[Music] almost a thousand years after augustine thomas aquinas brought his teachings together with the thought of the ancient philosopher aristotle whose work had recently been rediscovered in medieval europe rather than emphasizing sin and grace thomas had a more optimistic view of human nature and of the ability of reason to discern what is good following aristotle thomas believed that all things have a particular end or goal to which they aspire a knife's end is to cut an acorn's end is to be a towering oak tree human beings according to thomas have both a natural end and
a supernatural end naturally speaking the end or goal of the human is to live well which is to live in a way that exhibits character virtues like wisdom temperance courage and justice these are called the cardinal virtues supernaturally speaking the end or goal of the human being is the love and contemplation of god which is served by the habits of faith hope and love these are called the theological virtues even without god's special help thomas believed all human beings can attain their natural end and the cardinal virtues but it's only with god's help or by
grace that we can achieve our supernatural end and the theological virtues similarly thomas thinks that natural reason can discern certain moral laws called natural law by observing how the created order works natural law refers to our rational capacity to discern general principles in the order of nature that will enable us to flourish as human beings so when we look at nature we might see that living beings seek food and water and flee from predators there seems to be a law of self-preservation at work we ourselves are living beings and so our flourishing involves self-preservation in
this way thomas says similar things about reproduction raising and educating children and since we are not just living beings but rational and social beings thomas claims that natural law directs us toward living in society with other people and even toward knowing and loving god unfortunately sin inhibits a human capacity to reason so that we sometimes distort natural law and need to be corrected thomas argues that the best corrective is divine law supplied by revelation things like the ten commandments and other injunctions in scripture in addition to these two there are also human laws like the
laws imposed by governments and rulers these human laws may or may not overlap with natural and divine law sometimes human laws can be unjust but even good human laws are fitted to circumstances so that human law can and should change over time and finally there's eternal law which basically refers to justice in god's own mind for thomas christians ought to be guided by both natural and divine law toward their natural and supernatural end and in the public sphere should try to make human laws that reflect the eternal law meaning laws that are truly just thomas
gives us a fairly optimistic view of what human nature can achieve and of what human reason can know in the realm of ethics we can generally know and pursue natural goods which lead to flourishing in this life but we still need god's help to reach our final and perfect spiritual end what thomas calls the beatific vision of god in heaven [Music]
