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Chapter 2: Ecstatic Being
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Chapter Two ECSTATIC BEING All creatures desire the divine likeness and in so doing desire their own perfection. This is possible, for all being in Thomas’s conception is ecstatic. Through examining this idea in the present chapter, it will be possible to see that the metaphysics of ecstatic being in the Summa contra gentiles (III, c. , para. –) allows Thomas to describe a philosophical anthropology in which the desires of the human reflect a moral hierarchy (ScG III, c. , para. –) and to establish a foundation for his natural law theory (ST I–II, q. , a. ). The four-part (ecstatic) movement of human desire and its corresponding moral hierarchy will be discussed in this chapter. The basic argument is that the human body made ecstatic satisfies pseudo-Dionysius’s dictum: Bonum est diffusivum sui.1 In Thomas’s hands, of course, this dictum also captures the giving and generative character of Being and all that participates in God’s act. As de Finance puts it, ‘‘l’acte est essentiellement généreux.’’2 If we recall that this dictum is said of God (ScG III, c. , para. ), then the structure of human desire can be seen to imitate the structure of Being itself (MD, para. ). Chapter will examine the basis for the ecstatic structure of the body in the relationship between reason and sensuality. Chapter will complete the argument by claiming that natural law is rooted in eternal law, the expression of God’s wisdom and love, and so directs humans toward an increasing ecstasy in imitation of God’s own nature: ‘‘divine love makes ecstasy insofar as it makes the appetite of man tend into lovable things’’ (divinus amor facit extasim PAGE 13 ................. 11244$ $CH2 03-18-05 08:27:29 PS Ecstatic Morality and Sexual Politics inquantum scilicet facit appetitum hominis tendere in res amatas [ST II–II, q. , a. ]). The meaning of the term ‘‘ecstatic’’ in the following is at once ethical , metaphysical, and theological. The argument relies on the Dionysian maxim that the good is diffusive of itself. Thomas especially discusses ecstasy in relation to this maxim. I argue that the maxim is true in both an ethical and a metaphysical sense, and that Thomas himself makes this argument. I later argue that this double sense is more deeply underwritten by Christ as an exemplar of the love that wounds the lover. Again, this is an argument that Thomas makes and this is why, for example, I think Thomas’s natural law is thoroughly Christological. It is also why Thomas’s analysis of a basic part of the metaphysical order, the material composite (and one such composite is the human being), can be identified as having an ecstatic structure. As the text will illustrate, ‘‘ecstatic’’ is used here to capture a Thomistic insight that the parts of the world are deposed in service one for another . I call this ‘‘Ecstatic Thomism.’’ Having identified the way in which ecstasy structures Thomas’s ethical, metaphysical, and theological thought, I show throughout that Karol Wojtyla’s thought on these matters is thoroughly Thomistic in just this sense. Because this is little appreciated, I do not think the power of his sexual ethics has really been recognized: that is, a rejection of Wojtyla’s sexual ethics is also a rejection of Ecstatic Thomism. Kolnai’s emphasis on privilege as a response to an objective moral order is the political counterpart to Ecstatic Thomism. For privilege deposes man as the measure of political order. It shifts the centre of political gravity from the sovereignty of the individual and leaves man simultaneously exposed and elevated through social order. Natural appetite seeks the divine likeness as its own perfection (ScG III, c. , para. ), and the higher in the scale of goodness a natural appetite is, the more does it desire ‘‘a broader common good’’ (c. , para. ). Thomas provides four examples to demonstrate this principle. An individual seeks its (proper) good to preserve itself in existence, say, when an animal desires food. An individual can also act in a way appropriate to the species, as when an animal seeks its ‘‘proper good’’ in the ‘‘protection of individuals belonging to his species.’’ Seeking PAGE 14 ................. 11244$ $CH2 03-18-05 08:27:29 PS [54.205.238.173] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 14:37 GMT) Ecstatic Being continued existence and the protection of the young belong to ‘‘the essential character’’ of an animal but in different modes, under the mode of individual and the mode...