Aquinas on Disordered Pleasures and Conditions

AQUINAS ON DISORDERED PLEASURES AND CONDITIONS ANTHONY c. DALY, S.J. St. Louis University St. Louis, Missouri IT IS A COMMONPLACE that various philosophies, besides being supremely important intellectually and morally to individuals, have exercised a powerful influence on culture through their proponents acting individually and in schools. Sometimes, too, philosophers and theologians made venerable by antiquity are cited in policy disputes, both secular and ecclesiastical , which have a definite political aspect. The obvious hope is that the struggle can be won more easily with the added support of a revered authority. This seems to have been the case recently in the debate over homosexuality. Bruce Williams, O.P., wrote a commentary 1 on a letter from the Roman Catholic Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, " On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons," in which he adopts the position that the homosexual condition cannot be considered "all right". He bases his argument explicitly on the scholastic maxim ' agere sequitur esse' (acting fol.., lows being) ; if the action is distorted, so is the condition from which it follows. But in disputing this position another commentator on the Roman letter, Gerald D. Coleman, S.S.,2 has named Thomas Aquinas as a key scholastic philosopher who should logically be counted as his own ally. Coleman seems to say 1 "Homosexuality: The New Vatican Statement," Theological Studies 48(1987), pp. 259-77. My thanks to Jesuit Fathers Harry R. Kloeker, Robert W. Mulligan, and David A. Wayne for advice and encouragement during the preparation of this article. 2 "The Vatican Statement on Homosexuality,'' Theological Studies 48(1987), pp. 727-34. 583 584 ANTHONY C. DALY, S.J. that although Thomas" would name the homosexual activity ... as ' distorted '," he would not think of the homosexual condition in this way.3 Before entering in detail into Thomas's actual thought on the matter, it seems important for humanitarian reasons to note specifically , as did the Roman Letter, Williams, Coleman, and Thomas himself, that a disordered condition need not imply moral culpability. The case is clearer when the disordered condition is a physical handicap.4 In that case it isn't morally wrong to be handicapped, yet it isn't " all right " to be physically handicapped either, except insofar as "it's all right" means that a person would rightly accept and love himself or herself, handicap and all. A disordered condition may involve a physical evil or perhaps a psychological evil, but does not necessarily involve a culpable moral evil. With this proviso the way is open for a frank discussion of Thomas's actual ideas about homosexuality. They are certainly worth the consideration of any contemporary philosopher or theologian who might be interested in this issue, and for others the subject involves a facet of the history of ideas well worth noting , expecially since from this angle it is easy to focus on Thomas's general thought about disordered conditions and pleasures . The investigation also forms a case study in the way Thomas used philosophy in forming and articulating his theology. Here, despite the fact that much of the material as Thomas expressed it has a theological formality and purpose, it is from philosophy that he derives his arguments, their thought structure , and their underlying insight. Pleasures, Actions, Habits, and States In order to help him refute Williams's point that a homosexual 8 Coleman, "Statement," pp. 732-34 (quotation from p. 733); Williams, "Homosexuality," pp. 263-69. 4 See Williams, " Homosexuality," p. 266, quoting Marc Oraison, The Homosexual Question (London: Search, 1977), p. 115; Coleman, " Statement," p. 734 and n. 30 (Coleman does not think of homosexuality as a distorted condition). Thomas's thought on the matter is treated below. AQUINAS ON DISORDERED PLEASURES, CONDITIONS 585 orientation is a disordered condition, Coleman quotes Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, 31, 7.5 Coleman argues that Thomas had no idea of the contemporary notion of " homosexual orientation", but were he aware of it or something like it, he would logically have to call homosexual acts distorted, but would not call the homosexually oriented person distorted. This seems to mean Thomas would not call the homosexual orientation objectively disordered.6 Coleman's use of...