Wisdom, Law, and Virtue: Essays in Thomistic Ethics

Chapter 1: Wisdom and Human Life: The Natural and the Supernatural

Chapter 1 WISDOM AND HUMAN LIFE: THE NATURAL AND THE SUPERNATURAL Let us consider the foundations of morals or ethics. Those of us who live by faith in Jesus Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, find in him the best possible source of direction for our action.1 However, more so in modern times than ever before, people are exposed to nihilist ideology that presents each individual as a designer of what it is to live a human life. This kind of thinking is supported by materialist ideologies linked to scientific method, ideologies that dissociate moral values from objective reality. All of this is a source of confusion and temptation for the Christian , and it is the responsibility of Christian theologians and philosophers to do all they can to eliminate that confusion. Saint Thomas Aquinas I wish to meditate on the conception of reality that situates the human being in the world of morals. I maintain that that conception is best envisaged by St. Thomas Aquinas. In that sense, I am resorting to history to provide the answer. However, one must be careful of one’s idea of the ‘‘history of thought.’’ We are very prone, in the present culture, to view the history of philosophy as a series of ‘‘creative conceptions,’’ ‘‘stories,’’ ‘‘founding narratives,’’ provided by ‘‘thinkers.’’ I would encourage a return to a more realist conception of the history of thought, one that we still find somewhat as regards the history of science. We can conceive of the human observer in earlier times as truly knowing reality, but knowing it vaguely; then, as we advance through the years, with more experience and discoveries, we gain a more penetrating grasp of reality. In short, it is   Wisdom, Law, and Virtue not merely one picture replacing another but one picture perfecting the previous one. Thus, when we consider Plato and Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, we do not find the successor merely jettisoning the former teaching but, while correcting, retaining and improving the view of things previously seen. All three of the mentioned wise men grasped reality as the foundation of authentic human living, but one better than another. We go to Thomas Aquinas not to find out merely what Thomas Aquinas thought but to find help in our attempt to see reality.2 We turn to Thomas, of course, because of our experience in reading his work, but also and especially because he comes so well recommended by the Church. Pope John Paul II in his 1998 encyclical Fides et ratio, echoing his predecessors, reminded us of the unique status of Thomas as an ‘‘apostle of the truth.’’3 Natural and Supernatural My title speaks of ‘‘the natural and the supernatural.’’ This distinction between what is proportionate to the nature of human beings and what surpasses human nature is essential if one is to have some appreciation of the greatness of the gifts of God through Christ. The entire Christian life is ordered toward entry into eternal life with God, eternal life taking the form of a participation in God’s knowledge and love of his own divine goodness. For this to take place, our nature must be elevated into a divine condition, a condition thus surpassing human nature, a supernatural condition .4 However, this is not something that happens only at the end, in the next life. Rather, the life of the baptized person is and must be, already , an elevated life, a life divinized by grace. The virtues of faith, hope, and charity pertain to this elevated life of grace.5 The distinction between the natural and the supernatural, it is most important to realize, is not between two domains wholly alien to each other. Both are from God, and one prepares for the other: the natural prepares for the supernatural. If we are to have a right consideration of the supernatural, we must have a right consideration of the natural. The relation between the two is spoken of by Thomas Aquinas, for example, in connection with philosophical demonstration that a god exists. An objector argues against the demonstrability of a god’s existence, on the Wisdom and Human Life  grounds that it is an article of faith that God exists, and faith is about things we do not see intellectually. Thomas replies: That a god exists, and other things of this sort, which can be known by natural reason about...