Summa I-II q.91 aa.3–4: Why we need human law and divine law (the four reasons, Psalm 18, and faith, hope and love in Mozart's last symphonies)

Orientation #

He opens by saying “so up to Article Three, I guess,” and takes aa. 3 and 4 of q. 91 in order, breaking at the end of a. 4 (“in case you take a little break here now”). He notes in passing that Thomas “is going to take up each of these in particular, these laws” later. The previous class treated q. 90 and the first articles of q. 91 on eternal and natural law (prev. lecture).

The class, in order #

1. The three objections against human law (“whether there is some human law”) #

• Obj. 1: natural law is a partaking of the eternal law, and by the eternal law all things are “most ordered” (Augustine, De libero arbitrio) — so natural law suffices; no human law needed.
• Obj. 2: law is a measure, but human reason is not the measure of things but the reverse. His example: “if I say you’re sitting” — the statement is true because you are sitting; you are not sitting because I say so, nor even because it is true. Aside: in the Laws, the Athenian stranger denies that man is the measure of all things and says God is.
• Obj. 3: a measure ought to be most certain (Metaphysics X), but the dictate of human reason about things to be done is uncertain — Wisdom 9: “the thoughts of mortals are timid, and uncertain are our providences.”
• Sed contra: Augustine lays down two laws, one eternal and one temporal, which he calls human.

2. The body: practical reason proceeds as speculative reason does (“a similar proceeding is found”) #

The argument as he gives it:

1. Law is a dictate of practical reason.
2. Practical and speculative reason proceed alike: both go from certain beginnings to certain conclusions. He names the knowledge of beginnings in the practical order synderesis, and in the speculative order natural understanding; “looking reason” is Aristotle’s theoretical and Thomas’s speculative reason — “they all mean the same.”
3. In speculative reason, from indemonstrable but naturally known beginnings (e.g. “the whole is more than the part”) arise the conclusions of the diverse sciences, not naturally in us but found by reason’s activity.
4. Therefore from the precepts of natural law, as common indemonstrable beginnings, human reason must proceed to more particular arrangements — and these, when they keep the other conditions of law, are human laws.

• He quotes Cicero’s Rhetoric: the beginning goes forward from nature, then things are found from the usefulness of reason, then approved by custom, then sanctioned by fear and religion.
• Asides: Jerome’s dream — “Are you a Christian or a Ciceronian?”; Augustine and Chrysostom as trained rhetoricians, and rhetoric as an offshoot of political philosophy and logic; his father’s lawyer Gus Larson, “boom, boom, very orderly”; Warren Murray taxing lawyers for defending the guilty.

3. Reply 1: we partake of divine reason imperfectly, not ad plenum (“not able to partake ad plenum”) #

Human reason cannot fully partake of the dictates of divine reason, but in its own human way, therefore imperfectly. The parallel: by natural partaking of divine wisdom we have knowledge of common beginnings, not proper knowledge of every truth as it is in divine wisdom. Examples: the Pythagorean theorem, and that vertical angles are equal — reachable, but not naturally known.

• On Augustine’s language of seeing things in the divine mind: in natural understanding you are partaking of divine wisdom, so in that sense judging by God’s mind, but “you’re not seeing God in Himself, not the vision.”
• The main illustration: “thou shalt not kill” is in natural law, but that you drive twenty miles an hour in a school zone during school hours when the lights flash is not — “that’s in the eternal law, yeah, somewhere. But we don’t partake of it in that distinctness.” Hence cars, speed limits differing on highway and city street (people cross city streets), and firearms restrictions.
• Student exchange on firearms: some residential areas forbid discharging a gun; one admits shooting a squirrel; a man who shot a wolf attacking his wife and child (“as long as the wolf wasn’t endangered”). Aside: his neighbour firing a hunting gun on New Year’s Eve — “you’re waiting for the gun to go off and hope he’s sober.” Chickens and a cow in the backyard: zoning laws.

4. Reply 2: what human reason is and is not the measure of (“although it is not the measure of those things which are by nature”) #

Human reason by itself is not the rule of things, but the beginnings naturally placed in it are general rules and measures of all things to be done by man; natural reason is the rule and measure of those, though not of the things that are by nature.

• His own caution: “you guys be careful about that” — the divine law is the measure of the things that are by nature, and since we partake of it we have something of that measure.
• His formula: natural law is about things naturally known, but it is about things good or bad by nature. To kill innocents is by nature bad; to drive on the right (or the left) side of the street is not by nature bad, but you need agreement “at least with those who drive on your street.” Aside: dodging people on the sidewalk, and the narrow snowy hill in winter with a truck coming.

5. Reply 3: measures fit their matter (“according as is possible in its genus”) #

Practical reason is about things to be done, which are singular and contingent, not necessary as speculative reason’s objects are; so human laws cannot have the infallibility of demonstrative conclusions like geometry’s (the two angles of a triangle equal to two right angles — “marvellous theorem”). Not every measure need be infallible, only as is possible in its genus. Measuring stick that flattens or expands in hot weather: a measure must not change in the temperatures we normally have — but measures fit their matter.

• Monastery legislation case: a brother objected to “don’t take a loan unless you are certain you can repay it” — what about a stock market crash? His answer: moral certitude is sufficient, other things being equal.
• Goethe to Eckermann on Mozart and Shakespeare: everyone imitates them, no one equals them. So Mozart is the measure of a musician and Shakespeare of a poet — but not with a ruler’s exactness. And Aristotle: the virtuous man is the measure.

6. Article 4, objections: why any divine law besides these? (“it would not be necessary for there to be some divine law”) #

• Obj. 1: natural law is a partaking of the eternal law, and the eternal law is a divine law; so no further divine law is needed — “that’s just multiplying things.”
• Obj. 2: Ecclesiasticus 15:14 — God left man “in the hand of his own counsel”; consilium is an act of reason; so man is left to his own reason, whose dictate is human law.
• Obj. 3: human nature is more sufficient than that of irrational creatures, who have no divine law beyond their natural inclination; much less does man need one.
• Sed contra: David asks that a law be laid down for him — Legem pone mihi, Domine, in via justificationum tuarum. “That’s an interesting argument.”
• He flags that Thomas will solve this “something like the way he solved whether theology is necessary.”

7. The first of four reasons: an end above our proportion (“which excels the proportion of the natural faculty”) #

Law directs man’s acts to his last end. Were man ordered only to an end within the proportion of his natural faculty, natural law plus humanly laid-down law would suffice; but he is ordered to eternal beatitude, which exceeds that proportion; therefore he must be directed by a divinely given law. Parallel with the argument for the necessity of theology. Aristotle sets the end of man as contemplation of God by first philosophy — within our capacity (at least knowing what He is not) — “but that’s not our last end.”

• Digression on “transcendental”: to transcend is to step over. The Isagoge was called the book of the five names (genus, difference, species, property, accident — diaphora), the Categories the book of the ten names (substance, quantity, quality, relation…). The transcendentals step over the ten names, becoming equivocal but equivocal by reason. “I’m going to call them now the six stepovers instead of the six transcendentals.”

8. Long digression: faith begets hope, hope begets love (“hope is closer to faith”) #

From the Vatican II proem (quoting Augustine): the whole world by believing might come to hope, and by hope to charity; and the Abraham–Isaac–Jacob sequence, faith begetting hope and hope begetting love.

• The passions: concupiscible (about what is pleasing or painful to sense — his example, liking a food, hating salmon and suffering if it is forced on him at a meal) and irascible (about the difficult: hope and despair about a difficult good, fear and boldness about a difficult evil, anger at one already present).
• These names carry over to the will: theological hope is an act of the will named from the irascible; charity is love, named from the concupiscible.
• Thomas: the irascible partakes more of reason, because it is “a kind of this for that.”
• Mozart’s last five symphonies as measures: 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 (there is no 37, “but they kept the numbers anyway”). 36 and 41 (the Jupiter) in C major represent magnanimity, which does great things in all the virtues and is about hope; 38 and 40 courage — 38 more the approach to the difficult evil, 40 more the patience to suffer what cannot be controlled; 39 in E flat, more cheerful, the relaxation of the great man. The emphasis is on the irascible, which partakes more of reason. Aristotle at the end of the Politics: music represents not only the emotions but the virtues.
• His suggestion, offered as a question: as Isaac is closer to Abraham, so hope is closer to faith and therefore closer to reason, love being like the concupiscible and further from reason, going more to the thing itself. “I wonder if there’s something to that… because that’s authoritative.” He asks the class “What do you think?” and leaves it as a conjecture.
• Aside: a man in church seeing him with his grandchildren — “you’re responsible for this” — tied to Abraham’s offspring numerous as the stars. Aside: writing his thesis, five years stuck, then putting Thomas and Monsignor’s course together; Monsignor: “I know where you’re going.”

9. Reasons two, three and four (“the incertitude of human judgment”) #

• Second: because of the uncertainty of human judgment, especially about contingent particulars, different men judge human acts differently; so that man may know without any doubt what to do and avoid, he needs a law given by God, of which it stands that it cannot be mistaken. He notes the first argument is in a sense stronger, since man can to some extent judge these things. Parallel in theology: we can prove God exists and the soul is immortal, but most men cannot follow the arguments, so we need instruction by faith. The Trinity, by contrast, cannot be known at all — Aristotle’s use of the number three in praising God rests on the perfection of three, not on knowledge of the Trinity (he notes this appears as an objection in Thomas). Aside: a talk to the Association of University Women, where a lady said “it wasn’t just nothing that the church tells you to do” — “Yeah, that’s enough.”
• Third: man can make law only about what he can judge, and human judgment reaches only exterior acts that appear, not hidden interior motions; yet perfection of virtue requires rectitude in both; so divine law is needed. The Sermon on the Mount: looking at a woman with lust is already adultery, without the exterior act. Contemporary case: the Boston bomber’s trial, the defence pleading the older brother’s influence — “you don’t really know what’s going on inside people’s minds.” “That’s kind of a subtle reason.”
• Fourth (Augustine, De libero arbitrio I): human law cannot punish or prohibit all evils, since taking away all evils would take away many goods and impede the common good; so that no evil remain unprohibited and unpunished, a divine law was necessary by which omnia peccata are prohibited.
• Aside: at Mrs Schmitz’s funeral (her husband founded the Trivium school) a man said he was taken up with the Psalms.

10. The four reasons compressed in one verse of Psalm 18 (“in these four causes they touched upon in Psalm 18”) #

He marvels that all four are in one verse, and in ascending order — reading it backwards against his list:

• “The law of the Lord is immaculate,” permitting no ugliness of sin = the fourth reason.
• “converting souls,” not just exterior behaviour but the interior = the third.
• “the testimony of the Lord is faithful,” certitude of truth and rectitude = the second.
• “bestowing wisdom on little ones,” ordering man to a supernatural end = the first. “Marvellous… Amazing man, Thomas. Must have had a good memory too.” Note on numbering: the English version says Psalm 18:8 [ed.: transcript reads “1818”]; the Latin is 18.

11. The three replies (“the eternal law is again partaken of, but in a higher way”) #

• Reply 1: by natural law the eternal law is partaken according to the proportion of human nature’s capacity; man must be directed to a supernatural last end in a higher way, so a divinely given law is added, through which the eternal law is partaken again, but higher.
• Student question: why the word “proportion”? His answer: it fits “the little mind of ours.” Augustine and the boy on the shore, trying to pour the ocean into a little hole — “neither can you get the Trinity into your little mind” — then the boy disappeared, an angel. Hopkins, The Blessed Virgin compared to the Air we Breathe: “infinity dwindled to infancy,” “his light sifted to suit our sight,” as the atmosphere tempers the sun’s light. (One student has not read the poem.) Aristotle’s proem to the Metaphysics: wisdom is a divine rather than human possession — so a partaking of divine wisdom would be higher than the wisdom we reason out.
• Reply 2: counsel is an inquiry, and must go forward from beginnings; the beginnings naturally placed in us (the precepts of natural law) do not suffice, for the reasons given in the body; other beginnings must be added, namely the divine law. Aside: “He spoke with authority… not like the scribes.”
• Reply 3: irrational creatures are not ordered to an end higher than what is proportioned to their natural power, so the argument is not similar.

His words #

• “looking reason” [ed.: speculative/theoretical reason] — Aristotle’s theoretical, Thomas’s speculative; “they all mean the same.”
• synderesis — the knowledge of beginnings in the practical order, answering to natural understanding in the speculative.
• “most ordered” — his rendering of the superlative of order in Augustine’s account of the eternal law.
• ad plenum — “fully”; what human reason cannot do with the dictates of divine reason.
• “faculty” / “ability” / “capacity” [ed.: natural potency] — used interchangeably for what the supernatural end exceeds.
• “moral certitude” — the certitude sufficient in contingent practical matters, as against the certitude of geometry.
• “stepovers” — his proposed concrete name for the transcendentals.
• principui — “chiefly, especially”; also used of Plato and Aristotle as philosophi principui.
• omnia peccata — all sins, which divine law prohibits.
• “counsel” (consilium) — a certain inquiry or investigation, an act of reason.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 91, a. 3 (objections, sed contra, body, three replies)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 91, a. 4 (objections, sed contra, body with four reasons, three replies)
• Psalm 18 (Vulgate), the verse containing the four notes of the law
• Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Blessed Virgin compared to the Air we Breathe (lines quoted)

Mentioned

• Augustine, De libero arbitrio I (twice: all things most ordered; human law cannot prohibit all evils)
• Cicero, Rhetoric (nature, usefulness, custom, sanction)
• Aristotle, Metaphysics X (a measure most certain); proem to the Metaphysics (wisdom a divine possession); Politics, end (music represents virtues); Nicomachean Ethics (the virtuous man as measure; end of man)
• Plato, Laws (God, not man, the measure)
• Wisdom 9; Ecclesiasticus 15:14; Sermon on the Mount
• Vatican II, proem of a dogmatic constitution, quoting Augustine (faith, hope, charity)
• Goethe, Conversations with Eckermann

His questions #

• Why is human law needed if natural law is a partaking of the eternal law? Because our partaking is imperfect and only in common beginnings; reason must descend to particulars.
• Is human reason the measure of things? No, not by itself; but the beginnings naturally in it are general measures of things to be done, though not of things that are by nature.
• Must every measure be infallible? No — only as far as is possible in its genus; in practical matters moral certitude suffices.
• Is a divine law needed beyond eternal, natural and human law? Yes, for four reasons: the supernatural end, the uncertainty of human judgment, the hiddenness of interior acts, and the impossibility of human law prohibiting all evils.
• Which of the first two reasons is stronger? The first, since man can to some extent judge these things himself.
• Which partakes more of reason, the concupiscible or the irascible? The irascible, because it is “a kind of this for that.”
• Why does faith beget love through hope rather than immediately? Left open — his conjecture: hope is like the irascible, nearer to reason, hence nearer to faith.
• Why does Thomas say “proportion” of the capacity of human nature? Because the partaking is fitted to the littleness of our mind — the ocean will not go into the little hole.