God and Human Nature

A. Augustine: Platonic Themes Transformed

B. Aquinas: Aristotelian Themes Transformed

A. What is Law?

B. Eternal Law

C. Natural Law and Divine Law

D. Human Law

A. The Problem of the Origin of Moral Obligation

B. Three Positions

C. Three Test Cases

D. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Teleology

IA. Augustine: Platonic Themes Transformed

• The Goal
• Repose in God (or friendship with God as Triune) as the satistfaction of all that human beings seek in their free actions (Confessions 1.1 and 2.6)
• This repose results from an ascent to (or return to) God
• Anything short of this leaves us "restless" and in despair and slaves to our own disordered self-love




• The Obstacles
• Original Sin: Effects of original sin: ignorance, disordered affections, weakness and malice of will (Confessions 1.7: digging deeper for a cause of what Plato already saw clearly)
• Cultural Distortions: Inculcation of disordered values and the glamorization of finite goods (Confessions 1.18)
• Personal Sin: Disordered pursuit of temporal goods and perverse attempts to imitate God (Confessions 1.12 and 2.1-2)


Result: The darkness of the cave and the seeming "hiddenness of God" (Confessions 2.3)

• The Remedy
• Purification and justification through the grace merited for us by Jesus Christ, who opens up for us (i) a new and ineffable vision of beatitude as genuine and perfect filial friendship with our transcendent Creator, now revealed to us as our loving and gracious Dad (Abba) and (ii) the hope of attaining this beatitude, with the help of God's grace, by "losing our lives" in supernatural love of God and neighbor

• Contrast with the Platonists:
• Faith vs. understanding

• Obedience and humility vs.self-sufficiency and pride (Confessions 6.11 and 7.9 and 7.21)

• Dangers of intellectual prowess vs. flourishing available only to the gifted (Gnosticism)

IB. Aquinas: Aristotelian Themes Transformed

The structure of St. Thomas's General Moral Theory (Summa Theologiae 1-2):

• I. The ultimate end of human action (ST 1-2.1-5)

• II. The means to the ultimate end--human acts and their principles: (ST 1-2.6-114)
  • A. Human acts in themselves
    • 1. Properly human acts (ST 1-2.6-21)
      
    • 2. Passions (ST 1-2.22-48)

  • B. The principles of human action
    • 1. Intrinsic principles of action:
      • a. Habits (ST 1-2.49-54)
        
      • b. Virtues (ST 1-2.55-70))
        
      • c. Vice and Sin (ST 1-2.71-89)

    • 2. Extrinsic principles of action:
      • a. Law (ST 1-2.90-108)
        
      • b. Grace (ST 1-2.109-114)
        

The ultimate end: human happiness, felicity, flourishing:

• Question: Which good (or collection of goods) satisfies Aristotle's definition of the good for human beings, viz., the good such that possession of it in the appropriate way fulfills all well-ordered human desires?

• Possible Answers (either by themselves or in combination with each other):
  • External goods: wealth, honor (good reputation), glory (fame), power, friendship

  • Internal goods:
    • Goods of the body: longevity, health, good looks, physical strength, athletic prowess, food and drink, clothing, housing, high level of physical comfort, various sorts of sensual pleasure (including sexual pleasure), etc.

    • Goods of the soul: intellectual and artistic ability and accomplishment, moral and intellectual virtue, recreation, religious faith, etc.

• St. Thomas's Conclusions
  • No created (finite) good or collection of such goods can give us complete (perfect) happiness in Aristotle's sense. (Note the distinction between perfect (complete) and imperfect (incomplete) happiness.)

  • Only the 'face-to-face' knowledge, love, and enjoyment of God can give us complete happiness.

  • We can attain complete happiness, but ...
    • not in this life
      
    • not by our own natural powers
      
    • not without rectitude of the will acting in accord with 'right reason'
      
    • not without supernatural grace, which gives us an accurate intellectual understanding of our ultimate good and the hope of attaining it by God's help through sacrificial love of the persons of the Godhead and of everyone and everything else in our love of God.
      

IIA. What is Law?

• Law =
  • Dictates of practical reason

  • made for the common good

  • by one who has care of the community

  • and promulgated

  
  

• The effects of law:
  • command

  • prohibition

  • permission

  • punishment (sanctions)

    
    

  • Note: Commands and prohibitions impose obligations

• Eternal Law =
  The divine wisdom insofar as it directs and governs all the actions and movements of creatures, "moving all things to their due end".

• So Eternal Law = the order of divine providence
  • All things participate in eternal law by the natural tendencies by which they are moved to their ends

  • Rational beings also participate in eternal law by their 'connatural' knowledge of those positive and negative moral precepts, conformity to which leads us toward the end built into us by nature. These precepts constitute what is called natural law. Hence, this law is promulgated through our connatural knowledge, and it is called 'natural' because obedience to it leads us toward the good that we desire by nature.

• Similarities:
  • Natural law and divine law are both proper parts of eternal law

  • Natural law and divine law are both concerned with the direction of human beings toward true human happiness (fulfillment, perfection, flourishing)

  • Natural law and divine law are both 'participated in' through knowledge and understanding

• Differences:
  • In promulgation:
    • Natural law is promulgated by means of our connatural knowledge of the goods to which we are naturally inclined and of their contrary evils

    • Divine law is promulgated through revelation, i.e., through Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church

    
    

  • In content:
    • Natural law consists of ordinances that obligate us to act in accord with right reason, i.e., in accord with those dictates of practical reason that lead us to genuine human flourishing or happiness. St. Thomas divides natural law into levels of precepts according to (i) their evidentness to reason (whether in general or to the wise) and (ii) the ease with which they can be "blotted out of our hearts" by culpable ignorance. The first level consists of the two great commandments to love God above all things and our neighbor as ourselves. The second level consists of the specification of the two great commandments in precepts like  those which are revealed in the Ten Commandments even though they can be known without revelation. The third level consists of the further specifications which are evident to those who have practical wisdom. (Note on conscience.)

    • Divine law consists of ordinances, (i) some of which pertain to the order of nature and are thus in principle accessible to natural (practical) reason, and (ii) some of which pertain to the supernatural order of grace and are thus in principle inaccessible to natural (practical) reason. St. Thomas divides divine law into (i) the Old Law, whose primary motive is the fear of punishment and (ii) the New Law, whose primary motive is sacrificial love of God and neighbor.

IID. Human Law

• Usefulness: Human law is useful mainly as a way to compel outward conformity to virtue on the part of those who have not been made virtuous by good upbringing.

• Legitimacy: Human laws are legitimate to the extent that they are "derived from," either as implications of or specifications of, natural law

IIIA. The Problem of the Origin of Moral Obligation

• The following two theses appear to be in tension with one another:
  • (T1) What human beings ought morally to do and not to do is determined by the standards of flourishing that are intrinsic to human nature and dictated by right reason.

  • (T2) What human beings ought morally to do and not to do is determined by the obligations and prohibitions imposed by natural and divine law.
    • Question: Suppose that God either (i) did not exist or (ii) issued no commands and prohibitions or (iii) commanded me to torture you for fun: Would I still be morally obligated not to torture you for fun?

IIIB. Three Positions

• STRONG DIVINE COMMAND THEORY:
  • (T2) is true and (T1) is false

  • So God's decrees alone determine what human beings ought morally to do and not to do, and it is only contingently true that God's law is in part a natural law, i.e., a law that directs us to happiness as defined by our nature.

  • Comments:
    • Answer to the above question: NO!!

    • Two senses of 'ought': intrinsic and extrinsic

  • Protagonists: William of Ockham, Gabriel Biel, various 16th and 17th century theologians, mainly Protestant
    

• SIMPLE NATURALISM:
  • (T1) is true and (T2) is false

  • The intrinsic standards of human flourishing determine, by themselves, what human beings ought morally to and not to do. Natural 'law' is merely descriptive and not prescriptive; we need it for epistemic reasons alone.

  • Comments:
    • Answer to the above question: YES!!

    • Problem cases: murder, theft, adultery

    • Obligation and the lawgiver (See Miss Anscombe's "Modern Moral Philosophy")

  • Protagonists: Gregory of Rimini

• NATURALISTIC DIVINE COMMAND THEORY:
  • (T1) and (T2) are both true.
    • The dictates of right reason reveal what we ought to do and not to do in order to attain human happiness, and so they reveal what is good and bad in itself for us to do.  Natural and divine law impose a further obligation on us to act in accord with right reason, since if God creates us, He necessarily promulgates a law that, if obeyed, leads us to happiness. So natural law is prescriptive and not merely descriptive.

    • Comments:
      • Answer to the above question: We wouldn't have any obligations imposed upon us by God through law, but .... God couldn't create us without issuing the relevant prohibition and, further, there would still be an intrinsic badness in the act of torturing you for fun.

      • This position may still allow for rather striking differences in moral epistemology, depending on whether one is relatively optimistic (Thomists) or pessimistic (Scotists) about the ability of natural reason to see moral truth.

    • Protagonists: St. Thomas and virtually all the Scholastics (including Scotus (so I say)) and Suarez

IIIC. Three Test Cases

• The cases: Each involves a divine command that appears to conflict with the dictates of right reason as articulated by Aristotle (Ethics 2.6 (1107a10)) and Christ himself (Mark 7:21):
  • Murder: Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 22)

  • Adultery: Osee and a 'wife of fornications' (Osee 1)

  • Theft: The despoiling of the Egyptians (Exodus 12)

  
  

• The replies:
  • Strong Divine Command Theory: There is no deep difference between these cases and normal cases.

  • Simple Naturalism: Divine commands do not have prescriptive force.

  • Naturalistic Divine Command Theory: The divine command constitutes a morally relevant circumstance that renders virtuous an action that under normal circumstances would be vicious. And God has the standing to issue such commands as the (i) author and Lord of human life and the dispenser of divine justice, (ii) the author of the marriage contract, and (iii) the owner of all property.

• The Big Claim:
  • Natural and divine law prescribe nothing that conflicts with genuine human happiness--perfect or imperfect. That is, the extrinsic 'ought' of moral obligation is perfectly consonant with the intrinsic 'ought' of the dictates of right reason. Hence, obedience to natural and divine law liberates us from slavery to sin and vice and hence from ultimate despair of attaining happiness.

• The importance of models: The saints