It has arrived - Volume V of the Summa Theologiae of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Latin-English Edition, is now on the digital shelves of Amazon.com.

Volume V contains the first part of the Secunda Secundae – Questions 1-56. These questions cover the

• Treatise on the Theological Virtues (Faith, Hope, and Charity)
• Treatise on the Cardinal Virtues (Prudence)

This volume is 636 pages, and it has a list price of $25.95 (eligible for Free Super-Saver shipping).

Work on Volume VI is underway. We anticipate that the Secunda Secundae will be divided into three volumes due to the length of St. Thomas’s treatment of Justice. Volume VI will cover Justice and Fortitude. Volume VII will contain Temperance, the Treatise on Gratuitous Graces, and the Treatise on the States of Life.

Work on Volume V is proceeding steadily; we expect to see it in print by August 15. Volume V is now available on Amazon.com. We appreciate the fact that there are those who are anxiously waiting for later volumes to appear; we can only offer our assurances that we are working diligently.

In the meantime, we wanted to give our readers a look at the contents of the entire set as it will stand when finished. (And also put to rest the recurring misconception that we have either completed or are near the completion of this project).

[completed] Volume I: I, q. 1-64

Happy Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas! We have already sent an e-mail to Thomas, the winner of the NovAntiqua Summa Giveaway 2011, to let him know how to claim his volume of the NovAntiqua Summa. (And let me assure our readers that it is entirely coincidental that the winner’s name is Thomas.)

In honor of the Feast, I wanted to post an excerpt from one of Pope Benedict XVI’s Wednesday audiences last year in which he treated St. Thomas Aquinas:

Faith consolidates, integrates and illumines the heritage of truth that human reason acquires. The trust with which St Thomas endows these two instruments of knowledge, faith and reason, may be traced back to the conviction that both stem from the one source of all truth, the divine Logos, which is active in both contexts, that of Creation and that of redemption.

Together with the agreement between reason and faith, we must recognize on the other hand that they avail themselves of different cognitive procedures. Reason receives a truth by virtue of its intrinsic evidence, mediated or unmediated; faith, on the contrary, accepts a truth on the basis of the authority of the Word of God that is revealed. St Thomas writes at the beginning of his Summa Theologiae: “We must bear in mind that there are two kinds of sciences. There are some which proceed from a principle known by the natural light of the intelligence, such as arithmetic and geometry and the like. There are some which proceed from principles known by the light of a higher science: thus the science of perspective proceeds from principles established by geometry, and music from principles established by arithmetic. So it is that sacred doctrine is a science, because it proceeds from principles established by the light of a higher science, namely, the science of God and the blessed” (ia, q. 1, a.2).

This distinction guarantees the autonomy of both the human and the theological sciences. However, it is not equivalent to separation but, rather, implies a reciprocal and advantageous collaboration. Faith, in fact, protects reason from any temptation to distrust its own abilities, stimulates it to be open to ever broader horizons, keeps alive in it the search for foundations and, when reason itself is applied to the supernatural sphere of the relationship between God and man, faith enriches his work. According to St Thomas, for example, human reason can certainly reach the affirmation of the existence of one God, but only faith, which receives the divine Revelation, is able to draw from the mystery of the Love of the Triune God.

Moreover, it is not only faith that helps reason. Reason too, with its own means can do something important for faith, making it a threefold service which St Thomas sums up in the preface to his commentary on the De Trinitate of Boethius: “demonstrating those truths that are preambles of the faith; giving a clearer notion, by certain similitudes, of the truths of the faith; resisting those who speak against the faith, either by showing that their statements are false, or by showing that they are not necessarily true” (q. 2, a.3). The entire history of theology is basically the exercise of this task of the mind which shows the intelligibility of faith, its articulation and inner harmony, its reasonableness and its ability to further human good. The correctness of theological reasoning and its real cognitive meaning is based on the value of theological language which, in St Thomas’ opinion, is principally an analogical language. The distance between God, the Creator, and the being of his creatures is infinite; dissimilitude is ever greater than similitude (cf. DS 806). Nevertheless in the whole difference between Creator and creatures an analogy exists between the created being and the being of the Creator, which enables us to speak about God with human words.

This is from the second Audience of Pope Benedict XVI on St. Thomas Aquinas (16 June 2010).  Here also are links to the first Audience (2 June 2010) and the third  Audience (23 June 2010).

(See Part II: Moral Action Theory)

As for Rhonheimer’s theory of the natural law, my problem with it is that he specifies acts by virtues, not virtues by acts. And, as we have seen, he thinks that this is Aquinas’ doctrine:

Contraception is against nature because it impedes the virtue of chastity (especially the subset of it which I call procreative responsibility) by rendering superfluous the need to imprint right reason into bodily behaviour (by acts of refraining from sexual intercourse for reasons of procreative responsibility). A sinful act must be defined from the starting point of the requirements of the virtue of temperance and, in the present case, chastity, and not vice versa, as you propose. This, after all, is the methodology Aquinas has taught us: that to know whether an act is sinful you must know to which virtue it is opposed. It is the ends of the virtues – which coincide with the principles (or precepts) of natural law – which, by looking at what opposes them, define sinful moral behaviour.

Such is a basic foundation of Rhonheimer’s moral theory.  In many of the works in which he has tangled with specific moral issues, his general presentation consists of a presentation of the moral question; then a presentation of how a physicalistic emphasis on nature will yield one answer; then, he reminds the reader of the an ethics based on the goal of virtuous integration of rational moderation into human action; then, he presents what answer such a view will yield to the case in question, whether that answer is substantially the same or different from “more traditionalistic” views.

Now, it is of course true that virtue is important for Thomas.  Indeed, he even has this to say (De Malo 2, 6):

It must be considered that since the moral act is that which is voluntary, proceeding from reason, it is necessary that the moral act have its species according to something considered in the object which has an order to reason.  And thus in the preceding question it was said that if it be fitting to reason, it will be a good act according to its species; if, however, it be discordant with reason, it will be bad according to its species.  However, that which is not fitting to reason concerning the object considered can diversify the species of sin in two ways: in one way, indeed, materially, in another way, formally.  Materially, indeed, through the opposite of virtue.  For the virtues differ in species according as reason discovers the mean in diverse matters; for example, justice is according as reason constitutes the mean in exchanges and distributions and such actions; temperance, however, according as it constitutes the mean in concupiscences; fortitude, according as it constitutes the mean in fears and darings; and so on with the others… Thus, therefore, also through the opposites of virtues, sins differ in species according to diverse matters, for example, homicide, adultery, and theft.

Thus it seems that comparison to virtue is a very convenient way to recognize what is for or against the natural law.  However, St. Thomas continues:

But since concerning one matter, it happens that there are sins different in species, although there may be one virtue, it is necessary secondarily to consider the diversity of species in sins formally, namely, according as one sins either according to superabundance or according to defect, as fearfulness differs from presumption, and illiberality from prodigality; or according to the different circumstances…

What St. Thomas is saying here is that specification from virtue is only a material consideration of moral action, and it is broader than specification from act, and that specification of sin is more narrow than specification of vice.  Consideration of a habit only provides the genus, not the specification. Fornication and homo-sexuality are both species of unchastity, but how do they get their species within their genus?  From their objects, not from their opposed virtues, for one bears upon a member of the opposite sex not joined to the subject by marriage, the other bears upon a member of the same sex.  The order is: objects specify acts, and acts specify habits.

A habit is said to be good or bad only from the fact that it inclines towards a good act or a bad act. Hence, it is because of the goodness or badness of the act that the habit is said to be good or bad. And thus it is that the act is stronger in goodness or badness than the habit: because that because of which something is such is all the more such. (I-II, q. 71, a. 3)

Virtue can be a handy help to definition, since genera are helpful as a definition is sought.  But the virtue or vice is not the cause of the goodness or wickedness of the act.  It is rather the other way around. Indeed, Rhonheimer’s view of the natural law, like his moral action theory, is quite circular, for just as his exterior act is specified by the exterior act, so his virtue is specified by virtue, as he himself says explicitly:

For virtues are shaped by and aim at concrete performances of acts and their corresponding choices; and single acts and their corresponding choices are morally specified by their intentional contents which spring from the virtues they belong to. (“Contraception, Sexual Behavior, and Natural Law: Philosophical Foundation of the Norm of ‘Humanae Vitae’,” The Linacre Quarterly 56, no. 2 (May 1989): 22)

Why does Rhonheimer insist on virtue as being the sole determinant of morality to such a degree that he ends up reversing the revered specification-by-object truism of the Thomistic tradition?  It is because he thinks that other proposed accounts lead to the Physicalism bogeyman.

As I see it—though I will happily concede if I am wrong—there is a clear alternative: either to root morality simply in facts of nature and physical patterns, like the factual deposition of a man’s semen into a woman’s vagina, or to link morality with virtues. In this case, the virtue of temperance integrates the body into the life of the spirit and, even more concretely, integrates sexual, bodily behavior into procreative responsibility. (NCBQ, Summer 2007: 289)

But if virtue is defined by acts, and not the other way around, as St. Thomas says, how do we know which acts are good and bad?  How does reason judge the object and circumstances of actions as making actions good or bad if virtue comes after acts and not before?  In short, how does reason see that something is against its order, against the natural law?

Well, the modern age doesn’t like it, but St. Thomas says it:

I respond that it must be said that in all things, there are naturally present certain principles by which they can not only effect their proper operations, but by which they may also render them fitting to their end, whether they be actions which follow upon a thing from the nature of its genus, or from the nature of the species… However, just as in things that act from a necessity of nature, the principles of the actions are the forms themselves, from which there proceed proper operations fitting to the end; so in those things which participate in knowledge, the principles of acting are knowledge and appetite.  Wherefore, it is necessary that in the cognitive power there be a natural concept, and in the appetitive power a natural inclination, by which the operation that befits the genus or the species may be rendered suitable to the end.  But since man, among all the other animals, knows the notion of the end, and the proportion of his deed to the end, therefore, the natural concept endowed upon him, by which he may be directed to working fittingly is called the natural law; in the other animals, it is called a natural estimation.  For the beast are impelled by the force of nature to working those acts that are fitting, rather than regulated as if acting by their own judgment.  Therefore, the natural law is nothing other than a conception naturally endowed upon man by which he may be directed to acting in a fitting manner in his own actions, whether they befit him from the nature of the genus, such as to generate, to eat, and such; or from the nature of the species, as to reason and the like.  Every thing, however, which renders an action unfitting to the end which nature intends from some work is said to be against the law of nature. (IV Sent., d. 33, q. 1, a. 1)

And so, to apply: Reason asks, Is semen reasonably spilled into a latex bag?

Well, what is semen ordered to?  The generation of offspring.  Is this done by putting it in a latex bag? No.  Is it reasonable to make use of semen and intentionally prevent the semen from its end? No, that just isn’t reasonable.

To apply St. Thomas’ argument, I cannot see how one can say yes, for semen’s very purpose is to generate, which it must do in conjunction with the female ovum.  This means that it is reasonably employed only when the human subject does at least what it can to dispose for this conjunction of sperm and egg, which at the very least requires local proximity and deposit in the due vessel.  Rhonheimer thinks that this is old-fashioned morality based on the view that the seed was the sole generative principle, and he keeps repeating this.  It does not take much intellectual effort, however, to see that the moral agent must do what it can to act reasonably in its free actions, even if chance or nature prevent an action from having its primary effect.  That is, even if both sperm and ovum are necessary for generation, and mere deposit in the right place is not enough, that does not mean that the old obligations cease; it merely means that deposit of seed is not an immediate disposition for implantation, but just one more remote disposition for generation.  But what is clear is that seed in a latex bag is no disposition at all for generation.  And this is so clear, that it is quite comical that Rhonheimer thinks that only the old biology makes seminal deposit necessary, as if the discovery of the ovum now made condoms a remote disposition for generation.  But again, Rhonheimer does not share St. Thomas’ view of the natural law.

I know that by this post, I will convert no one.  But I only hope it goes to show that I do not assume that Rhonheimer is wrong; rather, I judge that he is incompatible with St. Thomas, and I choose St. Thomas.  And I hope it at least demonstrates that I have thought through the arguments, but, on both counts (moral action theory, and natural law as set by virtue), Rhonheimer merely hides circular justifications of intuitions in Thomistic-personalistic lingo.

Regarding Moral Action Theory, Rhonheimer is of the opinion that the moral act can only be specified by some kind of basic intentional content, some kind of chosen or intended end that reason proposes as the purposefulness of the exterior action to be done.  To support this, he calls to his aid I-II, q. 1, a. 3, ad 3, as many theologians do, where St. Thomas says that the moral act “is only ordered to one proximate end, from which it has its species.”  Rhonheimer is consistent in all of his works in his interpretation of this, in which he understands the term “proximate end” as the “basic intentional content” of the act.  To quote him:

we cannot understand and define the object of a human act without including in this definition an intentional element that expresses
the “why” one does what one (externally) does.Without such a “why” (a
basic intentionality as configured by reason) we would be left with only
the material elements of the action, not yet ordered by reason, and therefore incapable of being the “form” of an act of the will and of conferring on it, as an end, its moral species.This basic intentionality, which comprises part of the object is, not to forget, Thomistically speaking its “formal” part; as such it is the expression of a good, the “finis proximus” pursued in the action. (Nova et Vetera 2, 499).

Now, this is not St. Thomas.  For St. Thomas, any object of the will is already an end, and the first end is the exterior act itself. When St. Thomas says that the proximate end is that which specifies the will, he is speaking about the exterior act itself, the “what is being done,” not the “why.”  For example, De Malo, 2, a. 3: “the exterior act is compared to the act of the will as an object, which has the notion of an end,” and De Malo, a. 4, ad 9: “…the proximate end of the act is the same as the object, and from this it receives its species.”

Now, Rhonheimer admits this.  But this is his understanding of it:

The object of the exterior act of the will is in itself an end, but not this further end for the sake of which the action itself is chosen; instead it is the sort of end which Aquinas sometimes (very few times) calls the ‘finis operis.’ This ‘finis operis,’ however, is the basic intentional content of a concrete action (without which it would not be a human action at all), and therefore something like the ‘formal object’ of an action. Such basic contents are not events like ‘the raising of an arm,’ but rather ‘greeting somebody’ or ‘giving a starting signal.’ They are neither ‘things’ nor ‘qualified things’ as, for example, a res aliena; but actions ‘under a description’ as ‘misappropriate a res aliena,’ that is ‘stealing.’ The Thomist 58: 31-32

For Rhonheimer, the exterior act can only have moral intelligibility insofar as it is specified by reason already ordering it to at least one basic end.  This is not St. Thomas, who says that the exterior act is specified by its matter (i.e., its materia circa quam, or its object) and its circumstances insofar as these are judged by reason. I-II, q. 20, a. 2: “…in the exterior act, there can be considered a twofold goodness or malice: one according to due matter and circumstances; another according to its order to an end.”  For St. Thomas, the specification of any act is by its object.  For Rhonheimer, the exterior act is its own object, although as re-interpreting itself through reason.

In other words, the goodness of an act of choice, as well as of the voluntary execution of the exterior act (the usus), depends on its object, which is the exterior act; the goodness of this latter, however, does not depend, in turn, on an object of its own, but on an ‘ordinatio et apprehensio rationis’ in virtue of which the exterior act becomes properly the object of a human act. Nova et Vetera 2: 469.

St. Thomas knows that an act is only moral if it is proposed by reason and commanded by the will.  But this is already assumed when we are talking about human acts.  When reason proposes the exterior act, it does so in light of an end; but when it judges it, it does so in light of its object and circumstances first: i.e., can such an act be done on such an object in such circumstances in accordance with right reason?  Is such in act in line with the human good? This is perfectly judicable by reason apart from the consideration of the end for which the act was chosen.

But those who considered in sin only that from which it has the notion of fault said that sin only consists in the will.  But it is necessary to consider not only the deformity itself, but also the act that underlies the deformity, since sin is not the deformity, but a deformed act.  The deformity of the act, however, is by the fact that it is discordant from the due rule of reason or the law of God.  And this deformity, indeed, is found not only in the interior act, but also in the exterior act.  But nevertheless, the very fact that the deformed exterior act is imputed to man for fault is from the will.  And thus it is clear that if we wish to consider everything that is in a sin, sin not only consists in a privation, nor in an interior act alone, but also in the exterior act. De Malo 2, 2.

To apply to the situation that Rhonheimer was addressing in Magister’s blog, the specification of “removal of a cancerous ovary” is not “health”, which is always a licit good, but it is precisely, “removal of a cancerous ovary.”  Judging reason’s first question is, “Is a cancerous ovary apt matter for removal?”  Not much deliberation is required to say yes.  But then there are other circumstances.  The woman is married and intends still enjoys the marital right with her husband.  Is the removal still licit under this circumstance?  Yes, according to the Church’s teaching.  Reason finally asks, “Why are you removing it?  For health, or for the ability to have sex without children?”  One of these is perfectly licit to intend, the other not.  But the point is that the specification of the moral act is the exterior act itself defined by the relation of its object and circumstances to right reason, , i.e., judged in relation to the human good; it is not, as Rhonheimer thinks, the exterior act as defined by its relation to the ends proposed by the individual’s deliberating reason, the basic intentional content.

The task of the moral theologian is to name the act in terms of its object and circumstances, and then examine whether the act can be duly done with such objects and circumstances, and for this, there must be reference to the natural law.  One cannot merely short-circuit this nitty-gritty application to the matter by simply resorting to a first basic intentional content.  Hence, to apply it to the condom issue that is so dear to everyone’s hearts:

the object of condomistic intercourse is intercourse with a condom.

Reason judging asks, is this a due use of my generative powers?  Is semen reasonably spilled into a latex bag?

That’s the question that has to be answered first before the question of the end can be answered.

This is only a brief account of why I disagree with Rhonheimer’s moral action theory.  His is not that of Thomas.  There is no warrant for saying that the exterior act has no object of its own; St. Thomas is quite clear that it does, and that it is the first source of good or evil in judging the moral act (I-II, q. 18, a. 2).  Without this source of specification for the moral act, Rhonheimer has recourse to reason to supply for the exterior act’s specification, but he has recourse to reason as proposing for an end, not reason as judging conformity to Right Reason.  I am sure that my post here will not convince anyone, but I have already given my own reading of St. Thomas’ moral action theory at length in the Thomist, 74: 237-282; if anyone wants to know more what I think, they may look there.

(See Part III: Virtue Ethics)

stop assuming Fr Rhonheimer is wrong, and think through the arguments more carefully.

Such a comment indicates that, in the judgment of the reader, I have come to my conclusion about Rhonheimer’s arguments driven at least initially by the precedent assumption that he is wrong, and that beyond that, I have only considered the moral issue of prophylactic condom usage in a superficial manner.

If such is the commentator’s judgment, so be it.  All I can say is, I do not think it is the case, and I have one advantage in making such a judgment that the commentator does not have: I know my own intellectual biography.

When I first heard about Rhonheimer’s 2004 Tablet article, it did push me to further study.  To be perfectly honest, it did strike me as not true, but I knew that I did not have the exact answer as to why, so I suspended my judgment.  I then did three things: 1) I chose Rhonheimer’s view on the prophylactic use of condoms as the topic for my STL Thesis, still not sure how the answer was going to turn out, for I wanted to use the License Thesis as an opportunity for in-depth research. 2) I read much of Rhonheimer’s books and articles, mainly trying to grasp his moral action theory and his view of the natural law. 3) I undertook an even more in-depth study of St. Thomas’ moral works.

I came to the judgment that both Rhonheimer’s moral action theory and his view of the natural law are flawed.  I think that Rhonheimer himself thinks he is a faithful Personalist-Thomist, and I think he is particularly good at dressing his speech in argumentation and vocabulary that makes young theologians take him seriously “because he sounds so Thomistic.”

As most readers might know, the debate on condoms goes on (for a line-up of all that has been thrown back and forth, follow this link or follow this one).  Rhonheimer at times has spoken more meekly of his own position, but has made it clear that he is not changing his mind, as his latest in Sandro Magister’s blog indicates.

There are two sections from this “Reply to the Open Letter of Luke Gormally” that exemplify well my points of issue with Rhonheimer.  The first section regards Humanae Vitae 15, which states that certain therapeutic means for curing diseases of the body, but which will also have an effect of rendering a person sterile, whether temporarily or permanently, can be employed.

“…this passage implies that intending the therapeutic end is not a further intention rendering good an otherwise evil act (impeding procreation) but is instead the proposal or intention that specifies the very object of the act. So by extracting a cancerous ovary, for example, one directly does something which will impede procreation. The therapeutic end, however, is what defines the object of this act as an act of healing (This follows the clear teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas that the human act has a single proximate end from which it gets its species and that the relation to a natural end is accidental to the morality of the act. See “Summa Theologiae” I-II, q.1, a.3, ad.3).

The second touches more on the natural law, which, in Rhonheimer’s mind, is above all a law of reason, as exemplified by the virtues:

“Contraception is against nature because it impedes the virtue of chastity (especially the subset of it which I call procreative responsibility) by rendering superfluous the need to imprint right reason into bodily behaviour (by acts of refraining from sexual intercourse for reasons of procreative responsibility). A sinful act must be defined from the starting point of the requirements of the virtue of temperance and, in the present case, chastity, and not vice versa, as you propose. This, after all, is the methodology Aquinas has taught us: that to know whether an act is sinful you must know to which virtue it is opposed. It is the ends of the virtues – which coincide with the principles (or precepts) of natural law – which, by looking at what opposes them, define sinful moral behaviour.”

In both of these texts, Rhonheimer claims St. Thomas’ patronage for his own moral action theory and his own virtue ethics.  But my research has led me to the conclusion that Rhonheimer is, simply, a bad reader of St. Thomas. I will address the issues that I have with his moral action theory and his virtue ethics in the next two posts.

(See Part II: Moral Action Theory)

(See Part III: Virtue Ethics)

From page 135:

The more precious an idea is, the less it matters where it comes from. Train yourself to indifference about sources. Truth alone has a claim, and it has that claim wherever it appears. As we must  not swear allegiance to anyone, so still less must we disdain anyone; and if it is not expedient to believe everybody neither must we refuse to believe anyone who can show his credentials.

From page 63:

But carried too far, silence in its turn has a disturbing effect; when all a man’s powers are intensely concentrated on his thinking, he easily loses his balance, his vision of the way; a diversion is indispensable to the life of the brain; we need the soothing effect  of action.

From page 150:

Choose your  books. Do not  trust interested advertising and catchy titles. Have devoted and expert advisors. Go straight to the fountainhead to satisfy your thirst. Associate only with first-rate thinkers. What is not always possible in personal relations is easy, and we must take advantage of it, in our reading. Admire wholeheartedly what deserves it, but do not lavish your admiration. Turn away from badly written books, which are probably poor in thought also.

What you must do to enter the Giveaway:

• Fill out an entry form.
• The entry form will ask you to select an entry method – for each entry you need to do one of four things:

1. Indicate a new title you’d like to see published by NovAntiqua
2. Provide a link to a post on your blog that mentions (and links to) this giveaway
3. Subscribe to the NovAntiqua.com blog by e-mail or in a feed reader using the links on the NovAntiqua.com sidebar, or
4. “Like” NovAntiqua on Facebook

Other details:

• Each person may submit up to four entry forms – one per entry method above.
• One winner will be chosen if there are 1 to 100 entries; an additional winner will be chosen for every 100 entries after the first 100.
• Each winner will  receive one (1) volume of the NovAntiqua edition of the Summa Theologiae, as specified on his or her winning entry form.
• Entries will be accepted until 11:59 p.m., Central Time, on Jan. 27, 2011.
• Winner(s) will be chosen by random-number-generated drawing on January 28 and notified using the e-mail address  provided on the entry form.
• The winner(s) will have until 11:59 p.m. on Feb. 1 to respond to the notification e-mail. If no response is received, the entry is discarded and another winner will be drawn.

Click here to fill out an Entry Form.

The winner has been drawn and notified; if no response is received, the entry will be discarded and another winner drawn on Feb. 2.