Cf. ST I, 85; DV, X, 8, ad. 1; X, 11, ad. 10.
7. Cf. Prov 3:5–6 (DRC1752): “Have confidence in the Lord with all thy heart, and lean not upon thy own prudence. In all thy ways think on him, and he will direct thy steps.”
8. Cf. Sender, “Freedom and Constraint in Andre Gide,” 405–19.
9. Cf. Lonergan, Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan.
10. Critias, 120d–121b.
11. See Saint Thomas on whether the contemplative life has nothing to do with the affections, and pertains wholly to the intellect. ST II-II, 180, 1.
12. Cf. SCG III, 25–40.
13. Cf. ST I-II, 94, 3.
14. Cf. Doctorow, Reporting the Universe, 122: “Whitman when he walked the streets of New York loved everything he saw—the multitudes that thrilled him, the industries at work, the ships in the harbor, the clatter of horses and carriages, the crowds in the streets, the flags of celebration. Yet he knew, of course, that the newspaper business from which he made his living relied finally for its success on the skinny shoulders of itinerant newsboys, street urchins who lived on the few cents they made hawking the papers in every corner of the city. Thousands of vagrant children lived in the streets of the city that Whitman loved. Yet his exultant optimism and awe of human achievement was not demeaned; he could carry it all, the whole city, and attend like a nurse to its illnesses but like a lover to its fair face.”
15. Khayyam, Rubaiyat, §51, 71, 76.
16. Gorgias, 523e.
17. Maritain, Approaches to God, 111–12: “Nothing is more human than for man to desire naturally things impossible to his nature. It is, indeed, the property of a nature which is not closed up in matter like the nature of physical things, but which is intellectual or infinitized by the spirit. It is the property of a metaphysical nature. Such desires reach for the infinite, because the intellect thirsts for Being and Being is infinite. They are natural, but one may also call them transnatural. [And this desire] . . . Is not a simple velleity, a superadded desire, a desire of super-erogation. It is born in the very depths of the thirst of our intellect for Being; it is a nostalgia so pro-foundly human that all the wisdom and all the folly of man’s behavior has in it its most secret reason. And because this desire which asks for what is impossible to nature is a desire of nature in its pro-foundest depths, St. Thomas Aquinas asserts that it cannot issue in an absolute impossibility. It is in no way necessary that it be satisfied, since it asks for what is impossible for nature. But it is necessary that by some means (which is not nature) it be able to be satisfied, since it necessarily emanates from nature.”
18. ST I, 94, 1, resp.
19. ST I, 94, 6, resp.
20. ST I-II, 94, 2, resp.
21. But this “holding back” is done only so that it can deliver the sweetness of contemplation wholly mingled with the active life. See Saint Thomas’s response as to whether a religious order devoted to the contemplative life is superior to one devoted instead to the active life. While the former is superior it is only so when it embodies the non-mediated into-the-world nearness of the latter. The sweetness of contemplative perfection occurs when one returns from contemplation so as to be its irradiating presence. ST II-II, 188, 6, resp: “Better to illuminate than merely to shine to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate.”
22. ST I-II 94, 3, resp.
23. Catholic Encyclopedia, 9:77.
24. For Saint Augustine, the eternal law is imprinted on all men and when we act on the eternal law this is the enactment or realization of the natural law. Cf. ST I-II, 93, 2, resp: “A thing may be known in two ways: first, in itself; secondly, in its effect, wherein some likeness of that thing is found: thus, someone not seeing the sun in its substance, may know it by its rays. So then no one can know the eternal law, as it is in itself, except the blessed who see God in His Essence. But every rational creature knows it in its reflection, greater or less. For every knowledge of truth is a kind of reflection and participation of the eternal law, which is the unchangeable truth, as Augustine says (De Vera Relig. xxxi). Now all men know the truth to a certain extent, at least as to the common principles of the natural law: and as to the others, they partake of the knowledge of truth, some more, some less; and in this respect are more or less cognizant of the eternal law.”
25. Dr. Herbert Hartmann speaks to this on the question of Saint Thomas on Prudence and the Natural Law. “St. Thomas and Prudence,” 87: “Saint Thomas’ entire ethical teaching can, in a sense, be seen as an extended meditation upon the scriptural text: ‘God made man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his own counsel.’ The fact that Aquinas was a Christian theologian did not lead him to denigrate the human virtue of prudence. For Aquinas, to err or misunderstand the creature and his proper excellence is to error or misunderstand the Creator. In short, a denigration of the powers of the rational creature, man, eventually would lead to a denigration of God’s power in nature. Therefore, Saint Thomas has no interest in degrading the human wisdom of prudence for the sake of elevating his praise of God’s power. Instead, his self-appointed task is to understand the nature of things as they are (and consequently man’s own place in the order of the universe) so that man, ‘who by faith is led to God as his last end,’ does not through ignorance of the truth lead himself astray.”
26. Cf. ST I-II, 93, 5, resp: “Now just as man, by such pronouncement, impresses a kind of inward principle of action on the man that is subject to him, so God imprints on the whole of nature the principles of its proper actions. And so, in this way, God is said to command the whole of nature, according to Psalm 148:6: ‘He hath made a decree, and it shall not pass away.’ And thus, all actions and movements of the whole of nature are subject to the eternal law. Consequently, irrational creatures are subject to the eternal law, through being moved by Divine providence; but not, as rational creatures are, through understanding the Divine commandment.”
27. Schlick, Philosophical Papers, 125.
28. Cf. Maritain, God and the Permission of
