Justice and Charity: An Introduction to Aquinas’s Moral, Economic, and Political Thought

Abstract

The thought of St. Thomas Aquinas is an invaluable point of entry to the whole Catholic tradition, including Catholic social doctrine. But we have needed an introduction to Aquinas’s political thought in English for some time. Thomas Gilbey, O.P.’s study is over 60 years old and John Finnis’s Aquinas was as much about new natural law theory as about the Angelic Doctor. Moreover, scholars have produced a wealth of secondary literature on all aspects of Aquinas’s moral, political, and economic thought in the last quarter century. Michael Krom’s specific achievement is to have synthesized Aquinas’s writings and recent scholarship in an excellent introduction that is faithful to its subject. Both specialists and novices will profit from reading Justice and Charity. The work is organized into three parts on Aquinas’s moral, economic, and political thought, respectively. Krom uses the virtues as the organizing principle for the book. Each part is divided into two sections, the first a philosophical exposition of Aquinas’ account of natural or acquired virtues, both cardinal and secondary. The cardinal or primary virtues—prudence, justice temperance, and fortitude—are the foundation of secondary virtues, which apply them to more specific circumstances. These natural virtues are called acquired virtues insofar as we practice them through human effort alone. The second section follows with Krom’s account of the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity and infused natural virtues. The natural virtues are called infused when we receive divine grace, which complements and strengthens human effort. Being a good Thomist, Krom never forgets that the virtues must be ordered by charity to our ultimate end, God. This manner of organization allows him to analyze distinct philosophical and theological lines of argument without separating them or confusing their interrelations. Krom differentiates the Thomistic way of thinking from philosophies prevailing in our culture, illustrating them with examples any contemporary can understand. The purpose of life is not to obtain what we happen to desire at any given moment, nor dispassionate performance of duty, but the pursuit of happiness through the practice of the virtues. He does a very fine job explaining other political forms the city of God opposes? Ogle rightly holds that “Augustine is aware of the earthly city’s constant designs on political life, but he does not concede politics to the earthly city, nor does he make the Church the new realm of politics.” But if the city of God must oppose certain political forms, like empire, does that not mean that the Church is, in some way, an implacable critic of all politics? That does not seem to be what Ogle Roberts reads Augustine as saying. Relatedly, what are we to make of situations in which a potential reader is excessively un-attached to his or her political community? Is Augustine’s rhetoric designed always to detach, or could his principles also be used to attach a reader who has been excessively alienated? In her final chapter, Ogle wants to show “what implications Augustine’s vision does have for the amelioration of our political communities.” Her answer is that, viewed from the standpoint of the earthly city, Augustine’s vision primarily issues in sub-political effects. As Ogle puts it, “conversion to a sacramental worldview bears the only hope for cultural renewal that Augustine really trusts,” one that would ground the renewal and improvement of human customs. On the level of statesmanship, “amor Dei points these men beyond the political realm, it relativizes the political horizon for them and thereby contextualizes the pressures of its customs. Significantly, it also transforms the terms upon which political decision-making is made.” As an interpretation of Augustine, this is rock solid. However, after Ogle’s boldness in facing vexed questions in the literature on Augustine’s political thought, the reader could expect an engagement with the perennial counterargument to Augustine, that the transpolitical city of God, in shifting the gaze of the best citizens to something beyond the city, also robs the city of their most vigorous energies; or, worse, that this amounts merely to the construction of another type of imaginary republic. The point is especially important in light of a concluding remark of Ogle’s: “While the pilgrim might not see the fruit of their actions, they can trust that God knows how to bring good fruit about. While any true witness to amor Dei is perpetually vulnerable to misunderstanding and condemnation, the belief that God has hidden plans for all he inspires liberates the Christian to act in hope.” What liberates the Christian to act in hope might be cause for alarm for the non-Christian who does not share the same hope. Hopefully Ogle will take up this topic in her further endeavors. In the meantime, her book makes a substantial and important contribution to our understanding of the status of politics in the thought of St. Augustine.