with love and affection.
Nicholas E. Lombardo, O.P.
Blackfriars, Cambridge
May 2010

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The Logic of Desire