Chapter 15. Providence in Relation to Rational Creatures (SCG 3,111–163)
CHAPTER 15. PROVIDENCE IN RELATION TO RATIONAL CREATURES (SCG 3,111–163)
1. ND, 3/2, 114 [1].
2. ND, 3/2, 114 [1].
3. ND, 3/2, 124 [2].
4. Obviously, there is a story here that I need to explain. I shall do so soon.
5. ND, 3/2, 114 [1].
6. ND, 3/2, 115 [1].
7. ND, 3/2, 115 [1].
8. ND, 3/2, 116 [2].
9. ND, 3/2, 117 [6].
10. Clearly, Aquinas is not here thinking of people born with disabilities that render them unable to think or act on the basis of reason.
11. ND, 3/2, 120 [1].
12. ND, 3/2, 121 [4].
13. ND, 3/2, 122–123 [1].
14. ND, 3/2, 124 [5].
15. ND, 3/2, 124 [3].
16. ND, 3/2, 126 [2].
17. ND, 3/2, 127 [7].
18. See Summa Theologiae 1a2ae,98–105.
19. See Summa Theologiae 1a2ae,106–108.
20. ND, 3/2, 140 [25].
21. ND, 3/2, 128 [6].
22. ND, 3/2, 127 [2].
23. ND, 3/2, 128 [6].
24. ND, 3/2, 129 [2]. Here Aquinas seems to be assuming that God, in his goodness, can provide us with right faith, which amounts to believing what we cannot know to be true on the basis of reason.
25. ND, 3/2, 129 [3].
26. ND, 3/2, 130 [4].
27. ND, 3/2, 130 [5].
28. ND, 3/2, 131 [1].
29. ND, 3/2, 131 [2].
30. ND, 3/2, 131–132 [3–4].
31. ND, 3/2, 134–135 [5].
32. ND, 3/2, 141 [2].
33. ND, 3/2, 142 [3].
34. ND, 3/2, 142 [6].
35. When reading SCG 3,121–126, it may help you to bear in mind that Aquinas, like most people in his day familiar with the writings of Aristotle on generation, had a different understanding of the mechanics of human conception than we do now. He knew nothing about the female ovum and thought that conception occurs as semen goes to work on blood in the female so as to form a likeness of the male whose semen it is. Here I quote from Fabrizio Amerini: “The formation of the embryo or fetus—Thomas uses the two terms interchangeably—is the result of the action of the male (the father) on the female (the mother) by means of his semen. In terms of the four Aristotelian causes, the male is the efficient cause of the process, while the mother, through the menstrual blood, is the material cause. Except in cases where Thomas is not concerned to express himself precisely, he never considers the male semen as a material cause of the generative process. … The semen, on the other hand, is the formal cause, and it is in the semen that there exists a vital ‘spirit’ (spiritus), in which is found what the tradition calls a ‘formative power’ (virtus formativa).” See Amerini, Aquinas on the Beginning and End of Human Life (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 13–14. This account of conception explains the emphasis on semen in what Aquinas says about sex in SCG 3. It also goes some way to explaining what he says about “the inordinate emission of semen” and homicide in SCG 3,122.
36. ND, 3/2, 143–144 [4]. Why the focus on semen in SCG 3,122? I suspect it emerges since the now outdated biological position that Aquinas accepted took semen to be the dominating and formative factor in conception. Aquinas’s view of the role of semen reflects that of Aristotle as found in his The Generation of Animals.
37. ND, 3/2, 144 [5].
38. ND, 3/2, 145 [6].
39. ND, 3/2, 145–146 [8].
40. ND, 3/2, 146 [9].
41. ND, 3/2, 147 [2].
42. ND, 3/2, 147 [3].
43. ND, 3/2, 148 [4]. This seems to be an odd argument. If a wife is subject to her husband as governing her, where is the equality between them to which Aquinas here refers? Possibly Aquinas is at this point presupposing the authority of 1 Corinthians 7, in which St. Paul, while saying that husbands have authority over the bodies of their wives, also goes on to say that wives have authority over the bodies of their husbands. In Colossians 3:18–19 we read: “Wives be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly.” Maybe this text is also something that Aquinas has in mind when speaking of equality between husband and wife.
44. ND, 3/2, 148 [5].
45. ND, 3/2, 148 [5].
46. I speak here of polygamy as meaning a man having more than one wife or a woman having more than one husband. Yet under the heading “polygamy” we can distinguish between polygyny (a man having more than one wife) and polyandry (a woman having more than one husband). In SCG 3,124 Aquinas is against both polygyny and polyandry.
47. ND, 3/2, 150 [1]. Note the phrase “or the converse” here. Also note that Aquinas does not deny that certain male animals have promiscuous relations with several females. He lists male dogs and chickens “and the like” (et huiusmodi) at ND, 3/2, 151–152 [3].
48. ND, 3/2, 151 [1].
49. ND, 3/2, 151 [2].
50. Aquinas concludes SCG 3,124 by saying that what he asserts in this chapter rebuts “the custom of those having several wives” (ND, 3/2, 152 [8]). Though he does not say so explicitly, I assume that he is here thinking of Islamic practice as he understood it, which allows for a man having more than one wife, as did Mohammed. Note, however, that Aquinas explicitly takes SCG 3,125 to refute what he takes Plato to say, presumably from a version of Republic 5 that came down to him in some form.
51. ND, 3/2, 152 [4].
52. ND, 3/2, 153 [2].
53. ND, 3/2, 153 [2].
54. ND, 3/2, 153 [3]. How close is too close for Aquinas when it comes to close relatives not being married to each other? He does not really specify. Indeed, he does not define “relative” (propinquus) at all. The Latin propinquus is as vague as the English “relative.” But in SCG 3,125 Aquinas cites the examples of brothers marrying sisters and children marrying their parents. Perhaps he also has in mind canon law of his day defining affinity that prohibits marriage between certain people related in certain particular ways. He presumably does so since, as he must have realized, we can trace relations over time between loads of people who have ended up being married to each other without being related as sister or brother or parent or offspring.
55. When reading the SCG, we need to remember that Aquinas always maintains that truth cannot contradict truth. So he is always assuming that the ability to reason, when well exercised, has to conform with what divine revelation teaches.
56. ND, 3/2, 155 [1].
57. ND, 3/2, 155 [2].
58. ND, 3/2, 156 [1].
59. ND, 3/2, 157 [3]. It should be clear from this quotation that Aquinas has no problems with eating meat. He is not a philosophical vegetarian. These days, of course, many people argue that there is a moral case to be made against the consumption of animals slaughtered for the purpose of human consumption. See, for example, Peter Singer, Animal Liberation (New York: Random House, 1975).
60. ND, 3/2, 158 [7].
61. ND, 3/2, 162 [1].
62. ND, 3/2, 162 [2].
63. ND, 3/2, 163 [3].
64. ND, 3/2, 163 [4].
65. ND, 3/2, 163 [4].
66. ND, 3/2, 163 [4].
67. Aquinas cites this text in SCG 3,130.
68. ND, 3/2, 165 [1].
69. ND, 3/2, 167 [5].
70. ND, 3/2, 210.
71. ND, 3/2, 212 [1].
72. The same distinction between sins is taught in the 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church, secs. 1854–1864.
73. See SCG 4,71, where Aquinas says, “As one can sin after grace is received, so also from sin, it seems, one can return to virtue” (ND, 4, 275 [2]). Note also that in SCG 3,146 Aquinas says that “the evil, as long as they live, can be corrected from their errors” and that even “at the critical point of death” they “have the opportunity to be converted to God by repentance” (ND, 3/2, 222 [10]).
74. ND, 3/2, 214 [2]. See SCG 2,44.
75. ND, 3/2, 217 [11]. In Summa Theologiae 2a2ae,64, Aquinas holds that capital punishment can be morally permissible in certain circumstances for the protection of other people. We find the same argument in SCG 3,146.
76. ND, 3/2, 218 [1].
77. ND, 3/2, 218–219 [2 and 4]. In this connection Aquinas appeals to Matthew 25:41.
78. ND, 3/2, 220 [2].
79. Here I am thinking of arguments like “If X murdered Y, then X deserves to die just for doing so,” or “If I knock your eye out, you are entitled to demand that you should knock out one of my eyes.” Such arguments are offered by defenders of what is usually called the lex talionis, or law of retribution, according to which a punishment should fit a crime and be equal to it. It can be found in texts as early as Babylonian times and seems to be subscribed to by many people today.
80. ND, 3/2, 220–221 [4 and 5].
81. Of course, even in high-security prisons there have been convicted murderers who have killed people in prison with them.
82. ND, 3/2, 222 [10].
83. The word “grace” (gratia) occurs in SCG 3,148 but is not really explained until SCG 3,150, in which Aquinas notes that “what is given people, without any preceding merit on their part, is said to be given gratis, and because the divine help that is offered to people precedes all human merit [see SCG 3,147], it follows that this help is accorded gratis to us, and as a result it quite fittingly took the name grace” (SCG 3/2, 230). Aquinas adds that we can also refer to God’s help as grace since it brings us into God’s good graces as being favored by God.
84. ND, 3/2, 224 [3].
85. Aquinas takes the point to rebut the teaching of Pelagius (c. 354–418), whom he regards as having held that people can merit union with God merely by their use of the power to choose.
86. ND, 3/2, 226–227 [2, 3, and 5].
87. ND, 3/2, 228 [1].
88. ND, 3/2, 228 [1 and 2]. In arguing like this, Aquinas once again takes himself to be rebutting Pelagius.
89. ND, 3/2, 232 [4].
90. ND, 3/2, 232–233 [7].
91. ND, 3/2, 233 [2].
92. Here Aquinas seems to be alluding to something that Aristotle says in Nichomachean Ethics 9,3. The allusion strikes me as unfortunate since friends can often disagree when it comes to what is good or bad, or whether something is delightful or not. Friends can differ in their political views (preferring one politician to another, say) and in their aesthetic preferences (preferring Puccini to Wagner, say, or rock music to classical music).
93. ND, 3/2, 234 [3].
94. See Summa Theologiae 2a2ae,1–22.
95. ND, 3/2, 236 [3]. One again, in SCG 3,152 Aquinas castigates Pelagius. This time, his objection is that Pelagius (or his followers) says that “the beginning of faith in us was not from God but from ourselves” (ND, 3/2, 237 [7]).
96. ND, 3/2, 236–237 [4].
97. ND, 3/2, 238 [3]. The use of the word conveniens in this passage indicates that Aquinas is not taking himself to demonstrate that God has given the grace of hope to all who desire what God is all about. Rather, he seems to be saying that it is appropriate for God to give hope to those in whom he has given the grace of faith, considered as belief in God as the ultimate end for people—a conclusion that, at the end of SCG 3,153, he supports by scriptural references that he takes to confirm what he has been saying in this chapter.
98. The 1 Corinthians text reads: “To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge, according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.”
99. ND, 3/2, 250 [2] (with slight modification).
100. ND, 3/2, 250–251 [3].
101. ND, 3/2, 253 [2].
102. Aquinas thinks that justice can require that a wrongdoer should be punished. But he also allows for what he calls “satisfaction,” by which (broadly speaking) he means doing something that balances the wrongness that one has done. In SCG 3,158 he also thinks that punishment might actually strengthen us in our desire to amend our ways. He says, “Just as the will is drawn toward consent to the sin by means of pleasure, so it is strengthened in the detestation of sin by means of penances” (ND, 3/2, 257 [1]).
103. ND, 3/2, 257 [4].
104. ND, 3/2, 258–259 [6].
105. ND, 3/2, 260 [1].
106. ND, 3/2, 260–261 [2].
107. ND, 3/2, 261 [2].
108. ND, 3/2, 261–262 [1].
109. ND, 3/2, 264 [2].
110. ND, 3/2, 265–266 [5].
111. He cites Exodus 10:1, Isaiah 6:10 and 63:17, and Romans 1:28.
112. ND, 3/2, 266 [7].
113. ND, 3/2, 267 [1].
114. ND, 3/2, 267 [2].
115. ND, 3/2, 267 [2].
116. ND, 3/2, 268 [3].
117. For an elaboration of this point, see P. T. Geach, God and the Soul (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), chapter 8.
118. See ND, 3/2, 144 [5]: “If by accident generation cannot result from the emission of semen, then this is not a reason for it being against nature, or a sin; as, for instance, if the woman happens to be sterile.”
119. I quote, with slight emendation, from volume 28 of the Blackfriars edition of the Summa Theologiae (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode; New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), 81–82.
120. That not all nonhuman animals always desire or engage in sexual coupling with members of the opposite sex is nowadays well documented. See Joan Roughgarden, Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender and Sexuality in Nature and People (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), chapter 8.
121. The heterosexual/homosexual distinction with which we are now familiar was developed relatively recently: around 1892, if we believe the Oxford English Dictionary. But Aquinas did not have it to hand. He seems to have thought that all human beings are born seeking, as they develop, sex with partners of the opposite sex. So he takes “the sexual act” to be open to procreation unless interfered with or unable to result in procreation for some other reason.
122. For a critique of Aquinas’s general approach to sex and sexual ethics, see Gareth Moore, A Question of Truth (London: Continuum, 2003). For a defense of it, see The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2351–2359. For a sensitive analysis of medieval views about sex, and for what Aquinas says about it, see Jean Porter, Natural and Divine Law: Reclaiming the Tradition for Christian Ethics (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), chapter 4.