Thomas’ work demonstrates both his commitment to understanding the revealed word of God in all its dimensions and, at the same time, his remarkable openness to every truth accessible to human reason. The Angelic Doctor was profoundly convinced that since God is the truth and the light that illumines all understanding, there can be no ultimate contradiction between revealed truth and the truths discovered by reason. Central to his understanding of the relationship of faith and reason was his conviction of the power of God’s gift of grace to heal human nature weakened by sin and to elevate the mind through participation in God’s own knowledge and love, and thereby to enable us to understand and correctly order our lives as individuals and in society.

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Drawing on principles already established by Aristotle, Thomas thus held that spiritual goods precede material goods and that the common good of society precedes that of individuals, inasmuch as man is by nature a “political animal”. His engagement with the ethical and political works of the great classical thinkers is evident from his commentaries, and is reflected especially in the questions he devoted to justice, notably in his celebrated Treatise on Law (ST I-II, qq. 90-108). While his influence in shaping the moral and legal thinking of modernity is beyond doubt, a recovery of the philosophical and theological perspective that informed his work could prove quite promising for our disciplined reflection on the pressing social issues of our own time.

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Today it is essential to recover an appreciation of this “natural inclination to seek the truth about God and to live in society” (ST I-II, q. 94, a. 2) in order to shape social thought and policies in ways that foster rather than impede the authentic human flourishing of individuals and peoples. For this reason, my Predecessors and I have consistently reaffirmed the relevance of natural law in discussions regarding the ethical and political challenges of our time.

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Pope Francis

Message to the Participants in the Workshop

“Aquinas’ Social Ontology and Natural Law in Perspective”

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