Aquinas’ Philosophy: God, Creation, Anthropology, and Ethics
Essence of God
Essence of God. St. Thomas seeks to determine what God is, that is, explain His essence, attributing all the perfections found in creatures with their effects (using the principle of causality) rising to infinity. He also denies that God possesses defects found in creatures. The primary property of God (which makes God to be God) from which all others derive is that God is the only being in whom essence and existence are identified. With this feature, we get the following attributes referring to God: entitative (saying what God is like: simple, perfect, infinite, immutable, eternal, unique) and operational (saying how He works: intelligent, just, merciful…).
The Created Beings
The Created Beings. God, who is the efficient cause, exercises causality in an eminent way in the creative act. Creation is the total production of being, and God created the universe out of absolute nothingness—nothing of Himself and nothing of a pre-existing matter or subject. For Aquinas, the created world comes from God but is not God (contrary to what the Neoplatonists think). In creatures, existence (which makes beings exist) and essence (what makes something be what it is and nothing else) are distinct, while in God, existence identifies with essence. Created beings are contingent beings, since their existence does not depend on themselves, while God is necessary; it is obligatory for His existence to pertain to His essence. According to St. Thomas, there are several types of creatures: the immaterial substances (angels) and composite substances (material beings). To explain the material being, he used hylemorphism theory (whereby corporeal beings consist of matter and form) and the concepts of act/potency to explain change (the act is to be present all the features that a being is; while potency is the power to apply a transformation on an object—active power—or to become something—passive power).
Thomistic Anthropology
Thomistic Anthropology. Aquinas adopts Aristotle’s conception of man but modifies it so that it does not contradict Catholic doctrine. He says that man is a substance composed of body (which is the subject) and soul (which is the form). The soul is bound to the body substantially, and therefore, to talk about a whole man, the soul must be united to the body. Moreover, the soul is a substance that can exist independently of the body, so it’s immaterial and immortal.
Intellectual Knowledge
Intellectual Knowledge. Since man is body and soul, and the soul is conditioned by the body, understanding will be linked to the senses; hence, what the intellect knows most quickly is the being of sensible realities. But as a result, this knowledge begins in sense; therefore, it is based on sensory experience. From this experience, understanding develops concepts through a complex process called abstraction, which is the ability to universalize the particular data obtained through the senses to obtain the concepts he works with the understanding (which are universal).
Thomistic Ethics
Thomistic Ethics. Thomas Aquinas has a teleological and eudaimonic ethics, since he says that we tend toward an end, and the ultimate end is happiness, which can only be achieved by reaching the Supreme Good through the beatific vision in the afterlife. God directs all things to Himself and rules the world by the eternal law, which is owned in creatures as natural law. Therefore, we say that man is right when he follows the natural law. Natural law is a habit (state or disposition that is acquired through training or repeated execution of certain acts) of practical reason. Natural law is in all beings, but only man can know and guide their behavior accordingly.
Three Main Natural Laws:
- Since we are substances, we tend to keep our existence.
- As animals, we tend to breed.
- As humans, we tend to live in society, organized according to certain rules.
This natural law is mutable in the case of adding new principles not in contradiction with the former (those before), but their first principles are immutable. Besides, man makes his own laws, which will be positive laws (nomos) by following the natural law. These laws are contingent and changeable.