The Ethics of St. Thomas Aquinas: Happiness, Natural Law and the Virtues by Leo Elders (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 641 or political affirmation of a "conservative" ideology. Rather, I see it as an objective presentation about personal and social reality set within the framework of Catholic belief. John Paul II offers a penetrating analysis of European history to those currently reinventing Europe. He warns that if the framers of the European Union do not honor the memory of what gave Europe its identity, a new totalitarianism worse than those of Hitler and Stalin will ensue. The outcome of freedom independent of truth, uncontrolled market forces, unjust distribution of the world's goods, unlimited pursuit of wealth and passions, absolute autonomy, and democracy that does not serve the common good will oppress peoples as never before. Memory and Identity is yet another encounter with the great mind of John Paul II. More than that, it reveals a depth of thinking aided by the graces of matured faith and of the papal ministry. The Holy Father gleans an uncanny wisdom from the past two millennia. By it contemporaries can avoid the irresponsibilities that led to the European disasters of the twentieth century as well as fulfill the task of freedom used for excellence in the third millennium. The true identity of Europe must be remembered so that, in a new springtime, it can rise to the next stage of greatness. PAUL CONNER, 0.P. Providence College Providence, Rhode Island The Ethics ofSt. Thomas Aquinas: Happiness, Natural Law and the Virtues. By LEO ELDERS. New York: Peter Lang, 2005. Pp 314. $49.95 (paper). ISBN 0-8204-7713-3. For Aquinas, the Christian theologian, man's only ultimate end is the supernatural vision of God. This reality influences the entire moral life. The New Law, the grace of the Holy Spirit which transforms and strengthens the soul, not only indicates what should be done but also helps to accomplish it. The gifts of the Holy Spirit and the beatitudes are, as Servais Pinckaers, Romanus Cessario, and others have argued forcefully, fundamental in the sense that they direct the moral life to its mystical and contemplative elements, which is in fact a communion with the interpersonal life of the divine Trinity. In the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas therefore closely ties the moral and dogmatic parts together to form a unified theology. Not surprisingly, then, Aquinas himself on various occasions needed to correct Aristotle's ethics. These considerations, and others, have been put forward by the current trend to renew Thomistic moral theology. I introduce these observations in order to indicate the difficulties that a book dealing with Aquinas's philosophical ethics currently faces. This latest work by 642 BOOK REVIEWS the Dutch Thomist Leo Elders, dedicated to Ralph Mdnerny, aims at presenting "as faithfully as possible" Aquinas's main teachings, which "have lost none of their truth and surprising actuality" (8), mainly by way of a commentary to the Secunda Pars of his Summa Theologiae, In this way, this volume stands in close relationship with Eider's previous books on Aquinas's metaphysics (The Metaphysics of St, Thomas Aquinas in a Historical Perspective [Leiden, 1992]), philosophical theology (The Philosophical Theology of St, Thomas Aquinas [Leiden, 1990]), and philosophy of nature and anthropology (The Philosophy of Nature ofSt, Thomas Aquinas: Nature, the Universe, Man [Frankfurt am Main, 1997]), It completes his project of providing a set of textbooks that exposes the philosophy of Aquinas from within a historical perspective in order to bring to light the singular philosophical and historical importance of his thought, Obviously, Aquinas never wrote a separate treatise on ethics, The author however is convinced that such a philosophical ethics existed in the mind of Aquinas and that it can be recovered by a careful analysis of the relevant questions and articles from the Secunda Pars as elaborated by natural reason, Elders argues that the philosophical arguments, even when used within theological expositions, are philosophically self-contained, Moreover, Aquinas considered the Nicomachean Ethics not as a summary of Aristotle's views, but simply as the moral philosophy par excellence, However, to have an expose of the science of morals according to the correct order of themes, as Thomas himself would write it, we must go beyond the commentary and turn...