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Thomas Aquinas THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG 424
to the whole, he is just: in so far as he thereby does away with misery, he is merciful. In every work of God both justice and mercy are united and, indeed, his justice always presupposes his mercy, since he owes no one anything and gives mere bountifully than is due. As God rules in the world, the " plan of the order of things " preexists in him; i.e., his providence and the exercise of it in his government are what condition as cause everything which comes to pass in the world. Hence follows predestination: from eternity some are destined to eternal life, while as concerns others " he permits some to fall short of that end." Reprobation, however, is more than mere foreknowledge; it is the " will of permitting anyone to fall into sin and incur the penalty of condemnation for sin." The effect of predestination is grace. Since God is the first cause of everything, he is the cause of even the free acts of men through predestination. Determinism is deeply grounded in the system of Thomas; things with their source of becoming in God are ordered from eternity as means for the realization of his end in himself. On moral grounds Thomas advocates freedom energetically; but, with his premises, he can have in mind only the psychological form of self-motivation. Nothing in the world is accidental or free, although it may appear so in reference to the proximate cause. From this point of view miracles become necessary in themselves and are to be considered merely as inexplicable to man. From the point of view of the first cause all is unchangeable; although from the limited point of view of the secondary cause miracles may be spoken of. In his doctrine of the Trinity Thomas starts from the Augustinian system. Since God has only the functions of thinking and willing, only two processiones can be asserted from the Father. But these establish definite relations of the persons of the Trinity one to another. The relations must be conceived as real and not as merely ideal; for, as with creatures relations arise through certain accidents, since in God there is no accident but all is substance, it follows that " the relation really existing in God is the same as the essence according to the thing." From another side, however, the relations as real must be really distinguished one from another. Therefore, three persons are to be affirmed in God. Man stands opposite to God; he consists of soul and body. The " intellectual soul" consists of intellect and will. Furthermore the soul is the absolutely indivisible form of man; it is immaterial substance, but not one and the same in all men (as the Averrhoists assumed). The soul's power of knowing has two sides; a passive (the intellectus possibitis) and an active (the intellectus agens). It is the capacity to form concepts and to abstract the mind's images (species) from the objects perceived by sense. But since what the intellect abstracts from individual things is a universal, the mind knows the universal primarily and directly, and knows the singular only indirectly by virtue of a certain reJtexio (Cf. SCHOLASTICISM). As certain principles are immanent in the mind for its speculative activity, so also a " special disposition of works;" or the synderesis (rudiment of conscience), is inborn in the
" practical reason," affording the idea of the moral law of nature, so important in medieval ethics.
The first part of the Summa is summed up in the thought that God governs the world as the " universal first cause." God sways the intellect in that he gives the power to know and impresses the species intelligibiles on the mind, and he sways the
will in that he holds the good before g. The it as aim, and creates the virtus volendi.
Summa, " To will is nothing else than a certain Part ii.; inclination toward the object of the Ethics. volition which is the universal good."God works all in all; but so that things also themselves exert their proper efficiency. Here the Areopagitic ideas of the graduated effects of created things play their part in Thomas's thought. The second part of the Summa (two parts, prima secundm and secundae seconds) follows this complex of ideas. Its theme is man's striving ,after the highest end, which is the blessedness of the visio beater. Here Thomas develops his system of ethics, which has its root in Aristotle. In a chain of acts of will man strives for the highest end. They are free acts in so far as man has in himself the knowledge of their end and therein the principle of action. In that the will wills the end, it wills also the appropriate means, chooses freely and completes the consensus. Whether the act be good or evil depends on the end. The " human reason " pronounces judgment concerning the character of the end, it is, therefore, the law for action. Human acts, however, are meritorious in so far as they promote the purpose of God and his honor. By repeating a good action man acquires a moral habit or a quality which enables him to do the good gladly and easily. This is true, however, only of the intellectual and moral virtues, which Thomas treats after the manner of Aristotle; the theological virtues are imparted by God to man as a " disposition," from which the acts here proceed, but while they strengthen, they do not form it. The " disposition " of evil is the opposite alternative. An act becomes evil through deviation from the reason and the divine moral _a,w. Therefore, sin involves two factors: its substance or matter is lust; in form, however, it is deviation from the divine law. Sin has its origin in the will, which decides, against the reason, for a " changeable good." Since, however, the will also moves the other powers of man, sin has its seat in these too. By choosing such a lower good as end, the will is misled by self-love, so that this works as cause in every sin. God is not the cause of sin, since, on the contrary, he draws all things $o himself. But from another side God is the cause of all things, so he is efficacious also in sin as cctio but not as ens. The devil is not directly the cause of sin, but he incites by working on the imagination and the sensuous impulse of man, as men or things may also do. Sin is original. Adam's first sin passes upon himself and all the succeeding race; because he is the head of the human race and " by virtue of procreation human nature is transmitted and along with nature its infection." The powers of generation are, therefore, designated especially as " infected." The thought is involved here by the fact that Thomas, like the other