Aquinas and the Natural Law

Recent decades have seen a shift away from the traditional view that Aquinas's theory of the natural law is meant to supply us with normative guidance grounded in a substantive theory of human nature. In the present essay, I argue that this is a mistake. Expanding on the suggestions of Jean Porter and Ralph McInerny, I defend a derivationist reading of ST I‐II, Q. 94, A. 2 according to which Aquinas takes our knowledge of the genuine goods of human life and their proper ordering to one another to be self‐evident only to the wise who are able to discern the truth about our God‐given human nature. I then show that this reading provides a better account of Aquinas's view than two recent alternatives: John Finnis's brand of inclinationism and Daniel Mark Nelson's virtue‐based interpretation.     

Natural Law, Motives, and Freedom of the Will

In this paper I piece together a Wittegnsteinian view of the topics indicated in my title, contrasting it with the views of Bertrand Russell and Donald Davidson - two philosophers who, in words from the Blue Book , seem "constantly to see the method of science before their eyes." I conclude that Wittegnstein helps us understand something those philosphers tend to overlook: that "freedom of the will" gets its meaning not in a belief to be assessed by evidence but, on the contrary, in the expression of a way of living and assessing life that limits the role of "assessing beliefs by evidence."     

The Concurrentism of Thomas Aquinas: Divine Causation and Human Freedom

The paper deals with the problem of divine causation in relation to created agents in general and human rational agents in particular. Beyond creation and conservation, Aquinas specifies divine contribution to created agents’ operation as application in the role of the first cause and the operation of the principal cause employing an instrumental cause. It is especially the latter which is open to varying interpretation and which might be potentially threatening to human freedom. There are different readings of what it is for the secondary agent to “act through the power of the principal cause”. Either the divine cause causes only the existence of the effect of the secondary cause, or it also causes the cause to operate in the sense that it determines its outcome. The latter seems to contradict human freedom. Both readings of Aquinas were developed in the latter half of the sixteenth century within scholastic philosophy and theology.     

Doing What Comes Naturally: Recent Work on Thomas Aquinas and the New Natural Law Theory

John Finnis, Aquinas: Moral, Political, and Legal Theory. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998, xxi+385 pp., $55.00 (hardback) ISBN 0 19 87808 42, $18.95 (paperback) ISBN 0 19 878085 0.

Robert P. George, In Defense of Natural Law. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999, 343 pp., $65.00 (hardback) ISBN 0 19 82677 11, $19.95 (paperback) ISBN 0 19 92429 92     

Religion,Identity and Freedom of Expression

This article examines the issues raised by religious adherents’ wish to express their beliefs in the public domain through, for example, their modes of dress, their performance of public roles, and their response to homosexuality. It considers on what grounds religion might merit special treatment and how special that treatment should be. A common approach to these issues is through the notion of religious identity, but both the idea of religious identity and its use to ground claims against others prove deeply problematic. An alternative and more productive approach is through the notion of harm. People should enjoy the freedom to express their religious convictions subject to the harm principle, but harm should include the undermining of people’s status as free and equal citizens. The article concludes by considering the grounds upon which this alternative approach might recognize religion as special and might justify giving an overriding status to civic equality.     

Law and Gospel,and Youth and Family Ministry

Abstract : If “faith comes through hearing” the word of God comprised in law and gospel, how do the imperatives that characterize ‘Youth and Family Ministry’ make such hearing possible? Here, literature delineating ‘Youth and Family Ministry’ is analyzed in light of its biblical foundations. The primary lens implemented in this analysis is the law/gospel hermeneutic advocated by Martin Luther and other reformers.     

Law and Gospel,or the Law of the Gospel? Karl Barth’s Political Theology Compared with Luther and Calvin

This essay is an attempt to understand the significance of Barth's redefinition of the "law/gospel" rubric for political theology. Barth's thought is exposited at length, and illumined by comparison with Luther and Calvin. Luther emphasizes the distance between gospel and the law, distinguishing between serving God in the secular regiment, and serving Christ in the spiritual regiment. He thereby challenges the improper relation of state and church, but does so in a manner that can lead to a passive dualism. Calvin holds that preaching the law to the state includes preaching the gospel; thus, the church has a positive vision against which it can evaluate the state's service to God in Christ. This leads, however, to the danger of a 'clerical guardianship' of the state.
Barth finds a positive connection between the two governments in the fact that both communities are based in Christ, in whom the gospel is their law. This grounds his high view of the state as predecessor to the heavenly kingdom, as well as a prophetic mission of the church to the state. This does not lead to a new Christendom, however, first, because Barth hopes not for a kingdom wrought by human hands, but for the Theocracy of God, and second, because Barth sees the fallen reality of both church and state, the state pagan and violent, and the church a poor witness. In the end, though Barth makes a strong case for supporting theological critique of the state, while avoiding Constantinianism, he is unable to solve the problem of how to connect the gospel and the law in the civil community.     

Religion and Rights: The Illusion of Freedom and the Reality of ControL

This paper examines legal guarantees of freedom of religion through the vehicle of rights using a case study of a Jehovah's Witness member in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, who refused to receive blood transfusions prescribed as part of her cancer treatment. The paper examines the pervasive concept of risk of harm that has recently become part of legal discourse in the balancing of rights process. The notion of governance is used to examine the social control of the individual and the deviant population. Aspects of both governmentality and resistance are explored.     

God, Freedom, and Evil: Perspectives from Religion and Science

This paper develops analogies concerning the evolution of dissipative structures in nonequilibrium thermodynamics to interpret irrational human behavior in which one finds a lack of correspondence between the invested means and the consequences observed. In an attempt to positively explain the process of cooperation between the free human person and interacting God, I use philosophical categories of Whitehead's process philosophy in an aesthetic model that opposes composition and performance in a musical symphony. Certainly, the essence of human freedom can be expressed in neither thermodynamical nor aesthetic terms. The models proposed can, however, facilitate our understanding of the mutual relations between God's action in the world and the drama of human free choice of moral evil.     

Aquinas on Natural Law and the Virtues in Biblical Context Homosexuality as a Test Case

Marriagelike homosexual relationships expose a division among ethicists following Aquinas. Those emphasizing natural law may call such relationships unnatural; those emphasizing the virtues may approve of relationships fostering love and justice. Natural law, the virtues, and homosexuality all show up in Aquinas's Commentary on Romans —untranslated and hardly cited. Romans 1:18 opens a discussion of justice. Verse 20 provides Aquinas's chief warrant for natural law. Verse 26 applies virtue and law to the vice against nature. But Aquinas's account also depends on Paul as an exemplar of virtue and on Aquinas's high regard for the Bible. Aquinas deploys natural law as a mode of biblical exegesis, not an alternative to it. In the De potentia , Aquinas considers how to proceed when nature and Scripture seem to conflict. The account does not settle, but rather makes more room for, dispute.