Grace, Part 2 (ST I-II q.109 a.2–3): Willing the Good and Loving God Above All Things, in Integral and Fallen Nature

Orientation #

He opens straight into article 2 (“Article two here”), continuing the treatise on grace, and moves to article 3 mid-class. Verified sources confirm the class treats Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 109, a. 2 (~19 min) and a. 3 (~12 min). He does not say what comes next.

The class, in order #

1. First objection of a. 2: man is master of his own acts (“man is the lord of his own acts”) #

Objection: what a man is lord of is in his power; man is lord of his own acts, most of all of willing; therefore he can will and do good without grace.

His reply, as Thomas gives it: man is lord of his acts by deliberation of reason, which can be moved to either part. But whether he deliberates or not — if he were lord of that, it would have to be by a preceding deliberation. This cannot go on forever; so one must arrive at the free judgment of man being moved by an exterior beginning above the human mind, namely God. He explicitly likens this to the argument for God from the impossibility of an endless series of movers: “here you have kind of another kind of argument for God” — he calls it “the ethical argument of God.”

Thomas cites “the philosopher,” i.e. Aristotle, in the chapter on good fortune — this is in the Eudemian Ethics, not the usual Nicomachean. Aside on the names: Aristotle’s father was Nicomachus and his son was Nicomachus, so the Nicomachean Ethics is either the ethics he learned from his father or what he sought to communicate to his son — “maybe a bit of both”; Eudemus was a student of Aristotle.

He marvels that a pagan saw our dependence on God even for internal acts, against modern philosophy which thinks “it’s my own thoughts, I don’t need anybody to move me.” Even a healthy man lacks such dominion; much more the man infirm after sin, impeded from good by corruption of nature.

2. Second objection: sin is against nature, virtue according to it (“Peccatum est contra naturam”) #

Objection: a thing is more able to do what is according to its nature than what is outside it. Sin is against nature (Damascene, book II); the work of virtue is according to nature. If a man can sin by himself, much more can he will and do good by himself. He grants it is “a nice argument.” He notes Aristotle, Ethics IX: when a man does wrong he changes himself, he is no longer himself.

Thomas’s reply: to sin is to fall short of the good belonging to one according to his nature. Every created thing, as it does not have being except from another, considered in itself is nothing, and needs to be preserved in the good suited to its nature by another, or it falls into nothing. Augustine: sin is nothing, and the man who sins becomes nothing. So a man can of himself fall short, just as of himself, left without God preserving him, he would come into non-being.

His restatement of the whole logic: the objection runs “he can do the harder, therefore the easier.” But what can man do from himself? From himself he is nothing, non-being — “I’m able to be a nobody than a somebody, because I’m a nobody from myself”; he is a somebody, like Aristotle, only by a good mind given by another.

Student question: is this a partial understanding of original sin? — He answers that when Thomas explains why a creature can fail and the divine will cannot do evil, it goes back to our being nothing from ourselves; a student supplies “weakness,” and he agrees: we have a built-in negative aspect.

Asides: “You see that in the guys that sit around TV all day”; Aristotle says in the Ethics that most men prefer a life suitable to beasts — strong, unfriendly words. And physician-assisted suicide: more able to end your life than to keep yourself alive.

3. Third objection: the understanding knows truth by itself (“the good of the understanding is the true”) #

Objection (from Ethics VI, where Aristotle takes up the virtues of reason): the good of the understanding is the true; the understanding can know truth of itself, as each thing does its own natural operation; therefore much more can a man will and do good of himself.

Reply: man cannot know the true without divine aid either (as said above). And human nature is more corrupted by sin as regards desire for good than as regards knowledge of truth. He notes de Sales says the same: our will is more weakened than our understanding.

4. Sed contra of a. 2 (“it is not of the one willing”) #

Romans 9: it is not of the one willing to will, nor of the one running to run, but of God taking mercy. Augustine, On Correction and Grace: without grace men do nothing — neither thinking, willing, loving nor doing. Aside: Augustine has a tough mind; Thomas says Plato and Aristotle are the chief philosophers, and he himself tends to say Augustine and Thomas are the chief theologians, though there are other great minds.

5. Body of a. 2: the two states of nature (“nature of man can be considered in two ways”) #

The point: nature taken (a) in its integrity, as in the first parent before sin, (b) as corrupt in us after the first parent’s sin.

1. In both states human nature needs divine aid to do or will any good, as depending on the first mover.
2. In the state of integral nature, as regards sufficiency of operative power, man can by natural powers will and do the good proportioned to his nature — the good of acquired virtue — but not the excelling good, that of infused virtue.
3. In the state of corrupt nature man fails even of what he can do according to his nature; he cannot fulfil the whole good of this sort by natural powers. (He ties this to Aristotle: most men prefer a life suitable to beasts — not the life that fits our nature.)
4. But nature is not entirely corrupted; he is not deprived of the whole good of nature. So even corrupt he can do some particular good by natural virtue — Augustine’s examples: build houses, plant vineyards.
5. Example for (3)–(4): a sick man can have some motion of himself, but cannot move perfectly with the motion of a healthy man unless cured by the aid of medicine.

Conclusion: in integral nature a man needs gratuitous power added above the natural for one thing — to will and do the supernatural good; in corrupt nature for two — that he be healed, and that he do the meritorious good of supernatural power. And in either state he needs divine aid to be moved to acting well. (“I guess I’m in the state of corrupt nature — we’re all in the same boat.”)

Asides: on “super” (as in supernatural) — the word is taken from the continuous, i.e. from position; and an English philosopher complains that “infused” is crude, as though he could name such things without taking words from the senses — but one can see the difference between what is acquired by your own acts and what is poured in.

Student remark: Plato and Aristotle were used to show that a first sin had actually taken place — there is much evidence something is wrong with man.

6. Article 3 stated, with the first two objections (“able to love God above all things”) #

Question: whether man can love God above all things from natural powers alone, without grace. He notes Thomas will take the other side from the objections.

Obj. 1: to love God above all things is the proper and principal act of charity; man does not have charity of himself — “the charity of God is diffused in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us” (Rom. 5:5); therefore not by natural things alone.

Obj. 2: no nature can act upon or have power in what is above itself; to love something more than oneself is to tend to something above oneself; therefore no created nature can love God above itself without grace.

7. Reply to the first: two ways of loving God above all things (“in a more eminent way than what nature”) #

Charity loves God above all things in a more eminent way than nature does — he stresses Thomas does not deny that nature loves God above all things. Nature loves Him as beginning and end of natural good; charity loves Him as object of beatitude, and according as man has a certain spiritual society with God. He connects this to charity as a kind of friendship, and to Aristotle: friends live together, spend life together — so we spend life in society with God in heaven by charity.

Charity also adds above the natural love of God a promptness and a pleasure, as any habit of virtue adds these to the good act, over a man lacking the habit. Student: de Sales says in the early chapters on the love of God that by nature we can love God above all things. He agrees, adding that the habit there is natural because it is in promptness and pleasure. Test case: “it pains me to return your billfold that I found” — then I do not really have the virtue; I should take pleasure in it.

8. Reply to the second: going above oneself (“cannot go to an act that exceeds the proportion”) #

“No nature can go above itself” must not mean it cannot be carried to an object above itself — our understanding by natural knowledge knows things above itself, as is clear in natural knowledge of God (Paul in Romans). It means nature cannot go to an act exceeding the proportion of its power. But loving God above all things is not such an act: it is natural to any created nature. He notes this surprises people, who think loving God above all things belongs only to grace.

9. Third objection and reply: summum bonum, summum amor (“There is owed the summum amor”) #

Obj. 3: God, being the summum bonum, is owed the summum amor, to be loved above all things; but man is not sufficient for this highest love without grace, otherwise grace would be added in vain. (He notes the summum bonum is treated in the fifth chapter of Thomas on the good — [unclear in recording] as to the work.)

Reply: love is called highest not only by the grade of love but by the reason for loving and the way of loving; and by that, the supreme grade is charity’s loving God as beatifying us. He remarks Aristotle did not know that — being made blessed does not belong to philosophy; and Aristotle in the Ethics says friendship is hard across great distance — how could man and God be friends, so far apart?

10. Sed contra of a. 3: the first man (“he did not love God equally to himself or less”) #

The first man was constituted in natural things alone (as some lay down); in that state he manifestly loved God in some way; he did not love God equally with himself or less, for then he would have sinned; therefore he loved God above himself — so man by natural powers alone can love God above himself and above all things.

11. Body of a. 3: loving God above all is connatural (“the good of the part is an account of the good of the whole”) #

As said before (and in the first book of the Summa Contra Gentiles, where there were diverse opinions about the natural love of the angels): man in integral nature can work by his nature the good connatural to him, without an added gratuitous gift, though not without God moving him.

But to love God above all things is connatural to man — “That’s something people have hard time seeing” — and to every creature, not only rational but irrational and even inanimate, according to the kind of love each has (extending the word “love”).

The reason: it is natural to each thing to desire and love something according as it is apt by nature to be; a thing acts in so far as it is naturally apt to act (Augustine; Aristotle, Physics II). But the good of the part is on account of the good of the whole. Hence by natural desire each particular thing loves its own proper good on account of the common good of the whole universe, which is God. Dionysius, On the Divine Names: God converts all things to love of Himself.

Hence man in integral nature referred the love of himself, and the love of all other things, to the love of God as to an end, all being moved by God to Himself as end of the whole universe — and thus loved God more than himself and above all.

But in corrupt nature man falls short of this in the desire of his rational will, which on account of corruption follows the private good, unless healed by the grace of God.

Conclusion: in integral nature man does not need a gift of grace added to his natural goods in order to love God naturally above all things, though he would need God’s aid moving him; in corrupt nature he needs also the aid of grace healing nature. Closing image: “my nature is blasted — like a plant that’s been blasted by the weather. I’m in a bad shape. You need help. I do, I do, I do.”

His words #

• “the ethical argument of God” — his name for the argument from the impossibility of an infinite regress of deliberations, terminating in God moving the free judgment.
• “chapter on good fortune” — the Eudemian Ethics chapter Thomas cites.
• “Peccatum est contra naturam” — Damascene’s phrase, sin is against nature.
• “I’m a nobody from myself” — his rendering of the creature being nothing considered in itself.
• “excelling good” / “super” — the supernatural good, of infused virtue [ed.: bonum superexcedens]; he notes “super” is taken from the continuous.
• “integral nature” vs. “corrupt nature” — the two states of human nature.
• “connatural” — the good proportioned to a nature.
• “spiritual society with God” — the basis of charity as friendship.
• “summum bonum … summum amor” — highest good, highest love.
• “private good” — the good corrupt will follows instead of the common good.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 109, a. 2 (objections 1–3, replies, sed contra, body)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 109, a. 3 (objections 1–3, replies, sed contra, body)

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics, chapter on good fortune
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VI (virtues of reason); IX (the wrongdoer is no longer himself); “most men prefer a life suitable to beasts”; friendship across great distance
• Aristotle, Physics II
• John Damascene, book II
• Augustine, On Correction and Grace; “sin is nothing”; building houses and planting vineyards
• Romans 9; Romans 5:5; Paul on natural knowledge of God in Romans
• Dionysius, On the Divine Names
• Thomas, Summa Contra Gentiles I and the Summa Theologiae first part, on the natural love of the angels
• Francis de Sales, on the love of God (student’s citation, seconded by him)

His questions #

• If man is lord of his own acts, why does he still need God? Because deliberation cannot be its own beginning without infinite regress; the free judgment is moved by an exterior beginning above the mind, God.
• Who is Nicomachus? Who is Eudemus? Aristotle’s father and his son bore the name; Eudemus was a student — the Ethics is either what he learned from his father or what he taught his son, “maybe a bit of both.”
• If a man can do the harder thing, sin against nature, why not the easier, act according to nature? Because from himself he is nothing; falling short of being is what he can do from himself, while being a somebody is given by another.
• Is that a partial understanding of original sin? It is the root of why a creature can fail — a built-in negative aspect, weakness, from being nothing of ourselves.
• Is nature more corrupted in knowing or in desiring? More in desire for good than in knowledge of truth; the will is more weakened than the understanding.
• Can man in corrupt nature do any good at all by nature? Yes, some particular good — build houses, plant vineyards — but not the whole good connatural to him.
• Can a nature be carried to something above itself? Yes, to an object above itself (as the understanding knows God naturally); what it cannot do is an act exceeding the proportion of its power.
• Is loving God above all things possible without grace? In integral nature yes, as connatural — though still needing God to move him; in corrupt nature it needs grace healing nature.