The High Ground

Saint Thomas Aquinas is one of the Church Fathers famous for his synthesis of Greek philosophy and Christian theology. For Aristotle, the pinnacle of human achievement is the realization of eudaimonia -the ‘happiness of spirit’. Aristotle’s treatment of moral reasoning is that all decisions must be based in the precepts of what is right or virtuous. Personal honor, wealth, or pride should not be the basis of a rational man’s decisions according to Aristotelian thought. This was an attractive argument for a Catholic theologian, and it comes as no surprise that Aquinas was influenced greatly his works.

Saint Thomas Aquinas added an element that Aristotle never considered. Aquinas believed that all man was ‘tainted’ by original sin. He argued that this did not preclude man from making decisions using moral reasoning, but that our ability to divine what was ‘good’ was diminished. The challenge – according to Aquinas – was being able to find the good in our decisions, to divine the will of God, in our everyday decisions.

Aquinas believed that evil is a deprivation of what something is. All that is in being is inherently good. to discern what is right is to understand how to look at someothing in it’s uncorrupted, natural state. We could argue in contemporary political thought that the appropriate lens will be to look at an issue devoid of personal, partisan,  and special interests.

This weblog is my personal journey in learning how to apply such a lens. My working hypothesis will follow that of Aristotle and Aquinas. The points are highlighted below:

1. All decisions seek to find what is right and virtuous for the state.
2. It is in man’s nature to be sinful and ignore the precepts of the good of the community over their personal desires and wants.
3. Just as everything in creation is inherently good through the act of Divine Creation, every political idea is inherently good. It is the diminishment or tampering of well-intentioned ideas that creates problems.
4. Moral reasoning requires a selfless perspective. One cannot profit from the results of an action without a corresponding or greater benefit accruing to the community as a whole.

This is simply scratching the surface. I expect that after some reflection, I will be modifying some or all of these points….