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Jesus – ‘Our Wisest and Dearest Friend’: Aquinas and Moral Transformation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Thomas Ryan SM
Thomas Ryan SM*
Affiliation:
Australian Catholic University
*
tryansm@bigpond.net.au
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Abstract

This article joins others in assessing the role of Christ in the moral theology of Thomas Aquinas. It investigates one specific phrase in the Summa Theologiae in four stages. First, there are some foundational considerations of Aquinas's overall framework. Second, I examine the evidence supporting Aquinas's original description of Jesus as our ‘dearest friend’ and as further disclosed in the Tertia Pars, specifically in His Passion and in His role as Teacher. Third, this leads to a consideration of Jesus as ‘wisest’ as the Incarnate Word and Wisdom. Fourth, I probe this sapiential aspect further in terms of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, specifically, that of wisdom, and, in particular, as construed in recent work on the second person perspective and Joint Attention. By investigating this phrase of Aquinas, it emerges that its sapiential, soteriological and inter-personal character is illuminated further by its Christological and ecclesial dimensions.

Keywords

ChristGiftsMoralVirtueWisdom

Information

Type
Original Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 97 , Issue 1071 , September 2016 , pp. 575 - 590
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 Wawrykow, Joseph, ‘Jesus in the Moral Theology of Thomas Aquinas’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 42:1, Winter (2012), pp.13-33 at 13CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Clark, Patricia M, ‘The Case for an Exemplarist Approach to Virtue in Catholic Moral Theology’, Journal of Moral Theology 3:1 (2014), pp.54-82 at p. 61 and p. 54Google Scholar.

2 Shanley, Brian, ‘Aquinas's Exemplar Ethics’, The Thomist 72:3 (2008), pp. 345-69 at p.368-CrossRefGoogle Scholar9. Also Long, D. Stephen, ‘The Way of Aquinas: Its Importance for Moral Theology.’ Studies in Christian Ethics 19:3 (2006), pp. 339-356CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Summa Theologica, 1.35.1 (Henceforth ST). For my referencing of the Summa, I have consulted the Latin/English (Blackfriars) version of the English Dominican Province (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1963-1975) and the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, 2nd rev. ed. 1920, translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province in the on-line versionwww.newadvent.org/summa/ and the new translation by Alfred J Freddoso, on-line version at http://www.nd.edu/∼afreddos/summa-translation/TOC.htm accessed 20/11/2015. Translated passages from the Summa are from the English Dominican New Advent version unless otherwise indicated. Summaries or paraphrases are this author's.

4 ST 1.35.1 ad 1.and notes Augustine's comment about the Trinity as the ‘image’ to which man was made.

5 ST 1.35.2.

6 ST 1. 93. 4.

7 Shanley, ‘Aquinas's Exemplar Ethics’, p. 350.

8 ‘. . .the exemplar principle is appropriated to the Son by reason of wisdom and in relation to creation. , in order that, as it is said (Psalm 103:24), “Thou hast made all things in wisdom,” it may be understood that God made all things in the beginning–that is, in the Son; according to the word of the Apostle (Colossians 1:16), "In Him"–viz. the Son–"were created all things.”’ ST 1.46.3 resp.

9 ST 1.32.1 ad 3.

10 ST 1. 2 prol.

11 ST 3. prol.

12 ST 3. 1. 2. Rendition as in Shanley, ‘Aquinas's Exemplar Ethics’, p. 354.

13 Clark, ‘The Case for an Exemplarist Approach’, p. 79.

14 ST 1.2.106.1.

15 ST 1.2.106 ad 1.

16 ST 1.2.108.3.

17 Melina, Livio, Sharing in Christ's Virtues: For A Renewal of Moral Theology in the light of Veritatis Splendor (Trans. May, William E), Washington DC: Catholic University Press of America, 2001), p. 111Google Scholar citing ST 1.2.1 6.ad 3.

18 Wadell, Paul J C.P., Friendship and the Moral Life, (Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), pp. 130-141Google Scholar. Wadell presents an extensive treatment of Aquinas on friendship as the basic model of the Christian moral life.

19 Ibid. p. 137.

20 ‘We must therefore understand the commandments of the New Law to have been given about matters that are necessary to gain the end of eternal bliss, to which end the New Law brings us forthwith: but that the counsels are about matters that render the gaining of this end more assured and expeditious’ ST 1.2.108, 4.

21 Melina, Livio, The Epiphany of Love: Towards a Theological Understanding of Christian Action (Grand Rapids, Michigan; UK, Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2010), p. 17Google Scholar. We will pursue the aspect of ‘connaturality’ later in this article.

22 ST 1.2.55.4 as in Pinsent, Andrew, The Second-person perspective in Aquinas’ ethics: Virtues and gifts (New York: Routledge, 2012), p. 13Google Scholar.

23 ST 1.2.63.2.

24 Pinsent, The Second-person perspective, p. 13.

25 ST 3.46.3.

26 ST 3. 47. 2 ad 1.

27 ST 3. 49. 1.

28 ST 3. 45. 1.

29 ST 3. 41. 1.

30 ST 3. 46. 4.

31 ST 1.2. 46.3.

32 ST 1.2.62.1.

33 Clark, ‘The Case for an Exemplarist Approach’, p. 61 and p. 54.

34 Clark, ‘The Case for an Exemplarist Approach’, p. 62.

35 Melina, The Epiphany of Love, p. 36.

36 ST 3. 48. 2 ad 1.

37 ST 3. 73. 1.

38 Melina, Sharing in Christ's Virtues, p. 186 citing St. Thomas Aquinas, Super Ep. ad Romanos, Ch 12, Lect 1, no. 971.

39 ST 3. 42. 1.

40 St Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on St John, 15, lect. 4. N. 2016 cited in Morrissey, Paul, ‘The Sapiential Dimension of Theology according to St. Thomas’, New Blackfriars 93:1045 (May 2012), pp. 309-323, at p. 315CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 ST 3. 42. 2 ad 1.

42 Kelly, Anthony J, ‘Faith as Sight? Toward a Phenomenology of Revelation’, Australian eJournal of Theology 19:3, December (2012), pp. 180-194Google Scholar, at p. 185 citing ST 3.55.3 ad 1.

43 Kelly, ‘Faith as Sight’, p. 185. Italics added.

44 See n. 20 above.

45 ST 3. 46. 4.

46 Rhonhemier, Martin, (Trans from the German by Gerald Malbary), Natural Law and Practical Reason: a Thomist View of Moral Autonomy (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000), pp. 11-12Google Scholar. See ST 1.2.90.1; 1.2.91.2: 94.2.1; 1.103. 6 and 8.

47 ST 1. 43. 3 and 4.

48 ST 3. 52. 2. Also, there are three levels of wisdom for Aquinas: philosophical (human), theological and supernatural (gift). This is explored by Morrissey, ‘The Sapiential Dimension’, pp. 311-318. See ST 1.1.1; and 2.2.45.

49 ST 3. 3. 8.

50 ST 1. 2 prol.

51 A paraphrase of a comment of Sherwin, Michael OP, “Christ the Teacher in St. Thomas's Commentary on the Gospel of John,” in Dauphinais, Michael and Levering, Matthew, eds., Reading John with St. Thomas (Washington: Catholic University of America, 2005), p. 175Google Scholar cited in Morrissey, ‘The Sapiential Dimension’, p. 316.

52 Clark, ‘The Case for an Exemplarist Approach ’, p. 70 and ST 3. 1. 2.

53 Shanley, ‘Aquinas's Exemplar Ethics’, p. 368.

54 Relevant sources here are Pinsent, The Second-person perspective, and Stump, Eleonore, Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2010CrossRefGoogle Scholar). For an extensive discussion and evaluation see Ryan, Tom, ‘Second Person Perspective, Virtues and the Gifts in Aquinas's Ethics’, Australian eJournal of Theology 21:1: (April 2014), pp. 49-62Google Scholar.

55 ST 1.2.68.2.

56 ST 3. 7. 2.

57 ST 3. 7. 5.

58 Shanley, ‘Aquinas's Exemplar Ethics’, p. 361.

59 The other three appetitive or affective gifts are fear, piety and courage.

60 ST 2 2.8.6. Also Pinsent, The Second-person perspective, p. 39.

61 Citing III Sent d. 34, q. 1 a. 1; ST 1.2, 70, 4.

62 Kelly, ‘Faith as Sight’, p. 188.

63 ST 1.2.68.1 and Pinsent, The Second-person perspective, p. 32.

64 Pinsent, The Second-person perspective, p. 32.

65 ST 2 2.9.1 ad 1. Also Pinsent, The Second-person perspective, p. 39.

66 Stump, Eleonore, ‘The Non-Aristotelian Character of Aquinas's Ethics: Aquinas on the Passions’, Faith and Philosophy 28:1 (2011), pp. 29-43, at p.41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 These draw on advances in neuroscience (differences in left [analysis] and right brain [affective and metaphoric] activities) and, importantly, on research into social cognition with its relational and embodied context.

68 Stump, Wandering in Darkness, pp. 75–6.

69 Given that those with autism ‘do not easily identify with other persons or appropriate their psychological orientation’, they have difficulty using the second- personal pronoun ‘you’, namely, ‘in grasping the grammatical meaning of the second person.’ See Pinsent, The Second-person perspective, p. 128, n. 56. In the same work, Pinsent cites research that confirms the phenomenon of ‘pronoun reversal’, namely, that ‘children with autism often refer to themselves as “you” and the person they are speaking with as “I”’ (p. 48).

70 Pinsent relates his discussion of autism (a relational and affective deficit) to Aquinas's view that the infused virtues and gifts as dispositions can be present in children and in the intellectually impaired (ST 2.2.47.14 ad 3). See Pinsent, The Second-person perspective, p. 131, n. 95.

71 Pinsent, The Second-person perspective, p. 62.

72 ST 1.2. Prologue.

73 Pinsent, The Second-person perspective, p. 32 citing ST 1.2. 68.1.

74 ‘In this way, therefore, wisdom that is a gift has its cause in the will, namely charity, but has its essence in the intellect, whose act is to judge rightly.’ ST 2.2.45-2.

75 Kelly, ‘Faith as Sight’, p. 189.

76 Pinsent, The Second-person perspective, p. 40. See Stump, Eleonore, ‘The Non-Aristotelian Character of Aquinas's Ethics: Aquinas on the Passions’, Faith and Philosophy 28:1 (2011), pp. 29-43, at p. 41Google Scholar.

77 See n 36 above.

78 Kelly, ‘Faith as Sight’, p. 189 citing ST 2.2. 45.2.

79 Shanley, ‘Aquinas's Exemplar Ethics’, p. 368 citing ST 2.2.45.2.

80 Melina, The Epiphany of Love, p. 62.

81 ST 3. 46.9.

82 ST 3. 46. 4.