Ethics (Finals) Reviewer

Ethics (Finals) Reviewer

Ethics
St. Thomas Aquinas and the Christian Context
(Finals)
Reviewer
 The fundamental truth maintained and elaborated by Aquinas is the promise right at
the center of the Christian faith: that we are created by God in order to ultimately
return to Him.

 The Christian life, therefore, is about developing the capacities given to us by God
into a disposition of virtue inclined toward the good.

 Aquinas teaches that there is a sense of right and wrong in us that we are obliged to
obey, and this sense of right and wrong must be informed, guided, and ultimately
grounded in an objective basis for morality.
The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas : between God and Ethics

 St. Thomas Aquinas, an Italian philosopher, has produced a major work the Summa
Theologica, an attempt to synthetize Aristotle’s philosophy and writings of
Revelation.

 The fundamental truth maintained and elaborated by Aquinas is the promise right at
the center of the Christian faith: that we are created by God in order to ultimately
return to Him.

 The Christian life, therefore, is about developing the capacities given to us by God
into a disposition of virtue inclined toward the good.

 Aquinas teaches that there is a sense of right and wrong in us that we are obliged to
obey, and this sense of right and wrong must be informed, guided, and ultimately
grounded in an objective basis for morality.

 There have been various thinkers and systems of thought emerging throughout
history that could be said to present a natural law theory.

 Among them, the one we will be focusing on, is the medieval thinker Thomas
Aquinas.

 This moral theory, in turn, is part of a larger project, which is Aquinas`s vision of the
Christian faith.
 the Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas : between God and Ethics St.

 Thomas Aquinas, an Italian philosopher, has produced a major work, the Summa
Theologica, an attempt to synthetize Aristotle`s philosophy and writings of
Revelation.

 Thomas Aquinas and metaphysics : The Christian philosopher attempts to unify the
Christian themes and concepts of Aristotelianism.

 Thomas Aquinas and morality: His morality is also very close to that of Aristotle`s
thoughts on justice, which leads him to distinguish between distributive justice (that
which divides the honors, riches, according to the qualities of each) and
commutative justice (the rule that economic exchanges under the equal proportion
principle).

 Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) Hailed as a doctor of the Roman Catholic Church, one
of the figures who have fundamentally shaped the way we understand the Christian
faith, Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican friar who has become the preeminent
intellectual figure of the scholastic period of the Middle Ages, arguably contributing to
the doctrine of the faith more than any other figure of his time, and perhaps even in
the whole history of the Church.

 The Summa Theologiae, Aquinas's magnum opus, is a voluminous work that

 The Context of the Christian Story The fundamental truth maintained and elaborated
by Aquinas in all his works is the promise right at the center of the Christian faith:
that we are created by God in order to ultimately return to Him.

 The structure of his magnum opus Summa Theologiae follows the trajectory of this
story.

 Thomas for guidance in matters of philosophy and theology.

 At the age of 14, Thomas commenced his undergraduate studies at the University of
Naples, where newly-discovered works of Aristotle were studied more eagerly and
freely than was the case in Paris.
  Thomas is completely detached from all his work, all his writings, all his life; he asks
the Church to decide what is worth saving and what should be discarded.

 As a “Master of Theology”—which in the Middle Ages meant one who had attained
great proficiency in understanding and interpreting the Bible—Thomas not only
taught classes on the word of God but preached many sermons, often to simple
unlettered people, and wrote detailed commentaries on Scripture for the benefit of
fellow preachers As those who knew him testified, Thomas was a man of palpable
holiness, humble, obedient, and selfless in seeking the kingdom of God.

 Synthesis of faith and reason The hallmark of Thomas`s approach to theology is the
synthesis of reason and faith.

 To speak of such a synthesis means that sacred theology, while based firmly on the
word of God, employs truths known by reason in order to understand more deeply
the mysteries God has revealed and to refute errors concerning them.

 More fundamentally, however, it means that both reason and revelation are gifts of
God intended to illuminate one another as man progresses on his pilgrimage
towards heaven.

Unit-III LESSON 2b

The Ethics
Greek(Finals)
Heritage
Reviewer
 Thomas Aquinas' ethics should not be oversimplified to just following
commandments and obeying the Church

 Understanding the Greek thinkers whose work influenced Thomas Aquinas is crucial
to grasp natural law theory

 Plato's "The Republic" aims to provide an objective basis for morality, emphasizing
the reality of the good

 Neoplatonists like Plotinus continued the Platonic idea of the good into the Christian
Middle Ages
 Beings have material, formal, efficient, and final causes, according to Plotinus

 Aquinas synthesizes the idea of a transcendent good with the concept of God as the
first efficient and final cause

 God's will and love are the true cause of all things, with creation being an outpouring
of His goodness

 Beings are good because they are created by God, but their goodness remains
imperfect

 Fulfilling our nature involves actualizing the potencies present in our being

 Human beings, with a capacity for reason, are directed towards God through
knowing and loving Him, which is the path to perfection.

Unit-III LESSON 2c
Ethics (Finals)
ReviewerThe Essence and Varieties of Law Learning
 A law is concerned with the common good and can be made by the whole people or
a public person responsible for the community's well-being.

 The law is not immediately defined but understood through reason and the pursuit of
goods.

 Thomas Aquinas identifies different types of law, including the eternal law.

 The eternal law refers to God's will for creation and how everything is intended to
return to Him.

 Humans, as rational beings, participate more fully in the law due to their capacity for
reason.

 The natural law is the participation of the eternal law in rational creatures and is
based on our natural inclinations.

 By using reason, we can determine the rule and measure that should guide our
actions based on our human nature.
 Unit-III LESSON 2d
Ethics (Finals) Reviewer
Natural Law

 According to Thomas Aquinas, things to which humans have a natural inclination are
perceived as good and pursued, while their contraries are seen as evil and avoided.

 The natural inclinations of humans are ordered by the precepts of the natural law, which
include both general inclinations shared with all substances and specific inclinations
shared with other animals.

 Humans have a unique nature that both interacts with and shares characteristics with the
rest of creation.

 Humans, like other animals, have a natural inclination towards sexual intercourse and the
care of offspring.

 The natural law perspective considers preventing the emergence of new life through
abortion as unacceptable.

 It is considered bad to abuse or mistreat children in any physical or emotional way.

 Humans have a natural inclination to know the truth about God and to live in society,
which are both epistemic and social concerns.

 Reason is the defining part of human nature and should be used to carefully consider
whether an act aligns with our nature and contributes to the common good.