Metaphysics and Anthropology of St. Thomas Aquinas
Metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas
Aquinas distinguishes between what things are (essence) and what they exist as (substance). Essence: A set of characteristics that make a thing what it is, the essence of a human being is to be “rational animal.” Existence: the act of being, in essence received by the intervention of “secondary causes” (parents) or “first cause” (God). There is no distinction in God, God is a necessary being: it exists and cannot cease to exist. Consequently, its essence exists in the act, however, created beings are contingent, that is, they may cease to exist.
Aquinas establishes a hierarchy between different beings according to the criterion of proximity to reality:
– God: first substance (essence = existence) – Angels: immaterial beings (essence = form without matter) – The Human Being (essence = matter + form) – Things (essence = matter + form)
Aquinas said that the existence of God is not an obvious truth of human nature and those who assert it must prove it. The existence of God should not be linked to existing concepts. From human experience, we go back through them to their cause, that is, a posteriori. Aquinas rejects the ontological argument and its validity. This ontological argument has as its starting point the idea of God as perfect, the argument has an illegitimate way of the ideal to reality: thinking of something to exist does not mean that it exists in reality. The individual existence is to demonstrate sensible existence.
Thomistic proofs: existence of God can be demonstrated rationally.
– Traits of demonstration a posteriori: demonstration of the existence of created beings, perfection > every effect must have its cause: creation all depends on its creator. > impossibility of the causal chain extends to infinity. > affirmation of the existence of God.
Demonstration of the Essence of God
Human reason cannot reach the divine essence. Therefore, it comes to the “analogy of being.” Human reason seeks to know the divine essence through three paths:
– Affirmative Way: we affirm of God all that our understanding can conceive: Eternal, immutable, good. – Way of Eminence: attribute to God all that we understand of it: omnipotent, omnipresent, goodness, perfection. – Negative Way: God is only what it is. If pure, infinite, Unique.
Anthropological Theories of Aquinas
Aquinas states that human reason cannot attain the divine essence, so it goes to three possible routes:
– Affirmative Route: God accepts all that our understanding can understand: Eternal, immutable good. – Way of Eminence: attribute to God what we understand of it: omnipotent, omnipresent, perfect. – Negative Way: we know of God what it is not: Pure, infinite, unique.
For Aquinas, beings are composed of essence and existence, except God, in whom essence and existence meet. The attempts to reconcile this explanation with the Augustinian tradition. Like the rest of the medieval philosophers, Aquinas said the world was created by an act of God totally free. Aquinas says God allowed evil in the world for the free will of the people and the improvement of the world.
The human being is a composite of soul and body in a way that forms the soul of the body. Aquinas affirms that the human being defends the existence of a single soul that regulates the body and gives it shape. The capacities of the soul are divided into three groups: vegetative powers, the sensitive, and rational. The relationship between soul and body is a natural relationship. He defends the immortality of the soul by relying on its immateriality.
Conclusion: to explain the created reality, Aquinas uses Aristotelian concepts (substance-accident, matter, and form) and adds the essence and existence. This enables you to understand creation as an order of contingent beings, that is, beings that have existence but could not. With this structural ontology, Aquinas explains the creation as an order of beings involved, composite, and, therefore, finite. But nevertheless, it is not actual beings of pure appearances nor parts of the self. Beings are given an existence by the act of creation. Which leads to contingent beings, but no less real and independent.
Cosmology
Aquinas tries to explain rationally the world. Aquinas is going to have to explain how solutions may exist an infinite God and finite beings, All created beings, which however are both beings. This will draw one concept that is sufficiently broad to which can be called both God and creatures to the creatures. Hence, if that is the analog concept and be one. Because no single reality can be reduced to one unit of type Parmenides. The idea of analogy and participation across the Thomistic ontology: the things people say to each mode or better in its own way of being. God is being. From God, Aquinas is going to give us a vision created in a hierarchical pyramid. Creating infinite assumes a separation between God and creatures. The hierarchy of beings is given by its pure existence closer to God. At the apex of creation: the angels are composed only of essence and existence, no matter they are pure forms of existence. Therefore, they have to be pure forms without matter. Each angel is a species.
Ethics
Aquinas’s ethics follows the Aristotelian, but adapted to the Christian principles. He agrees with Aristotle in the theological conception of the nature and conduct of the soul: every action tends toward an end, the end is a good action. All human actions tend toward a goal: which is happiness. Which is identified with the knowledge of higher objects. In trying to reconcile Aristotelianism and Christianity, he identifies happiness with beatific contemplation. This contemplation with God’s help will allow the soul to acquire the capacity to achieve the vision of God. Aquinas distinguishes three virtues: physical (health), moral (temperance, fortitude, and justice), and intellectual (knowledge and wisdom). Virtue is the habit of reason that is formed through the repetition of good acts, is a compromise of reason. The reason should direct man to his end, which must be in harmony with nature. Aquinas gives primacy to our understanding of the will. One of the first principles of reason is that we must do good and avoid evil. Aquinas starts from the principle that all reality tends to an end, thus underlying the concept of natural law, “the eternal law involving the rational creature.” Rationalism allows you to see trends and deduce rules of conduct to give them their proper enforcement.
Trends:
– Substance: the human being tends to preserve its own existence. – Animals: the human being tends to procreate. – Be rational: the human being tends to know the truth and live in society.
Natural law has three characteristics: It is obvious (easily known), universal (common), and immutable (no change).
Positive law: enacted by governments, imposes life in society. Specific moral norms. They must be respected by positive law. It is a framework which identifies the limits on which must organize human society morally.
Eternal law / human: it represents the government of God in the world is present in the nature of all beings. To the objects while this law is specified in physical and mechanistic laws, with room for the human being that acts freely with the help of reason.
Political Theory of St. Thomas Aquinas
Aquinas says that the human being is a social being by nature, this means that society is also natural. The human being needs society which is organized through reason. Every society has two purposes: one immediate, material (the needs) and another transcendent (lead individuals to God).
After analyzing the forms of government sanctioned by the classical tradition (monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy), Aquinas says none of them should a priori be considered illicit. They become illegal when they degenerate into tyrannical and this danger run it only the monarchy and aristocracy and democracy even when not respect justice. Legislative power is derived for the rulers of God, but not immediately, if not through the popular consensus. Aquinas rejects the theocentric doctrine, by which the civil authority would seek to derive directly from God through the Roman Pontiff. Hence, two areas are in power: the sovereignty of the civil power on one side and religious power for another. The State must seek the common good, for which it legislates in accordance with natural law. The laws contrary to natural law are not binding in conscience. Laws contrary to divine law should be rejected and it is not licit to obey them, what brand that dependence of civil legislation on religious law.