15.4 Divine Counsels (SCG 3,130–138)
15.4 Divine Counsels (SCG 3,130–138)
When reading SCG 3,130–138 we need to bear in mind that Aquinas distinguishes between precepts and counsels. He takes a precept to be an order to do or not do something, and he takes a counsel to be a directive that is not binding, one we are free to act on only if we choose to do so. There is a difference between saying to someone (1) “You must pay what you owe,” and (2) “It is good to give money to charities.” Again, there is a difference between (1) “You must not commit murder,” and (1) “It is good to spend one’s life working to save people’s lives.” Now Aquinas takes divine law to contain a number of precepts, such as those found in the Ten Commandments. Yet he also thinks that there are counsels as well as precepts on which people might act. He takes precepts to be things that people have to act on so as to conform to divine law. But he also believes that there are counsels that might be embraced by some people seeking a union with God that goes beyond what can be achieved just by doing what God positively commands all to do, or by refraining from doing what God absolutely forbids.
Theologians in Aquinas’s day commonly acknowledged that this precept/counsel distinction can be found in texts such as Matthew 19:16–22. Here we read of a rich man who came to Jesus and said, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” Jesus replies, “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother; also, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The man then says to Jesus, “I have kept all these; what do I still lack?” To this question Jesus responds, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor.”67 By Aquinas’s time, biblical texts like this in sense were understood to mean that there are certain lifestyles that, without needing to be embraced by all people, are good ways of living. More precisely, some were saying that perfection consists in embracing voluntary poverty, chastity, and obedience as a member of a Christian religious order.
Aquinas accepts this notion of perfection, which is why he distinguishes between precepts and counsels. So, at the start of SCG 3,130, we find him saying:
Since the best thing for us is to become attached in our minds to God and divine things, and since it is impossible for us intensively to busy ourselves with a variety of things in order that our minds may be applied to God with greater liberty, counsels are given in the divine law whereby we are withdrawn from the busy concerns of the present life as far as is possible for one who is living an earthly life. Now, this detachment is not so necessary to us for justice that its absence makes justice impossible; indeed, virtue and justice are not removed if we use bodily and earthly things in accord with the order of reason. And so, divine law admonitions of this kind are called counsels, not precepts, inasmuch as we are urged to renounce lesser goods for the sake of better ones.68
What counsels does Aquinas have in mind? He is thinking of the counsels to be poor, chaste, and obedient. He makes this clear in SCG 3,130, while working up to the conclusion that, since poverty, chastity, and obedience are “dispositions to perfection and are the effects and signs of perfection, it is fitting that those who pledge themselves to them by a vow to God should be said to be in the state of perfection.”69 At this point in the SCG, the discussion, once again, can hardly be addressing Jews or Muslims. It is an “in house” one directed at Christians familiar with the precept/counsel distinction while also aware of religious orders whose members vow themselves to poverty, chastity, and obedience. But it is certainly not a discussion that amounts to “preaching to the choir,” so to speak. That is because Aquinas was aware of Christians in his day who opposed voluntary poverty, chastity, and obedience embraced in the institutional context of religious orders.
Why did they do so? You will get a sense of what Aquinas took them to be saying as you read through SCG 3,131–138. I am, however, not going to go through these chapters in detail because they are a contribution to a debate that is now of interest only to historians. Suffice it to say that in SCG 3,131–138, and in response to various arguments, for which he does not cite references, Aquinas insists on the value of voluntary poverty and chastity and on the value of taking vows as a member of a religious order.