Thomas Aquinas and Justice

Part II: Pedagodical Interpretations

J.R.

Mar 30, 2025

Setting the Stage

The Great Schism, long before Aquinas was born, had divided the West Catholic Church and East Orthodox Church. The differences were understood to revolve around: who the real pope daddy was and who was not; holy spirit-proceeding preguntas1 and then the need for so many damn councils. This divided the church in 1054 when they really could have used the unity. Islam had spread

In 1274, Pope Gregory X summoned Thomas to Lyon attend the Second Council of Lyon2 in a hope to resolve this. Through a few mountain mishaps, Aquinas took ill and subsequently died March 7, 1274, Fossanova, near Terracina, Papal States. Suffice to say, the Council did not actually resolve things between the two parts of Christendom in the world at the time and in 1277, Aquinas was used as the poster-child for heretical teachings involving philosophy, even when he in retrospect he stood against things like abstractness. The same guy, Bishop Etienne, who asked for Aquinas’ help in 1268 helped cast out Aquinas’ teachings in 1277. Sign of the times.

Post-Death

After that hiccup, Aquinas was canonized on July 18, 1323; and his feast day is now celebrated on January 28. After then becoming venerated, many of the Renaissance thinkers turned away from Aquinas’ writings, teachings and thoughts. In the 15th and 16th centuries there was a renewed “second scholasticism” that focused on the teachings of Aquinas and other 12th, 13th and 14th century theological works. This was seen as a counter trend to the widely and hotly debated humanism dominating popular thought at the time. In 15 April 1567 Pope Pius V proclaimed St. Thomas Aquinas a Doctor of the Church , and ranked his feast with those of the four great Latin fathers: Ambrose3, Augustine of Hippo4, Jerome5, and Gregory.6

It wasn’t until the 19th century that Aquinas teachings were revived again through neo-scholasticism7, focusing on the ideals and principles (post-Reformation) of Aquinas and others like him in Catholic theological discourse. Those who now followed Protestantism vehemently denied Aquinas’ teachings as being too secular and in some ways, pagan.

Critics

Fast forward to now, and well, Aquinas is usually either venerated or criticized. His criticisms include:

Critics say he is too close-to-god in his philosophy;
Critics say he is too close-to-secular philosophy;
His engagement in the truth that he allegedly already knows;
His physics and reliance on Aristotle is outdated.

Here are a few excerpts of some of those criticisms:

He does not, like the Platonic Socrates, set out to follow wherever the argument may lead. He is not engaged in an inquiry, the result of which it is impossible to know in advance. Before he begins to philosophize, he already knows the truth; it is declared in the Catholic faith. If he can find apparently rational arguments for some parts of the faith, so much the better; if he cannot, he need only fall back on revelation. The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading. I cannot, therefore, feel that he deserves to be put on a level with the best philosophers either of Greece or of modern times.
Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy (1946).

I am utterly convinced that one of the greatest problems facing modern evangelicalism is that we have failed to rightly understand the Sufficiency of Scripture and have unwittingly adopted Pagan philosophy as an equal ground for right thinking.
Raef Chenery, Raef Chenery Ministries

This is the argument that seems most to have stuck in Aquinas’s craw: “The whole question consists in this, whether being created by God according to one’s whole substance and not having a beginning of one’s duration are mutually inconsistent.” In any case, when Aquinas introduces the position that the world’s finitude in time is demonstrable by reason in the corpus of his own discussion of this question in the Commentary on the Sentences, the only argument he mentions in support of it is the view creation ex nihilo requires a temporal transition from non-being to being. Aquinas rightly insisted that creation ex nihilo in no way implies a transition in time, but rather an a-temporal relation of dependence between uninflected being and the creaturely whats which borrow their thatness from it.
Brendan Case, McGrath Institute for Church Life, 2022

I definitely am not here to defend Aquinas, and rather, I’d admit that his philosophy can leave someone wanting in many regards. But plainly spoken, I just really don’t care. Aquinas, for our purposes, struggled between what was considered all encompassing in his life (the church) and his desire to ask questions. To strike Aquinas-ism as a “theory” would not do Aquinas justice, no pun intended. Rather, it was a direct ask and explanation, as he saw it, to all of God’s things in this world and the next. Aquinas tried to deduce things using the limited knowledge of classical philosophy and his own convictions of faith. He’s not a paragon, but rather part of the bridging between this idea of “divine” and “moral” in the realm of justice.

To be clear, Aquinas theory is described as one that seeks to use a framework to show where morality comes from, instead of, for example Immanuel Kant later on conveying “right” vs “wrong” morality. Aquinas’s work is formatted in a very socratic method-like manner, with question then counterarguments reaching to an overall conclusion. The work most on point here is Aquinas’s Treatise on Law and Summa Theologiae. In the Treatise, he identified four ambits of law:

eternal law: God’s plan of governance for the world;
natural law: the distinctive way rational beings participate in the eternal law;
human law: particular developments of natural law worked out by human reason;
divine law: divinely revealed laws directing human beings to their end.

Aquinas subscribes to Aristotle’s view that “good” is something that all human beings desire, and goes from there. Aquinas makes a distinction here between those of his past and towards a Kant-like-future: morality depends on more than just intellect and natural inclinations; a being must strive towards it! This supposes that we are not just held hostage by the will and intellect, but have an independent virtue to cultivate. For Aquinas, practicing virtues towards this end is in the correct pursuit of happiness.

Two things are required for an act’s perfection: first, the act must be right; second, the [underlying] disposition must be incapable of being the source of a contrary act. For that which is the source of good and bad acts cannot, of itself, be the perfect source of a good act.
(Quest. on the Virtues in General 2c)

Aquinas says a person’s virtue is different than the will or intellect, and can be curated by doing these virtuous thing over and over again, much like bad habits and evil things can also be curated on the other hand. In order to observe true virtue, Aquinas points to four cardinal virtues:

prudence: the perfection of the intellect’s practical reasoning;
justice: the will’s stable disposition to give to each individual what is due to him;
bravery: the strength of the irascible appetite in pursuing what is in accord with reason;
temperance: the moderation of the concupiscible appetite with respect to its desires that conflict with reason.
…and the three theological virtues Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13:
faith: the intellectual disposition to assent to what is not apparent;
hope: the will’s dispositional confidence in achieving a good that is difficult to obtain;
charity: the will’s disposition for perfect love.

Obviously, here is the explicit justice in Aquinas’s work. But as important as justice is, so are the other theological principles, hope and charity. Hope works directly into, at least in this context, the definition of justice from an oppressed point of view. Charity defined as epistles via Paul the Apostle, which Paul defined as a feeling for compassion of others that leads to patient and kind actions. Aquinas defines these virtues as being intended towards god, but since god is love towards others too in Aquinas’s mind, this really applies to humankind.

Justice, it seems, is a virtue that dances with a sort of soiree of impunity, love, and god’s own grace - which is only freely given by god. In order to practice all of these principles to perfection, Aquinas states a need for this “grace” to be given by god in each of these principles. Aquinas does not exactly tell us how to get this grace, but it seems only through following the divine path you are able to attain it, which equals pure happiness in Aquinas mind.

Further, no will is perpetual save God's. If therefore justice is a perpetual will, in God alone will there be justice.

Objection 3, Article I, Question 58

Later on in the Summa T, Aquinas flirts with the definition of justice:

And if anyone would reduce it to the proper form of a definition, he might say that

-"justice is a habit whereby a man renders to each one his due by a constant and perpetual will"-

: and this is about the same definition as that given by the Philosopher (Ethic. v, 5) who says that

-"justice is a habit whereby a man is said to be capable of doing just actions in accordance with his choice."-

Part II of II: Answer to Objections, Article I, Question 58

So justice is a voluntary, cardinal virtue that must be practiced regularly and is due to every man. This is far-reaching concept in a time when Italian City States were throwing back the yoke of foreign invaders.8 Invariably, justice is something for Aquinas and his paisanos that resonated deeply given the relations between Italy and foreign powers like the Holy Roman Empire.

Now this [justice] may happen in two ways: first as regards his relation with individuals, secondly as regards his relations with others in general, in so far as a man who serves a community, serves all those who are included in that community.
…
It follows therefore that the good of any virtue, whether such virtue direct man in relation to himself, or in relation to certain other individual persons, is referable to the common good, to which justice directs: so that all acts of virtue can pertain to justice, in so far as it directs man to the common good.
It is in this sense that justice is called a general virtue. And since it belongs to the law to direct to the common good, as stated above (I-II:90:2), it follows that the justice which is in this way styled general, is called "legal justice," because thereby man is in harmony with the law which directs the acts of all the virtues to the common good.
** ** Reply, Article VI, Question 58

The emphasis for Aquinas is that all humans, by nature, want the common good. Justice is the virtue that holds that together, and directs other virtues to the common good.

Accordingly, just as charity … so too legal justice is a special virtue in respect of its essence, in so far as it regards the common good as its proper object. And thus it is in the sovereign principally and by way of a mastercraft, while it is secondarily and administratively in his subjects.
** ** ** Article VI, Response

The proper object - the common good - is the essence of both justice and charity. This sets these two virtues apart for Aquinas. As such, Aquinas does not see justice fitting into the caprices of evil anytime soon, because all human beings desire to be “good.”

…
I answer that, If we speak of good and evil in general, it belongs to every virtue to do good and to avoid evil: and in this sense they cannot be reckoned parts of justice, except justice be taken in the sense of "all virtue" [Cf. II-II:58:5]. And yet even if justice be taken in this sense it regards a certain special aspect of good; namely, the good as due in respect of Divine or human law.
On the other hand justice considered as a special virtue regards good as due to one's neighbor. And in this sense it belongs to special justice to do good considered as due to one's neighbor, and to avoid the opposite evil, that, namely, which is hurtful to one's neighbor; while it belongs to general justice to do good in relation to the community or in relation to God, and to avoid the opposite evil.
Part II of II, Question 79: Article 1. Whether to decline from evil and to do good are parts of justice?

But as we have seen, the power dynamics as to justice are not so cut and dry. This black and white perspective is a feature of the time, and Aquinas tries to differentiate the good and the bad, but this definition ultimately does not talk about injustice from the people who may deliver justice.9

I answer that, Retaliation denotes equal passion repaid for previous action; and the expression applies most properly to injurious passions and actions, whereby a man harms the person of his neighbor; for instance if a man strike, that he be struck back. This kind of just is laid down in the Law (Exodus 21:23-24): "He shall render life for life, eye for eye," etc. And since also to take away what belongs to another is to do an unjust thing, it follows that secondly retaliation consists in this also, that whosoever causes loss to another, should suffer loss in his belongings. This just loss is also found in the Law (Exodus 22:1): "If any man steal an ox or a sheep, and kill or sell it, he shall restore five oxen for one ox and four sheep for one sheep." Thirdly retaliation is transferred to voluntary commutations, where action and passion are on both sides, although voluntariness detracts from the nature of passion, as stated above.
In all these cases, however, repayment must be made on a basis of equality according to the requirements of commutative justice, namely that [ ] of passion be equal to the action. Now there would not always be equality if passion were in the same species as the action. Because, in the first place, when a person injures the person of one who is greater, the action surpasses any passion of the same species that he might undergo, wherefore he that strikes a prince, is not only struck back, but is much more severely punished. On like manner when a man despoils another of his property against the latter's will, the action surpasses the passion if he be merely deprived of that thing, because the man who caused another's loss, himself would lose nothing, and so he is punished by making restitution several times over, because not only did he injure a private individual, but also the common weal, the security of whose protection he has infringed …
Hence retaliation is in accordance with commutative justice: but there is no place for it in distributive justice, because in distributive justice we do not consider the equality between thing and thing or between passion and action (whence the expression 'contrapassum'), but according to proportion between things and persons, as stated above (Article 2).

This last bit differentiates between what Aquinas calls commutative and distributive justice. This is interesting because it provides us with a clear definition of the difference between pejorative retaliation and divine justice. As justice is manifested through God, retaliation is more of a sole human creation via the passions.10

This is the End

These are only selected pieces, and I would have liked to have some more time to examine in detail my own thoughts, but this is what I came up with. For our definition though we can style our conclusion like this:

Thomas Aquinas believes that justice is a rational, good and unpassionate virtue that binds together all other virtues for the the desire of the common good. This common good is in fact, just the rule of law, which is given from God’s own grace, in Aquinas’s view.

But there are problems with Aquinas definition. Aquinas gets to a point where justice is due to every man, but that becomes hard to reconcile when thinking about “latent” justice, like justice for generational inequality to right the wrongs of the past. This becomes even more convoluted when, in taking in all the other things around him, the church had been responsible for some of the wrongs of the past.

Aquinas’s justice here is nothing really more than the homeostasis of the rule of law, given by Divine Right, and carried out on the wicked e.g., the common folk. It is true, in some parts, he does try to amplify this as a benevolent ruler. But Aquinas, as we will see, tries to placate the rulers of the timef in showing justice as something utilized by kings, via God. So this justice is not really striking as something to help alleviate an individual out of their own injustice. Aquinas ends up being more of an apologist for the times rather than a critic of it.

But we knew this already.

To complete our sentence diagram for Aquinas one, here it is:

Justice/can be/the/rule of law.

The rule of law/comes/from/God

- Thanks for reading!

You can read the full bio on odachum.com in a few weeks!

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