The Economic Thoughts of St. Thomas Aquinas St. Thomas Aquinas was an influential Scholastic theologian that taught many interesting and powerful Christian thoughts. In Aquinas’ writings, he mentions many theoretical economic problems of his time and how to address these issues. Aquinas has many economic ideas concerning property rights, division of labor, trade, what is a just price, and usury. With his incredible influence and multitude of economic ideas, St. Thomas Aquinas is a powerful thinker to study in the history of economic thought. In his Summa Theologica, Aquinas discusses theft and robbery and must consider if they are lawful or sinful. Before he can do this though, he must consider how a man can own something, and in doing so, …show more content…
In reaching this conclusion, Aquinas gives three reasons for why private property rights are necessary: it promotes responsibility and care of the property, life is more orderly, and life is more peaceful. Each individual will be more careful with the property if is his own. If the property were common to others, each person would rely on the community to tend to the property instead of taking care of it themselves, which is how private property rights promote responsibility. A more orderly life is promoted because each thing is claimed by a specific owner, instead of many people laying claim to any one thing. Finally, Aquinas argues individual possession leads to more peace since, as Aquinas observed, “Quarrels arise more frequently where there is no division of the things possessed.” (Aquinas) Although Aquinas never uses the phrase ‘private property rights,’ he describes why this idea is useful. On property rights, Aquinas also says that “man ought to possess external …show more content…
Overall, Aquinas sees that trade is good for acquiring the goods required for the necessities of life. When trading or exchanging money for goods needed in the house or state, this type of trade or exchange is entirely permissible. He recognizes this trade can be good since it is for the mutual benefit of each person involved in the trade. However, trade for profit, that is, acquiring a good for the intention of reselling it at a higher price is wrong, and this deserves blame. This type of trade is greedy, not for mutual benefit, and there is nothing virtuous about it. However, Aquinas teaches that selling a good for more than you paid for it can be allowed only under certain exceptions: when you have improved the good, when the value of the good has changed with place or time, or when you have taken on great danger in transporting the good (Aquinas). Aquinas also adds ideas on the theory of trade in general. Trade, to Aquinas, had both positive and negative qualities. Too much trade could lead to a dependence on others; a similar phrase is repeated again and again in our culture today. Another negative view on trade was that merchants often sold goods without changing or improving the good, something Aquinas says is blameful. Trade is mostly a secular process, which could make ones soul absent from a spiritual life. Due to these reasons, trade should not be encouraged. However, Aquinas identified some positive
Aquinas believes, as humans mankind arrives on earth with a “blank slate” or, Epistemology meaning we have to preconceived knowledge or notions leading us to act in a way or think in a way. This is supported when he states “it seems impossible for the soul so far to forget the existence of
Thomas Aquinas is a major religious thinker from Italy. He lived from 1225-1274. Throughout his life he shared his beliefs about God and how people are connected to Him. In “Summa Theologiae” Aquinas’ wrote about what he believed to be the purpose of humans: happiness. This is unlike other major thinkers would come to think about the meaning of human life. Darwin believed humans main goal in life is to survive. Aquinas believed human beings can attain this happiness through virtue, God’s grace, reason, and love.
This is similar to Locke’s outlook on the social contract which is directly related to his theory about the state of nature, but his outlook also differs from Aquinas’s understanding of eternal and natural law. Locke believes that God has made every person equal, and the owner of themselves which is their own property. Because of this they need to give certain right to the government or a “social contract” in exchange for protection of their own property. This includes themselves and their gained properties which are gained by
After reading Article 1, Aquinas for Armchair Theologians by Timothy M. Renick most can automatically acquire that Thomas Aquinas was a very influential thinker amongst others when explaining his theological views. His religious views may have differed from others during his time, however, it did influence and encourage others on the different topics of God vs. Satan, and why God has not all the answers, and powers when making sure every human being should not face evil. Aquinas believed that Christians needed to view their basic beliefs in another way to make sense of their own faith when questioning all that God did for each individual. The real question to all this, which a lot of people even question today is “Why is their evil in the World?”
In this paper, I plan to give an exposition of Saint Thomas Aquinas’ five point argument. Next, I plan to state one of the five arguments that I find the most compelling and then explain why it is so compelling. Finally, I plan to state one of the five arguments that I find the least compelling and give reasons as to why it is the least compelling.
To support Aquinas’ claim that money, honor, fame, power, goods of the body, or pleasure is not required for human happiness, one may cite they share ends for the sake of human beings. That is, their ends are meant only to fulfill human capacities
He believed that serious crimes, such as capital punishment and self-defense, were inexcusable and there were no circumstances in which they were justified. Aquinas talks about the just war theory in another aspect by saying that “Evil must not be done for the sake of good.” He talks about evil in the sense of the option to damage, impede or destroy a human good. Every choice that you make must rational feelings behind it. When part of a person’s reality is damaged, impeded, or destroyed, it gives itself a reason not to make a particular choice based on a person’s personal fulfillment. The reasoning behind a person’s choice could be put to the side, and the choice could be made if the person would, beforehand, explain the reason they decided to choose that action and this would mean that in choosing this action, some greater good would come out of this choice or that the basic human good would not be damaged, impeded, or destroyed. Finnis says, however, that it is impossible for the human goods to be proportionate to each other (Finnis
Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica represents one of the most famous attempts to prove God's existence. Aquinas wrote at a time in which people began to develop skepticism concerning the existence of God. In this regard, it is instructive to position Aquinas
Chapter eight reflects the work and teaching of Thomas Aquinas. Thomas believed that every human action is a moral action (Pg. 142). This goes beyond the major moral conflicts we often name such as war, racism, or abortion (as listed in the text). Aquinas definition of moral action includes the conflicts we face on a daily basis, as “ordinary life is the matter for moral
Thomas Aquinas lived in the thirteenth century. He lived during the time of Aristotle, who was starting to lose his quality of being liked a lot in Western Europe. The works gave people a whole new way of seeing things / sensible view of what is and is not important of the world. Thomas somehow managed to stay Christian and still believed in the ideas of Aristotle. Aquinas spent much of his life living on the edge of church support.
Later in the document of Summa Theologica, Aquinas goes over whether it is lawful to lay ambush on
Throughout the course of this essay, I will first define what Aquinas means by incorporating the claim that “an unjust law is no law at all”. This will include defining important terms that will correspond with evaluating Aquinas’ claim.
Finnis closes: "Aquinas' record of usury, brought with his general hypothesis of remuneration, in this manner distinguishes standards (not leads made up by moralists or ministers) which empower us to see why in his period it was unjustifiable for banks to make a charge (however portrayed) in the way of benefit,
The first principle of law according to Aquinas is that "good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided. All other precepts of the natural law are based upon this” (ST I-II.94.2). The other precepts are self-preservation, procreation, education of offspring, seek truth avoid ignorance, and live in society. Aquinas believes the natural law is written on every human and every human has equal knowledge of good and evil; however, once individual circumstances are factored in, it is dependent upon humans to follow or ignore it. However, Aquinas believes that “the natural law, in the abstract, can nowise be blotted out from men 's hearts” (ST I-II.94.6) but through bad habits of the society it could be weakened. According to Aquinas, the natural law has two main aspects. The first of these is that “the natural law is altogether unchangeable in its first principles” (ST I-II.94.5), which means God can add to, but not take away from, the law. This only applies to the primary precepts; the secondary precepts may change in some particular aspects. The second aspect is that “the written law is said to be given for the correction of the natural law” (ST I-II.94.6.ad 1); to put it simply, human laws are necessary to fill in the gaps/loopholes left from the natural law. Aquinas’ teachings shows that the actions of human is either good or bad depending on whether it conforms to reason.
1.) Thomas Aquinas believes that humans are born with a clean slate in a state of potency and acquire knowledge through sense experiences by abstraction of the phantasms. His view on how man acquires knowledge rejects Plato’s theory that humans are born with innate species. Along with Plato’s theory of humans understanding corporeal things through innate species, Aquinas also rejects Plato’s theory that in being born with innate species, humans spend their lives recollecting their knowledge.