Aquinas on Being, Goodness, and God

383 Pages·2015·1.79 MB·English

by  Christopher Hughes

Aquinas on Being, Goodness,
and God
Thomas Aquinas is one of the most important fi gures in the history of
philosophy and philosophical theology. Relying on a deep understanding
of Aristotle, Aquinas developed a metaphysical framework that is
comprehensive, detailed, and fl exible. Within that framework, he
formulated a range of strikingly original and carefully explicated views in
areas including natural theology, philosophy of mind, philosophical
psychology, and ethics.
In this book, Christopher Hughes focuses on Aquinas’s thought from an
analytic philosophical perspective. After an overview of Aquinas’s life and
works, Hughes discusses Aquinas’s metaphysics, including his conception of
substance, matter, and form; his account of essence and existence; and his
theory of the nature of human beings, including his critique of a substance
dualism that Aquinas attributes to Plato, but is usually associated with
Descartes. In the fi nal chapters, Hughes discusses Aquinas’s account of the
existence and nature of God, and his treatment of the problem of evil, as well
as his ideas about the relation of goodness to being, choice, and happiness.
Aquinas on Being, Goodness, and God is essential reading for students and
scholars of Aquinas, and anyone interested in philosophy of religion or the
history of medieval philosophy.
Christopher Hughes is Reader in Philosophy at King’s College London,
UK. Before coming to London, he taught at Cornell University, USA. He is
the author of Kripke: Names, Necessity, and Identity (2004).
to the much-loved quondam conigliette
Aquinas on Being, Goodness,
and God
Christopher Hughes
First published 2015
by Routledge
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© 2015 Christopher Hughes
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ISBN: 978-0-415-34644-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-59718-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Baskerville
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Preface viii
1 Life and works 1
2 Being 7
The taxonomy of being 7
The non-identity of material substances with their matter 21
Substances and their (received) forms 40
One substance, one substantial form 59
The identity (or otherwise) of immaterial substances with their
substantial forms and essences 67
The essence and individuation of material substances 74
Essence and existence 110
3 Human beings 122
Materialism and dualism 122
Aquinas’ critique of “Platonic” dualism 126
Intellective souls and substantial forms 133
Animalism and personalism 141
4 God 152
Natural theology: the existence of God 152
Natural theology: the nature of God 187
Evil, sin, and hell 222
vi Contents
5 Goodness 263
Goodness and being 263
Goodness, will, and choice 309
Goodness and happiness 351
Bibliography 364
Index 365
Acknowledgments
Every book owes its existence and its measure of goodness to a myriad of
persons besides its author. In my case, these include colleagues and students
at King’s College London, University of Notre Dame (London Programme),
the University of Genoa, the University of Milan (L’universita degli studi di
Milano), the University of Bergamo, the University of Padua, and the
University of Innsbruck. Thanks to them all, and especially to Rose Allison,
Maria Alvarez, Maria Rosa Antognazza, Andrea Bottani, Massimiliano
Carrara, Winfried Loffl er M. M. McCabe, Otto Muck, Tom Pink, Nicla
Vassallo, and Raphael Woolf. Thanks too to four anonymous referees for
helpful and encouraging and in some cases unusually generously detailed
comments. On the family side, there’s Marcia, Laura, Amanda, and on the
friends side, there’s Andree, Christina, Courtney, Doug, James, Jenny,
Miriam, Raili, Spiros, and Yvonne: I have been the grateful recipient of
their understanding, solidarity, encouragement, and (in some cases)
prayers. (Which is not to say that this book is the answer to anyone’s
prayers!) These acknowledgments would be sorely incomplete without
mention of my much-missed erstwhile colleague Norman Kretzmann, to
whom I owe so much of whatever understanding of Aquinas I have.
Preface
There are already a great many books about Aquinas. Why add to their number?
I hope that some of the readers who could have, or actually have, read
many other books about Aquinas, will fi nd this one of use. It may be helpful,
though, to say something about what sort of book this is (and isn’t), in
order to give prospective readers some idea of how likely they are to fi nd it
worth their while.
This book is full of arguments. Some are taken from Aquinas’ texts, in
more or less their original form. Some are slightly (or more than slightly)
reconstructed versions of arguments in the texts. Some concern how
Aquinas’ arguments should or should not be understood. Some concern
what, given his commitments, Aquinas might or must have thought about a
question he does not explicitly pronounce upon. Some concern the cogency
of Aquinas’ arguments, or the cogency of certain counterarguments to
Aquinas’ arguments. And so on.
Some readers are looking for a book that sets out what Aquinas thought
about a range of questions (e.g., the nature and persistence conditions of
human beings, the problem of evil, and the nature of goodness), without
going into painful detail about the reasons for which Aquinas held those
views, or the ways in which he defended them. Such readers would do far
better with, say, F. C. Coplestone’s very clear and accessible book, Aquinas,
than with this one.
As will become evident to most readers from the fi rst section of chapter
2, my philosophical background is very much in analytic philosophy.
Readers who are invincibly allergic to analytic philosophy will fi nd this book
deeply uncongenial (and might be happier with something by Etienne
Gilson, or John Whippel).
Someone who wants to learn more about Aquinas might take the view that
the best way for her to proceed was, as it were, to thoroughly understand him
fi rst, and engage him philosophically later (if at all). That is, she might think
that she should fi rst get a really good grasp of Aquinas’ entire system (in all its
glorious detail), and only subsequently (if at all) tackle questions about the
(non-immediate) implications of Aquinas’ views, or questions about the
defensibility of those views or their (immediate or non-immediate) implications.
Depending on how much Aquinas this sort of reader has under her belt,
she may well want to read a book on Aquinas that is purely expositional. If
Preface ix
so, this is not the book for her: in it, for better or worse, my strategy is to ask
and attempt to answer questions about the implications and defensibility of
Aquinas’ views on a given question (the non-univocality or otherwise of
“being”, the relation between “coincidence” and identity, the relation
between a human being and his body, the dependence or otherwise of
contingent being on necessary being, the identity or otherwise of goodness
and being, etc.) even before “fi lling in” all of Aquinas’ views on adjacent or
non-adjacent questions.
Readers not unsympathetic to analytic philosophy will probably not be
too averse to a book in which exposition and engagement/evaluation go
hand in hand. Some of those readers will be after a book that so to speak
covers all the bases—one that thoroughly covers Aquinas’ metaphysics,
philosophical theology, epistemology, ethics, politics, etc. This certainly is
not such a book: although it covers (in some depth) some very central
themes in Aquinas’ metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophical
theology, action theory, moral psychology, and ethics, it makes no pretense
to even touch upon everything that is central to Aquinas’ philosophy (or
theology). For readers in search of an all-the-bases book, I would highly
recommend Eleonore Stump’s Aquinas.
Some readers may want to read a book on Aquinas that takes account of
and engages the very extensive (non-analytic and analytic) secondary
literature on Aquinas. If so, they should read no further. I am not entirely
ignorant of that literature, especially on the analytic side (e.g. Geach,
Kenny, and Prior), and I have in fact benefi ted greatly from it (especially
from what we might call the “Cornell school” of Aquinas commentators (in
primis Norman Kretzmann, but also Eleonore Stump, Robert Pasnau,
Christopher Shields, and Scott MacDonald). From time to time, I engage
the literature, but for the most part I leave it to readers to compare and
contrast my views on Aquinas with those of other commentators (should
they care to).
Some readers may not require a study of Aquinas that has ambitions of
completeness, or constantly engages the secondary literature. They may
instead be looking for a book that goes beyond exposition to evaluation,
and yet is short enough, clear enough, and fun enough to be a good book
to take to the beach. If so, they should defi nitely opt for Anthony Kenny’s
(very slim) Aquinas, or Peter Geach’s “Aquinas” (from Elizabeth Anscombe
and Peter Geach, eds., Three Philosophers) rather than this book.
So, given the many and varied sorts of readers with an interest in Aquinas
that might be advised to steer clear of this book, who if anyone might be
advised to read it?
Suppose that you know enough about Aquinas to know that he is a
philosopher who is both exceptionally and excitingly “synoptic” or
systematic, and also wonderfully interested in, careful about, and good at
fi lling in the details of his big picture. Suppose that you want to get a better
grip on how the “little bits” of Aquinas’ big picture “add up to” the big