All theology seeks the knowledge of God.[1] In seeking this, one must discern what kind of knowledge one seeks, and how it is attainable. In question 12 of the Summa Theologica, Aquinas describes how God is known to mankind. In doing so, he makes the seemingly contradictory claims that “God in himself is supremely knowable,” and that “It is impossible for any created intellect to see the essence of God by his own natural power.”[2] Understanding this tension requires examining Thomas’s epistemology, anthropology, and notions of teleology, as well as considering the anthropology of his primary sources, Aristotle and Augustine. In this essay I argue that while Thomas argues for a life of intellectual habits in the pursuit of understanding what God is like, he maintains that one only attains true knowledge of God in this life through the divine gift of wisdom. While man aims to know God as he is, theology as a science is concerned with the knowledge of God through analogy, what he is like and what he is not.
The chief concern for any Aquinas scholar, and moreover for Thomas himself is that of the proper end of man. Following in the Aristotelian tradition, Aquinas considers all things teleologically, according to their telos or end.[3] It is the attainment of this end that results in a good life, or eudaimonia. Both articulate this end as a fulfillment of the distinctly human function of the soul. While both advocate a teleology based on the function of the soul, Aquinas differs from Aristotle in how he defines this human function.[4] Aristotle claims that the end is the virtuous activity of the soul in accordance with reason.[5] Aquinas, however identifies the highest function of the soul as the mind adhering to God in himself by knowing and loving.[6] Before analyzing Aquinas’s theory of the soul, let us first consider the theories of his primary sources, Aristotle and Augustine.
Aristotle and Phronesis
Aristotle argues that reason is the distinct function of the human being that leads to happiness. In The Nicomachean Ethics, he first describes a part of the soul that has reason, which distinguishes humans from other living things.[7] He claims there is a function, or action, that brings happiness to those who exercise it well. Comparing it to other, lesser human functions, Aristotle articulates this metaphysical function as the thing which is essential to being a good human. Just as the function of a good harpist is to play well, the function of the good human is this activity of the soul that involves reason.[8] While he does not name the function in book I, where he first articulates his metaphysical argument for eudaimonism, I hold that phronesis, is the means of perfecting this human function.
Aristotle continues his discussion of the proper function of man in book VII. Within the context of seeking the good, he defines pleasures as “unimpeded activity of the natural state.”[9] Man takes pleasure in whatever his nature desires, and in his natural state, every man desires happiness. The most human part of the soul desires true happiness. Annas clarifies this, adding that “we seek various pleasures, because we have various and unstable natures. The lesser natures seek lesser pleasures, while the higher, distinctly human nature seeks higher pleasures, the highest of which is identical with happiness.”[10] Attaining happiness, therefore, requires the uninhibited exercise of the highest part of the soul, this habit I argue, is prudence.
Aristotle, like Plato, identifies three parts of the soul: sense perception, wisdom, and desire. Unlike Plato, however, he claims happiness comes from the habitual development of one’s reason, not contemplative wisdom.[11] According to Aristotle, happiness comes from one’s actions, and one’s actions follow one’s desires; thus, happiness is a result of proper desires, not wisdom. Wisdom can reveal what is divine, but not what leads to happiness.[12] Desire determines one’s actions and life. It is only after grasping the supremacy of desire that one can understand the human function.
While Aristotle holds that reason is the highest part of the soul, he understands that proper reason must be cultivated through proper actions, which follow one’s desires. Developing reason, therefore, requires first developing proper desires. This is the habit of prudence.[13] As MacIntyre argues in Dependent Rational Animals, humans have unique, highly developed reasoning ability that enables a person to choose good reasons for action, to choose ends that are good rather than bad, and to consider how these choices affect the ones who make them.[14] It is the rational control of the desires that separates mankind from all other living things.
Much of book VI focuses on Aristotle’s analysis of prudence and its implications on happiness and virtue. He portrays prudence as the highest of all functions. Distinct from other actions of the soul, prudence determines what is good for man as a whole. It is “the eye of the soul” that possesses all craft, scientific knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.[15] Terrence Irwin suggests one should not consider prudence to be a different action than the others, but rather the action which contains all other actions: prudence is the attainment and application of other forms of knowledge.[16] One begins with practice, then attains scientific knowledge of the virtues, begins to see the principals of the virtues, contemplates the nature of virtue itself, and then can act upon the wisdom he has learned. This entire process is prudence. As we will see, Aquinas will develop a similar approach to the knowledge of God.
Aristotle grounds eudaimonism in the human telos, the full actualization of man’s potential. Not considering an afterlife, Aristotle’s account of eudaimonia must come to fruition entirely within one’s temporal existence and temporal metaphysics. One must find happiness in this life, even if only at the end.[17] If the unique factor of man is, as Aristotle claims, his ability to actualize the potential of living a virtuous life, there is no need for any eternal pursuit of happiness. Happiness is fulfillment of the human potential, the expressions of prudence, in this life.[18]
Aristotle’s metaphysic of prudence leads him to an aretaic approach to eudaimonia. Virtuous actions become habits, and habits become dispositions, and dispositions become a way of life. Since actualizing one’s potential according to virtue leads to eudaimonia. Understanding and habituating virtuous actions leads is central to Aristotelian teleology. Through a lifetime of training one’s habits and dispositions toward virtue, they will have actualize their distinctly human potential by creating dispositions within the soul toward virtue, and following them until the end. Through such a life, one can be happy. They will have mastered their desires and joyfully acted well. If the distinct function of the soul is reason, prudence is the process of actualizing the potential of this function.
Augustine and the Enjoyment of the Divine
Like Aristotle, Augustine’s account of eudaimonism centers on what he claims to be the distinct function of the human being. However, rather than focusing on reason or prudence, Augustine claims man is unique in his ability to enjoy God. Augustine’s ethics reflect this, emphasizing contemplation of God and love of neighbor over virtuous actions and self-improvement. He draws heavily from Platonic idealism and hierarchies, articulating a need for properly ordered loves especially in relation to God, others, and oneself. Augustine adds to ethics, however, a crucial understanding of grace, realizing that man is incapable of loving rightly. Augustine’s eudaimonism is then found through enjoying God by loving him, one’s neighbor, and oneself properly, and acknowledging the need for grace for humanity’s inadequacies.
Augustine’s approach mirrors Aristotle: he identifies the function mankind has which is distinct from other living things. In his earlier writings, he followed the Platonic tradition of emphasizing the intellect of the soul as this function, but in his more mature works he recognizes that even the soul must be perfected by something higher: Wisdom or the divine.[19] If it were not for his Christian theism, he might come to agree with Aristotle here and emphasize reason and the virtues. However, because of his adherence to an eternal soul, and his emphasis on the fallen will, such an ethical project falls short of the human capabilities.[20] While humans are unique in their rationality, this is not the highest function of the soul. The highest function of the soul is the enjoyment of the divine.[21]
Augustine identifies three functions within the soul: being, knowledge, and will. While knowledge sets man apart from other living things, full human activity requires all three functions working together, directed at a single aim.[22] The most important function of the soul is the function that directs it. This is the role of love. For this reason, Augustine identifies love, not reason as the unifying function of the soul: if one loves properly, he will be happy.
The ultimate aim of love is union with God, which is happiness.[23] His framework is distinctly eudaimonistic.[24] Like Aristotle, he claims that all humans seek the good, but his account of the human function begins with the love of the soul, not the rationality of the soul.[25] Augustine argues for love teleologically, claiming that the proper end of one’s love is God. All other actions must seek this same end. He claims that we have a unique function to enjoy (frui) God, and all else must be a means (uti) to actualizing this potential. The primacy of the enjoyment of God in Augustinian eudiamonism results in an odd normative ethic. He must deny any ethics which values temporal goods for their own sake. Consequently, one cannot love their neighbor for their neighbor’s sake. The love of neighbor is a means (uti) to our teleological end. The love of another is the love of God through them or the love of the image of God in them.[26] To use one’s neighbor is to enjoy God. Furthermore, Augustine emphasizes that happiness only occurs in the next life. One cannot be happy on earth, even at the end of life.[27] Again, borrowing from Platonism, he claim happiness on earth is a shadow of divine happiness, but being transcendent beings, humans do partake in true happiness on Earth, albeit to a lesser extent.[28]
Augustine admits, such a task is beyond the capacity of the human soul. Unlike Aristotle, who argued that ethics was a shift from human potential to actualization, Augustine argues that ethics is an attempt to reclaim what was lost in the fall.[29] While one will love properly and attain happiness in the next life, this is impossible on earth.[30] Fallen man lacks the capacity to love rightly, and must settle for an attempt. Thus, he denies Aristotle’s claims that one can cultivate virtuous dispositions in any way.[31] Rather, he advocates for a theocentric view of formation, relying on the divine to change one’s soul. Thus, grace becomes central to Augustine’s ethics. Here Augustine differs from the stoics who claim virtue as the highest good, and Aristotle who argues for the primacy of phronesis in moral formation. Augustine is less concerned with cultivating virtue and instead focuses on contemplation of the divine.[32] From contemplation of the divine, the soul changes to love rightly, and act accordingly. Virtue is then a result, not a cause of happiness.[33]
Here Augustine returns to the emphasis of rationality. Accepting both man’s inability practice virtue and the necessity of grace in this life, he emphases contemplation as the means to happiness in this life; in contemplation man seeks union with the divine.[34] When one’s being, knowledge, and will are fully directed toward God, the human and God are united in happiness.[35]
In contemplation of the divine, man properly knows himself as creature and reaches beyond oneself to the realm of true being above.[36] The wisdom one finds in the contemplation of the divine reorients one’s soul to the proper love (uti) of the temporal world for the love (frui) of the divine, and this is a gift of grace. Since the will follows the loves, proper loves result in proper actions. It is God, not habits that causes virtue. Thus, Augustinian eudaimonism repeats the ascension up Plato’s line, and reflects Christ’s incarnation back down to earth.[37]
Aristotle and Augustine take remarkably similar approaches to eudaimonism: both articulate a metaphysical teleology, attempting to identify a unique human function that results in happiness. However, they differ in their conception of the natural human state: Aristotle claims humanity exists in its natural state, while Augustine claims man is fallen and incapable of happiness in this life. Consequently, they identify contrasting accounts of the human function. Aristotle argues that reason is this function, while Augustine argues that it is enjoyment of the divine. Aristotle forms a conception of eudaimonism which derives from actualizing one’s potential to train of the dispositions to desire and act virtuously and attain happiness upon one’s death. Augustine, advocating an eternal existence claims man’s metaphysical function must be greater than controlling one’s dispositions and must return to enjoyment of the divine.
Their ethics reflect the divisions of their metaphysics. Claiming that one’s end is the actualization of the potential for virtue, Aristotle’s ethics are comprised of descriptions of the virtues and descriptions of how they attain. He constructs a method of habit, understanding, and knowledge that changes one’s dispositions to freely act virtuously. His method beings with forcing oneself to right actions, then understanding, and lastly having dispositions or affections toward virtue.
Contrarily, Augustine, claiming that one’s end is the enjoyment of the divine, comprises no ethical text whatsoever. Rather, his ethics are found in his discussions of God. He emphasizes love first, articulating a proper ordering of love: first, the love of God, second, the love of neighbor, and last the love of one’s self. Because we are eternal creatures desiring eternal happiness, we must love an eternal good above all. The love of God is man’s natural end. Thus, the ethics Augustine prescribes are the love (uti) of temporal things as a means of loving (frui).
Aquinas as a Middle Path
Like his predecessors, Aquinas is concerned with the definition and attainment of man’s proper ends. Drawing on Aristotelian metaphysics and anthropology, he does not adopt Augustine’s passive, contemplative approach to eudaimonia. However, in adhering to Christian theism, he attempts to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy with the Christian beliefs so prominent in Augustine: love, grace, and union with God. It is to this synthesis we now turn. True to Augustine, Aquinas maintains that true happiness and the attainment of man’s natural end only occurs in eternity. However, he retains Aristotle’s approach to scientific knowledge in this life. Thus, Aquinas distinguishes between perfect happiness in heaven, and imperfect happiness in this life.[38] To grasp a Thomistic understanding of the knowledge of God, it is helpful to look at each of these teleologies and consider what, if any, interaction exists between perfect and imperfect happiness.
Aquinas distinguishes between two conceptions of happiness. The first is had in this life, and is imperfect. It consists in “an operation of the intellect, either speculative or practical.”[39] The second is had in eternity and consists of the vision of God, the Divine Essence.[40] In this, Aquinas bifurcates theology into two fields, with two aims, and two methodologies. Like Aristotle, he acknowledges wisdom can reveal what is divine, but cannot guide the pursuit of happiness in this life, as he says “man is directed to God, as an end that surpasses the grasp of his reason.”[41] Because true knowledge of the Divine Essence only occurs in the next life, or by divine grace, Aquinas focuses on theology as a speculative science. Too often, however, readers of the Summa fail to notice Aquinas’ distinction, and read him as advocating speculative knowledge as the means to eternal happiness. While he argues for theology as a means to imperfect happiness in this life, he is clear that theology cannot produce knowledge of the Divine Essence, but only of what God is like and what he is not.[42]
Theology as Speculative Science
Aquinas thus distinguishes between knowledge of God’s essence and mediated knowledge of what God like and what he is not. Aquinas opens the Summa by noting that while philosophical reason is incapable of knowledge of God, certain truths which exceed human reason are made known to us by divine revelation.[43] Thus, theology as a science is above all human wisdom, as it begins from revelation, not philosophy.[44] However, because it is still a human science, these divine and spiritual truths are mediated by human understanding.[45] He notes that all human knowledge originates from sense, and because finite humans do not have the capacity to understand infinite things, man knows God through metaphor and analogy, but does not know him in essence. Furthermore, in his finitude, man knows what God is not. Finite humans understand finite things, and understand that these are not the things of God. Man is finite in time, knowledge, and power; man is created of matter, is a composite being, and is bound by his senses. These limitations are self-evident to man, and thus self-evidently not of God Thus, theology as a speculative science seeks what God is like and what he is not. In knowledge of God, it lies in between philosophy and the beatific vision.[46]
It is evident that theology is a science above philosophy. However, if ultimate happiness comes in knowing God in his essence, and if theology cannot lead to knowledge of God’s essence, it cannot produce happiness. One must wonder if speculative theology plays any role in actualizing man’s potential for happiness.
Borrowing from Aristotle, Aquinas notes that there are three habits of speculative intellect: wisdom, science, and understanding.[47] These habits of the speculative intellect are those which perfect the intellect’s knowledge of truth. Such knowledge can take two forms: direct knowledge, which is known in itself, and indirect knowledge, which is known through another truth. Direct knowledge is known as a principal, while indirect knowledge must be known by logical consideration. Likewise, principals are known directly by the intellect, while consideration is dependent on the senses. Aquinas calls this process of consideration understanding.[48] This process of understanding is crucial to Thomas, as it is through understanding, not through principals, that humans gain knowledge of God.[49] Furthermore,
As already noted, Aquinas explains that knowledge of God’s essence is beyond human capabilities.[50] Because humans are natural creatures, their natural knowledge (scientia) begins from senses, and thus can only see the effects and likenesses of God.[51] It is worthwhile to consider what Aquinas means when he speaks of knowing God by metaphor. Here Aquinas cites Dionysius, noting “we cannot be enlightened by the divine rays except that they be hidden within the covering of many sacred vails.”[52] Since mankind’s faculties are limited to sensory understanding, it is fitting that man’s knowledge of God is reduced to this limitation. This argument, however, is but a practical concession. To claim one’s limitations necessitate metaphor does not suggest that metaphor is satisfactory means of knowing God, only that it is a fitting means of such knowledge. Furthermore, as Aquinas is clear that God’s essence is not fragmented or shared, one cannot presume that something of the essence of God exists within the metaphor in a Platonic sense.[53] Rather, there exists in metaphor only a likeness, which can be observed by the intellect, and these metaphors take three distinct forms, the holy scriptures, the creation of God, and Christ incarnate.[54]
If, however, man is incapable of knowing the Divine Essence, how might he identify its likeness in these metaphors? Speculative theology takes for its starting point, these metaphors of God and the speculative intellect. Metaphors themselves, however, demand a function beyond the speculative intellect. Thus, one must turn to something other than speculative theology, or risk circularity. Here one must turn from the speculative intellect to wisdom.
In his opening discussion on the nature of theology, Aquinas articulates the functions essential to theology, noting, “this doctrine is wisdom above all human wisdom…and wisdom is said to be knowledge of divine things.”[55] Like Aristotle, Aquinas equates this wisdom to prudence, as it allows man to arrange and judge.[56] However, unlike Aristotle, Thomas does not consider this wisdom to be a result of prudence and virtue. Rather, “the first manner of judging divine things belongs to that wisdom which is set down among the gifts of the Holy Spirit.”[57] While Aquinas retains Aristotle’s claims that prudence and virtue develop habits of wisdom which distinguish between analogies, he is clear that the wisdom to identify the divine things is grace.[58]
Aquinas distinguishes two notions of wisdom. Referencing James 3:15, he objects to the notion that wisdom is a virtue, noting “wisdom which is called a gift of the Holy Spirit, differs from that which is an acquired intellectual virtue, for the latter is attained by human effort, whereas the former is "descending from above.”[59] Aquinas is clear that the discernment necessary for theology, the ability to identify the likeness of God in metaphors, is a gift, not a virtue. This gift instills in man a sympathy and likeness for perception of divine things. As Aquinas notes, “This sympathy or connaturality for Divine things is the result of charity, which unites us to God, according to 1 Corinthians 6:17: "He who is joined to the Lord, is one spirit." Consequently, wisdom which is a gift, has its cause in the will, which cause is charity, but it has its essence in the intellect, whose act is to judge aright.”[60] Thus, while theology is an exercise of the intellect, it is a result of charity.[61] In this, Aquinas retains Aristotle’s emphasis of reason as the highest function of man, but adopts Augustine’s insistence that proper love of God through grace defines man’s teleology.
Having established the prerequisite of grace for theology, it is not surprising that Aquinas denies the ability of non-believers to practice theology.[62] For it is impossible for those without sympathy for the divine to identify the likeness of the divine in metaphor. While one may train the intellect by prudence, it is necessary that God first reveal to man the aim of his training: the adherence to God by knowledge and love.[63]
For Aquinas then, grace is a prerequisite to happiness in this life. He defines this happiness as “an operation of the intellect, either speculative or practical.”[64] In this, he borrows heavily from Aristotle, arguing for the pursuit of the proper operation of reason. Furthermore, like Aristotle, he notes that, “Prudence is of good counsel about matters regarding man's entire life, and the end of human life”[65] Because he claims that virtue is natural to man in potentiality, the function that actualizes this potential is central to happiness.[66] Aquinas thus keeps Aristotle’s emphasis on prudence, as a function which directs one’s disposition toward virtuous habit. This habituation of virtue leads to better operation of the intellect, and the attainment of imperfect happiness in this life.
Serving as an intermediary between the intellect and habits, prudence is central to happiness, but relies on grace. Aquinas claims prudence is concerned with that which is the good, or the divine. He notes, “Prudence is a virtue most necessary for human life…it perfects the soul in the appetitive part, the object of which is the good and the end…this intellectual virtue is needed to reason.”[67] As already noted, however, this knowledge of the divine and the wisdom to discern its likeness is a gift of grace in the spiritual virtues. Habits tend man toward his proper end, but habits rely on prudence, prudence on intellectual knowledge of the good, and the knowledge of the good on spiritual virtues. Thus, happiness, even in this life, depends on grace.
Making sense of two teleologies
Having thus established the methods of speculative theology and its relation to happiness in this life, it is worth considering Aquinas’s notions of eternal happiness and the role speculative theology plays in attaining man’s true end. Thomas claims that man’s true end consists of “the mind knowing and adhering to God.”[68] This knowledge is distinct from the knowledge of God’s likeness attained through speculative theology, as it comes from direct knowledge of God’s essence.[69] While happiness in this life comes from knowledge of God by wisdom and intellect and the habituation of virtue, eternal happiness comes through beatific vision.[70] Moreover, this perfect happiness is unattainable by lesser things; one cannot come to the perfecting knowledge of the divine by knowledge of his likeness.[71] Aquinas does, however, note that while all men experience eternal happiness in the same enjoyment of the divine, those who are better disposed toward the enjoyment of God will enjoy this happiness more.[72] It is thus not in the knowledge of God, but in the capacity to enjoy God the speculative theology affects eternal happiness.
In discussing eternal happiness, Aquinas distinguishes between the object of happiness and one’s ability to enjoy the object.[73] The object of happiness, the Divine Essence, is the same for all who attain it by faith. All believers will enjoy the beatific vision. However, one whose being is “better disposed or ordered to the enjoyment of Him… can be happier than another.”[74] While the beatific vision itself is a gift of grace, this disposition to the enjoyment of God is a result of one’s early life. Again, here Aquinas synthesizes Aristotelian and Augustinian eudaimonism. Like Augustine, he emphasizes eudaimonia as an undefiled enjoyment of God, but like Aristotle, identifies this enjoyment as a union of the intellect.[75] Aquinas thus argues that the habituation of virtues in this life leads to greater happiness in the next.
Here Aquinas shifts from a strictly teleological eudaomism to a more aretaic ethic. If his ethics were merely on attaining happiness, his moral theory may more closely resemble Augustine’s emphasis on passive contemplation of the divine. However, because one’s moral development in this life directly impacts one’s enjoyment of God in the next life, he turns from an Augustinian commitment to severe human depravity, and to an Aristotelian commitment to moral development. Interestingly, here Aquinas cites Augustine’s Homilies on the gospel of John to distinguish the “diverse dignities of merits in the one eternal life.”[76] However, while Augustine claims these diversities themselves are gifts of grace, Aquinas hold that one must develop their potential to love God, so they might love him more in the next life. This helps make sense of Thomas’s distinction between the development of theological and moral virtues. He diverges from Augustine’s claims that all virtues are solely gifts of grace. Rather, moral virtues are gifts of grace that one must actualize connaturally with God, and this through reason.[77]
Thus, Thomas’ two happiness’s diverge into two teleologies. In pursuing lesser, earthly happiness he pursues an Aristotelian development of the intellect, but in pursuing eternal happiness he advocates an Augustinian approach to use lesser goods, that they might develop one’s enjoyment for God. Theoretically, these ethics should help each other, specifically within theology. The pursuit of rationality and the likeness of God ought to develop within the soul a disposition for the divine. Even if one only loves what is like God, her dispositions will tend toward greater capacity to enjoy God in eternity. Broadly speaking then, Aquinas adopts Aristotelian aretaic virtue, with a divine caveat for salvation. While salvation is a gift of grace alone, imperfect happiness as well as one’s ability to enjoy perfect happiness comes through one’s development of reason, through the habitual pursuit of virtue.
Aquinas’s two teleologies remain a point of tension in Thomistic studies. When considering his ethics, his law, and eschatology, one must consider how theology impacts one’s eternal happiness. Some argue for a more Platonic interpretation, others for a more Augustinian read, and still others for greater emphasis on sacramental ontology to bridge the gap. Perhaps the most poignant questions stem from Thomas’s own experience of the beatific vision, and his comments that everything he had written was “like straw.”[78] Regardless of how one approaches his theology, it is worth reconsidering the often overlooked role of grace in Thomistic ethics.
[1] Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologica. Trans. By Peter Kreeft. (Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1990): I, q.2. [2] Summa Theologica I, q.12, a.1-4. [3] Summa Theologica. 1-2 q.57, a.2. [4] Ibid. [5] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Terrence Irwin (Indianapolis: Hackett Press,1999): I, 7, 13. [6] Thomas Aquinas. Compendium of Theology. Trans. By Richard J. Regan. (Oxford University Press, New York, 2009): II, 9, 227. [7] Nicomachean Ethics, I.7. 1097b 26 [8] Nicomachean Ethics. 1.7 1098a 3 [9] Nicomachean Ethics. VII. 1153a 12-15 [10] Julia Annas, The Morality of Happiness. (Oxford: Oxford University press, 1993): 145 [11] Nicomachean Ethics VI. 1139a. [12] Nicomachean Ethics. VI.7 1141b 5-8 [13] Ibid. [14] MacIntyre, Alasdair. Dependent Rational Animals. (Chicago: Open Court Press, 1996): 166. [15] 1144a p. 30 [16] See Irwin’s notes in Nicomachean Ethics. p. 225 [17] Nicomachean Ethics I, 10, 15, 1101a. [18] Nicomachean Ethics I, 7, 15, 1098a. [19] Stephen J. Duffy, “Anthropology,” in Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Press. 2009.), 27-29. [20] Ibid. [21] Tarsicius van Bavel, “Love,” in Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Press, 2009), 510. [22] Ibid [23] Ibid [24] Bonnie Kent, The Cambridge Companion to Saint Augustine. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.) [25] Gerald W. Schlabach, “Ethics,” in Augustine Through the Ages. Ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans Press. 2009), 326. [26] Gentry, Glenn. Beyond Augustine. Baylor University. 2003. P. 112 [27] Augustine On the Trinity. New City Press. 2015. VIII.10.14 [28] Augustine City of God. Random House Press. 1950 8.14. [29] Gentry. 116 [30] Augustine, On the Free Choice of the Will, trans. Peter King (I ndianapolis: Hackett Press, 1993,) 1.8, 18; I.15, 33-16, 35 [32] On the Trinity. 14.14.18 [32] Nello Cipriani, “Ethics,” in Augustine Through the Age s: An E ncyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Press, 2001), 325. [34] Ibid [34] Wayne J. Hankey, “Mind” in Fitzgerald, Allan D. Augustine Through the : An Encyclopedia, ed. Al lan D. Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Press, 2001), 605. [36] On The Trinity 15.12.21 [36] Augustine The Confessions.(New York: Penguin Press, 2001): 7.9.10; On the Trinity, 12. [37] Hankey p. 563. [38] Summa Theologica I-II, q.4, a.5. [39] Ibid [40] Ibid [41] Summa Theologica I, q.1, a.1. [42] Summa Theologica I, 1.3, a.1. [43] Summa Theologica I, q.1, a.1. [44] Summa Theologica I, q.1, a.5. [45] Summa Theologica I, q.1, a.9. [46] Ibid. [47] Summa Theologica. I-II, q.1, a.7. [48] Ibid. [49] Summa Theologica I, q.12, a12. [50] Summa Theologica I, q.12. a.11. [51] Ibid [52] Summa Theologica I, q.1, a.9. [53] Summa Theologica I, q.3, a.8. [54] Summa Theologica I, q.1, a.10 [55] Summa Theologica I, q.1, a.6. [56] Ibid. [57] Ibid. Interestingly, this reply, as well as Aquinas’s later distinction of wisdom as prudence and wisdom as a gift of the holy spirit in II-II, 45, do not appear in Kreeft’s Summa of the Summa. [58] Summa Theologica II-II, q.45 [59] Ibid [60] Ibid [61] Consequently, one might argue that theology as a discipline ought to be reserved to believers and remain distinct from broader academia. [62] I, q.1, a.8. [63] Compendium of Theology. 227. [64] Summa Theologica I-II, q.1, a.5. [65] Summa Theologica I-II q.57, a.5. [66] Summa Theologica I-II, q.63, a.1. [67] Summa Theologica I-II q.57, a.5. [68] Compendium 227. [69] Ibid. [70] Summa Theologica I, q.12, a.3. [71] Compendium 227. [72] Summa Theologica I-11, q.5, a.2 [73] Ibid. [74] Ibid [75] Compendium 227. [76] Summa Theologica, I-II, q.5, a.2. [77] Summa Theologica I-II, q.63, a.1 [78] Josef Pieper, The Silence of Saint Thomas. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1904).
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