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That Restless Immobility: Thomas Aquinas’ Anthropological Paradox
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
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References
1 Augustine, , The Confessions of St. Augustine, trans. Sheed, F. J. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1942), 13:9Google Scholar.
2 Cary, Phillip, “The Weight of Love: Augustinian Metaphors of Movement in Dante's Souls,” in Augustine and Literature (Augustine in Conversation: Tradition and Innovation), ed. Doody, J., Kennedy, R.P. and Paffenroth, K. (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006), pp. 15‐36Google Scholar.
3 See ST I‐II.5. All quotations of the Aquinas’ Summa Theologica in this essay are translated by The Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Bros., 1948).
4 ST I‐II.3.3.
5 ST I‐II.1.8.
6 ST I‐II.1.7.
7 ST I‐II.1.7.
8 ST I‐II.18.9.
9 ST I‐II.91.2.
10 ST I‐II.92.1.
11 ST I‐II.92.1.
12 DeYoung, Rebecca, McCluskey, Colleen and Dyke, Christina Van, Aquinas's Ethics: Metaphysical Foundations, Moral Theory, and Theological Context (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009), p. 153Google Scholar.
13 ST I‐II.93.1.
14 ST I‐II.91.1.
15 ST I‐II 93.3. To the extent that a law deviates from the Eternal Law, Thomas says, “it is called an unjust law, and has the nature, not of law but of violence.”
16 ST I‐II.91.2.
17 Porter, Jean. “Right Reason and the Love of God: The Parameters of Aquinas’ Moral Theology,” in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, eds., Nieuwenhove, R. Van and Wawrykow, J. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), p. 185Google Scholar.
18 ST I‐II.91.2.
19 ST I‐II.91.2.
20 ST I‐II.91.2.
21 ST I‐II.94.2.
22 DeYoung et al., Aquinas's Ethics, pp. 152‐3.
23 ST I‐II.91.2.
24 ST I‐II 94.2.
25 DeYoung et al., Aquinas's Ethics, p. 154.
26 Ibid., 155.
27 ST I‐II.91.3.
28 ST I‐II.95.2.
29 ST I‐II.95.2.
30 ST I‐II.98.5.
31 See ST I.95.1.
32 ST I‐II.98.5.
33 See ST I‐II.98.5; 99.3.
34 ST I‐II.98.1.
35 ST I‐II.98.1.
36 ST I‐II.106.1.
37 Conf. 10:29.
38 ST I‐II.108.2.
39 ST I‐II.106.1.
40 ST I‐II.106.1, emphasis added.
41 ST I‐II.108.1, emphasis added.
42 ST I‐II.108.1.
43 Servais Pinckaers is, however, quick to add that the body of the Gospel texts is hypostatically united with the breath of the Spirit, for the Spirit could not animate a body of doctrine that was not conformed to the gospel. See his The Sources of Christian Ethics, trans., Noble, M. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1985, 1995), p. 176Google Scholar.
44 Davies, Brian, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 252Google Scholar.
45 ST I‐II.91.1.
46 ST I‐II.55.1‐3.
47 ST I‐II.55.2.
48 DeYoung et al., Aquinas’ Ethics, p. 132.
49 ST I‐II.65.3.
50 Kent, Bonnie. “Habits and Virtues (Ia IIae, qq. 49‐70)” in The Ethics of Aquinas (Moral Traditions Series), ed., Pope, S. (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2002), pp. 116‐7Google Scholar.
51 ST I‐II.62.1; see also I‐II.65.3.
52 ST I‐II.63.1.
53 ST I‐II.62.1. Angela McKay Knoble argues convincingly that the relation between the infused and acquired virtues is incredibly vague and amorphous in Thomas. See her “Relating Aquinas's Infused and Acquired Virtues: Some Problematic Text for a Common Interpretation,” Nova et Vetera 9/2 (2011): pp. 411‐31Google Scholar.
54 ST I‐II.63.2; Quoting Augustine Super Ps. 118, Serm. xxvi. Thomas nevertheless maintains that even though God will infuse virtues in us “without any action on our part,” he will not do so “without our consent” (ST I‐II.55.4).
55 ST I‐II.63.2.
56 ST I‐II.65.2. Unlike the moral and cardinal virtues, the theological virtues have only an infused form.
57 ST I.12.1.
58 Velde, Rudi te, Aquinas on God: The ‘Divine Science’ of the Summa Theologiae (Ashgate Studies in the History of Philosophical Theology) (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2006), p. 158Google Scholar. For an excellent discussion of Thomas’ penchant for “turning the water of philosophy into the wine of theology,” see Jordan, Mark, “Theology and Philosophy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas, eds., Stump, E. and Kertzmann, N. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993)Google Scholar.
59 ST I‐II.62.1.
60 ST I‐II.62.1. The question of natural happiness perhaps first came up because medieval theologians worried about the fate of children who died unbaptized. Many of these theologians were unwilling to afford beatific vision to the unbaptized. But they did not have the heart to damn innocent children to the same eternal torment as unrepentant sinners, either. So a hypothetical was proposed: What if Adam had died in his original state of innocence, before he sinned, but also before having been infused with sanctifying grace? Interestingly, unlike many of his contemporaries, Thomas did not think that there was an actual temporal gap between the creation of human beings in pure nature and the infusion of supernatural grace—Thomas’ Adam did not exist, even for a second, in a state of pure nature. See Torrell, Jean‐Pierre, “Nature and Grace in Thomas Aquinas” in Surnaturel: A Controversy at the Heart of Twentieth‐Century Thomistic Thought, ed., Bonino, S. T.; trans., Williams, R. and Levering, M. (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press, 2009), pp. 156‐63.Google Scholar What would have been Adam's fate had he died in this state of pure nature? And by extension, what would be the fate of those unbaptized children? It was generally accepted that they would be “without fault and without grace,” and would therefore experience an afterlife “without punishment and without glory”—a sort of in‐between state. Recent popes have questioned the legitimacy of this state of limbo, at least with regard to unbaptized children. See the 2007 document, commissioned by John Paul II, later authorized for publication by Benedict XVI and produced by the International Theological Commission, entitled “The Hope of Salvation for Infants who Die without Being Baptized,” (available at http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un‐baptised‐infants_en.html).
61 See, for instance, ST I‐II.4.7; 5.5.
62 ST I‐II.62.1; cf. ST I.12.1.
63 See discussion of the analogical relation between the two ends of man in Jean Porter, The Recovery of Virtue: The Relevance of Aquinas for Christian Ethics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1990), 65; and in te Velde, Aquinas, p. 160.
64 ST I‐II.3.6.
65 Davies, Thought, p. 252.
66 te Velde, Aquinas, p. 161.
67 ST I.12.4.
68 See Joseph Wawrykow's discussion of ST I‐II.109 in his,“Grace,” in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, eds., Nieuwenhove, R. Van and Wawrykow, J. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), pp. 193‐4Google Scholar.
69 ST 109.2.
70 For an excellent discussion of the role of Adam in Thomas’ thought see Davies, Thought, pp. 264‐6.
71 In Christian theology grace preforms both of these functions. Joseph Wawrykow notices that theologians emphasize one function or the other depending on how they construe the problem of human nature. When the problem is seen primarily as the ontological gap between creature and Creator, the elevating function of grace will be emphasized. The goal will be “to bridge the gap…and so render possible the attainment of God as end.” When instead the problem is construed in terms of “the moral gap cause by sin,” the theologian will see the primary function of grace “to heal, to overcome sin, and thus make the attainment of God possible.” Under the influence of Augustine the discussion in the Latin tradition has focused on the healing and restorative good of grace, while the Orthodox tradition has emphasized elevation and deification. But neither function of grace seems to take precedence for Thomas. Wawrykow says, “he views both with equal seriousness.” Wawrykow, “Grace,” p. 196.
72 I owe the following observation to DeYoung et al. in Aquinas's Ethics, pp. 169‐72.
73 ST I‐II.49.prol.; 90.prol.
74 DeYong et al., Aquinas’ Ethics, p. 169.
75 See te Velde, Aquinas, p. 150; and Root, Michael, “Aquinas, Merit, and Reformation Theology After the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification,” Modern Theology 20 1 (2004), pp. 11‐2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.